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Nice post, Farael, and well organized (unlike mine ).

Originally Posted by Farael

About the third group of orcs,
would you tell me when you see them? I can only see two groups, the big ones and small ones. It might be a cross-over with the book. If I'm not mistaken, there are three groups of orcs, the Uruk-Hai that want to take the hobbits to Isengard, the ones from Mordor that want to take them to... well, yeah... and the ones from Moria who want revenge for the orcs the fellowship killed.

To me there are three distinct types:

• the Uruks, as denoted by armor, long hair, White Hand insignia, taller, etc,

• the Mordorians, best seen when the Uruks come upon the "you're late" group of orcs, and also the same "what about their legs?" guy who is more hunched over, does that quirky head-jerking thing and is a shade of brown, and doesn't seem the warrior type,

• the Morians, who are smaller, lighter gray and are like the nasally "Ya!" orc who I think makes a try at the hobbits and so becomes 'the other white meat'...

I'll try to capture some images for comparison.

I beg to differ, I still think they are just starting a fire. It might be another cross over with the book, in which we know they stop because the Riders have corraled them. Anyhow, the Riders come in before they get a chance to really do anything that will give us evidence either way.

Again to me it's too organized. Are they cold? Are they going to cook some maggoty toast? Why would they want to give away their location, attracting Rohirrim like moths? In the book, the fires were 'watch-fires' and I'm not sure who set them (I'll see what I can dig up on my CDs). My guess is that PJ was trying to hammer home the message "orcs chop trees" and had to devise a way to get that in. "Have them make a fire or something...we just have to set up the treeslayers for retribution later from the Ents."

About the Rohirrim and the ring of spears (which I forgot to comment on last time around)
I am not a great medieval-times warrior, but I can see the sense in doing such thing. If you are standing close to a bunch of guys who have absolutely no way out, you want to keep them at a spear's lenght from you.

I understand what you're saying, and would have thought it odd for a medieval warrior to spend so much time on the internet while other wonders abound , but my point is that you have everyone in very close proximity. If I were a spellcaster, or had one of those spikey bombs that the Uruks will use later, I'm taking out the whole troop. And though I'm sure that these are riders of many summers, still, one guy in the back sneezes, and everyone, being spooked already enough by an Elf, a Man and a natural sprinter, jumps forward, and I'm guessing that the casualties would number more than three.

Do those scenes include a certain dwarf making certain comments about running long distances?

There are more horrid scenes on the way, to be sure.