Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[Sauron the White]

You don't like the use of his primary colors so he should just be dumped?

Meriadoc ... you have completely misrepresented my objectionS to Bombadil. Primary colors indeed!!!!!

For your benefit, and in the interests of completeness and debate integrity, I give you again my reasons from an earlier post that you may have either missed or overlooked:

1- The way he is described by JRRT, he simply looks goofy, stupid, dumb, foolish, silly, cartoonish, childish, and just plain funny looking. I cut back on the adjectives because I do not want to come off as mean spirited. Of all the characters JRRT created TB is the absolute worst visually. Films are foremost a visaul medium. What good would it have been to hire people like John Howe and Alan Lee and a host of other artists, illustrators, designers, model makers, and other creative visual talents only to have the absurd figure of TB appear on the same screen? It would be like serving a fabulous six course dinner in a five star restaurant only to have one of the dishes smell of vomit.


2- Tolkien bases his story on the idea of the Ring. What it is, how powerful it is, how it can control everyone who comes in contact with it, how it can tip the fate of the peoples of Middle-earth, and its history. Just when we have bought into the idea that this ring is the be all and end all of the everything, we then get introduced to a character who does not care about the ring, can wear it without being impacted by it in the least, cares nothing for it, and will not do anything to help with the central problem of the ring. Then the story moves on, leaving TB in his version of Disneyland, and nothing more happens with him. It is absolutely pointless.

Others here, defending TB, have said he is a colorful character who adds to the rich tapestry of Middle-earth and shows the wide variety of beings that inhabited it. Any being would fill that role. It does not have to be something which is so visually hideous or so meaningless to the story or plot or its advance or its resolution.

3- If Bombadil would have been hard on the eyes he would have been equally grating on the ears spouting doggerel such as:

"Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo.
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow"

I can hear every comedian on late night TV doing a bit about dongs and dillos from the LOTR films. That would have had the audience either in embarassed titters or outright stitches.

So much for Bombadil.

Allow me to also point out that the negative opinion on Bombadil is not exclusive from the pro-film crowd. There have been other posts, both here and elsewhere, of people who were glad TB was not in the films.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I can hear every comedian on late night TV doing a bit about dongs and dillos from the LOTR films. That would have had the audience either in embarassed titters or outright stitches.

So much for Bombadil.

It might be pointed out that Gollem was used in a major American TV broadcast using objectionable language for humorous effect. It had the audience in stitches--at least those who weren't offended by a major character of Tolkien's using language which he would never have countenanced in his character's mouth. So making fun of Bombadil wouldn't necessarily mean anything other than an opportunity for more publicity.

Leaving Bombadil out is neither here nor there for me. It has it's drawbacks, such as omitting a character who is immune to the Ring's influence and the subtle hints that the hobbits are in for more than they yet really appreciate. Yet I can also understand the omission from FotR given time constraints.

However, to reply to the criticism that Bombadil is so completely alien to LotR's Middle-earth as to render visual representation impossibly ludicrous, I offer this very fitting, very Shire-friendly portrait of The House of Bombadil by Alan Lee. (My own tastes do not lend themselves to the depictions by, for example, the Hidebrant brothers.) Amidst all the harrowing incidents on the journey to destroy the Ring, it is easy to overlook the fact that Tolkien does provide scenes of significant respit, The House of Bombadil being the first. To lessen the sites of relief represents an interpretation based more on (supposedly) PJ's own philosophical world vision than on Tolkien's. I don't offer Alan Lee's drawing as a definitive representation, but as an example of how Bombadil could have been represented as consistent within the LotR universe. The inclusion of the rainbow suggests just one way in which for Tolkien "hope" remained important.

[Meriadoc1961]

Sauron the /White,

I do not believe I said I was directing my comments specifically to you, but I apologize if that is how you felt. I intentionally did not use quotation marks because I did not wish to single any individual out, but someone in this thread at some point used the words "primary colors" in describing his or her dislike visually of Tom Bombadil.

Secondly, I do not believe I said I was directing my comments towards the "pro-film crowd." I directed my comments to people, and in fact, I actually said "...how people can read the LotR...." So in this case, if anyone should be offended (and I certainly am not wishing to offend anyone, but I apologize if I have), it would be the numerous readers of the book who object to Tom Bombadil.

The "you" I used in my post's second paragraph is a generic you pronoun that refers back to its antecedent, which in this case is the noun "people." I did not quote anyone in particular when I said "primary colors," because I felt that this expression pretty much encompassed the prevailing thought, if not the exact words, of many who had objected to Tom Bombadil, and as I said earlier, I did not wish to single out any particular individual.

Here is what I previously posted:

"I am amazed how people can read the LotR and not see how utterly significant and important Tom Bombadil is.

"You don't like the use of his primary colors so he should just be dumped? As Charlie Brown would say, 'Good grief!' Bombadil is the essence and embodiment of hope, and the inspiration for Sam and Frodo to continue on their quest at all costs to themselves.

"As Goldberry said, 'He is.'

"Merry"

Sauron, once again, sorry if you thought I was singling you out. I wasn't. I respect what you say and how you say it. You and so many others on this list are extremely intelligent and challenging intellectually. It is a real pleasure being a part of this group.

Merry

[Sauron the White]

Meriadoc... no problem and no explaination is neccessary - but appreciated. I did use the phrase primary colors in a far earlier post. I guess I did not like having my three point post reduced to two words. No harm no foul.

And I like it here also.

Bethberry... I have always like that Alan Lee illustration from the big red edition of LOTR. Notice that Lee selected architecture as his focal point and shunned the visual of Bombadil himself. I cannot speak for Mr. Lee - but it seems a very wise decision.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Bethberry... I have always like that Alan Lee illustration from the big red edition of LOTR. Notice that Lee selected architecture as his focal point and shunned the visual of Bombadil himself. I cannot speak for Mr. Lee - but it seems a very wise decision.

Wise of course than none of us can speak for Alan Lee as we can't say that he choose The House of Bombadil because he rejected depicting Tom. The chapter after all is called In the House of Tom Bombadil and the evocation of place seems to me to be Lee's great talent in his Tolkien illustrations. In fact, most chapter titles in LotR emphasise place or event rather than character; indeed, in this book, of the twelve chapter titles, only one is given to a character (Strider).

Despite your feelings that Tom's description is unfortunate, many have found this enigmatic character's description something worth putting to ink, paint and paper (as well as more contemporary methods of illustration). To my mind, the least successful is probably one of the first attempted, that by the Brothers Hildebrant, which often "sets" the style many think of as Tom. Yet their work lies in a particular style and vein of folk art and there is more to Tom than their sentimental rustic style captures.

Here are just a few attempts, which may or may not tickle your fancy. They do suggest, however, that Tom tickles many other people's imagination.







. . . to be continued in a next post, due to the limitations on images . . .

[Bêthberry]

. . . continuing on . . .

In fact, there are several images of Tom in computer games devoted to LotR. Perhaps Tom holds a special appeal for gamers?





And of course there are those who cannot resist the urge to recreate Middle-earth in Lego.




If these other artists can be drawn to depict Tom, why could not PJ attempt it also? It seems to me to be a limitation in his imagination/interpretation of Tolkien to forgo the attempt to depict an enigmatic character and a place of unusual fairie elements. Although of course I don't have access to Jackson's internal thought processes and can merely make suppositions about the absence of the House of Bombadil from the film.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

And there's the rub. One of the main reasons why films and books cannot be the same. Now putting aside my view of what you say here (I'm not sure I agree with it 100%) - how CAN a director show that the Bilbo's look is something that only Frodo 'sees' and not what actually 'happened'. without a narrator to tell us this detail it can;t work.

Sure it can. One only has to create an 'unreality' vibe over the whole (Frodo-POV) frame- which is what PJ himself *did* with Arwen's entrance, and (excessively) every time Frodo put the Ring on. Depicting the protagonist's experience of being drunk/drugged/ill/whatever is one of the oldest tools in the director's box.



At any rate, that scene (though overdone and devoid of subtlety) doesn't bother me in itself- but it's an indication of PJ's misunderstanding of the Ring which led to his perversion of Faramir later.

And the Osgiliation not only inverted Faramir's resistance to temptation (I never said he wasn't, just that he didn't act on it), but also led to the utterly preposterous scene of Frodo offering the Ring to the Nazgul, a scene which makes absolutely no sense even in terms of PJ's movies, much less the books. Supposedly the same audience which couldn't accept Faramir resisting the lure of the Ring is expected to swallow whole the idea that, having seen that Frodo is non compos mentis and liable to hand over the ultimate weapon to the first Evil Minion he runs across, on that basis changes his mind and sets him loose. Bah!

Again, much better PJ had developed Faramir's character- which he doesn't do at all. All PJ shows us of Faramir is that Daddy hates him, and he's something of a bully.