by 3 hours ago
ANSWERS: 3
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In movies they only have so much time to tell stories. Because of this, when you go from a book to a movie parts of the book almost have to be cut out in order to fit the story into the time allotted. In the case of Lord of the Rings and Tom Bombadil, that part of the story was really not necessary to the overall story. It was really just a little side adventure that the Hobbits had on their way to Bree. The only thing of any significance that came out of that whole Old Forest/Burrow Mound part of the adventure was that that was how the Hobbits got the swords that most of them carried for most of the rest of the adventure. Having Aragorn simply give them swords at the inn in Bree covered that part of the story in a much less time consuming way that allowed us to get on with the main part of the story at that point, namely the journey Rivendell. So, while the visit with Tom Bombadil was an interesting story, it was left out of the movie because it really wasn't necessary to the overall story.
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Because the character had a very poetic presence that couldn't be accurately transformed to a big screen, American-esque movie. Peter Jackson wanted to twist the story around to suit the free market and comply with a current, wider contextual narrative, which meant extending fight scenes to ridiculous lengths, tainting authentic characterisation and created some of his own (consider how he made Merry and Pippin into comic relief), and cutting out many characters and dialogue. Tom Bombadil was just too surreal for the man who once directed "Braindead".
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I actually disliked the character of Tom Bombadil in LOTR and was glad to see him omitted. He spoke in verse, and his poetry was AWFUL. It was doggerel - didn't even scan. He was supposed to be the eldest, and innocent, but he was a clown. Hope I'm not offending anyone, but in LOTR, I found the Bombadil interlude disruptive in tone and narrative flow.
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