Somewhere in Middle-earth, is there a Chili’s that serves orcs? Does an Uruk-hai host greet hungry customers, tell them it’ll be a 20-minute wait, and hand them a menu? Does the kitchen run out of manflesh halfway through the dinner rush?
Is halfling served as an appetizer? What precisely is in the Triple Dipper? These are unreasonable questions to ask of an otherwise perfect fantasy epic.
Unfortunately, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers invites every one of them with one line that feels deeply anachronistic. Merry and Pippin are captured by orcs at the end of the first movie, and heading into the second, their orc captors march day and night to bring them to Saruman at Isengard. But the orcs are tired — and hungry.
An orc from Mordor called Snaga wants to eat the hobbits, but the Uruk-hai captain Uglúk forbids it. Saruman wants them alive because they might possess an “elvish weapon,” he explains. Another orc, Grishnákh, proposes that they just eat their legs.
As tensions rise, Snaga creeps up behind Merry and Pippin hoping for just a taste of halfling flesh. That’s when Uglúk decapitates him with one swing of his sword and delivers this unforgettable line. Merry and Pippin seize the opportunity to crawl away.
It’s disgusting, efficient, and very funny. Uglúk has resolved a personnel dispute by getting everyone free pizza. In a universe with a wizard who comes back from the dead and talking trees with very strong opinions about axes, somehow, the single detail from Peter Jackson’s trilogy that raises the most questions is when an orc expresses familiarity with restaurant terminology.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
