[Kent2010]

To be fair, I agree with what everyone thinks about the human element in movies like Braveheart or Lawrence of Arabia, but we should remember that those movies are based on real stories, where Lord of the Rings is a fantasy.

I think that significantly changes things. I mean it's rather inconvenient and tedious to hire 1,000 people and get them dolled up as orcs. It took John Rhys-Davies hours to get into full make-up and costume as a dwarf, to dress up 1,000s as Orcs just might not have been possible. I can see why fantasy movies would rely more on the CGI route than a movie like Braveheart or say King Arthur would.

Even though Jackson drastically inflated the number of Orcs, it would still be a heavy burden for the make-up and costume department to hire "armies" of people just to turn them into Orcs.