Worst case scenario...

Messa wants my preciousss, okeday?

They're not going to put a "Jar-Jar" in this movie, to sell plastic toys and video games to kids, are they? I'd like to be able to stomach seeing these movies more than once each.

Gollum has the potential to be the LotR equivalent of Jar-Jar. I HOPE they don't choose to go that route, though!

The Gollum character would lose *just a bit* of impact if he's CUTE, instead of wretched and piteous, doncha think?

I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying that Jar-Jar is cute? I don't think so, Tim.
I meant 'equivalent' in the sense of also being a computer-generated character with distinctive mannerisms and speech patterns. What I hope is that the substance of the character will be Gollum's dominant feature in the movie, rather than the superficial physical and vocal characteristics.

Physical and vocal characterisitcs are not superficial. We all have strange manerisms, and in animating Jar Jar ILM tried to realistically recreate those Ahmed Best created for the character. Gollum's manerisms will be inspired by the book as will his voice and I'm sure the animators will do their best to make him lifelike.

The 'strange mannerisms' of real people happen for a reason. Not necessarily so for fictional characters, especially animated characters. Porky Pig stutters. Nobody knows (or really cares) why. It's just a device to make the character more distinctive and memorable, and there's nothing wrong with that in that kind of cartoon environment. Jar-jar is much the same with his mannerisms, which is one reason I found him so annoying. The difference bewteen Jar-jar and Yoda is that Yoda's mannerisms are the outward expression of something more, inextricably part of a deep and compelling character. Jar-jar's mannerisms, at least for me, just kind of sat there. The coherency just wasn't there, and the character wasn't believable for me the way Yoda is.
So what I'm trying to say (and forgive me for not being able to say it better) is that I hope Gollum will turn out more like Yoda than Jar-jar; that is, with his mannerisms part of a carefully constructed character, rather than just there so people will want to buy a 'Gollum action figure'. TOLKIEN'S Gollum is the former, but it's impossible to transfer all the character development of the novel into the movie (especially since Gollum was created and partially developed in an earlier, separate book). Exactly HOW Gollum is written and animated for the big screen will be crucial to whether that Gollum turns out to be the Gollum we know, or just another Jar-jar.

I think that was well said, QB.