Hey dol! Merry dol! Get lost Tom!!!

[mollecon]

As far as I know, Tom Bombadil was hardly in the novel to begin with - Tolkien put him in at a later stage in the writing.

As much as it would have been nice to have him in the movies, Tom and the chapters involving him was an obvious thing to cut out from a movie version. He really contributes very little to the main story, and would have stopped the flow in the movie, too. And, as other mentions, non-readers would have been confused - they had more than enough to keep track of already!

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I actually got that feeling with LOTR. I mean, he destroyed my mental picture of all the characters.

Funnily enough, the film captured my most of my mental images (of both people and places) perfectly. But that's by the by.

I don't think it would be very difficult to capture the visual image of Tom. Blue jacket, yellow boots, feather in hat, booming voice and big dark beard and you're there. The difficulty would be in finding an actor who could portray the right mix of levity and underlying power. He could very easily come across as laughable and ridiculous. As has been suggested on other threads, Brian "Gordon's Alive!" Blessed would look and sound the part, but I feel that (much as I admire the guy) he would probably come across as a buffoon.

In any event, I go with the majority. Tom's Chapters are fairly easy to omit without causing any major plot holes (the Barrow Blade is the only one I can think of) and there were more important things to include in the time available. And, well, I must admit that, enigmatic as he is, I too have always found Tom a tad annoying ...

[Boromir88]

Oooops, sorry SpM I just realized I said "all" the characters. I just ment the ones I basically mentioned, I do think the scenery was absolutely great, but I just pictured "some" of the characters differently. Like I said, I can't read LOTR anymore without picturing the actors, ahh that's bad.

[Encaitare]

I can't read LOTR anymore without picturing the actors, ahh that's bad.

I share the same plight... I'm gradually trying to kick blond-Legolas out of my head, and it's beginning to work. Next I'll have to get the proper mental images of dark-haired Faramir and Boromir (although that could be quite hard because I loved the way they were in the movies).

But this is getting OT... so, um, yeah, how 'bout that Tom Bombadil? As SpM said...

I don't think it would be very difficult to capture the visual image of Tom. Blue jacket, yellow boots, feather in hat, booming voice and big dark beard and you're there. The difficulty would be in finding an actor who could portray the right mix of levity and underlying power. He could very easily come across as laughable and ridiculous.

Well said. The look wouldn't be too hard; I rather like the Hildebrant version, so they possibly could have worked off that, but most people probably would have thought Tom was a complete idiot. Honestly, just because he chills in the woods all the time making up silly songs doesn't make him any less powerful...