[William Cloud Hicklin]

I thought I might toss into the stewpot this exerpt from the Oddlots blog (nameless, unfortunately):

Briefly, I will only say that by reducing [the Orcs], nothing is added to the film. Grishnákh is one of the scariest villains in all fantasy: someone who is perfectly rational, and perfectly selfish, and who has no compassionate feelings for anyone else — but is clever, and empathic, enough to understand what motivates others. He isn't crazy, he isn't a mad slasher or a mindless monster: he's the embodiment of the Secret Police, the door kicked down in the night, the soundproofed room, the hand on the electrode's switch… —Uglúk, on the other hand, has a kind of ruinous nobility about him, and it is fitting that he dies in heroic hand-to-hand combat with the prince of his foes. He does care, on some level of his violent, hate-shaped mind, about his followers; he is capable of a kind of brutal selflessness, and unlike Grishnákh, is not sadistic in the same way: he does not have time, in his harsh responsible soul, for savouring fear like a potent wine, as the more sophisticated torturer does. (When Grishnákh talks about coming back because he cares about the likely lads left behind under a bad commander, he instantly reveals himself as a phoney, and Uglúk the genuine, if hideous, article.) He is Grendel given a tough job and great lines, in the book, and he is a worthy antagonist for Éomer.