Loved the scenerey, thought the fight scenes were too long and thus pushed the film out too long. That’s especially important for me, because I have a bum left knee and sitting for long periods of time is hard on that knee.
Having read the books years ago when I was young and not being an afficienado, one thing I picked up on was the fact that the dwarves homeless plight seems to be allegorical to the Jews without a home. I know that Tolkein was very religious and this being written in the 30’s seems to me that Zionism at that time was gaining a lot of steam. Is there any truth to what I’m saying. Was the dwarves allegorical to the Jews?
the Dwarves are partly allegorical to the Jewish plight, and the languages of Dwarvish is related to Hebrew.
But like most Tolkien stuff, he mixes up a lot of influences: the dwarves desire for gold and their love of family with the need to revenge their kin and the riddle game is based on Viking lore, not the Jewish plight of the 1920’s or early 1930’s.
And the story was originally told to his kids as a bedtime story and only written down when he mixed up some details on retelling, and his youngest son caught him at the mistake.
Jackson is adding a lot of backstory from the appendices of the Lord of the Rings about the white council and the history of the dwarves.
Good or bad? Who knows.
But I enjoyed the film, as did my granddaughter, although the fight in the goblin tunnels was a bit boring.