Should they reboot this?
And do a version that is actually respectful to the source material?
shareFor the most part, I think these adaptations were respectful. They leave stuff out, but that's not the same thing. Why do you think that they were disrespectful?
shareThey were totally respectful. The only people who seem to think otherwise are those who can tolerate no deviation from the books and who just want an audio-visual facsimile.
Should we reboot the Lord of the Rings? No. The movies aren't even that old and are still EXCELLENT watches, especially Fellowship.
That's how I feel, as well, but I was wondering if the OP had some reason I might have missed.
One of the worst, least respectful things in the Hobbit trilogy comes at the end. When they change Gandalf's final speech about the prophecies into a shoehorned connection/ ominous statement leading into The Lord of the Rings. It was unnecessary and missed major religious/spiritual themes that Tolkien put into his work. I have a feeling that most viewers took no notice. So, it's possible that I missed something, and I'm curious.
The Hobbit may be a different matter. I read The Hobbit once, years ago, but didn't remember enough to compare it to the films. I have heard though that they deviate from the book significantly, and perhaps are a better case of unfaithfulness than the LOTR trilogy. The bigger sin, regardless, in my opinion, is that those films just aren't particularly good.
In fact, I just watched the Hobbit trilogy for the first time a about three weeks ago. My first try I bailed after the first movie because I just wasn't that into it. The second film is probably the best.
"The bigger sin, regardless, in my opinion, is that those films just aren't particularly good."
Agreed. Deviances and dalliances from the source would have been acceptable had the films been better, but they were very lackluster, meandering, and unfocused. I've read The Hobbit several times (as well as the Rings books) and the bulk of the deviation is spent with all the added material, bloating it for three films' worth of "story".
The tone was also all over the place. They were really big disappointments to me as a huge Tolkien nerd, as somebody who dearly loved the Rings films, and as somebody who appreciates wonderful stories of all sorts. Plus, they wasted so much talent. McKellen and Freeman are terrific performers and so perfect for the roles. This hit home so hard for me in the final scenes of the third film. McKellen and Freeman share a silent scene where Gandalf cleans his pipe after the battle. So much passes between them of the futility of it all, the despair, the adrenaline, the victory and loss, and Bilbo is lost and wants guidance, and Gandalf basically shrugs. "Nothing to do but get back to the mundane," he seems to say. And it's a perfect moment because it's about the characters and the actors - simple, basic, clean storytelling which was gobbled up and buried under so much extraneous junk throughout the overstuffed trilogy.