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We see much of the battles because this is what big budget films are all about - spectacle and action. Tom Bombadil is inherently, incredibly naff, I think it would be very difficult to do him in on screen, especially in a film where you have a roughly 2hr runtime, even if FOTR was three hours, I doubt he would be there. Let's be honest, he's the first thing that would be cut by anyone with commercial considerations.
Yes which is why Jackson cut him. Because what the film really needed was more face time for a female star hallucinating about her future children.
 
Tom Bombadil isn't so bad if you take out the songs. I used to hate him and couldn't see the point but, like others, loved the Barrow Downs and the fog and the wights. However, on re-reading much later, I can see how he stands for the old spirit of the land, his saving of the hobbits from Old Man Willow and then again from the wight in the barrow, doesn't advance the story much but it is a wonderfully atmospheric bit of writing.
That whole thing gives an impression of how ancient the world is, and deepens the world building. Not hugely, but early on. Tom and the wights and even the willow are pure folklore, in a more profound way than are the elves and dwarves. To a fan of folklore and mythology, I think Tom makes more sense. Of course, a novel may include folklore but shouldn't be inscrutable and bewildering to people without that interest, which I think Tom is a bit.
 
Based on things I recall reading 40 - 50 years ago ... Tolkien - being the scholar he was - was initially interested in fleshing out the Middle Earth world he'd created in The Hobbit, complete with an elaborate history of the sort that was his field and which had only been hinted in the first novel.

Phrased more crudely ... He was more interested in writing something akin to The Silmarillion than the eventual LOTR.

Bombadil was one of the more matured chunks of this initial thrust by the time feedback had turned him more toward writing another adventure tale. He left Bombadil bit's back story elements largely intact in FOTR, and this is why it seems a semi-tangent in the flow of that volume and the trilogy overall. As he progressed in the writing he either more radically stripped off the back stories he'd sketched or avoided delving into them (save for making notes for later reference).
 
Based on things I recall reading 40 - 50 years ago ... Tolkien - being the scholar he was - was initially interested in fleshing out the Middle Earth world he'd created in The Hobbit, complete with an elaborate history of the sort that was his field and which had only been hinted in the first novel.

Phrased more crudely ... He was more interested in writing something akin to The Silmarillion than the eventual LOTR.

Bombadil was one of the more matured chunks of this initial thrust by the time feedback had turned him more toward writing another adventure tale. He left Bombadil bit's back story elements largely intact in FOTR, and this is why it seems a semi-tangent in the flow of that volume and the trilogy overall. As he progressed in the writing he either more radically stripped off the back stories he'd sketched or avoided delving into them (save for making notes for later reference).
Sort of but not really.

Tolkien began writing what would become The Silmarillion in 1917 while on leave from the war. His wife Edith dancing in the woods was the inspiration and the scene survives in the Tale of Beren & Luthien (the names are carved on their headstones in Oxford).

Initially The Hobbit was to have nothing to do with this wider and more serious world.

Tom Bombadil was a toy figure that was owned by one of his children. Stories had been made up to amuse his children of the adventures of the toy figure.
 
Thanks for the additional info. I'd forgotten that the name came from one of Tolkien's children's toys.
 
Yes which is why Jackson cut him. Because what the film really needed was more face time for a female star hallucinating about her future children.

Isn't that sequence in TTT rather than FOTR? Not great but I suppose it was to give Liv Tyler, one of three women in the film trilogy, something to do.
 
Isn't that sequence in TTT rather than FOTR? Not great but I suppose it was to give Liv Tyler, one of three women in the film trilogy, something to do.
Well it wouldn't have been in the first film. I assume the writers thought the audience wasn't used to the idea of a love story being ignored for so long. And with the huge investment in her salary - not that I don't think she's very talented - they wanted more screen time.
 
Based on things I recall reading 40 - 50 years ago ... Tolkien - being the scholar he was - was initially interested in fleshing out the Middle Earth world he'd created in The Hobbit, complete with an elaborate history of the sort that was his field and which had only been hinted in the first novel.

Phrased more crudely ... He was more interested in writing something akin to The Silmarillion than the eventual LOTR.

Bombadil was one of the more matured chunks of this initial thrust by the time feedback had turned him more toward writing another adventure tale. He left Bombadil bit's back story elements largely intact in FOTR, and this is why it seems a semi-tangent in the flow of that volume and the trilogy overall. As he progressed in the writing he either more radically stripped off the back stories he'd sketched or avoided delving into them (save for making notes for later reference).

Yes, he was never really fleshed out and I feel Tolkien really hadn't made up his mind as to what Tom was. Also if Tom was a part of stories told to his children then he may have included him partly as a private joke for his family.

He does have a small purpose and that is to move the story from the relatively safe Shire to the bleaker outside world. If anything he is the borderland between childhood and adulthood or the changing world from pastoral to industrial.

Tolkein, to his credit, and something that was forgotten by many other fantasy writers that came after him, managed to convey a world that was made up of grey characters. Tom is very much in his own camp, not a white hat or a black hat and this gives more depth to the story.

Also, I wonder if he left him unfinished because he liked the idea of an unsolved mystery? Tom is ancient even by the reckoning of the elves and not understood by them either. He represents something very dear to Tolkein but not crystal clear to us.
 
This is up for sale on eBay (for a lot of money):

RALPH BAKSHI'S "THE LORD OF THE RINGS": THE INN AT BREE PRODUCTION BACKGROUND

s-l1600-3.jpg


The film--ultimately, for me--is a failure, but it's an intensely interesting one with lots of good qualities--not least that it felt mysterious and otherworldly. The distance created by the stylisation and distinctive production techniques actually increase its effectiveness while (by?) distancing us from the kind of 'realism' we saw in (most of) the Peter Jackson depictions.

Edit: This is up, too: "Approach to the Shire"

E8n8G9kUUAUc9Tv.jpeg


If your pockets are deep:
https://www.ebay.com/str/bakshianimationart/Lord-of-the-Rings/_i.html?_storecat=9820371010
 
I find it almost impossible to think of Tom Bombadil without associating him with Tom Baker! Maybe it's the name, maybe it's something in the mercurial nature, or maybe it's just the eccentrically coloured clothing, but every time I read, or hear, the Bombadil section of FOTR, it's Tom Baker that I am imagining.

Did he ever play Tom Bombadil?
 
Its a great Website.

The author wants to eat six meals a day and talk about religion.
 
The Silmarillion is my favourite book. I’ve been reading it since the 80’s. I do really like LOTR but to me it’s the afterword of the Silmarillion which covers thousands of years whereas the main events in LOTR take months.

I’m neither here nor there on the Amazon Prime series. The Second Age is amazing, Eregion, Celebrimbor, Annatar/Sauron, the forging of the Rings of Power, Númenor…could be brilliant or — not. I expect there’ll be nice scenery anyhow :dunno:
 
Oh come on :hahazebs:

Fëanor, Fingolfin, sons of Fëanor, the Silmarils, Gondolin, the Dagor Bragollach, Finrod’s Song Duel with Sauron, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Túrin! (oh no, I’m already tearing up) . The War of Wrath. I know it’s written like a saga not a novel, but that is why I love it so much. Far, far more than LOTR.

And the characters are larger than life. (Which is always what I look for in fantasy). And everyone dies. Okay, not everyone, but everyone I like.

I used to say when I was young it was basically ‘Everyone‘s dead, Dave’ (From Red Dwarf :chuckle:) if they asked me to explain it.

Anyway, apparently the Amazon series cannot (stern look) use any part of that, which honestly makes me laugh because everything proceeds from something that happened before and so how they’re actually going to get around that on tippy toes I have no idea (which is why I’m ambivalent about it).

This is apparently Finrod (Galadriel’s elder brother) in Valinor.

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That's not Finrod...not badass enough.

Yes, larger than life, (like the characters in the Worm Ouroboros)

who could forget Beren and Luthien?
 
Having seen only the preview images from the Amazon series, and trying my hardest not to hate it before I see it, I am reminded that...

View attachment 51907

The preview images really don't show a lot but it's clear the designs are somewhat aping those from the Jackson trilogy - what little is visible of the elf sword for example. I watched a "trailer" that was just abstract images and text - the texts echoes the font/logo for the Jackson films, it even had score that came perilously close to the main theme.

Amazon have an army of lawyers and I dare say they will stay within the boundaries of "not be sued" but Warner/AT&T are not doubt watching like hawks.

I did wonder if they might try an HBO series of uncut and "padded out" versions of the stories, with each book being a season with several episodes, it's hard to say whether this will affect that or not.

I wouldn't worry too much Yith, regardless of quality, this series will soon be forgotten in the landslide of "content" we currently drown in.
 
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/...in-search-of-the-one-answer-to-rule-them-all/

Who is Tom Bombadil? In Search of the “One-Answer-To-Rule-Them-All”​

Who is Tom Bombadil? Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, have been asking this question ever since the epic tome first appeared in print in 1954. Novice fans of the book as well as diehard veterans of Tolkien’s Legendarium are equally perplexed by this mysterious character. In their quest for answers, many have scrutinized every jot and tittle from Tolkien’s pen, but the esteemed author never reveals in the novel, in his letters, or in his other writings exactly who Tom is. Those who have only viewed Peter Jackson’s film trilogy (2001–2003) also wonder who this bewildering fellow is, since the director opted to exclude Bombadil from his big screen adaptation altogether. Jackson has stated the reason he cut Bombadil was because he felt that the character wasn’t essential to the basic plot of the story. Some readers of The Lord of the Rings agree – not only do they ask, “Who is Tom Bombadil?” but they also ask “Why is he there?”
 
I've always thought of Bombadil as a personification of nature, something like Pan or Puck but less mischievous. Perhaps a Kokopelli. I remember before reading Lord of the Rings my friends who'd read it spoke in disparaging terms about Tom Bombadil, and people still do. When I arrived at those chapters Tom felt immediately in place and somehow familiar from mythology, even though I can't think of an exact parallel from real world mythology.
 
Interesting that even after the anticipated release, what with bribing ... er ... entertaining the Tolkien Society to excerpts, booze, food, hotel rooms, meet & greet etc. Amazon are changing the narrative to say if you don't like their product, or the content exposed so far, then you are at fault, any amount of -ist, a Nazi, a babykiller etc. etc.
If it succeeds - unlikely considering the alienation of a fan base you were trying to exploit - then that's it: the minority have it right. If it fails, it's not that the product is bad but it was 'attacked' by hoards of Right-wing/Facist/Sexist bigots. While the firestorm erupts between easily-triggered keyboard warriors and actual consumers of the product (in favour or not), Amazon will quickly move on and find another franchise to burn.
 
I've always thought of Bombadil as a personification of nature, something like Pan or Puck but less mischievous. Perhaps a Kokopelli. I remember before reading Lord of the Rings my friends who'd read it spoke in disparaging terms about Tom Bombadil, and people still do. When I arrived at those chapters Tom felt immediately in place and somehow familiar from mythology, even though I can't think of an exact parallel from real world mythology.
I must admit that when I first read the book, I thought that Bombadil would be a bad guy, the "nice" old man with the sweeties sort of thing.. I was only about 12 and already far too cynical!
 
I see where you're coming from, Tunn, but I've always considered him a 'breather' figure.
What with the continuous threat, going from one hazardous situation to another, over a long journey, I think J.R.R. used Tim Benzedrine ... er ... Tom Bombadil to throttle back on the tension for a bit.
He gave the crew a sanctuary ... in the readers eyes too.
 
I've always thought of Bombadil as a personification of nature, something like Pan or Puck but less mischievous. Perhaps a Kokopelli. I remember before reading Lord of the Rings my friends who'd read it spoke in disparaging terms about Tom Bombadil, and people still do. When I arrived at those chapters Tom felt immediately in place and somehow familiar from mythology, even though I can't think of an exact parallel from real world mythology.


He's been seen as part of the Green Man archetype.
 
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