About
Gollum is a fictional character in the fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Origin
On September 21st, 1937, the fantasy novel and children’s book The Hobbit, or There and Back Again was released. In the book, the character Gollum is introduced as a disfigured creature who inhabits a small island in an underground lake. The character is obsessed with a magical ring he refers to as “my precious,” which is discovered by the character Bilbo Baggins. In The Lord of the Rings, it is revealed that Gollum was previously a Hobbit named Sméagol, who had been twisted by the influence of the ring.
Depictions in Film
In 1977, Gollum was depicted as a amphibian-like creature with large, glowing eyes in the animated musical adaptation of The Hobbit (shown below, left). In 1978, the character was animated as a dark-skinned creature with pointed ears in the animated film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (shown below, right).
In the The Lords of the Rings film trilogy by Peter Jackson, Gollum is depicted using CGI technology as a small, pale-skinned, Hobbit-like character with thin hair and large eyes (shown below).
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“Streisand Effect”: