-Some of the art. The opening shots of the Shire and Mirkwood, especially, reminded me very strongly of Tolkien's style.
-Gandalf's tower. Not the fact that he had one, but the design of it. It was cool. It had runes on the inside walls.
-The narration as they stepped into Mirkwood. Something about 'a sea of trees, with no chance to come up for air'? It was very good visual imagery.
-The Unexpected Party. I know, I know - but as a summary of the book, if you ignore Mika, it's actually pretty good. And good or not, it was hilarious.
-The animation on the faceted Arkenstone. That was really cleverly handled!
-... no, that's it.
What's interesting is that I read about this some time ago, in this article. Some choice excerpts:
We were well into The Hobbit screenplay when The Lord of The Rings came out in paperback editions. Having assumed there was only The Hobbit to contend with, and following Snyder's wish, we had taken some liberties with the story that a few years later would be grounds for burning at the stake. For example, I had introduced a series of songs, changed some of the characters' names, played loosely with the plot, and even created a girl character, a Princess no less, to go along on the quest, and to eventually overcome Bilbo Baggins' bachelorhood! I could Hollywoodize as well as the next man...
[...]
Before the time of CGI, I had proposed an impressive visual effect, combining cel-animated figures over elaborate 3D model backgrounds. I know that Max Fleisher had once tried something like it, but I intended to take the idea to greater heights and atmosphere. I even attached a special name to the technique: "ImagiMation!" I was thinking big!
By the time we arrived in New York, however, Snyder had already blown the deal by asking 20th for too much money. Tolkien's name hadn't yet reached them either. I had a fat script, but no other film companies were then interested. It was crushing. Even today, when I flip through my screenplay, and can almost see the fabulous scenes I had imagined, I feel a heavy regret.
[...]
The Tolkien estate had now been offered a fabulous sum for the rights, and Snyder's rights would expire in one month. They were already rubbing their hands together. But Snyder played his ace: to fulfill just the letter of the contract -- to deliver a " full-color film" of The Hobbit by June 30th. All he had to do was to order me to destroy my own screenplay -- all my previous year's work -- hoke up a super-condensed scenario on the order of a movie preview (but still tell the entire basic story from beginning to end), and all within 12 minutes running time -- one 35mm reel of film. Cheap. I had to get the artwork done, record voice and music, shoot it, edit it, and get it to a New York projection room on or before June 30, 1966!
I should have told him to shove it, but I was basically his slave at the time...and it suddenly became a sort of insane challenge.
I knew my screen story line by heart, so I just had to put it through a mind-shredder, and write a sort of synopsis, with a few key lines of dialog scattered throughout.
[...]
The final blow came some years later, when an animated feature version of The Hobbit appeared, starring the timid voice of Orson Bean. That film to my mind in no way approached the magnificence I had originally envisioned. I had obtained the greatest Czech artist of the time, illustrator, painter, sculptor, and director of the most famous Czech puppet films of all time, Jirí Trnka, to be the designer of my projected version. Sadly, we never got beyond his model sketches.
On the one hand, I feel really bad for him (him?); working that hard on something only to be ordered to rip it to shreds must be horrendous; not to mention that the art shown in that article is gorgeous. But on the other hand... yeah, that's... rather worse than the Jackson changes. :D
(I agree that someone should feed a Sue to poor Slag, though. Poor dragon gets no love)
hS