I just watched the "independent fan film" entitled The Hunt for Gollum. This may well be the world's single most aesthetically rendering act of LARPing that I've ever seen. (You might have to look up LARPing if you haven't been following the blog for years...)
Anyway, the fan film (which essentially is short hand for saying "Don't sue us even though we stole your copyrighted material") is a shockingly high quality mini-prequel to Peter Jackson's version of the Lord of the Rings telling the story of how Aragorn tracked down and captured Gollum.
It seems to me a particularly provocative choice of sequences to piece together given our current geo-political climate. Most fans were upset that Jackson skipped Tom Bombadil...I don't recall hearing many complaints that they didn't show the capture of Gollum (which, if I recall, is retold in book's dialogue rather than action anyway).
The conclusion of the fan film very abruptly shows a distressed Gandalf sitting in a chamber while Gollum wails and spills his beans.
Just how did Gandalf get Gollum to talk? Does Gandalf look distressed because of what he hears, or from how he heard it?
The very last scene has Aragorn asking Gandalf what they have learned, and Gandalf explains the long, torturous past of Gollum, how his mind has been twisted beyond human capacity to repair, and how it was all, in the end, worth it because they now know the enemy's next move. The determine they must use this new information to protect the shire from the Nine.
I have no idea what the director of this fan film hoped to accomplish, but the new historicist in me screams that The Hunt for Gollum lends itself very well to commentary on our capture, imprisonment, and interrogation of Islamic terrorists. It also shows the problem of releasing these terrorists after capture. Do you just let Gollum go, knowing that his mind is so warped that he is going to continue to seek the Ring of Power and destruction of the hobbits? (Keep in mind that in the original story, it's the somewhat naive elves that think Gollum's mind will benefit from some fresh air...which gives him the opportunity to escape...)
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