Lord of the Rings fans are still wondering why the mythical Old Forest character Tom Bombadil didn’t appear in Peter Jackson’s trilogy? The filmmaker has yet answered the question by justifying his decision.
Is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy a faithful adaptation when it ignores a key character in JRR Tolkien’s literary universe? In any case, as early as 2001, when The Fellowship of the Ring was released in theaters, some fans criticized the film for not showing a character: Tom Bombadil.
The latter is one of the most mysterious figures of Middle-earth, said to be “Master of Forest, Water and Hill”. Tolkien dedicated two poems to him and an appearance in The Fellowship of the Ring. It is described as follows:
“He was too big and heavy for a Hobbit, if not quite tall enough to be one of the Big People, though he made enough noise for it, hobbling on d thick legs covered with big yellow boots (…) He had a blue coat and a long brown beard, his eyes were blue and shining, and his face the red of a ripe apple, but creased with a thousand wrinkles of laughter .”
Peter Jackson’s choice not to make this character appear in the first feature film of the saga forced the filmmaker to justify himself.
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Tom Bombadil illustration by Roger Garland
In one of the documentaries devoted to the adaptation of the work of JRR Tolkien and present in the “Appendixes” of the Box of the Blu-ray trilogy, Jackson explains this choice which has long been reproached to him by the ” Ringers”, the absolute fans of this work by the British author:
“If we very simply sum up the story of The Lord of the Rings for our film, it is: ‘Frodo wears the Ring. He must travel to Mordor to destroy the Ring. From this observation, is the presence of Old Man-Willow interesting for this story of Frodo carrying the Ring? What is Tom Bombadil’s connection to the Ring after all?”
Before fans of the book point out that it is wrong, Peter Jackson prefers to clarify:
I know the episode with Tom Bombadil has ties to the Ring, but that doesn’t really advance our story. It doesn’t really tell us what we need to know.
Warner Bros.
Merry and Pippin in the woods
By his connections to the Ring, Jackson is referring to the fact that Bombadil seems to know a lot more about the Hobbits and the Ring than he cares to let on. In the book, he even manages to slip the object on his finger without becoming invisible! Something to arouse the curiosity of readers about the powers of this strange and wacky character.
It must be recognized that Jackson and his team tried to include Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but in another form. Thus, the filmmaker declared in 2002 to the magazine Cinefantastic (via TheOneRing.net) :
“(…) We considered, just for the fans, to have the Hobbits cross a feathered hat thrown from the trees as they travel through the Old Forest. They would have heard the voice of Tom Bombadil as well as his song , which would have them running away as quickly as possible.[WethoughtthatwouldallowTomBombadiltobepresentwithafunnywinkExceptwedidn’thavetime”[Nouspensionsquecelapermettraità TomBombadild’êtreprésentavecunclind’oeilamusantSaufquenousn’avonspaseuletemps”
And that’s how this fan-favorite character almost got his scene in The Fellowship of the Ring. Perhaps we will see him again at the center of a project derived from the literary saga of JRR Tolkien. After the arrival of a Lord of the Rings series at the start of the next school year, all hopes are allowed for the years to come!
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