Listening to the Uruk-hai just isn’t the same when they don’t have that gruff, stuffed-mouth sound, is it? Normally when these characters talk they sound as though they have something stuck in their teeth or the back of their throat and it comes out as gruff and slightly garbled. But when they sound like regular guys without a serious overbite and skin like an overripe avocado it kind of makes them lose the potency of the look since the original voices are something to be scared of and cringe away from. It’s kind of hard to say just whether a person would be more scared of an Uruk-hai or an orc, or even a goblin in this trilogy since it kind of has to be taken in a one to one manner. Facing off against just one of these creatures, the Uruk-hai would definitely be way more intimidating since an or a goblin tended to be whinier, less likely to inflict serious damage to a skilled warrior, and would probably display more cowardice one average. The Uruk-hai were bred for war after all and were meant to be the specialized troops of Saruman’s army as they marched across Tolkien’s creation. Orcs and goblins were more akin to shock troops unless they were trained to perform a specific task. In other terms, the Uruk-hai were kind of like the Marines, or the Army Rangers in that they were expected to be undeniably tough and simply barrel through their opponents and possibly outsmart them if it at all possible. Of course, that last part didn’t always pan out.
Would people have been any less fearful of the Uruk-hai if they had sounded like this? It feels as though their brute force would have still gone a long way towards scaring the living hell out of people since sounding a certain way doesn’t exactly negate the fact that they were still insanely tough and didn’t fear anyone. But the whole idea of sounding like a normal human is kind of funny since the creatures were sinister as all hell in the movies and weren’t known for being particularly worried about encountering humans unless they were outnumbered. That’s about the only thing about the Uruk-hai that spoke of cowardice, but it could also be called intelligence since a wise fighter doesn’t wander into a fight where they know they’ll be outnumbered and possibly outmatched. The Uruk-hai were entirely effective against villagers that didn’t know how to fight, but when it came to facing off against seasoned warriors they lost just as much as they took, sometimes more since against Aragorn and Gimli they fell down like stalks of wheat under a farmer’s scythe, and against Legolas and a few of the other elves they were simply outmatched. the only thing that the Uruk-hai really had on anyone was the element of surprise and sheer ferocity since they wouldn’t back down.
The whole idea of how orcs were created and how the Uruk-hai were made is given a bit of an explanation in the movies, but it’s still somewhat confusing since Saruman explains that the orcs were made from corrupted elves, but the process of creating the Uruk-hai meant taking orcs and placing them in magical pods to create the larger and meaner creatures that were the result. It’s still a little difficult to equate just how elves were turned into orcs, but with the process of magic in the mix, it’s believed that anything can be possible since a storyline can be created to make it happen. Still, in the original story, the Uruks are just one more tribe of orcs, while in the movies the Uruk-hai become their own race in a big way, and seeing as how there are so many of them it makes one feel that Saruman had an almost unlimited supply of orcs to draw from. That in turn means that there were legions of orcs just willing and waiting to step to Saruman’s tune since he was being guided by Sauron.
The Uruk-hai were undeniably strong, but a lot of them weren’t that bright. There were several that became commanders, while a lot of them were simply soldiers, and they weren’t necessarily well-trained either since they relied more on the fact that they were big, tough, and had the numbers to overrun pretty much any place they happened upon, which would explain what happened to Rohan. When up against a superior opponent though it was seen that they were pretty ineffective, since even Boromir, who had two arrows sticking out of him before he was finally done and could fight no more, was tearing it up with one arm. Once that third arrow went in he was done, but up until that point, he was still giving the Uruk-hai hell. Imagine if they screamed like regular humans when they died…now there’s a disturbing thought.
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