Would Gollum have been better unanimated?

[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.