Orcish Nature

One MetaFilter poster wondered what you’d get if you crossed the BBC’s Massive Nature documentaries with Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy:

I watched BBC’s Massive Nature documentary season the other day. The first one was particularly awesome, involving schools of sardine off the coast of Africa following their foodsource, eventually becoming a super-school of megabijillions of fish, which in turn attact super-pods of thousands of dolphins that work together to trap and eat the fish; plus large groups of sharks, sea lions, and gulls. A big, big event.

The commentary for all six episodes are very similar.

And it suddenly struck me during one episode that a fellow could have a blast remixing Lord of the Rings as a Massive Nature episode.

Orcs. Fourteen million Sauruman-bred Orcs. This is the biggest mob of Orcs Middle Earth has ever seen. Today, all fourteen million leave Sauruman’s realm in one mass exodus. It’s the biggest day of their lives. But for some, it will be their last. Because outside lurk deadly predators. [freeze frame matrix-style image of Orc about to encounter an arrow]

So, who will live and who will die? At the moment of impact, what are the odds for each Orc in the horde? Unlucky Orcs may become unwitting Elf-fodder. Every Orc is a potential target - so is there anywhere in the crowd that is safe from attack? In a mob of millions, is life and death simply a lottery, or are can an Orc do anything to increase its chance of survival? To find out, we’re going to travel back five months, when [special zoom effect] this cave stood empty.

Our story begins hundreds of miles from the scene of battle: Sauruman’s breeding caves…

And so on. All read in Sean Pertwee’s impeccable British accent.

posted by five fresh fish at 1:51 AM GMT on December 23

Now that would make for one seriously cool extra for the Enhanced Extended Edition of the DVD box set.