What do you think of the Bakshi cartoon?

[The Only Real Estel]

I'm gladI didn't watch it until after I read the trilogy because I would never had read LOTR had I seen it before reading the book

Are you sure about that? If you hadn't read the trilogy first, you'd never have known how far off the cartoon was, so it wouldn't have annoyed you half as much. I haven't actually seen the movie, though (heard plenty, not sure I want to see it, so it could possibly be bad enough to scare people off just by taking a mere glance at it ! Still, I think it's more possible than not that if I were in your place, I'd have gone ahead & read the trilogy anyway ...