Peter Jackson’s choice to remove Tom Bombadil from his adaptation of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings was not immune to some high-profile criticism.
One of the critiques of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was the decision to omit Tom Bombadil. In Tolkien’s novel, Tom Bombadil played an important role in helping Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin to escape the Old Forest after they were captured, first by Old Man Willow and then by the Barrow-wights. Despite this, there was some evidence that J.R.R. Tolkien may have agreed with this change to Lord of the Rings, ing the idea that it was ultimately the right decision.
Why Tolkien Might Agree With LOTR's Bombadil Change
The main reason for Tom Bombadil’s removal from the movie's narrative was essentially the need for the story to advance more rapidly than in the novel. In the director Peter Jackson explained,
“What does Old Man Willow contribute to the story of Frodo carrying the Ring? What does Tom Bombadil ultimately really have to do with the Ring? I know there’s Ring Stuff in the Bombadil episode, but it’s not really advancing our story”
Interestingly, while J.R.R Tolkien had written in his Letter No. 144 to Naomi Mitcheson, that Tom Bombadil “represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely,” he also claimed that “Tom Bombadil is not an important person – to the narrative.” In this way, the latter opinion certainly has some commonality with Peter Jackson’s ideas.
How Leaving Out Tom Bombadil Changed The Fellowship Of The Ring
Evidently, J.R.R. Tolkien believed that Tom Bombadil had a function to play in his novel and his role is certainly thematically rich. Nevertheless, this Fellowship of the Ring book change did make sense even though it profoundly altered the adaptation. More than anything, the removal of Tom Bombadil had the exact effect that Peter Jackson desired. As charming and whimsical as the Tom Bombadil episode was in the Lord of the Rings novel, it also slowed the story down. As a result, even though The Fellowship of the Ring was nearly 3 hours long there was indisputable narrative momentum throughout. More than this, the decision to Lord of the Rings allowed it to focus more tightly on the drama and peril of the Hobbits’ flight from The Shire as they sought to avoid the Nazgul/Ringwraiths.
While J.R.R. Tolkien was correct that Tom Bombadil was an intrinsic part of his Lord of the Rings, he was also correct that the character was relatively unimportant narratively. What the Tom Bombadil episode did offer was foreshadowing of multiple events in the trilogy, like Gandalf the Grey's imprisonment at Isengard, the contribution of the Ents, and even Frodo’s departure from Middle-earth. In addition, it also explained how the Elves of Rivendell knew that Frodo was traveling with the One Ring, a detail that was essentially ignored in the movie.
Despite this, the storytelling in The Fellowship of the Ring and the rest of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy didn’t suffer from this omission. In fact, it helped highlight the excellent job Peter Jackson did in faithfully maintaining the spirit of Tolkien’s work while telling the story uniquely. As such, it seems reasonable to assume that even J.R.R. Tolkien may have agreed that the mysterious Tom Bombadil’s absence from Lord of the Rings was for the best.
