My husband and son found the changes to Gandalf’s character very disturbing- the nonchalance over killing. They did enjoy the bits of the film that weren’t shoehorned in solely to achieve a pg-13. There’s actually an interview floating around out there where they explicitly state how hard it was for them to achieve that rating with the material they had to work with, but by gosh they managed it....
Saw the movie yesterday. Honestly don't understand what you mean by this, I thought Gandalf was much the same as in the LOTR movie.
In fact, that's my biggest complaint about the movie. It's essentially a prequel to LOTR, rather than its own story. The characters and issues are just about the same, whereas the book was told pretty much exclusively from Bilbo's perspective, a rather innocent and naive hobbit who stumbled through great events without really understanding what was going on. That's basically what made book LOTR so different from book Hobbit. The hobbits were dragged out of their innocence and isolation and thrust with full awareness into the center of world events.
The looonnnnggg sequences that look like video games were also disturbing and did little or nothing to advance the story. The bits with the giants and the chase through the goblin caverns. Looked like Indiana Jones or something, just not as well done. Much like the similarly idiotic sequences of FOTR with the collapsing stairs.
Galadriel seemed oddly unconcerned about the Necromancer setting up shop at Dol Guldur, seeing as how its right across the River from Lorien.
Also, they make Bilbo into a bold warrior willing and able to charge an entire enemy army by himself, which he never became in the book.
In the book, Thorin never really accepted Bilbo till he was dying.
I thought PJ did an excellent job with Bilbo/Gollum. Really showed how the point where Bilbo chose to spare Gollum was a turning point in history, since it allowed Bilbo to remain basically unaffected by the evil of the Ring and pass it on freely to Frodo, whereas if he had obtained the Ring by killing he would have quickly morphed into another Gollum, overcome by the Ring's corruption.