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If I only had a Bombadil...

© Michael Martinez

I promised the people on Xenite.Org's Middle-earth mailing list that I'd write something about Bombadil this week. So, let me start out by saying that the recent revelation that a second "X-Men" DvD may be produced with extra scenes for the first movie has gotten me to thinking. Maybe Peter Jackson can do a Bombadil segment after all. Not that I want to start getting up everyone's hopes. Nor do I want to inspire any more petitions. Principal photography is about to wrap up in a couple more weeks and, yes, they will do some extra filming afterwards, but Jackson seemed to make it clear long ago he didn't think Bombadil is important to the story. So what incentive does he have to do a Bombadil sequence for an anticipated "Fellowship of the Ring" DvD? Well, let's dispense with all this "faithful to Tolkien" themism and consider that a Bombadil sequence would afford Jackson an opportunity to extend his vision of Middle-earth to include the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs. Regardless of who howls and gnashes their teeth over the absence of Tolkien's beloved spirit of the vanishing Oxford countryside, the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs themselves are vital parts of the literary story. The Old Forest, like Sam's revelation of a walking tree in the Northfarthing, prepares the reader for the Ents and Huorns later on in the literary story. I suppose one could ask if there is any need to prepare the viewing audience for walking trees. I dunno. We already have some vague idea of how the story ends. Why bother preparing us for that with films 1 and 2? The Barrow-downs is a more complicated episode. In the literary story Gandalf noted that this was the most dangerous escapade Frodo experienced on his journey to Rivendell. People often wonder how this could be (well, in my email they do -- just like they wonder if that walking tree was an Ent, and no, sorry, I don't know). Why is the Barrow-wight a worse evil than the Nazgul at Weathertop? I would say that's because the Wight actually had Frodo and the Ring in its power. The Nazgul went in with a half-baked plan to stab Frodo and turn him into a wraith. Of course, they had to make it up as they went along. Strider (Aragorn) had thrown them for a loop, and it was only a guess that he would head there. Undoubtedly when they found Gandalf there days before (and I'm talking about the literary story right now) they were reassured that their guess was correct. That's why five of the boys sat around watching the road.