The upcoming movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, will bring a story from Tolkien’s books to the big screen, and this could include a better look at Sauron’s appearance during the Third Age. The Dark Lord was something of an invisible force throughout the central Lord of the Rings since the story was told through the heroes’ perspectives. In Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, Sauron was simply a flaming eye atop a tower and had no physical form without his One Ring. This wasn’t quite the case in the books, and Hunt for Gollum should shed some light on the villain.
The Hunt for Gollum will outline a story that took place shortly before the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which saw Aragorn, under Gandalf’s orders, hunt down and capture Gollum. According to Gandalf’s recount of this in Tolkien’s book, the ranger was successful in his endeavor and traveled with Gollum across Middle-earth, bringing him to Mirkwood, where he eventually escaped. However, just before all of this, Gollum was drawn to Mordor and tortured by the Dark Lord Sauron, allowing him to get a good look at the villain.
Though Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies implied that Sauron had no form without his One Ring, this wasn’t the case in the books. He had built enough power to take on a physical form again, but only one of the primary characters from The Lord of the Rings ever saw this version of Third-Age Sauron. While being tortured, Gollum saw the Dark Lord in the flesh, and he told Frodo and Sam about what he saw, which served as the only description of the villain’s appearance in the three primary books.
As Gollum and Frodo spoke on their journey in The Lord of the Rings, the former noted that Sauron “has only four fingers on the Black Hand, but they are enough.” Gollum is referencing the fact that the Dark Lord lost a finger when Isildur cut the One Ring from his hand, and though he says nothing else of Sauron’s appearance, it’s proof enough that they were in each other’s presence. This means that a Gollum prequel like Hunt for Gollum could be the first Third Age adaptation to show Sauron in his full dark glory.
It’s a common misconception that Sauron didn’t have a physical form in the Third Age of Middle-earth, and this is thanks, in part, to Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien often mentioned the horrible “Eye of Sauron” in his books, but it was said as a sort of metaphor for the villain’s evil and influence. Jackson made this literal and placed the fiery Eye of Sauron on top of Barad-dûr. It was a highly effective and frightening visual and has since become iconic to the franchise. However, it came with some problems as well.
As cool as Sauron’s eye was in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, the villain seemed far less real and tangible. He hardly seemed like a real character and was instead an invisible and dark presence—only the threat of a returning evil. However, if the upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum includes the titular character’s brush with Sauron, the villain could become a far more real and immediate threat, retroactively adding more intensity to Frodo’s story.
As exciting as The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is, the film will have a lot of obstacles to overcome. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings didn’t go into much detail about what went on during Aragorn’s search for Gollum, which means Warner Bros. will have to take some creative liberties with the tale. Significant changes and additions have been unpopular in other Lord of the Rings adaptations, like Prime Video’s The Rings of Power or Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. So, if the upcoming movie invents a bunch of conflict and drama to push Hunt for Gollum‘s story along, it might not go over well.
However, since Gollum’s journey to Mordor, including his discovery of the secret Stairs of Cirith Ungol and Shelob’s lair, is canon, it could make for the perfect climactic high point of The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Seeing this mysterious and dark form of Sauron interact with Gollum would be thrilling and potentially terrifying and would surely add several layers to the complex sympathy a character like Gollum evokes. It would solve the movie’s central plot problem, fix Jackson’s Lord of the Rings change, and finally answer what Third Age Sauron looks like.