posted September 12, 2013 10:46 AM              

It seems in the Movies every battles the Orcs won were either through sheer numbers or because they fought poorly trained and poorly armed innocent civilians and militia. When they finally fought a well-trained army like the Riders of Rohan and Gondor's men-at-arms, they were either massacred easily or if they did won it was because of sheer numeral advantage and often at the cost of many more Orcs than the humans would lose in the battles.

They don't even have basic hand-to-hand skills and they would use crude attacks like simply overwhelming their enemies with the sheer speeds of their tackles and sword blows and biting the exposed neck area of Gondorian soldiers and so forth.

However after reading the book, I can't help but feel this portrayal of the Orcs really is a mockery of the true might of Sauron. The Orcs in the book are very well-prepared and armed to the teeth with full armor. They are USED many different tactics and strategem and operated like other armies of Middle Earth using proper marches and formations and winning through cunning and well-trained troops.

Even the basic ambush at the start of Two Towers, were the Orcish party carrying Merry all by itself was a VERY tactical fight. The movie portrayed the Orcs as caught completely unprepared and slaughtered in a single night.

The book describes the battles with such details. The Orcs had scouts around the area so by the time the Riders of Rohan detected them, the Orcs already prepared for the assault. their troops were waiting for the Riders of Rohan with their archers and unlike in the movie, just this mere raid took a WHOLE DAY. Without going into full details, the Orcs were too prepared for the Rohan Riders to simply charge at them and the Rohan Riders had to use deception to defeat the Orcs. The movie portrayed the Riders as not losing a single horseman-the book described at around thirty were killed.

The Orcs weren't even destroyed in a cavalry charge-they attacked the Rohan Riders directly and it was such an aggressive attack Pippin and Merry were convinced the Riders were losing and took the chance in the melee to escape, though by the time the Rohan Riders have practically fought off the assault and defeated the Orcs the two Hobbits already have been in such panic they ran away to a nearby wood (even though a Rider killed the Orc that was chasing them as opposed to Treebard in the movie).

This is just a BASIC RAID and it already shows just how deadly the Orcs are in war. Nevermind the other major battles like Hornburg (there were Orcs in the Siege unlike int he movie), Siege of Minas Tirith, and even the early raids in Fellowship of the Rings (were the Orcs set up ambushes and nearly killed the members of the Fellowship various times throughout the story in a mere raid).

Does any other Tolkien fan feel the movie does not do justice to the Orcs and portrayed them as unsophisticated barbarians who all they knew was "charge,charge, and charge!"?