[Iris Alantiel]

I think that getting the viewer to sympathize with Gollum kind of adds to the movie in some ways. When Frodo first meets Gollum face to face in TTT, he feels enough pity for this warped, twisted creature to keep him alive. I think a sympathetic Gollum makes the audience more understanding of Frodo's decision not to kill Gollum; we feel pity for him, too. It's a technique that puts us more in line with Frodo's feelings and makes us identify with him.<P>I would say the negative effect of that device is they kind of made Sam look like a real jerk at times in the last movie. That was sad, because Sam's always been my favourite. But in the preview for ROTK, when Gollum turns and gives Sam that really mean look, they made Gollum look worse and made Sam look sadder (you just want to give him a hug), so maybe that won't happen again in this moive.<P>And yeah, definitely, if someone tried to feed me to a giant spider, I wouldn't care how big and blue and sad their eyes are, they would not seem very cute or sympathetic to me.