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Originally Posted by Bêthberry
I disagree with Morth's idea that Tolkien would not mind the omission of Bombadil; I think that's a guess rather than a given. While we often focus on Tom's nonsense as something immaterial to the plot, I think we overlook the important point the Bombadil episode adds: that Tom is immune to the influence of the Ring. It might not be a major point to the story but it helps to increase the mystique and mystery of the Ring itself and makes Frodo succumbing to it that much more tragic and conflicted. It also helps establish the long history of the mythology, the mythic sweep that intrigues many readers. Even Goldberry's washing day helps to establish that mythic time frame, to say nothing of the treacherous Old Man Willow in the frightening forest; in fairy tales and old lore, forests are scary places and weather is not a natural or metrological phenomenon (see Caradhras for personification of the natural environment), and so there are intimations of the later threats with Ents and Huorns. Jackson, in my memory of the movies (which I haven't watched in years), mostly overlooks this tantalizing aspect of the narrative, that there is more, far more, than this one vanquishing of evil and that the world is not something which humans control.
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Well, in my defense, I did offer caveats to the conjecture overall. Tolkien did, on several occasions, remark that Bombadil was an "insertion" into L.R. --
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J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #237, 12 April 1962:
At any rate it performs the service of further 'integrating' Tom with the world of the L.R. into which he was inserted.
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Not to belabor the point further with addenda and ponderous quotations, I believe Tolkien would understand the concept of movie time compression, given that the film trilogy was over 9 hours as it was, and tacitly forgiven the Bombadil omission for concision in storytelling; however, as I stated previously, he would not, in any way, shape or form, have forgiven Jackson with deleting aspects wholesale of the original story and replacing them with fan-fictional nonsense (like nearly 1/3 of
The Two Towers film, for instance).
You simply cannot omit Tom Bombadil yet insert a mind-bogglingly idiotic sequence of an orc attack during the flight from Meduseld to Helm's Deep and have Aragorn being dragged off a cliff by a warg only to be wakened afterwards by the amorous kiss of his horse, or Faramir spending a ridiculous amount of time dragging the Hobbits back to Osgiliath only to suddenly remember he wasn't a complete douche bag and release Frodo and Sam after all.
P.S. On further consideration, I think Jackson also did a disservice to the Hobbits by having Saruman killed at Orthanc. One of the complaints of the films by critics was the numerous "endings" of the story. In part, the conclusion of the film was taken completely out of context, and the true intent of the Hobbits returning home was totally obliterated when they were not allowed to prove that they had "grown up" (after all, L.R. was a coming of age tale at its heart). The "Scouring of the Shire" being eliminated removed an important plot point of the books, showing the Fellowship Hobbits had become formidable and could right wrongs without wizards, elves, dwarves and royal men.