I can't wait. Just the other day I was about to search for artist renderings of Shelob, after reading the description again and realizing wait, she's not a spider!

Agreed. My only criticism is that the book describes her raising up her heavy body over Sam with the intent of falling on him to crush him. So she does need legs long enough to raise up her body a few feet above the ground.

We know where shelob comes from. Ungoliants offspring in the valley of the dreadful death. Correct me if im wrong.

agreed this is 100% the closest to the otherworldly thing Tolken envisioned.

And for some reason WB wanted that THING to be a sexy woman in Shadow of War... Because... I dunno. Sex sells. Imagine if we had gotten advice from that thing instead? XD

I would give so much money to see this. Kermit as Aragorn. Fozzy as gimli. Mrs Piggy as Gadrielle.

This has to be made !

The dark crystal is the closest thing to that which I’m sure Jim Henson was involved

Oh my goodness yes!

I would watch the heck out of that.

For me the Arach from Diablo 2 was more likely to the description. As she had her legs from top of the body and not the cephalothorax, like spider.

Yes i also thougt she was just a big spider with horns big eyes and claws. Just the way she was described in the book

I believe she is half a regular giant spider, but her other half.... is basically and eldritch monster from outside reality that eats light and spins webs of tangible darkness. That was her mother. So she definitely has arachnid traits, but... my god. Much more horrifying than a realistic spider.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. Having the sketchbook as some huge, mystical tome of knowledge is fantastic

You felt your spider-sense tingling

Yeah! That's why their artwork look similar to the movie, because they designed it. John Howe especially worked on creatures.

Very neat fun fact

I doubt he has even read the book.

@@redcrow4533Which book? And who cares? Reading requires no talent, but don’t worry - you’re very skilled at being insufferable.

@@awAtercoLorstaIn. If you can’t figure out which book, I don’t know what to tell you, and I’m sure you’ll get over me being "insufferable.”.

Wearing his nice ring too.

I thought Jazz eye looks so realistic with the colors & shading it could turn in the socket and spear into you a fear so great that to move or cry would be rendered impossible! Such a talent to render words unto pictorial vision !

Im not sure if that depiction of him as a human figure is just in the directors cut. Possibly it is and Jazza hasnt seen the directors cut.

I think he just meant as shown as the eye during the War of the Ring (what we see in the films besides the introduction)

​@@Lilhaggis747 he's literally in the intro of the original cut, when he gets his arm cut off by Isildur

She is not a "outer space" creature any more than the Valar or Sauron or Gandalf was. They are immortal beings created bu Iluvatar before the Earth was even thought of.

@@dandiehm8414 Ungoliant had very outer space, almost Lovecraftian vibes. She came from the Outer Dark, beyond the Walls of the World, and her creation was never described.

​@@MySerpentine The origins of Ungoliant are shrouded in mystery. It was believed by some of the Eldar that she may have been among the Ainur whom Melkor had corrupted long ago in the beginning, yet she was not listed among the known Ainur.[1] It was later perceived by the Valar that she had come from "beyond Arda"[2] in the "darkness that" lay around it when Melkor first gazed upon the Kingdom of Manwë in envy.[1]

@@LexiWhatWeGot Exactly. She's possibly one of those Nameless Things, but what that would even mean is itself uncertain.

@@MySerpentine she could have been something akin to the Watcher in the Water, which a quick bit of research says could have also been a Nameless Thing. I've seen some people mention that the Nameless Things, Ungoliant, and the Watcher may have been a product of the Discord of Melkor during the Ainulindale, but none save Iluvatar know for certain

I agree! My dad read these to us as bedtime stories 50 years ago, and Treebeard was one of his absolute favorite characters (Don't be hasty!) - your illustration is so close to what that introductory passage conjured in my mind as a kid. Thank you!

that's not how I remember treebeard decribed, I remember smooth arms, no bend at all in the legs, no leaves.. But it's been a while since I read them

Hear, hear. I love how it's a mirror opposite of the trolls corrupted by Morgoth as an ages-old, noble creature.

​@@LeeB442Yeah, I want to say the description was close to the old cartoon. "They found they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate, the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each."

Tolkien's world is ENORMOUS!

This idea connects in a way the world of Tolkien with the world of Lovecraft in my head. And that results in something really epically bizarre...

​@@TilnaorAtlach-Nacha?

I think she is actually said to have come from 'the void' - which certainly could be space, but I think Tolkien imeant this more to be an alternate/parallel dimension. Even Hell.

@@scp170190 Yes, though the Darkness that lay about the world sure sounds like space. I believe it's theorised that Ungoliant was an Ainur

Pretty sure he means he has a body following his loss of the one ring

He means his actual body, without the armor.

@@studiedturtle4139 I don't think that's what he means, and he'd be wrong again as you see that there is some kind of body underneath when the finger is cut off

Pretty sure he means after that, like, when the movies take place, and not the past. That first scene was set in the past

If you watch the behind the scenes, Sauron was also supposed to make an appearance in the flesh at the end of Return of the King to fight Aragorn, but was replaced by a troll instead.

I think she's my favorite from these. The only 'critique' are the eyes. I think having them more spaced out like a spiders, instead of those two clusters would make it even better.

okay that ones not even fantasy pim, thats just an alien!

its worth noting of course that the movies were highly inspired by the various artistic depiction of previous artists, with Howe and Lee directly working on the film. I think in this sense the film has a lot of justification in being the definitive look because it pays a lot of homage to previous depictions (with the exception of the many changes they made).

Youd be surprised how many people around the world read the books before seeing the movies. Theres a solid amount of people that wanted to see Tom Bombadil.

Frodo also perceives Sauron as an eye when in Mordor "as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye". I'd say Peter Jackson's version was fairly accurate. I think Sauron could take a physical form if needed but that was not required during LOTR (unlike the Peter Jackson's version).

As a Norwegian, thats actually cool.

As a swede.... you have a really cool queen or whatever... maybe we should bury this centuries old hatchet :p

Ohhh nice, never knew that!

As an Icelander, imagine having Royalty.

@@Hafragrautur1 well you officially won this comment thread! 🤣

Yeah....I remember seeing a cut of that scene on KZfaq that had been de-CGId and showed the Sauron vs Aragorn fight. I kind of preferred that version, as it would further establish the stakes and show that the eye on the tower was what it had been in the books: Little more than a magical searchlight, and a symbol of Sauron's ever watchful gaze and presence in the land.

These movies were long, and a lot of stuff had to be left on the cutting room floor. But of all the scenes to cut… THAT ONE?!

It felt a bit ridiculous for Sauron to show up in full-form all of a sudden at the end of the movie, they wanted him to continue being an overarching behind the scenes villains rather than showing him throwing hands with Aragorn.@@ImInLoveWithBulla

​@@LordKamos777 That was a better decision than put the actual evil lord on the battlefield. Especially when he still was not yet acquired his Ring so he obviously had not regained his full power either. Why would he endanger himself in weakened state when he had plenty or troops and e.g. ring wraiths to use? There was quite a few unnecessary/stupid details in those movies already, at least they left that one out. Sauron in general was not the frontline type, even when alliance defeated Sauron in end of the second age when the Ring was taken from him, it was more that he had come out to fight out of pure necessity at that point, not because he enjoyed being in melee.

the cut scene in return of the king shows the Mouth of Sauron, not Sauron himself, and he didn't fight he offered terms for peace, it's actually a scene from the books

He wouldn't have seen any more than the eye or he'd have died from the very sight of him

​@@AllisonRutherford-vs4dtNot true... Both Humans and Elves had fought Sauron before...

@admirable_kon5083 when did I ever once say otherwise? And not any men that were alive during the events in discussion, nor most elves

@@AllisonRutherford-vs4dt True... That being said, Aragorn was no normal man too... He also did actually win the stare down battle with Sauron. Aragorn was good in that stuff! XD

@admirable_kon5083 and??? Soon as you said true anything after that is a waste of time and completely irrelevant to anything I said

The Fell Beasts are essentially the pterosaurs of the Tolkien universe

Birds technically are still dinosaurs.

Relatively new, yes, but dinosaurs being the ancestors of modern birds was already an idea 60+ years before the book.

@@Peatingtune no. Dinosaurs are reptiles, they aren’t birds. They just have similarities. Not more a bird.

@@Peatingtunewait, I just read your comment again. What you said is actually completely untrue.

He saw the eye in the mirror of Galadriel

@@Manuel73618 Also from the seat of Amon Hen, but I can't remember if that was in the movie.

Does Frodo see the eye in Galadriels mirror?

@@boardgamewoodsman8378 Yes, he does.

@@boardgamewoodsman8378 Yes, but it couldn't see him.

Not to mention at the start. There's actually several times we see him whole. It's only after he loses the ring that he becomes the eye. Also in the hobbit films we also see him as another man shaped figure that's different to him when he's in the fights in LOTR

Yeah, one of Sauron's physical forms is shown a few times in the movies, how could anyone forget the scene where his finger gets cut off smh

Yes obviously, before the ring is cut off, we see his physical form. The point is, as Jazza demonstrated, that many people believe Sauron is the big floating eye in the films, where as in the books he is just a man and the "Eye of Sauron" is metaphoric language (as with much of Tolkien's writing), describing his constant spying on the land through the Palantir. What I was pointing out is that, country to popular belief, we do see Sauron post de-ringing in a physical form, all be it clad in armour and very briefly. And yes sadly in the hobbit he is turned into a ghost of shadow farts that forms the eye, reinforcing the notion he is the eye, rather than it being a magical tool he uses. It's a cool sequence but does contradict the books even more (but that's something the hobbit movies excelled at). Interestingly we almost saw Sauron again in the final battle of the black gates, but they replaced him in post with that troll Aragon is fighting. This was to keep the focus on Frodo and Sam, which I feel was the right choice.

Never thought of that. The great eye of Sauron is just a spy cam.

@@raythegardener Ahahaha 😂

Yeah as much as I hate it when people barely give the inheritance cycle credit for stuff it did well, I do have to acknowledge that therea definite heavy inspiration, especially in like the first 2 books

I’ve never read Eragon but it’s funny to me there is a monster called lethrblaka since in Icelandic leðurblaka just means bat.

@@gudmundur-heimisson yeah a lot of words from the ancient language (that series magical language) are basically slightly modified words from actual real life languages. Which makes since as the author was 16 when he wrote the first book

@@brisingrprotogen5438to be fair this does happen in real life as well. Minotaur just means bull of Minos in Greek, for instance.

@@gudmundur-heimisson yeah, because the minotaur is a Greek monster?

came down here to say this exact thing!

Like bruh did you see the movies?

Exactly!

I came to say the same thing

The point is that the movie tells us that Sauron needs the ring to regain physical form, and is until then just a big fiery eye, while in the book, he is already in his physical form, only his power is diminished without the Ring.

Hes giving me toasted cursed ice king vibes...like he was once compassionate but darkness broke him into evil

I don't think the hatred and malice are the right words, but everybody has right to their opinion and impressions

It needs a background. He can emphasise both the dark aesthetic that he's going for and the piercing gaze of Sauron's eye with backing shadows and either a lense effect or some kind of yellowish rays. Wonderful depiction but unfinished imho

@YuVen3487 hmmm....he should have depicted him sitting on a chair with a table in front of the eye on the table. It would add more depth and scenery. And having the eye glowing eerie yellows and oranges shadowing saurons face with his eyes genaully glowing...say a dark golden colour would be perfect.

Hatred and malice- this describes Morgoth, not Sauron. Sauron was more of order.

Ma man that was not his impression

@@user-yw5es5gx4uno shit do you know sarcasm

YES PLEASE!!

I'd totally buy that coffee table book.

Like how Aragorn is actually 6 feet 6 inches tall and the most frightening good guy ever.

Jackson didn't just use Howe's art as inspiration. He flew Both John Howe and Alan Lee out to NZ during pre-production, taking them to the shooting locations and just letting them draw, fitting their designs around the actual landscapes. Those drawings became concept art for the movies and were followed pretty closely by WETA and the other design teams.

They both have books on the work they did for the movies! Alan Lee's is great, he goes over exactly how he started drawing for LOTR books in the first place, and then how Jackson contacted him and how he worked on it every day for years. John Howe has a similar book about the designs for the movies. Super interesting reads for anyone interested in pre-production and art for movies.

If I remember correctly Peter Jackson didn't want to ruin this terrifying character by accidentally giving it the 'wrong' face, so he made Sauron into this vague character as to not ruin the feeling of scary Sauron for the readers of the books

That would be so awesome!

Yes! I'm honestly dying to see some Valar interpretations that are far less anthropromorphic. Like, I want to see someone interpret Ulmo as, like, the sea embodied.

Huan might be fun, or Carcharoth, or maybe Glaurung

Ungoliant fighting the Balrogs? also the Ainulindale?

I think he meant his body post-ring-separation. I know he technically isn’t physical without the Ring, but his spiritual body can still do some damage if you are there in person.

@@ethanemerson4862 Oh? Did he have a "body" post-ring in the books? I bought the entire collection but have yet to finish The Silmarillion so I haven't read the trillogy yet.

@@acdcguy18 He did, yeah. "He has only four fingers on the Black Hand, but that is enough."

@@acdcguy18 I don’t think it says so specifically, but we can assume his spiritual form has a perceivable image based on the fact the Sauron was there in person when Gollum was being tortured. Meaning Gollum saw him. Gollum was even able to see his hand, specifically the hand that had a missing finger. This indicates that this was after he lost the ring, losing his physical form.

@@ethanemerson4862 Sauron still has his body in the movies. But its only shown in one scene in the extended edition. Its in the scene where aragorn talks to sauron through the palantir and they just used the same armorerd design as in the flashbacks at the beginning

No - that is not correct. Arda could easily have been around for millions or billions of years. The First Age only began with the making of the two trees, before that EONS passed while the Valar formed the world. Thw whole business with the creation of the Earth once the Valar descended into it, their first struggles with Melkor, the arrival of Tulkas, the making of the great lamps, the Valars residence in Almarin, and the throwing down of the mighty lamps all happened BEFORE the First age began.

@@dandiehm8414 Yes, but Treebeard wasn't born until after all of that, during the age of the trees.

@@ryttyr14treebeard was the first of the ents made by Yavanna in response to Aule’s creation of the dwarves. This was well before the time of trees. The dwarves weren’t given life until the age of the trees but the tree Shepard were likely around for quite a while before the elves, dwarves, and men.

@@connorstringfield7343 They were made in response to the dwarves cutting down trees with their axes so they were created after the awakening of the dwarves.

The chapter where Aule creates the dwarfes and Yavanna talks to Manwe about Ents and Eagles is when they are already in Valinor and the two trees are already standing. So definitely after the unspecified time before. That being said the time before the first sunrise is only given in Valian years which we have no consitent way to convert ro solar years as far as I'm aware.

I think it would have been better without seeing Sauron tbh. That’s one of the benefits Tolkien gains from never showing him in the books. He feels like this oppressive force more than a physical person. It keeps him more mysterious and leaves things up to our imaginations

Listen to the audio books, recorded by Andy Serkis. Damn he's good.

Shelob needs to lay off the McDonald's it sounds like O_O

He's meaning after the prologue, after the ring is cut off he explodes and never gets a body again... But the movies also allude that if he gets the ring he gets his body back

​@@the_cringe_nerdalso in the hobbit films he is seen as a manlike figure in the form of the necromancer

​@@the_cringe_nerdin the extended edition, when Aragorn looks into palantir, you can actually see Sauron lifting his own palantir up

@@the_cringe_nerd but that still means we get to see his body, unless he's going to get a random new body that looks completely different!? :D

@@lux0rd01 more like an incomporial dark spirit that forms into a humanoid shape...

like one of the first scenes.

I mean... You can see his shape with armour on but you can't really see his body! I'm sure that's what he meant. Also, given the way P.J. decided to visually depict Sauron's 'death' right in the beginning, you kind of get the idea that there's no flesh underneath the armour, no actual body... just maybe a spirit or something like that

Say true, say thankya! And poor mad Mordred, loved of none that live. And Andy the Messenger Robot, many other functions.

@MySerpentine long days and pleasant nighs! To see the horrible wolves of thunderclap! Or the taheen would be amazing

@@LadyLuck363 Aye, and may you have twice the number! Lamla o' Galee, who fell down dead, or Trampas who came so close to Becoming . . .

THIS. I am looking for such a comment for years. Shame to see PJ adaptations making look Sauron less Saurony- but more Morgothy and even Wİtch Kingy

I would love this too but idk about the Tolkien estate 🫤 They are very strict about copyright with anything lotr and merch, movies, etc. Jackson was lucky to have had the permission for the movies.

It´s not rare at all. If you have read the books, you can know almost exactly how he looks trought the 3 ages. What this guy is doing is acting like the movies showed Sauron as an EYE, which is totally dishonest. The movies start showing Sauron with armour swinging like a madlad.

Unfortunately it's not canonical, as Sauron had lost the ability to assume a fair form after the downfall of Numenor and became effectively 'stuck' in his malevolent form.

Yes. Almost like a demonic vulture. But to be honest I still strongly prefer the movie version. Just seems more like a true native to middle earth ironically.

Salron is Sauron's Italian cousin.

Salron is Sauron’s Italian cousin.

@@Visiorex How does autocorrect even do that? Didn’t even see that.

@@Brute-the-Brutality Autocorrect lives in a world of Salron, Freddo and Sam the Wise Guy. 🤣😂

@@Visiorex I’m dead! 🤣