7 replies to this topic

[Emperor of the East]

I have some news regarding the Uruks of Mordor, who Saruman copied the method of making to build Isengard's armies.

Mordor Uruk-hai (could be like Isnegard's Fighting Uruk Warriors):

and


Black Uruks of Barad-dur (the unit that is already in the mod)

[Nazgûl]

The way I see it, Uruak-hai are Isengard's creation (even if he copied Mordor's "magic"), and the Uruks in Mordor are called Black Uruks, not Uruk-hai. Regardless, there won't be several units, but one. So the one we have will change model into something like the first two concepts which are much closer to what we see in Cirith Ungol on screen =) The Warg-mix will go...

[Baki]

That's a very good idea imo, the Mordor Uruks should look like those in the first 2 pics which Emperor from the East posted.
Will they be included in Beta 4.7?

[Emperor of the East]

Will they be included in Beta 4.7?

I would assume so, BakiNom. I posted this with some knowledge:

Great Orcs
The fighting Uruk-hai
A common name for the large soldier-orcs of Mordor and later also Isengard that troubled Gondor and Rohan in the late Third Age.

- Encyclopedia of Arda

Tolkien also says that the Mordor Uruk-hai appeared in III 2475, and as the movies take place in year III 3018-3019, the Mordorian nationality of the Uruk race is 543-544 years older than the Isengarder one.

[Sharkey]

Just registered. Before I say anything else, what an excellent Mod! The battles really feel more like the movies, and the player is forced to use more strategy than before. Glad I can finally build walls and towers and keep them standing for longer than ten seconds...

According to the books, Uruk-Hai were part of both Isengard and Mordor, which has already been said. Saruman shared Sauron's passion for orc eugenics and bred his own Uruk-Hai, as well as a number of orc/man hybrids.

In the movies, though - the main source for this mod - the Uruk-Hai are exclusive to Saruman's army. The scene with Saruman and Lurtz in the first film suggests that the Uruk-Hai are his own creation, not Sauron's. One of the documentaries included on the Extended DVD of the third film also makes it clear that PJ himself considered Uruk-Hai to be in Saruman's army, but not Sauron's. The orcs under the command of Gothmog and the Witch King in the film are not Uruk-Hai, but regular Orcs with great age and experience. They are more cunning than Saruman's Uruk-Hai but likely not as strong.

This decision of the filmmakers was presumably to differentiate Isengard and Mordor and give each a more distinct visual signature. For this reason I think that in SEE the Uruk-Hai should remain exclusive to Isengard: it's truer to Movie-Lore. It works in terms of balance as well; Mordor have the Nazgul and trolls to more than make up for their slightly weaker and cheaper orcs, while Isengard must rely on the toughness of their infantry.

[Baki]

That's not true.
Look at the scene in Cirith Ungol.
There are some Mordor Uruks. And they look exactly like those posted in the first post of this topic.

[Sharkey]

I found the quotes from the 'Weta Workshop' documentary (on the third disc of ROTK EE), around the 13:33 mark:



Peter Jackson: The Orcs were one of the big problems of 'Return of the King', partly because we created a reasonably formidable force of opposition for the Helm's Deep sequence. And the Uruk-Hai, by their nature, were much tougher and stronger and more brutal, and they work quite well (...)

Bill Hunt (Prosthetic Makeup): The brief on the new Orcs was kind of, 'Uber-Orcs'. These were actually Sauron's Orcs.

Ben Wootten (Weta Designer/Sculptor): It was really the idea of, they were not a new breed, they were not Uruk-Hai, but they are the best Orcs. And they've lived and been trained in Mordor as an army.



It seems to me from this that the Black Uruks of Mordor and the Uruk-Hai of Isengard, though they are basically the same in the books - with Sauron's probably as superior creatures - were intended to be different creatures in the movies. But within the movies the only creatures referred to as Uruks are those from Isengard.

But I agree that it's inconsistent with the Cirith Ungol Orcs in the film, since they are clearly like Uruk-Hai in size and build. I think having Mordor Uruks as an elite unit limited to only a couple of battalions (as elite units are in Beta 4.5) is the way to go. Which is probably what you were going to do anyway!

Edited by Sharkey, 20 March 2010 - 06:30 PM.