So are Orcs and Goblins the same in Tolkien's universe? Because I'm used to thinking of them as pretty different.
They're different in Tolkien's Universe
@ThatDamnCat Different how? The Wiki I'm looking at says they aren't differentiated. It's been a long time since I read The Hobbit though and I never read any of the other books, so I don't remember.
@ThatDamnCat Yeah that makes sense.
I just ask because I got bored and decided to watch the second Hobbit movie (newish one, not animated) tonight. I saw the first one in theaters and never got around to seeing the other two.
Anyway, the orcs in *this adaptation* are flanked by smaller, more variant-looking creatures and I wondered if they were goblins so looked it up.
Knowing me, I'm going to spend the rest of the night reading up on lore.
I have it on Blu Ray and still haven't watched the third Hobbit movie.
The LOTR movies were better than what I've seen of the Hobbit movies.
Yeah, it's definitely shot for a younger audience. Lots of bright colors, simplification, gags in the middle of otherwise tense scenes.
I don't remember the LOTR movies being as directly targeted to children, but The Hobbit is considered more of a child's book than the LOTR series is so maybe that was intentional.
Also I was 11-14 when the LOTR movies came out, so it's totally possible they might be less adult than I remember upon rewatching.
I'd say this assessment is fairly accurate
I've seen LOTR (all movies) probably a dozen times at least and I was a grown-up. The few jokes in the LOTR movies are subtle and situationally amusing without calling extra attention to themselves.
The levity in the Hobbit and some of the overly done scenes (like the escape/chase down the river) are so beyond necessary and went beyond the scope of the original material in an unpleasant way.
The Hobbit book was more grown-up than the movie
Okay, so my memory holds. Maybe I'll rewatch the LOTR movies sometime soon.
Yeah, it's a bit much. That and characters are "good" or "bad" is overly simplified ways. To be fair, most media for children does this, but it's so over-the-top and obnoxiously coded (handsome, masculine men= good, feminine or ugly guys= bad) that it gives me a tummyache. I think I've been spoiled by the independent media I consume, and even ASOIAF to an extent (though it's not perfect).
@Sparrow @ThatDamnCat In Tolkien's Universe, "goblins" in The Hobbit = "orcs" LoTR.
There's a key line in Jackson's LoRT where someone (Gandalf?) says that Saruman bred "Orcs w/ Goblins" to make his Uruk Hai. However, in the books, the line is "Orcs & Men." So Jackson seems to have decided that in his universe these are different creatures.
Still, in Tolkien's LoTR, Orcs vary widely in size & shape, because they are sub-species bred for different purposes (tunneling, war, labor, for example).
@ThatDamnCat @Sparrow (To get down to 500 chars I cut all my "iirc" and "pretty sure" etc, so the post might look very assertive and terse! Sorry if so!)
Oh awesome, thank you for the clarification!
Yeah, the more I get into D&D, the more I want to go into the lore that inspired it-- aka Tolkien (among others, I'm sure). As always, I have a lot of reading to do.
@Sparrow @ThatDamnCat D&D is such a wonderful rabbit hole to fall into!
The podcast "The Short Game" (about short video games) recently took a special episode to talk about veteran players' strategies for keeping D&D sessions fast-paced and less prone to drag on at points. It was interesting and I learned a lot. Here's a URL if you like:
http://www.theshortgame.net/118-dungeons-dragons/
That sounds awesome! :3 Podcasts are great because I work as a shelver at a library, so I have long periods of time when I don't really need to pay much attention to the outside world, and can listen away.
@Sparrow
I suppose I'm thinking about more modern interpretations.
I read all the books and they're the same there because he changed the language, so there was no orc/goblin difference (never see them in the same room together trope) but in modern adaptations they are differentiated.