2027’s The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will chiefly be Gollum’s story, but Sauron keeps his spot as the franchise’s villain. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books, Sauron remains almost entirely unseen and largely undescribed, merely a dark presence calling the shots from his Mordor tower of Barad-dûr. While there are references to a watchful “eye” (as there is a “mouth”), the term is mostly figurative, used to describe Sauron’s apparent omniscience over Middle-earth.
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies transformed Sauron into a physical presence by making the Eye of Sauron a literal thing sitting atop Barad-dûr. The giant flaming oculus served as the trilogy’s representation of Sauron, and while the change proved somewhat controversial, it made sense for Jackson’s movies to give the audience a more tangible enemy.
The decision to make Sauron a big flaming eye does, however, create an interesting dilemma for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum Can Give Sauron A Physical Form
With The Hunt for Gollum seemingly set shortly before the main events of The Lord of the Rings, Andy Serkis’ movie looks primed to cover Gollum’s imprisonment in Mordor. As explained in the trilogy itself, Gollum was tortured and eventually revealed the One Ring was hidden in the Shire before being released and swiftly recaptured, this time by Aragorn and Gandalf.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Gollum’s trip to Mordor, however, was his fleeting glimpse of Sauron’s real form. Gollum describes a black hand with a finger missing (the one cut off by Isildor), and the text heavily implies Sauron played a direct part in squeezing Gollum for information about the Ring.
The scene only got a few lines in the book, and the scant frames of Gollum’s torture in The Fellowship of the Ring‘s movie adaptation were Sauron-free, but The Hunt for Gollum has the scope to dedicate more time to Gollum’s experience in Mordor. The bit with Sauron presents an especially exciting area of Tolkien canon to render in live-action, even if we do only see a dark hand.
Would Showing Sauron’s Physical Body Contradict The Lord Of The Rings Movies?
In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, where the flaming eye doesn’t exist, Sauron was an ailing figure lurking in Barad-dûr and giving orders. He desperately needed the One Ring to restore his true glory, but he absolutely did exist as a physical being because Gollum confirms it.
In Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies, the exact opposite was true. Saruman declared that Sauron could not take “physical form” without the Ring, suggesting the villain’s will and spirit were represented entirely by the eye hanging above Barad-dûr. A deleted scene from The Return of the King briefly showed a dreamlike image of Sauron in full armor holding a palantír, meaning he might’ve accumulated enough power to manifest physically by the third movie. Still, there was nothing to suggest Sauron inhabited a body in The Lord of the Rings‘ movie canon before that.
Can The Hunt for Gollum really get away with showing Sauron’s black hand torturing Gollum if it exists within the same continuity as other movies? Even if we assume Saruman was lying or mistaken when he said Sauron cannot take physical form without the Ring, how could an embodied, Ring-less Sauron sitting in Barad-dûr have enough strength to conjure a giant eye constantly watching over Mordor?
The Hunt for Gollum must show Sauron, but can’t without creating a contradiction. Either it discredits the notion that the Eye is Sauron (as put forward by Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies), or it makes Sauron too potent by letting him exist physically while casting a massive spell to put his “eye” on top of his tower. The Eye of Sauron might’ve made sense at the time, but this controversial book change could come back to bite The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
- Release Date
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December 17, 2027
- Writers
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Arty Papageorgiou, Phoebe Gittins, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, J.R.R. Tolkien
