Why did Peter Jackson Leave out Tom Bombadil?

Q: Why did Peter Jackson Leave out Tom Bombadil?

ANSWER: Peter Jackson’s decision not to include Tom Bombadil in the “Lord of the Rings” movies was a controversial choice, although my impression has always been that more people supported his decision than expressed disappointment in it. Peter’s only comments on the subject at the time he was producing those films suggested that he considered Bombadil to be less important to the overall story than other characters for whom he was already struggling to include in the three-film project.

Many people have pointed to one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s own letters in support of Peter’s decision. In Letter No. 144 Tolkien wrote to Naomi Mitcheson:

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 analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. but if you have, as it were taken ‘a vow of poverty’, renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron.

We can certainly point to a considerable amount of evidence to show that Tolkien attempted to throw everything but his kitchen sink into The Lord of the Rings. He set out (at his publisher’s request) to write a sequel to the very popular book The Hobbit having no real idea of what kind of Hobbit story he could write. Gradually Tolkien began to piece together the elements of a long adventure story.

As John Rateliff has shown in his History of The Hobbit, Tolkien had already once attempted to integrate Hobbits into the world of his Silmarillion. He originally abandoned that idea while developing The Hobbit into a complete story, but with The Lord of the Rings Tolkien brought the Hobbits back into the realm of the Silmarillion. In doing so he also connected his Numenor myth to the emerging world of Middle-earth, which until then had not been the focus of Tolkien’s fiction. But as Middle-earth began to take shape out of these three separate but related stories, new ideas began to creep in to Tolkien’s thought. In fact, when Tolkien first replied to his publisher’s request for a Hobbit sequel, he had already submitted several ideas for other books (which were all rejected). Tolkien wrote in Letter No. 19 to Stanley Unwin:

I did not think any of the stuff I dropped on you filled the bill. But I did want to know whether any of the stuff had any exterior non-personal value. I think it is plain that quite apart from it, a sequel or successor to The Hobbit is called for. I promise to give this thought and attention. But I am sure you will sympathize when I say that the construction of elaborate and consistent mythology (and two languages) rather occupies the mind, and the Silmarils are in my heart. So that goodness knows what will happen. Mr Baggins began as a comic tale among conventional and inconsistent Grimm’s fairy-tale dwarves, and got drawn into the edge of it – so that even Sauron the terrible peeped over the edge. And what more can hobbits do? They can be comic, but their comedy is suburban unless it is set against things more elemental. But the real fun about orcs and dragons (to my mind) was before their time. Perhaps a new (if similar) line? Do you think Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside, could be made into the hero of a story? Or is he, as I suspect, fully enshrined in the enclosed verses?1 Still I could enlarge the portrait.

By this time Tom Bombadil had already appeared in print in the form of a poem dedicated to the “vanishing spirit of the Oxford countryside”. It would not be long before Tolkien drew Bombadil into the new story about Hobbits.

In the published Lord of the Rings Tom Bombadil accomplishes several functions for both the author and the reader. First, he provides a framework for a considerable amount of foreshadowing. The encounter with Old Man Willow, for example, foreshadows the great destructive power and wrath of the Ents, who destroy the power of Isengard in the third (of six) book in the story. Bombadil himself gives the Hobbits lessons in the history of Arnor — lessons which the primary narrative only hints at but which the reader glimpses through the appendices. There are many vague, obscure references throughout the rest of the book which can be connected back to the Bombadil episode. And Bombadil also provides Frodo with an interlude that allows him to temporarily foil and escape from the terrifying Black Riders. Tolkien had to somehow separate the Riders from their prey, and Bombadil provides a perfect excuse for the Riders’ loss of the scent of the One Ring.

Bombadil also allows Frodo to confront a terrible evil that is perhaps the fourth most dangerous peril that Frodo faces after the Nazgul, the Balrog, and Sauron himself. The Barrow-wight is in fact a servant of Sauron, having been sent to inhabit the area by the Lord of the Nazgul. The Wight is the first embodiment of extremely ancient, powerful evil that Frodo must directly confront in the story. Bombadil’s intervention not only saves Frodo but is also the first act in the Edain’s recovery of the mastery of their former kingdom. As is documented in the appendices (more technically in an early draft published in The Peoples of Middle-earth), the Dunedain of Arnor were unable to reclaim the Barrow Downs from the Wights. Bombadil, who has tolerated the Wight’s presence up until this time because of his supposed “neutrality”, throws in with Frodo’s side in order to protect the Hobbits (and probably also to protect Middle-earth from Sauron’s recovering the Ring). Bombadil banishes the Wight, apparently forever, thus cleansing the land.

Bombadil subsequently sends Frodo and his companions on to Bree, advising them to stay at the Prancing Pony. Although as Peter Jackson indicated in the movies the Hobbits of the Buckland were accustomed to traveling to Bree, the movies actually excise the entire Buckland from Frodo’s experience. Merry’s background is never explained; Frodo’s past life in the Buckland is simply omitted from the movies. All of these details, of course, would only have prolonged the film experience without advancing the main story, the journey of the Ringbearer from Hobbiton to Mount Doom. Hence, these extraneous details had to be left to the audience’s imagination.

In one of the DvD commentaries it was in fact revealed that Peter had toyed with the idea of showing a blue hat bouncing along in the woods, an allusion to Bombadil, but ultimately he decided against that.

In order to tell the story as properly as possible, many things had to be changed. For example, instead of Bombadil giving Frodo and his companions knives from the Wight’s barrow Aragorn simply produces them out of nowhere — a bit of silliness that moves the story along while only raising a few eyebrows. In another example, Peter’s version of the tale fails to competently explain how anyone at Rivendell knew that Frodo was abroad with the Ring. In the book, the Elvenfolk of Gildor intercede for Frodo, Sam, and Pippin — first by scaring off the Black Rider that is pursuing them, and secondly by contacting Aragorn, Bombadil, and the Elvenfolk of Elrond at Rivendell (their kinsfolk) and telling them about Frodo’s flight and the pursuit.

Bombadil is thus one of those powers for good whom the Elves draw in to help Frodo and his companions. And while Frodo is protected by Bombadil the Nazgul make a failed attempt to seek him out in the Buckland. So the whole Bombadil episode keeps the story’s timeline flowing sensibly as the Nazgul are scattered across the countryside in their search for Baggins and the Ring.

Finally, while in Bombadil’s house Frodo has a few dreams that appear to be communications from either the Valar or Iluvatar. These dreams foreshadow events in Frodo’s future, such as Gandalf’s tale about his imprisonment in Isengard and Frodo’s own departure from Middle-earth aboard an Elven ship.

Ultimately, to tell the whole Bombadilian episode properly Peter might have had to extend the first movie by as much as 30 minutes to an hour. That was simply untenable. There is just too much story in The Lord of the Rings for any film-maker to be able to translate it all to a cinematic production in less than say 20-30 hours. Cutting Bombadil from the story in fact made the task of cutting other characters (such as Gildor and Glorfindel) from the story much easier, and Peter was able to invest his foreshadowing efforts into scenes and shots that were more easily compressed into a cinematic experience.

In my opinion “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” is probably the most faithful of the three movies to the books, but the first two movies do an excellent job of preserving and conveying many of the ideas that Tolkien wrote into The Lord of the Rings. The departures from the “canon” certainly upset many readers but at the end of the day we still have the books to enjoy, and now we also have the movies. We get the best of two very powerful, compelling story-tellers’ visions.

See also:

• Why Do You Say Tom Bombadil was Affected by the One Ring?
• Why Is Bombadil Always Left Out?
• What is Tom Bombadil?
• If I Only Had a Bombadil (Essay Archive)

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