What happened in the movie:
The film starts with the image of a worm, followed by Sméagol, who is fishing with Déagol in a boat. Déagol catches a fish, but is pulled overboard by it. The fish swims away, the hook still in its mouth. Because he cannot breath anymore, Déagol lets go of the line, but before he swims up, he sees something shining on the bottom of the river. He grabs it and swims to the surface. Then we see Déagol climbing on the river bank. He opens his hand and sees the Ring. Good listeners can hear it whisper. Than Sméagol comes up and sees the treasure. Immediately he wants it, because “it’s his birthday”, but Déagol does not want to give it up. A fight there is, and Déagol is strangled, where after Sméagol takes the Ring, who is actually talking now.

Then we see Sméagol stumbling and falling in a glooming place; he is thrown out of the town by his own people, who we can cry out “murderer” to him. After that, we can almost feel his decay. This decay is not only very physical, which is very clearly exposed by the bleached skin, the rotting teeth and getting skinnier and skinnier, but also mental. Also, somewhere in this timeline the sound of “Gollum” comes out of his throat for the first time. In the fish-eating scene, the “Forbidden Pool” song is heard, but in a very different way then it was in The Two Towers.

The last stage is Gollum, crawling into the Misty Mountains. He is doomed to stray in the gloom of caves, because the sunlight hurts his eyes. Though he loves the Sun, he also hates it because of the pain it causes. His mental decay is most clearly by the, very powerful line: “And we forgot the taste of bread, the sound of the trees, the softness of the wind… we even forgot our own name”.

The past time flows into present time, where Sméagol wakes up the hobbits, telling them they have got to move on.


Mina Rho – Gollum

What happened in the book:
For this scene, we have to go back to ‘Fellowship of the Ring’, the chapter “The Shadow of the Past”, which is mainly Gandalf giving the readers background information. For many years after the party, he shows up again to stay a bit longer than just a brief visit to Frodo. During this time, he had done some research to the Ring, which he tells Frodo about. He also tells him the tale of Gollum. Part of this tale is told in the prologue of FotR (The Last Alliance).

Sméagol was member of a little folk that lived near the riverbank (of Anduin). Déagol was a friend of his. One day, they took a boat and while Sméagol was nosing about the banks, Déagol was fishing. The fish dragged him into the water to the bottom. He saw something shining and grabbed it before he went up. Sméagol has been watching him from after a tree, came softly up behind and asked it from his friend as birthdaypresent. Déagol did not want to give it, then the fight begins and he is strangled. Sméagol hid the dead body and told no one about it.

Sméagol found out that he became invisible when he put on the Ring, and he wore it while he was eavesdropping on his folk. He also became keen-eared and sharp-eyed, but only for things that were hurtful. Because he used this knowledge, he became very unpopular and in the end, they made his life quite impossible and because of his gurgling, they called him “Gollum”. His grandmother eventually expelled him from the family and the hole.

For a while, he wandered in loneliness up the river, came to a stream from the mountains and followed it. The sun felt like burning on his skin and the light dazzled his eyes, so he went in the caves, never to come out again until the company passed through the Misty Mountains and Bilbo found the Ring.

Original place in the movie:
The sequence was originally meant to be in TTT, where Frodo for the first time says “Sméagol” to Gollum. There is basically nothing changed in this sequence, only shortened.

Was it necessary?
Some say “no”, other say “yes” and I am definitely part of the last group. I think it is a good thing they added the ‘creation’ of Gollum to the movie, because in the end, we see Sméagol/Gollum destroyed. Of course, it is a tribute to Gollum, a chance for Andy Serkis to appear in the movies. But it is also a view of what could have happened to Frodo, if he kept the Ring. The wretched thing that became Gollum was a possible future.

Bookie details:
– In the movie, Sméagol says “They cursed us… ‘murderer’ they called us, they cursed us and drove us away”. In the book, it is written “So they called him Gollum, and cursed him and told him to go far away”.
– Also watch the colours. When they are fishing, everything is bright green and the sun shines with a golden light. When Déagol dies, you can see a gloom, like the sky is darkened a bit. And after that, the colours are dark blue and pale white.
– The colour-contrast in the scene where he crawls into the Misty Mountains is huge: from a golden world in goes into an ever darkened environment, and the light in the cave (where he sits on his island) seems to be moonlight to emphasize that he never saw the sun again.

Mistakes:
– In the book, Déagol washes away the mud from the Ring before he looks to it; in the movie, it is still covered with mud, which is only wiped away a bit. But when they fight, the Ring falls out of Déagol’s hand and both hand and Ring are clean.
– The usage of colours however gives a point: in “Riddles in the Dark” from the Hobbit, Bilbo cannot see if the water he suddenly feels is just a small pool in the road or a river or pool. So it must be quite dark, with no light to come through. But it is very likely that the light beam was created out of cinematographically urges, so I do not think that it is a “real” mistake.

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Related Information
Related Books vs. Movies Articles:
- 1.00. The Prologue of FOTR by Figwit
- 1.02. The Shadow of the Past by Figwit
- Gollum in FOTR by Figwit


Interesting Links:
Our Gallery has has screencaps of the theatrical version, as well as the extended edition.

A transcript of 'The Lord Of the Rings: The Return of the King' can be found in our Film Fun & Facts section.

A summary of 'The Lord Of the Rings: The Return of the King' can be found in Elrond's Library.

Some articles that are related to this sequence:
- The Middel-earth Section of Elrond's Library has an article about The One Ring

Forum threads related to this sequence:
- You can discuss this sequence in detail in ROTK Sequence by Sequence #1: Prologue + Ithilien in the Movies Forum. There's also a thread about Gollum / Sméagol.
- The Book Forum discusses Origins of Gollum in folklore, Gollum and Mental Illness, A Sméagol Question and Gollum's Horrible sound.
- The Book Club discusses this chapter here.

Take a look at how some artists saw this part in the book:
- Sméagol & Déagol by Aleksandr Kortich
- A Birthday Present by Ted Nasmith
- The Fall of Sméagol by Hanscom
- Sketches: Riddles In the Dark by John Howe

Preview the Misty Mountains theme here.

Looking for something more creative - you may find it here: