2004-01-14 - 12:34 a.m.
Well I've returned from seeing return of the king for merely the fifth time. I think I forgot to mention before that the scene where saruman's staff is broken is missing. In fact Saruman is missing entirely. Maybe they will include that along with the scene where Gandalf's staff breaks, and the one can add more weight to the other.
Also, of course, there is that whole bit in the book where the shire is corrupted and industrialized by saruman and Wormtongue, and the hobbits have to battle to retake it and free it from martial law. Then sam uses the magic earth that galadriel gave him to return the shire once again to a pastoral wonderland. Of course theres no way they're including all that in the directors cut. I completely understand and even appreciate why that wouldn't fit into the movie. Maybe they'll have some sort of spiritual nod to that, like they did when they gave Treebeard some of Bombadil's lines in the extended Two Towers. I won't start on Bombadil, I've seen many a heated debate on that subject bring fellow nerds nearly to blows. People are passionate about their Tolkein.
Okay maybe I will start on Bombadil. In my opinion, though I would have loved to have seen that whole sequence with the old forest, bombadil, and then the barrow wights in it's proper place between the bree scene and the weathertop scene, I don't think it's critical to the story, and the ideas that bombadil represents are repeated over and over again in other characters. Bombadil is an ancient, romantic character, as old as time and as powerful as a god. Also, his powers are deeply tied to nature. Who else has these characteristics? In ascending order: First theres Aragorn. He's been around for quite a while and seen a lot. He was raised by the elves and spends much of his time in the forests. He has the ability to heal grievous wounds with the aid of the athelas plant. Second, there is Gandalf, who is some thousand years old, and has wisdom to spare. His magic is closely tied to nature, he can speak to animals, control fire, etc... Third are the elves, Galadriel, Elrond, Celeborn, and all their kin. The elves are the very embodiment of nature, and they are all immortal, thousands of years old, they all have superhuman abilities, they can talk to trees, they are telepathic, and so on. And finally on my off the cuff and probably very incomplete list, is Treebeard. He is as old as time itself, as wise as his roots are deep, extremely powerful of course, and if he isn't the ultimate champion of nature, I don't know who is. In fact Bombadil would probably come into thet list just above the elves and below treebeard, though I'll leave it to the true tolkein scholars who've memorized the silmarilion to argue over who exactly is the oldest and most powerful being. So in summary, I love Tom Bombadil, and his yellow boots and whimsical songs, and I would have loved to see him, but the ancient nature spirit motif is well represented in a plethora of other characters, and if they had to cut someone out due to time or editing constraints, I would rather it be him than any of the other characters I listed.
I know there are those who see his exclusion as sacrelige, and hate all the other changes made to the movies too. I'll make my own version of the movie for those purists, it will be just the text of the books scrolling slowly by and nothing more. I think thats the only thing that would satisfy some people I know. I love the books, and I love the movies, each for their own merits. There comes a point when you should just let yourself enjoy a good thing for its own sake.
That's my opinion anyway. Feel free to call me out on my mistakes. I'm working just from my own memory here. And when you're done telling me how truly wrong I am, you should come see that movie with me for the sixth time.
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