[Diehard Tolkien fans continually lament the fact that, both times the trilogy was brought to the screen, the Bombadil scene was left out. What's the Bombadil scene? Early on in the book Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin are rescued by Tom Bombadil, an eccentric character with yellow boots and mystical powers. Bombadil shelters the hobbits in his home and introduces them to his girlfriend, the beautiful Goldberry, Daughter of the River.
Though not crucial to the plot - nearly unwarranted, come to think of it - the Bombadil chapters do advance the reader's overall knowledge of the Middle Earth pantheon. And who's not in favor of that?
Anyway, being a reasonable facsimile of diehard Tolkien fans, we hereby present the long-neglected Bombadil scene, as it might be conceived by some of our favorite movie directors.]
THE BOMBADIL SCENE
as directed by Woody Allen
[Central Park on a nice New York day. Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin walking through the woods. Jazzy classic Tin Pan Alley songs in background.]
Frodo: I tell you, bias against Hobbits is just anti-semitism in fantasyland terms!
Sam: Frodo, Middle Earth is whole lot better than Brooklyn these days. We should move there.
Frodo: What, and give up 24 hour a day access to Garfinkle the Blue, my personal wizard/shrink?
Sam: You're a Hobbit, you don't have any neuroses except involving when your next meal is.
Frodo: But there are no temples in Middle Earth. What will my rabbi say? And whoever heard of a circumsized Hobbit?
[Caught up in their bickering, they fail to notice the sinister, gentile-looking trees and are trapped in their roots.]
Frodo: Help, help. Nature is in revolt. Nature is revolting!
Sam: If only Mayor Koch had sold the timber rights to the Park ....
[Enter Tom Bombadil (played by Scarlett Johanssen or whomever Woody's current idea of a shiksa goddess is)]
Bombadil: Hey, Jews in trees. Get out of there. This ain't Purim you know. [Knocks on tree, which releases the hobbits.]
Frodo: For a moment I thought I needed to say Kaddish in Elvish. Thanks. Can I invite you to have an intellectual if neurotic affair which will inevitably end because of your incapacity to accomodate the fact that I'm only 3' 6"?
Bombadil: Only if you promise to go meet my WASP parents in Gondor.
Sam: Gondor? They say you can't get a pastrami on rye in Gondor.
Frodo: And is it true that Numenorean women don't believe in sex after marriage?
Bombadil: Oy.
- Anthony
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