Missing Tom Bombadil

Peter Jackson did an amazing job with The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Some will complain about this and that, but overall, the movies were very entertaining and captured the beauty of Tolkien's Middle Earth very well. With Jackson producing The Hobbit, there were some who complained that he was milking it for money by splitting the book into three movies. I understand the argument, but I don't see it that way. Peter was connecting the two stories in a way that Tolkien didn't when he wrote the best selling novels. I'm not saying he made it better, but I get what he was doing. There was good and bad in those movies.

For The Lord Of The Rings, Peter cut a couple of sections from the story that I enjoyed. There was The Scouring Of The Shire, where the hobbits showed how much they had grown since they departed their beloved home land to destroy the ring. Then, there's the trip through The Old Forest and their encounter with Tom Bombadil. I would have loved to have seen this on the DVD at least.

Unlike all the other characters Frodo tried to give the ring to, Tom Bombadil was totally unfazed by it. He simply didn't care. He even made the ring disappear in front of Frodo and freaked him out. Tom didn't care for politics or any of the news of impending war. All that mattered to him was his wife Goldberry and their life together in The Old Forrest. He was the embodiment of true neutrality.

Gandalf later speculated that Tom would be defeated too if Sauron had his way and got the ring, but I actually think Tom was stronger than they realized. Tolkien never really clarified that, so it's open to interpretation. Tom's attitude was that if anybody tried to do harm in his territory, he would deal with them himself. He may have been the oldest living person in Middle Earth.

Jackson did not want to touch this, and I totally understand why. It doesn't hurt the movie at all that Tom Bombadil is not in it. In fact, it probably helps the viewers avoid confusion. You have Gandalf, Galadriel and Boromir freaking out over the prospect of having that ring, and Tom Bombadil doesn't care one way or the other. Still, I like the monkey wrench he throws into the plot. You have clearly defined good and evil, and here's this other very powerful guy who refuses to pick a side.

I read a suggestion on a message board that Robin Williams would have been perfect as Tom in the movie. That would have been interesting. Robin could have played this character perfectly. It would have been fun, and I did miss not seeing the way the hobbits really left The Shire. Visiting Fatty Bolger, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil and the rest. It's a shame we never saw any of that, but I understand why Jackson went the way he did with the story.

I envision the movie they could have done, maybe for TV. This is after Frodo left for The Undying Lands. Sam, Pippin and Merry are at a pub, telling stories about how they departed The Shire. Then, we see Tom and the other missing scenes. Then they recall The Scouring Of The Shire and we see how they were able to save their home land. It would have been interesting, but it was not to be. Still, when I look at The Fellowship Of The Ring, I can't help but miss Tom Bombadil.