So Solid Crew Urak-hai and generally other bad accents>>

[Deiagorn]

I think this is a BIG part of the films and its just been done crap.<BR>I think Christopher Lee has a personnel nerve towards anyone who mis-pronounces the names. Gandalf especially..<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Its Gaaaandalv, not Gandalf. And its THH-AA-ODEN, not Theeoden <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Personally I dont blame him. Anyway, does this not just frustrate other people too?<BR>Also, its tolk-eeen, not tolkin, or even tokin, PJ says it, as does Chris Lee, and since he met the great proffessor I think he might know.<BR>But do you know what gets to me the most... THOSE BLOODY URAK-HAI COCKNEY ACCENTS!!<P>Ok, somehow in Middle Earth, The Ring of Isengard is officially south-east London.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>We aint 'ad nuffin but bread to eat fo' three stinkin' daaays!!'<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>LOL, as much it makes me smile I can feel my veins bulge with anger. Especially that friggin Orc that was talking back to him, bwaaaaarghhhh!<BR>Anyway, opinions?<BR>Get out more?<BR>Heh, no, seriously...<p>[ January 30, 2003: Message edited by: Deiagorn ]

Even as a Londoner, I found the cockney Orcs and their 'breeevers' rather amusing. The accent was overly done in a vulgar way, and I can't think of an alternative.<P>Frankly, they could have spoken more gruffly and unclearly, but in this film they had many more lines than Ugluk in the first film, where the dialogue was incidental. Here, it mattered so it had to be clearer and I think cockney was a decent option really.

[The Saucepan Man]

How would you have them speak, Deiagorn?<P>Actually, I think it worked quite well, even if they were a little **** Van Dyke ("Stone the crows, Mary Poppins ... ) They could hardly have had Orcs with plummy accents!<P>And it inspired <A HREF="http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=17&t=000377" TARGET=_blank>this</A> rather short-lived but (in my view) funny thread in Middle Earth Mayhem.<P>Edit: I see that the automatic censor doesn't allow the name that begins with D ends in K and has IC in the middle, and is short for Richard!<p>[ January 30, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

[Dimaldaeon]

Wait a minute, give that Uruk-hai a can of Strongbow and an England jersey.<BR>Over emphasise the fact that the Rohirrim are Anglo Saxon ie from Germany.<BR>Suddenly that battle becomes a football event from a few years back

[The Silver-shod Muse]

I didn't really notice the Orc accents, but the fact that the Rohirrim sounded exactly like Americans, (just like all the men do in these movies, regardless of their region) was really a nasty turn-off for me. They look so <I>Germanic</I> that I expected them to pronounce all their 'w's as 'v's.

[Deiagorn]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>How would you have them speak, Deiagorn?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I knew I was going to get asked that..<P>Well, Lurtz in the first film spoke with a very deep, dark accent, like what you would expect of a urak-hai. I personally believe that the accents should of been like that, perhaps not as croaky due to the use of dialog, but still, with no thick accent.<BR>This may seem sketchy but the two urak-hai at the beginning that were talking.. "What do you smell?", "Man flesh!", good accents, no easily distinguishable human accents, quite believable. Remember the Urak-hai are like animals, uncivilised, I think this would of been portrayed better if a different more angry sounding accent would of been used.

[The Saucepan Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Suddenly that battle becomes a football event from a few years back <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Ah, yes, now that explains how the Germans won in Italia '90 and Euro '96. They had Gandalf on their side. But, where was he for them on 1 September 2001?

[Deiagorn]

<P>I think Gimli would be a classy football player...

[Diamond18]

I thought the ones with the cockney accents were supposed to be regular Orcs, not Uruk-hai.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> the Rohirrim sounded exactly like Americans, (just like all the men do in these movies, regardless of their region) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I can't say I noticed that. Especially since actors like Sean Bean, David Wenham, Karl Urban and Bernard Hill aren't even American actors.<p>[ February 01, 2003: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]

[Arien]

I noticed the accents on the orcs...(they wern't hard to miss!) I think they worked well though....even if they were a little over done.<P>And may I ask....Why did you pick SO Solid Crew?.......The Uruk- hai don't sound like them......and I doubt any Uruk- hai could produce a great song like 21 second <P>EDIT: I was being sarcastic So Solid Crew are well............yeah.......<p>[ February 04, 2003: Message edited by: Arien ]

[doug*platypus]

Well, my first reaction was "gee, you're awful picky for someone who can't even <I>spell</I> Uruk!" <P>I have to say that funny as they were, I didn't agree with the decision on the Cockney Orcs. You also raise a good point about consistency, Deiagorn. It was definitely an Uruk that we saw bemoaning the lack of meat in a Cockney accent (sorry if Cockney isn't the word I'm looking for, never unfortunately been to England), and also the guy who said meat was back on the menu was pretty working class as well.<P>Orcs in the books symbolise all that is wicked in human nature - love of destruction, complete disregard for nature, etcetera. PJ has put a slightly different slant on it and said "Orcs are the working class, and eeh ba gum they're disgusting!" Lord of the Rings never should have been a class war, but all of a sudden we have these highly educated Elves poncing about their mansions in fabulous clothes, while the working class Orcs are starving and being made to slave away for their masters (the factory owners Saruman and Sauron), all in terrible English. <P>It's like he wants people to fault Tolkien. I'm sure there's a few reviews out there that look on the class war in the movies unfavourably. If not they'll probably come out of the woodwork after TTT when Aragorn gets dolled up in his kingly armour and wipes them all off the face of Middle-Earth.<P>Or it could just all be a simple homage to Bert, Tom and William.

[Annúntindomeiel]

What do you mean all the men sound like Americans?!?!?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>And may I ask....Why did you pick SO Solid Crew?.......The Uruk- hai don't sound like them......and I doubt any Uruk- hai could produce a great song like 21 second <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Totally. I would have had them as the Walford Orcs, or something. (Except that 21 seconds is a pile of bollocks )<P>I didn't notice the Men sounding particularly American. I thought Viggo's accent was almost Irish where he was trying to speak softly and the others were just good old RP English accents, probably the way Tolkien intended. <BR>Would the Rohirrim have had Scandinavian accents? Who knows.<P>I wonder if the speaking Orcs were British or all Kiwis? Hell, at least they didn't sound like Kiwis, that would have been a poor show!

[Deiagorn]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>"gee, you're awful picky for someone who can't even spell Uruk!" <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Picky, perhaps, but then I guess 90% of the people in this forum are too. Try and remember that just because people do not have sufficient knowledge of the book (despite being a stupid) it does not reflect on the value of their opinion. Anyway, thanx for the feedback.<BR>But in my opinion the cheesy accents lowered the general seriousness of the film, if you can call it that. Nevermind though eh?<P>PS: So Solid Crew suck... :P

[Vardadurwen]

The "working-class" accents really bothered my friend. She's very politically correct (at least she tries to be), and found the use of the cockney accent to be really discriminatory. And I guess you could look at it that way, but I guess you could always think that since the orcs were meant to be this horrible species, PJ wanted them shown to be lower than the other creatures of Middle Earth. So the accent was a decent way of showing that the orcs/uruk-hais were not as sophisticated as the other folk. Maybe it was unnecessary, but if you were to show the differance, how would you have done so??

[Diamond18]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Or it could just all be a simple homage to Bert, Tom and William. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I think that's very likely, as PJ has already put many other Hobbit Homages into the story, and the three trolls in particular.

[Frodo Baggins]

Silver-Shod Muse, The Rohirrim are based on the Anglo-Saxons, who spoke Old English. Rohirric is almost identical to Old English. some of their f's that are beween vowels or after vowles are pronounced as v's but w's are pronounced as w's. And no that also means they wouln't have scandinavian accents.<P> Just be glad they pronounced Theoden correctly in the movie, PJ consistently pronounced it wrong.<P> Now what's wrong with working-class speech? Do you actually expect SAM to speak proper common tongue? Especially whe it notes in LOTR that hobbits in general usually didn't pay too much attention to the finer details of grammar. Besides, it's kind of sweet.<P>Now, I know I have said it a thousand times but I'm going to say it again. The worst thing was Cate Blanchett's heinous mispronunciation of Earendil. It specifically states in LOTR and The Sil that Ea is pronounced as TWO syllables. Thus, Earendil would be pronounced Ee-ar-en-dil. But no, Cate has to pronounce it as Ear-in-dil so it sounds more like Elendil than Earendil. Its not the star of Elendil.

[The Saucepan Man]

Well, when it comes to accents, one thing bothers me. Frodo has a 'plummy' accent (being the Master of Bag End) and Sam and Merry both speak with a West Country burr (which seems to suit Hobbits well, being rural folk). <P>So why does Pippin speak with a Scottish accent? (I know that Billy Boyd is Scottish, but he is an actor and can therefore presumably do other accents.) Gimli's Scottish accent works for me, but Pippin's just seems a bit out of place.

[Frodo Baggins]

Actually Gimli has a Welsh accent, John Rhys-Davies is Welsh.

[The Saucepan Man]

With a name like "Rhys-Davies"??? Surely not. <P>But Gimli's accent is definately Scottish. I seem to recall hearing him saying on one of the actor commentaries that he decided to play Gimli Scottish because he felt that it suited the character.

[Kalimac]

The Orcs' accents bothered me as well; I guess because they hardly spoke in the first movie and when they did ("Find the halflings!") it was in more of a well-modulated snarl than in any recognizable accent. As for the accent they chose - I'm not particularly PC, the reason it bothered me is that that accent, like it or not, has become associated with certain things, at least in the mind of this American. (1) People who break bottles over each others' heads in football brawls (2) Monty Python sketches (it may not be the exact same accent, but it sounds close enough). It makes it hard to take the Orcs as seriously as I took them in the first movie if part of my subconscious is expecting to find out in the end credits that Ugluk was played by Eric Idle.<P>As for Pippin's Scottish accent, it's a little odd but it could conceivably work. After all, he's a Took, and they're rather odd folk anyway and live gathered up the Great Smials. No reason they shouldn't have developed their own slightly peculiar way of speaking...they are those crazy Tooks, after all .

[Diamond18]

I think that Billy Boyd's Scottish accent is charming. It is inaccurate, though, since I don't think Tolkien modeled the Took's after the Scots. But for me it adds charm and makes the idiot role they gave him in FotR (and even TTT a bit) easier to swallow.

[The Saucepan Man]

So Pippin's descended from Bullroarer McTook, is he? But, I'm still not convinced that the Shire is big enough to warrant such a marked regional variation in accents. <P>As for the Orcs, well I'm not a great fan of political correctness, so I don't think that's any reason not to have Orcs speaking in a "cockney" accent (actually, speaking as a South Londoner, it sounds like more of a Saaaafff Laaandun drawl to me). Anyway, the point has been made that not all Orcs in the films speak like this, so I don't see a problem. Also, doesn't the way that the dialogue for some of the Orcs (Shagrat and Gorbag?) is written in the books suggest this kind of an accent?

[HCIsland]

I'm pretty sure in the directors commentary, one of the writters mentioned that they tried have Billy Boyd speak with and English accent but in the end it interfered with his comic timing. She then made a comment that they felt the accent justified based on where the Took's come from. Personally, I don't particularly care. The accent is charming the character would be weaker in the film without it, whether it works perfectly logistically or not.<P>H.C.