Was anybody else a bit annoyed that he wasn't featured in the movies, even in the extended version. I mean the movies were still absolutely spectacular but I feel that the prescence of Bombadil and Goldberry would have made it more so.
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I agree, that and the scouring of the shire would have been nice. PJ filemd the entire Scouring part but decided to not put it in, as he didn't like it. That's what I heard anyway.
Yeah definately. But I suppose if they had put all of the content from the books into the movies alot of good dialogue etc would need to be cut and other areas of the film would suffer
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"All morons hate it when you call them a moron." - Holden Caulfield
Films are notoriously hard to edit down from source material, due to length. The extended cut was already 3:30 and had to lose a lot of stuff.
Bombadil's sweet, but does his idiom really mesh with anything in the film?
No.
I agree completely with the decision. I love Tom too, but that had to be one of the easiest decisions for Jackson. Now, the Scouring on the other hand would have been a nice touch....but meh.
Couldn't agree more. He is a great character in the books but to have him in the films would only be confusing. At least for those who are not familiar with the story and don't know who he is. There would only be room for maybe 7 minutes of Tom Bombadil in a movie and it would only raise questions. Like "Who the hell is that guy"
the movie wouldn't gain anything on it.
No. Bombadil had no role in the plot what so ever. He slowed down the books big time. Every character in the movie had some role to play out expect Tom and Goldberry. That would have slowed down the flow of the movies a LOT.
Really the movies were done the best they could. Jackson couldn't added in the Scourging since the extended version is already 4+ hours long. How much more do you want? Besides it makes more since for Saruman to die in the land he destroyed trying to bring about the second darkness.
He did play a pretty big part in the books, for instance he was raised in the council as to what to do with the ring as a possibility of looking after it. He also symbolises the creation of man in middle earth as he is the only one immune to the rings powers and this could have given the audience a more clear idea of the structure of middle earth.
-AC
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"All morons hate it when you call them a moron." - Holden Caulfield
True. Also Tolkien envisioned Tom as a nature-spirit that is expressive of the English countryside, which in Tolkien's time had begun to disappear (Tolkien loved trees a lot. This is shown throughout his books, in especial the ents)
On another note...
I love the chapters with Tom and the Scouring much too but I understand Peters decision's for not including them. The big ones being that they don't really fufill any purpose in the grand-scheme of things and that they slow down the pace of the movie big time.
Besides, it leaves a bit of mystery that is hard to have after seeing the films. Like I mean, it's hard to imagine your own version of Frodo, Gandalf or Mordor after you have seen the movies version. This way we can make Tom up ourselves and create our own Battle of the Shire
I agree with all that has been said as to why both Tom and Goldberry were kept out of the films. However, I must admit, I never really enjoyed the character in all his glory; he raises questions to which there were not straight forward answers and to me it never qute melded with the rest of the story.
True. But people must understand that Tolkien invented Tom for personal reasons and not to satisfy anyone else. He also didn't want everything to be known about him, he wanted him to be an enigma.
Also, Tolkien considers Tom unimportant to the story.
Tolkien said:
"Tom Bombadil is not an important person — to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a 'comment.' I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in The Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function."
That "feeling" he is talking about there we know part of and is mentioned in my last post:
Tolkien envisioned Tom as a nature-spirit that is expressive of the English countryside, which in Tolkien's time had begun to disappear. Also, any Tolkien scholar will tell you that Tolkien had a deep love for trees. This is shown by the characters the Ents and Tom (among others).
So there you have it, from the man himself: Tom must have had some purpose otherwise Tolkien wouldn't have added him.
I love Tom. He's colourful, different and a total mystery
KMC Community Forums
Jan 23rd, 2007 01:47 PM
Pile on the cheese! Haha!
