SheBear: I'm seeing a bunch of people say they see
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as closer to the book than the LOTR movies were. This makes no sense in my mind. Of course I'm willing to believe that people see it this way - but I just don't at all. For me, what makes a movie "close" to the book is not only the inclusion of every single scene and detail (and that is not the most important thing), but the transfer of the overall mood and tone of the plot of the book.
I think The Hobbit fails miserably in this regard. Yes, there is a ton of lore stuff thrown in there (which isn't terribly well done in my mind, but regardless...) and references to the Lord of the Rings movies, which is appealing to fans. But I am coming from a place where I literally last read
The Hobbit in September, because I read it and LOTR every year in the fall.
The movie feels, to me, like a completely different story: the focus is different (much more on Thorin than Bilbo, more action than adventure, and, as I said before, and I stand by, a weird middle ground between too childish and too mature). The book is a classic and I am able to read it every year because it is a tiny story set in a huge world. The world is huge not because it is spelled out for the reader - when Gandalf mentions that Glamdring, Orcrist, and Sting are from Gondolin there is no explanation there, and that is fine: the world seems real when there are things not explained. The backstory battles of the dwarves and orcs, while interesting, and important to the story the movie is telling, is part of the background of the story the book tells. And it is important as background - a fuzzy shape in the distance that adds character and depth, but not the details of the main story. And that is the story of "There and Back Again" by Bilbo Baggins. It is light hearted and fun - but scary and intense when necessary. It is intelligent and quick, but knows that its main audience is at the oldest young adults.
I don't mind when a movie has to sometimes play scenes differently, or take out characters (Tom Bombodil for example in LOTR), but when the story is claimed to be the same, but is fundamentally changed I cannot accept it as valid.
A lot of what you say IS valid but i think it is a mood point (not all though, some of your critic is completely right). As a big fan of the books (not as big as you but i tend to read them in 3 year cycles, since i read load of other books too and my time for reading is short enough as it is), I really enjoyed the hobbit and found the story closer to the book. How it feels is ( i think) a matter of opinion since everybody looks at a movie and reads a book differently.
On the other hand even though i feel that the Hobbit movies is closer to the book, I do feel that the changes he did make were worse then the changes he made in the LorR films (some of those changes actually improved the story a lot in movie terms).