Would Gollum have been better unanimated?

[Sauron the White]

from Galendor

As far as stunts go, I doubt Orlando Bloom can actually swing around a brontosaurus-sized oiliphant and slide down its trunk, but he appeared to do so in the movie. There are obviously movie-magic methods of making it appear as if the human actor performs inhuman feats

You do realize that in order to do this Bloom spent the better part of a day or two hanging from ropes on walls and doing some very strenuous and athletic things so the filmmakers could get what they wanted? I do not imagine that a emaciated 85 pound actor could perform the various strenuous and athletic antics necessary to capture the movements of Gollum.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

You do realize that in order to do this Bloom spent the better part of a day or two hanging from ropes on walls and doing some very strenuous and athletic things so the filmmakers could get what they wanted? I do not imagine that a emaciated 85 pound actor could perform the various strenuous and athletic antics necessary to capture the movements of Gollum.

I've seen an actor who is also an accomplished gymnast do a fascinating Gollem on stage--no it wasn't that dreadful musical but a play based on The Hobbit some years prior to the movies coming out. He was taller than I would have imagined Gollem, but his movements were fascinating, credible, utterly convincing. I can also think of several dancers, also trained actors, who could do it.

It would have been more respectful of Tolkien's mythology, I think, to have a human actor portray Gollem and not have this tortured soul depicted like a cartoon character. Not that I'm against cartoons by any means, but it lessened the ethical issue by distancing the character from Frodo and the others.

[Sauron the White]

Bethberry ... yes, I understand what you are saying and saw much the same thing with the Toronto actor who played Gollum. I do think there is a huge difference between a lean actor on stage and a character in a movie who is 40 feet tall. On stage you can get away with a great deal due to make-up and lighting effects and the audience is so much farther away. The actors appear so much "smaller than life". The opposite is true in a film. Because of the size of the screen, actors are many times larger than life. You just cannot take someone who is more or less of normal build and turn them into an 85 pound emaciated concentration camp victim, then ask them to do acrobatic and athletic feats and fool anybody into thinking its real.

What this really comes down to is NOT the idea of a CGI character or a real actor or animation or anything else. It comes down to the question of did Gollum in the film work as presented? For me, and I can only speak for myself, it was a huge success. It worked perfectly and I could not ask for more. The Jackson idea of taking Andy Serkis and filming him as Gollum and then layering the CGI character over that was an ideal combination of the two approaches.

[Elladan and Elrohir]

I think, too, that there is a wide range of opinion regarding how realistic Gollum looks on screen. Bethberry describes him as "a cartoon character", and other Downers have similar views. Again, don't want to discount that, but my viewings of the film have never broken the suspension of disbelief in Gollum. Even now that I've watched the BTS documentaries and seen indepth exactly how they brought him to screen, I have never thought he looks the least bit unrealistic or out of place in the film next to Elijah Wood and Sean Astin.
I do think that calling him a cartoon character is a bit disrespectful to the work done by WETA Digital. So is putting him in the same class with Jar-Jar Binks. Gollum revolutionized the world of CG characterization. You may not like the way he was done, but you can't deny it was one of the more spectacular parts of the groundbreaking innovations the film brought along.

[Galendor]

STW, Hobbits would only be 20 feet tall on screen

I don't think the actor would have to 85 pounds, just very thin and in costume. And like the other hobbit actors, shrunken proportionally in size. And be athletic, and a good actor. Hmmm....

It is true, a real actor Gollum would be quite different from the animated one. Perhaps it would not have worked out as convincingly on screen, we can only speculate. I do applaud the more-or-less realistic animation used to make Jackson's Gollum, I'm sure it was a tour de force of special effects techniques.
As others have suggested, perhaps my problems with the character were more due to script direction than to the animation (if they had just toned the antics down a bit, and no cutesy-Gollum for Pete's sake!). Thank you for making me rethink my opinions, I think I'll watch the movies and give animated Gollumn another chance.

P.S. here is Michael Therriault's Gollum.

[Nerwen]

I thought CGI Gollum was very convincing. As someone else said, he was a bit too "cute", but that's not the fault of the animation– it's how they chose to depict the character, for whatever reason.

[Sir Kohran]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

I thought CGI Gollum was very convincing. As someone else said, he was a bit too "cute", but that's not the fault of the animation– it's how they chose to depict the character, for whatever reason.

It's to remind the audience that there was still something left of a wholesome, 'cute' Hobbit left in him - Gollum was not simply a revolting, hideous ghoul, he was capable of emotion and thought. The part where Gollum reaches out to Frodo and Tolkien says how anyone looking at the time would have seen a weary Hobbit is good support for this, I think. On the other hand I don't see much of this melancholy, battered creature in Michael Therriault's Gollum, who looks more like a bloodthirsty vampire.

As for the CGI Gollum - while there are moments where it looks a little contrived, for the most part it was a pretty flawless piece of work. When he's climbing on the rocks, fighting with Frodo and Sam - it all looks like a real creature, with real skin and movements. Unlike the Jar Jar Binks rubbish a few years before.