I sympathize with your exasperation,
Essex. In a perfect world, I'd definitely love to have the Old Forest, Bombadil, and the Downs up on their feet. Maybe the ideal format for Rings isn't feature movies or even a miniseries, but a full-blown hour drama television series that ran for two or three seasons. Then you could really dig into the story and cover
everything.
I like all the reasons you cite for including Bombadil. As a practical matter, though, I can't see what else could go so easily while creating so few story problems. Maybe you have some ideas? How long do you imagine the sequence would have to be in order to do it justice? Do you think Jackson could have pulled off Bombadil? I ask these questions in sincere curiosity. I'd like to hear any ideas you have.
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Originally Posted by Essex
What I mean about it's strength is that as soon as the wearer puts it on (except for bilbo but there you go, it gives us an inconsistency) we have the eye of sauron on top of them.
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You only brush over the point, but I think it's a valid one -- with Jackson's compressed timeline and pumped up Ring power/Sauron connection, it sort of begs the question of why Bilbo doesn't suddenly have a giant peeper bearing down ("I see you!") when he wears the Ring. I also wonder if Bilbo sees the same scary, windy invisi-world that Frodo does. He seems awfully chipper when he takes the Ring off in Bag End. Maybe he's just become accustomed to how frightening it is through long experience over the years?
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Originally Posted by Essex
I can't win with you guys. I try to find reasons for things happening in the film from the text, and it still gets brushed aside.
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It's not about winning or losing -- we can have a talk about the movies without it being a contest. But on the point, if we take the movies as an adaptation
on their own terms, there's no very good explanation for why the Black Rider would be so easily fooled. It weakens them, I think. It's like Gandalf yelling at Saruman, "Your shoe is untied!", then scampering out of Orthanc while the Many-Coloured one is distracted. I wonder, since Jackson went to the trouble of shooting the "Wood-Elves", why he didn't use that bit for its proper story purpose.