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Tom Bombadil was one of the major omissions from previous adaptations of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, as he was left out of Peter Jackson’s live-action trilogy and Ralph Bakshi’s animated LOTR from 1978. Even Tolkien himself seemed to have trouble placing the enigmatic character in his own story, as he was powerful and also immune to the temptation of the One Ring. Now, Tom Bombadil is finally set to make his cinematic debut in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2.
Via Vanity Fair, Rory Kinnear will play Tom Bombadil in The Rings of Power. Kinnear’s previous roles include Bill Tanner in the last four James Bond movies as well as the Creature in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.
“He has no clear dramatic function that would justify his inclusion in a really great movie adaptation,” explained The Rings of Power co-showrunner Patrick McKay. “He’s whimsical and magical, and almost verging on silly. But also has the wisdom of the ages and the music of the spheres and deep emotional wells of ancient history and myth, and his conception and function are tied to Norse myths and have deep roots in European fairy tale. So weirdly, he’s kind of the most Lord of the Rings thing in Lord of the Rings, and also the first thing you would cut if you were adapting it as a film. But we have the advantage of a television show, and hence we are going to find a way to tap into that.”
McKay and his co-showrunner J.D. Payne also explained how Bombadil fits into Season 2’s story and his eventual meeting with the Stranger (Daniel Weyman).
“In our story, he has gone out to the lands of Rhûn, which we learn used to be sort of Edenic and green and beautiful, but now is sort of a dead wasteland,” said Payne. “Tom has gone out there to see what’s happened as he goes on his various wanderings.”
“When he finally crosses paths with the Stranger, you could say he has a desire to try to keep the destruction that has happened there from spreading to his beloved lands in the West,” added Payne. “He nudges the Stranger along his journey, which he knows will eventually protect the larger natural world that he cares about. So I’d say our Tom Bombadil is slightly more interventionist than you see in the books, but only by 5% or 10%.”
Despite being absent from the movies, Bombadil is a fan-favorite among readers of Tolkien’s books. He has appeared in LOTR video games, as well as Tolkien’s stand-alone book, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. For The Rings of Power, Bombadil’s presence will act as a counter to the overall darker tone of the second season.
“Season 1 set the pieces on the chessboard, and in Season 2 the pieces are in motion and it’s really about the villains,” said Payne. “Really, Tom is sort of a curiosity within that structure because while it is darker, Tom Bombadil is singing and saying lines that could be nursery rhymes from children’s poems. So he sort of defies the tonal shift of the rest of the season and is a real point of light amidst an otherwise sea of darkness.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 will premiere on Prime Video on August 29.
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