[Jonty30]

I don’t think there was any way that Tom Bombadil could have been in the story without leaving the viewer confused as to the danger of the ring and probably would have hurt the box office take.

But I think the Scouring should have been in the storyline to show that Hobbits weren’t as helpless as it seemed and that Saruman was still dangerous, even when he was at his weakest.

[Unknowing]

I missed the Scouring chapter. It showed what to do when confronted by tyranny, not only by the foreign enemy Saruman but his traitorous Hobbit followers as well. We here, especially, should “hold these truths to be self-evident. . . “ I think the omission was political correctness on Jackson’s part.

The churl with the pumpkin and the four heroes sullenly quaffing beer was as anti-climatic as possible.

[Vanders9]

I agree. The animated version and the BBC version both left Tom Bombadil out. Its just too complicated and confusing for an audience, and too much of a sideline to leave in, in spite of how interesting the character is.

The problem with the scouring of the shire is that, in spite of how important it is (not the least because it emphasises our own much more limited fight against evil) on screen it would appear as an anticlimax after the destruction of the ring. If Jackson's epic had been a 13 part TV series rather than three films it would have been ok, but its not.

[OriginalChristian]

I completely agree with you about the scouring. Its as if, in PJ’s perspective, the Hero Hobbits went back to their daily lives in the Shire. Tolkein tells a much different ending, albeit it takes some time to tell. The Hobbits were changed, externally as well as internally, emotionally as well as spiritually. JP’s ending addresses the grief and sadness at Frodo’s departure, but it doesn’t begin to address the Heroes role in the Shire at the Scouring, the rebuilding and the ongoing past 1420 SR.