Should Tom Bombadil make an appearance in an screen adaptation eventually?

Preeetty sure he has blue boots.

Edit: darnit they are yellow.

Hey, I just noticed all this talk of a TV series. How did I miss it all!?!?

Anyway, my two bits worth. Give me Tom Bombadil in all his glory. And all of you who don’t love and want Bombadil... well, as a severe - but somewhat inattentive - Moderator, I plan to hunt you all out and Ban you for a Life from Forumshire.

What Amarie has been doing while I haven’t been doing what respectable Moderators should have been doing all along - that is' Banning Any proposed Tolkien TV series and all talk of them! - I might never know. I suspect she has ducked her responsibilities! Gone soft. Amarie wasn’t always soft. I remember those days when she ruled Dark Planet with an iron fist!  

A "Bring back Bombadil" campaign is needed. He was in my mind before I saw the "Fellowship" & was royally pee'd off that he wasn't in the films. I remember saying I was looking forward to seeing him & coming away wondering why he wasn't ! Its a mad world.

Maybe we should split Forumshire into two parts. The Purists and the ones who should be killed but we can’t so  let’s give them their own Forum.... [Once they are inside, we can lock the doors behind them]

I don’t know I want Jackson anywhere near Bombadil, mind...

Peejers had the Witches, one on each shoulder whispering delights & trinkets into his ear. He would no doubt have fucked it up. Boyens is as mad as a box of frogs, Walsh is a Hydra. All are in the wrong place in the wrong time. I cant help but think if Peejers was left alone to do manly things with manly men around him we might ( slim but ? ) might have got different films. When the Hobbshit came out it felt like he was poisoned beyond repair ! Hallucinating & running for an antidote !

No, PJ should not be let near Bombadil, but can you imagine what would have happened if Petty got his wish and David Lynch go his hands on Bombadil?    I really think the Northern Exposure folks need to do Bombadil.

I have an opinion which does not belong here at all on this particular thread, so, in true Forumshire tradition, I’ll go ahead and give it...

I think parts of the very early stages of The Hobbit (at Bag End) had real merit. El Toro, or whatever his name is, I think read The Hobbit and actually had a proper go at portraying Tolkien right.... I swear I can tell you what bits PJ and the Coven put in. They were unnecessary bits and not Tolkien at all.... as the film progressed, it got particularly horrible. I still haven’t even seen movie three. Movie two I saw once. Movie one I watched twice... but only because El Toro clearly did some of the earlier parts, no bull!

So, getting back to this thread, we need someone to give us a Bombadil like Tolkien described. It ain’t hard. It would work.

Can but agree, even after all this time.

I still think it's too difficult. It sort of turns into a Broadway/Disney dream sequence as everyone is singing and then suddenly it's back to normal.

{{ You should go watch the purist hobbit edits then Orwell, as from your alnalysis it contains all the Del Toro stuff till the end, and hardly any PJ! }}

Del Toro wanted a female elf for the same reasons the coven did. He also wanted to shovel in more of the LotR cast.

https://screenrant.com/hobbit-movies-canceled-del-toro-secrets-facts-trivia/

ALL of the LotR cast apparently, what a strange idea!

{{ I can never decide with Toro  if we missed out on an interesting adaptation of the book, or if it wouldnt have mattered which bullet we tried to dodge here we were still getting a pile of shite full in the face! }}

I have a feeling Del Toro would have been as bad. Having seen his work after the first film, he tends to rehash his imagery so you can tell it is one his films.

as for Bombadil with the right actor it could be done well and without the potential for Disney. if they chose Jim Broadbent it would work, because he can do loveable or sinister at the flick of a switch, and he has those blue eyes. Watching him act in Harry Potter and Sky Atlas, he can be amazingly ambiguous, you don't know whether he is a friendly old hippy with yellow boots or an unpredictable, untameable and ancient magical being, and that is what you need for Bombadil.

Ive seen Mathew Kelly play deep, dark characters. Im sure he played a serial killer on TV ? He can be nutty funny one minute & then go all broody the next.

Bombadil doesn't brood. He's deep but never dark.

Matthew Kelly is a bit heavy-set and taurine for Bombadil, he reminds me of Shrek, you need someone whimsical and quicksilver.

Forest Shepherd wrote: If more people prized laughter and singing over decapitations of goblins and boot-lickers with uni-brows, the Tolkien movie-verse would be a merrier world!

Why can't elves perch in the tree-tops and make jokes about the dwarves' beards in between catches of song? Would that be so terrible?!? But nOo, they're the warrior race that eats lettuce and knows things.

Mrs Figg wrote:I have a feeling Del Toro would have been as bad. Having seen his work after the first film, he tends to rehash his imagery so you can tell it is one his films.

as for Bombadil with the right actor it could be done well and without the potential for Disney. if they chose Jim Broadbent it would work, because he can do loveable or sinister at the flick of a switch, and he has those blue eyes. Watching him act in Harry Potter and Sky Atlas, he can be amazingly ambiguous, you don't know whether he is a friendly old hippy with yellow boots or an unpredictable, untameable and ancient magical being, and that is what you need for Bombadil.

Interesting. Whatever the case, I think it could be done with the right director and the right actor.

azriel wrote:Ive seen Mathew Kelly play deep, dark characters. Im sure he played a serial killer on TV ? He can be nutty funny one minute & then go all broody the next.

And Tom is jolly, full of zest, not to ridiculous. A weird thought just flashed into my head: Radagast in the early bit of the Hobbit. Not exactly, but you know... Hated that...but as Bombadil. Obviously, not saying exactly like that, but it’s almost there.... mmm... I’d have to watch the movie again to see if I just didn’t go nuts just then... but I’d be nuts to even to go and watch the movie again.

Elthir wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote: If more people prized laughter and singing over decapitations of goblins and boot-lickers with uni-brows, the Tolkien movie-verse would be a merrier world!

Why can't elves perch in the tree-tops and make jokes about the dwarves' beards in between catches of song? Would that be so terrible?!? But nOo, they're the warrior race that eats lettuce and knows things.

Not sure the elves were actually in the treetops. In the trees, or high up, in the trees, as in, high up the valley??? Curious. Otherwise, why not? How it’s in the book, I mean.

Tree-middles?

Probably not tree-bottoms. But in any case I think Tree-Tops goes well enough with Terrible and leTTuce and Tom and ediT and darniT and booTs.

Elthir wrote:Tree-middles?

Probably not tree-bottoms. But in any case I think Tree-Tops goes well enough with Terrible and leTTuce and Tom and ediT and darniT and booTs.

At the risk of being serious, and therefore out of character (for me), i always thought the elves were just high up the valley side ‘among’ the trees. Or something. Read that book probably ten times, but not for quite a few years. Maybe I need some read it again!

We are told they are "in the trees", and reading it as a kid who was wont to climb trees, I always took it that the elves were hanging and swinging in the trees as they sang. This is why we get voices but no real visual descriptions of the elves. But maybe that's because it's twilight.

But if you want a real question, how did the elves know the names of Mr Baggins, Balin and Dwalin? We don't hear of Gandalf talking to any elf messengers, or pre-announcements of a trip being made.