What I truly fear - being a purist in favour of the books - is, that people might come and say :
"Why aren't Radagast's Rabbits in the book ? Has Tolkien left them out ? Has Tolkien just forgotten to write them ?"
What I truly fear is the people might see the movies as being "more authentic" then the books.
People who think that the movie is childish might want to re-read as well. The book start as childish (representing Bilbo's innocence). The first half reads like a kid book really, but it get gradually darker.
I read it as a eenager. I wrote a review for it in our school's newspaper, or how these things are called, then.
I found it great. Sure, it becomes gradually darker, but it is still a great adventure. It is in fact so much full of adventure that i thought : "this is the best book ! Foreign country, all of the time there is something going on, adventures galore ! There is almost no point in the book where it becomes boring ! Very well written !" - That was my opinion as a teenager - one who didn't read great literature at that time and who found novels & drama we used to read at school (as part of the curriculum) rather boring, even when explained. They didn't contain any Adventure !
Plus, The Hobbit had a truly - although bitter in some facets - Happy Ending.
It's something Talkien calls in his writing "Dragons and their Critics" an "Eucatastrophe". "Eu", being the Greek word for "good" or at least for something positive, if I remember correctly. The exact opposite of what usually happens in Real Life, I'd add. Superman isn't rescueing people from mass shootings in Real Life. Plus, be has become darker and darker in recent incarnations as well, as far as I understood it.
You all know that I'm against this "dark & gritty" thing, against "Dark Fantasy", simply becaue I hold the opinion that I don't want Real Life elemnts in what I want for good Escapism FROM Real Life.
Real Life is "dark & gritty" enough, I don't want to invade this "darkness" my personal places of recuperation - like books like The Hobbit.
But people seem to want it so. I see a current trend growing over the last decade of people wanting everything to be darker, more futile, more in vain, more reflecting Real Life. Superman becomes … darker, the Dark Knight becomes … even more darker … It feels to m as if people had a real hate against Happy Endings.
An this is why I defend The Hobbit as a book so much : It remains one of my few plces I can withdraw to from Real Life affairs. I don't want any hints of the Syria Conflictt to be in my favourite fanzasy stories. I don't want any poliics in my fantasy stories (that' why I won't read the "Game Of Thrones" ever).
People are going to spoil all that is Light, Love and Happiness. Cynism takes over, darkness takes over, and people - fulelled by newspaper headlines ! - cease to see the positives in life, the blossoms of the flowers, the colourfullness of nature landscapes … And this is why I withdraw and tend to defend what I believe is a Last Bastion of my personal Escapism Against The Darkness - to put it rather cynically.
And this is exactly why I don't like the way Mr. Jackson reworked The Hobbit.
In my "inner teenager's" opinion he is making the book much, much darker than it really was.