I can already imagine a scene with Gandalf and Sauron fighting a duel.. After Sauron has first beaten Saruman, of course (just to show the audience who's the great good wizard here. And Saruman eyes Gandalf darkly so that everybody knows who's the evil wizard). And a shield-surfing Legolas in the Battle of Five Armies... Etc, etc.
I'm not a big fan of the movies, and it's possible I don't even want to see the Hobbit when it comes out. But I see it as a chance to bring the book up to date, ie. have it correspond to the image the Lotr & the Sil give about Middle-earth. A chance to make it more serious, not only a children's book.
I think Beorn's serving animals are no problem in a book like the Hobbit, but if they're going to make it a serious movie, they will be a problem. However, I'd rather they remove only them than also Beorn. I'm not very eager to see Beorn in his bear form though. I've never found CGI bears as appealing as real ones.
(Ha! And surely a bear-Beorn will be there, just to show off, greeting them angrily when they arrive to his place. And after he's almost killed someone they all realise it's a misunderstanding.)
Something I'd make appear more serious are the elves. But no such distant, eerie elves like in the Lotr movies, no. Really, it's not
that serious to be one. They don't need to float half a meter above the ground for the people to realise they're elves.
What I'm most afraid of is how PJ will handle the dwarves. We've seen enough dwarf jokes in the Lotr movies, but I'm not really sure he has quite grasped it yet... And how many dwarves will there be anyway? Somehow I have a feeling that only the most stupid (someone might call them
the funniest) ones appear in the movie with Thorin and Balin (which I doubt they'd dare to exclude).
It'd be also nice to have a little more songs there, although I'm not sure I want to risk hearing bad versions of them.