And a good rendition of "Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold" in the first movie.

Ian McKellen was great as Gandalf.

I love them for the same reason I love the old rotoscoped animated movies. I wish he hadn't been forced to pad that shit out to three movies, but I'm glad there's more Tolkien to see.

Doesn't that cut all of White Council stuff?

IMO adding the White Council was a great choice for the movies. The problem was that they added dragged-out unnecessary action scenes all over the story. The long escape from Goblin Town, turning the barrel escape into an action scene, the ridiculous (and awful CGI) molten gold thing in Erebor itself.

A good cut should concentrate on bringing that stuff down. Not removing the White Council's concomitant exploration of Dol Guldur and expulsion of Sauron.

I love the single movie book edits! They are so much better and more enjoyable without a lot of fluff

One cut I watched cut all the molten gold stuff. But you have to show smaug leaving the mountain and unfortunately he leaves dripping in gold so that looks kinda weird when you've cut all the stuff before that

A hoopy, you might say. He certainly knew where his towel was.

Bilbo doesn't have that warmth in The Hobbit book. That's something he acquired with age.

YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR MOUTH

This is Bilbo ~80 years before he was a doddering old man.