Lurtz?

[RyAN the Pure Heart]

My little brother is collecting movie parafanalia from the LotR movies, among these are a line of toys. So i was looking at the back of the box and see something called "newborn lurtz" my brother claims he read in a movie interview that lurtz is an orc who's sole job is to kill frodo, an assasin if you will.<P>Are they ADDING this to the movie with disreegard of the books, or is it in the books and i somehow missed it?<P>RyAN

I believe Lurtz has been added to have a evil character who you see more then just being told of Sauron and Saruman and not really seeing them. He was not in any of the books, but they had to make a few adjustments to make it appeal to more people I suppose.

[Durin's Bane]

MAJOR SPOILER:<P>Lurtz is gonna be one big bad Uruk-Hai he's gonna be Sauruman's second in command for awhile and will be responsible for Boromir's death. Aragorn's supposed to chop off his head or something soon after though.

[Voronwe]

What was wrong with good old Ugluk?<P>-Voronwe

[Inziladun]

Yeah, couldn't they have just left Uglúk in there and let Aragorn chop <I>his</I> head off instead of inventing a character out of thin air?

[Groin Redbeard]

Yeah that's right I forgot about Uluk. Still Lurtz was one of many improvisions that Peter Jackson did in the movies.

[Sauron the White]

It would be good to remember that the character identified as LURTZ is not so named in the films. He is nameless and is only the field commander of a group of Uruks dispatched by Saruman from Isengard. This is consistent with the books in many ways.

[Sir Kohran]

Good heavens, this thread is indeed old

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

It would be good to remember that the character identified as LURTZ is not so named in the films. He is nameless and is only the field commander of a group of Uruks dispatched by Saruman from Isengard. This is consistent with the books in many ways.

And besides, many brutal Orc and Uruk leaders are named throughout the story and I don't think Lurtz is out of place.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

*Note in forward. This post is one of a movie-hater, if such a strong word as "hate" can be used, let's say rather a movie-disliker, whatever the case, in such light you have to look at it*

Lurtz sounds like a German name, not like an Orcish one.

And I really don't understand why he is there and not Uglúk, who was a very, very strong character in the books, and he is reduced to a silly, to use Sir Kohran's words, "one of the many brutal Uruk leaders" with almost no lines in the movie.

I understand they probably wanted Aragorn to chop this Uruk's head off. But then in the books, Éomer dismounts to duel (!) with Uglúk, and had they left Uglúk kill Boromir and then run away, I think the effect in the movie would have been even better: you will have a real baddie whom the audience awaits to be killed, Aragorn&folks pursuing the Uruk-hai would have created another expectations in the audience, and the duel with Éomer will raise both him and Uglúk even more in the eyes of the audience. No, I don't fancy any lurtzes (and why isn't he named at least like an Orc?).