The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Filmmakers on How Their Orcs Are Different From the Movies

The upcoming TV series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will unfold in a familiar setting to what Middle-earth fans have seen in previous projects, but the adventure unfolds in a different timeframe, allowing audiences to see new interpretations of recognizable figures. While audiences have seen a number of different Orcs in the Peter Jackson-directed films, The Rings of Power has not only a different aesthetic approach to the characters, but will also require a different narrative history for the threats that makes them unlike any villains we’ve seen before in the franchise. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Prime Video on September 1st.

“We spent a lot of time talking about what it would mean to be an Orc in the Second Age,” executive producer Lindsey Weber shared with IGN. “It felt appropriate that their look would be different, part of a wilder, more raw, Second Age, Middle-earth, closer to where the First Age ends. As we meet them, they’re not yet organized into armies, they’re a little more scattered and they’ve been scavenging. So it’s just a different time in their total story.”

One similarity between the new series and the previous films, however, is that both narratives feature the unexpected return of the monsters after having believed they were eradicated entirely.

“[The Orcs] kind of disappeared,” head of the prosthetic department Jamie Wilson pointed out. “Everyone thought, ‘Yay, they’ve been wiped off Middle-earth.’ But really they regressed into the dark in small little groups, and hid away, and lived in tunnels and sort of under Middle-earth, because the only way they could hide, because of course they were hunted for so long. So this is really them coming back out as they reform under a so-called new leader who’s going to lead them forward.”

Wilson would go on to point out that the comparison the creatures earned was from a much more innocent source.

“The way I described it to my team, it’s a bit like these are the baby versions,” he confessed. “They’re not actually babies, but it’s them coming out from the darkness. So this is early on. So for example, if you go to past films about them, you’ll see them and they’re quite battle-damaged and scarred and all that kind, because there’s been lots more battles. This is before the next range of big battles. So there’s a lot more smooth texture. There’s still wrinkles, and lines, and shape, and form, but they’re not so battle-scarred, but they are dealing with some skin conditions because of their exposure to the sun. They’re coming back out for the first time again. So it’s all a bit new. That’s why they’re not as dark-skinned, necessarily not as muscly and not as battle-worn as you’d seen in previous productions.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Prime Video on September 1st.

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