I love how PJ & co. take the smallest passages or mentions from the book and expand on it, i.e necromancer, the stone giants, etc.

...like a bit of fleshing out of Thranduil and the Mirkwood Elves, and Bard and the Master of Lake-town. I'm totally fine with Legolas being present, only I feel he should be there to round out Thranduil's character, not to have an arc of his own (which looks like it might be the case). Im not the biggest fan of Legolas or Orlando Bloom, but nothing needs to be contradicted to bring Legolas into the fold, and if Tolkien had conceived of the character when he wrote The Hobbit, I would bet that he would have at least mentioned him. I'm also fine with the characters of Bard and the Master of Lake-town being more fully fleshed out.

The whole Dol Guldur sub-plot might be expanded from the book, but it is 100% canon that it took place, and during the timeline of the quest. I actually very-much like that they've added it in, instead of just having Gandalf disappear for a while.

As for the "non-book characters", Alfrid is supposedly playing the part of the Master's "councillors" who are mentioned briefly in the book, so I'm fine with him as long as he doesn't turn out to be a carbon copy of Wormtongue. Also, I have no issues with the fact that they've taken an unnamed character (the Mirkwood Captain of the Guards) and made him into a female. Tauriel is not a huge deal to me. I just hope these two ancillary characters don't get too much focus on them. And PLEASE, for heaven's sake, no dumb Elf-Dwarf romance sub-plots...

The outright contradictions like Azog being alive and the High Fells are where my main problems lie from a story-telling standpoint. As has been well-documented on these boards, I strongly dislike Azog's presence in these films. I'd have been totally fine with him if he'd have just died at the Battle of Azanulbizar like he was supposed to. And as has been mentioned by many a poster, putting Bolg in his place would have made much more sense and wouldn't have been as huge a contradiction. It could have been done without making things more complicated, as has been claimed. I also dont like the idea of Nazgul tombs. Would it really have been too confusing for the audience to come up with something that would have hinted at the Nazgul being active without having to place them in tombs since the fall of the realm of Angmar? It almost just seems like it was done this way to pad out Gandalf's storyline. Another thing I'm anticipating disliking is the idea of Gandalf meeting Thrain during the timeline of the quest. Is this why they've gone and made three films? So they could take all of this The Hobbit-related "historical" appendices material and bring it into the current timeline?

I also wanted to add that I'm fine with Radagast playing a part in the story, because it makes sense to me that he would have aided the Council, if not as a "full-fledged" member (which is in keeping with the hermit aspect of his persona). I just could have done without some of the obvious Jacksonisms (and if the EE appendices are any indication, it seems some of the people who worked on the films would concur).

...just that I'd rather he be used more as a foil for Thranduil's arc, rather than get a storyline of his own.