![]() ![]() Since The Lord of the Rings was off-limits via being banned, they were left with the monstrous, scary version from The Hobbit. Yes, the Soviets took a stab at The Hobbit. Gollum may be pitiable, but he is also a mentally-disturbed cannibal. On the other hand, this still isn’t as Tolkien imagined him (we’ll get to that), and he feels insufficiently threatening. Following on from the prologue variant, one could definitely imagine this Gollum as an ex-hobbit, which makes him fine for his role in The Lord of the Rings – he’s simultaneously a study in redemption, and a warning about the power of the Ring. In contrast to Snyder or Rankin-Bass, this one is actually supposed to be pitiable, rather than monstrous. One of these borrowings is the portrayal of Gollum, where we see him as deformed humanoid in a loincloth. One of these days, I might get around to looking at how Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings borrows from Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 effort. (iv) 1978 Bakshi Gollum II: The Animation ![]() It’s also a very brief appearance, so there is not much to comment on, beyond my sense that this Gollum resembles a Morlock from George Pal’s 1960 adaptation of The Time Machine:Ĭonsidering that the Morlocks are cannibal humans deformed by millennia of living in underground caves, this would be highly appropriate. This Gollum is only seen in the prologue section of Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings (1978), and we only see his (shadowy) human actor, rather than the rotoscoped animation. While I do personally prefer a weirder look for the character, this Gollum is simply too non-human to communicate what should be a key theme. The Gollum of The Return of the King is supposed to be a pitiable deformed proto-hobbit… but no amount of Ring-induced corruption could conceivably turn a hobbit into this. A frog monster with the Ring might serve in The Hobbit, where he is just that. This Gollum reappears in Rankin-Bass’ The Return of the King (1980), where things are even worse. Sure, he lives around water… but in contrast to the 1966 Gollum, I genuinely don’t look at this creature and think of him as a fish-obsessed cannibal. The 1977 Rankin-Bass Hobbit remains the best adaptation of the book, but Eru alone knows what the animators were doing when they turned Gollum into a frog monster. Exchanging riddles with this Gollum – can you imagine being eaten by this thing – would traumatise anyone. Seriously, Snyder missed an opportunity by cutting the Riddle Game. ![]() He’s extremely creepy, in a mad and twisted sort of way – rather than being the sort of pitiful creature one associates with the character in The Lord of the Rings, he’s something one would want to run away from. Alas, I have only seen seven of them, since the Jackanory BBC adaptation of The Hobbit (1979) has never been released again, so far as I know.Ĭonsidering that they couldn’t even get his name right, and that the film barely counts as a Tolkien adaptation, the 1966 Gollum might be my favourite representation. There are eight screen Gollums of which I am aware, not counting pre-Ring Sméagols. How, then, to visually capture this weird and elusive figure… While I do intend to eventually post a wider Gollum analysis, today I thought I would take a look at how the adaptions handle him – it is all very well to throw up vague literary descriptions (and Tolkien’s writings are often a bit shadowy here), but the screen does not have that luxury. ![]() No-one could suggest the same of Gollum, with his six teeth and webbed feet. Denethor and Feanor have their idiosyncrasies, yes, but both look normal. Tolkien’s Gollum is one of his most memorable characters, and this memorability is reinforced by the character’s distinctive appearance. ![]()
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