Overtaxed wrote: Probably because Bilbo's only purpose at the Council was to tell his part of the "Ring" story and in the movie, that was told in the prologue.
I also think it was logistics. Ian Holm was available for 2 short weeks for filming (if I'm remembering that right), so they probably had to be pretty selective about what scenes to have Bilbo in. Have you noticed that all of his scenes in Rivendell are with only Frodo? It's entirely possible that they couldn't coordinate everyone else's schedule at that point. For one thing, Viggo was a late addition to the cast, for another, Ian McKellan was having to work around his X-Men schedule, and those are just the scheduling logistics that I've heard about.
Also, if they'd had Bilbo seated at the Council, they would have had to give him some lines, and then they'd be trying to squeeze even more into what is essentially a very "static" scene, for a movie of this type. I think ultimately the reason for no Bilbo at the Council was because of all of those factors.
All that being said, I wish he could have been there, but I can see why he wasn't included.
I FINALLY have a few minutes to post, and everyone else has suddenly decided to get a life....
Don't mind me, I'll just go pout in Took's Corner, which is suddenly terribly lonely....
;)