Jackson's preemptive re-authoring

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2013)

Despite his devoted fascination with Tolkien's Hobbit tales, including The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (in point of fact, NOT a trilogy, according to Tolkien), which I happen to share, Jackson's presumption of re-authorship, by leaving out entire segments which he, in his not-so-much-wisdom, deemed irrelevant (to wit, "...Tom's meeting with the travelling hobbits did not advance the story, but rather held it up.") greatly damaged what could have been one of the best film versions of a great literary work. In point of fact, Tom Bombadil DID add important story elements, but that would escape those, such as Jackson, who are either unaware of, or incapable of grasping, the overall message of the allegory. Tolkien was a great Christian thinker and writer, and a member of a small literary group of like-minded academics which included C. S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia, and dozens of theological tomes), known as "The Inklings"); he was putting into literary fantasy form (initially, specifically for his children) the timeless struggle between good and evil, a good portion of which is embodied in and around Tom Bombadil.