Movies - TV
How The Lord Of The
Rings' Most Memeable Line Wound Up In The Movies
By JEREMY SMITH
During a contentious moment in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” one of the Uruk-hai beheads an orc and delivers one of the most memeable lines in the trilogy: “Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys.” But given how the Uruk-hai most likely don’t frequent pubs or restaurants, you may have wondered where this line came from.
Stephen Ure (Grishnakh, the orc who broached the subject of eating the hobbits) said the line probably originated with co-writer Philippa Boyens, saying, “She puts all this stuff in there that doesn’t make sense.” Ure maintains that the Uruk-hai wouldn’t know what a menu is, though Jed Brophy (Snaga, the orc who presses the issue) thinks otherwise.
“I guess when you look at Bilbo Baggins and the types of food he eats. They do talk about banquets, especially in Hobbiton. So ‘menu’ [could] be a common phrase,” said Brophy. Nathaniel Lees (Ugluk, the Uruk-hai decapitator) shared his opinion, “‘Menu’ is merely the choice of food available. Once I had beheaded the orc [Snaga], ‘meat was back on the menu.’”