Why is there no mention Of old forest in lord Of the rings : fellowship Of the ring ?

[Harjyot]

While watching lord Of the rings the fellowship Of the ring , i saw many changes in the movie from the book and biggest Of all there was no mention Of old forest and tom bombadilo why ?

 

[cathrl69]

It was already a very long movie. They chopped out the one self-contained segment of the story, since it makes basically no difference to anything else which happens.

 

[irenei]

The timing and pacing of the story.Peter Jackson said that if Frodo and his friends went from absolute terror of trying to get rid of the ring to frolicking with Tom Bombadil,well,whats good for a book is not always good for a movie that was already over three hours long.I am sure many hardcore fans would not mind sitting through a 5 hour or more movie that covered every part of the book,but for some of us the excitement came from the fact that they had to get from point A to point B and
how much of a threat could the ring really be in the movie if they stopped to have tea?

 

[SoapboxJon]

Sadly there was no mention of this because Peter Jackson (the director) felt that a.) The Tom Bombadilo story added little to the overall story and b.) It would make the film far too long.

I disagree and think novel to film is usually quite inaccurate and removes something from the original source. The film took much of its guidance from the BBC radio drama which too cut out poor Old Tom, the Old Forest and the Barrow Wights.