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I see why he was cut from the films. He honesty doesn’t contribute much once the barrows were cut.
If he had been included, people would have complained about how he was depicted, how it killed the pacing, and what was cut instead (that we ended up getting in one of the versions).
Tom is a side quest and footnote lore. I know some won’t be happy with that opinion, but he wasn’t crucial to the story outside of a few references that could be left out of the films.
I get a kick out of watching deep dives into Tom Bombadil lore. Folks go nuts trying to explain his and Goodberry’s roles in the LotR universe.
Tolkien himself said Tom was based on a Dutch doll that his kids threw in the toilet. He wrote a poem for his kids about Tom in 1934 and it also includes Goodberry and Old Man Willow.
They ended up in Lord of the Rings as a kind of gift to his kids.
Goodberry
Goldberry?
Tom is also a lighthearted transition from the more young adult writing in The Hobbit towards the darker, more consequence driven aspects of Lord of The Rings. There is a wild untamed darkness to Tom.
Ive always seen it as more than a simple side quest, but something that served a narrative role to show, “hey, we’re leaving the fun safe place”…
The extended versions do give Treebeard some of the qualities of Bombadil, plus a pastiche of the Old Man Willow scene. No barrow-downs, though, and no Goldberry.
It’s especially quaint how Tom prescribes hobbits must run around naked as a cure, and as he rides off Sam observes “I think if we travel the whole wide world, we shall never meet anyone quite as queer as Tom!”
I dream of there someday being a full-text film version of the Lord of the Rings, just for posterity’s sake. I know it can’t happen because it would never make its money back, but still, the heart wants what it wants.
I would love a highly faithful TV adaptation where every chapter is an episode
That’s not insanely far removed from an audiobook. In fact, they do those audiobooks now where they have different actors do each character’s dialogue. I think they did one for the Harry Potter series. Obviously, from a production standpoint, that’s not too close to what you’re talking about, but from the standpoint of somebody consuming the media, it’s not all that far away.
Cutting Tom Bombadil was one of Peter Jackson’s smartest decisions.
And cutting the “not all who wonder are lost” scene was the dumbest.
Hey ho merry dil, then there’s a gift for the readers to discover.
Tbf Die Hard is even farther from the book it’s based on.
TIL Die Hard is based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp.
I haven’t read LOTR since 4th grade, but I had to read The Hobbit (again) for 9th grade English. I haven’t read either again as an adult. The last Tolkien book I read was The Similarion when I graduated high school, since my first GF gave it to me as a graduation gift.
tbh after reading the books I don’t even think the movies are that good. especially The Two Towers is barely recognizable
Now I’m just imagining a secret floor in Nakatomi Plaza that was deleted in the film.
“Come out to the coast… dance around with a singing weirdo…”
People really don’t understand the significance of Tom. Imo Tom is the poetry of the story.
I always imagined Tom was Tolkien himself -all powerful as the author
I could write a whole essay but I think Tom is bigger than middle earth and is more or less indifferent to wizard drama. He’s been around and seen this kind of stuff playing out many times. Sometimes the “good guys” win. Sometimes they lose. He knows the world needs evil for there to be heros. The cyclical battle of good and evil is just the way of the world to Tom.
Maybe Tom and Tolkien are one and the same but I don’t think Tom is Tolkien writing himself into the book in such a direct sense.
I’m looking forward to seeing Stephen Colbert’s take on the character, considering how he treats the books like a bible.
Given how his song in the book has a sort of Caribbean calypso lilt to it, I’m imagining him as Jar Jar Binks.
So your saying Tom Bombadil is secretly a Sith?
