Lurtz
From the One Wiki to Rule Them All, the Lord of the Rings Encyclopedia.
Lurtz does not appear in the book. He is a character created specifically for Peter Jackson's movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. He was portrayed by New Zealand actor Lawrence Makoare.
Lurtz was the first of Sarumans uruks to be bred, choking the first orc birther he sees to death within seconds of his birthing. Attempting to intervene, other orcs move towards the newly born uruk-hai warrior but Saruman halts their advance, intrigued by the malice and violence present in the uruk's blood, leaving the unfortunate orc to its fate. He became Saruman's second-in-command and led them into battle against the Fellowship of the Ring at Amon Hen. Lurtz was born from the first batch of uruk-hai born in Isengard's pits and so, was much smarter and stronger than the later breeds which were bred more quickly, presumably so Saruman could amass an army more quickly, and were unable to develop as much. Given that he gave orders to the other uruks at the Amon Hen and given that he was given private audience with Saruman, he could presumably be called the strongest, smartest and most loyal of all of Saruman's uruk-hai warriors. In the original books, Boromir is slain by orc archers, described as having been "pierced by many arrows". In the movie he is killed by Lurtz, who shoots him three times in the chest. Aragorn intervenes, tackling Lurtz to the ground before he could fire the finishing shot at the Gondorian captain and after a brief intense fight, cuts off Lurtz's right arm and stabs him in the stomach before decapitating the uruk leader. In the book Uglúk was the leader of the orc-band from the beginning, with no mention of Lurtz at all.
The name "Lurtz" may have been derived by Jackson and his co-writers from the style of Tolkien's Orkish language, specifically the name Lugburz, but it also sounds similar to Lurch from The Addams Family.
Lurtz's name is never spoken aloud in the film, and is only known from the franchise and credits. Despite some initial fears that he was an entirely new character, he really wasn't much different from other 'generic Orc leaders' already present in the book.
The character of Lurtz is one of the playable "heroes" in the computer game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, and the Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2
[edit] Trivia
| Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. |
- Lurtz does not appear in the book. He is a character created specifically for the movie. He was played by New Zealand actor Lawrence Makoare. Such was the size of Lawrence, that he did not have to wear the extensive amounts of padding as the other uruk-hai actors did, needing only the minimum to give him the features of an uruk-hai warrior.
- The character of Lurtz is one of the playable "heroes" in the computer game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.
- During the fight scene between Lurtz and Aragorn, there was a part where Lurtz threw Aragorn's elvish knife, which Aragorn had embedded in the uruk-hai's leg previously in the fight, at Aragorn where Aragorn is forced to deflect the knife with his sword. This, however, was not meant to happen in the script. In the original script, the knife was meant to hit the tree behind Aragorn but due to the restricted vision caused by the Lurtz mask, Lawrence Makoare, Lurtz's actor, missed his target and threw the knife directly at Viggo Mortensen, Aragorn's actor, who was narrowly capable of deflecting the oncoming knife before it made contact with him.
