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Professor Tolkien does describe the Orcs as "sallow-skinned" (letter 210) so as much as I hate to do this maybe the film was being (arguably) accurate in a sense by portraying the Orcs with this sickly pale colour? That being said the large, imposing ones like Azog one would assume were Uruk-hai which I believe were generally black in colour so I suppose that could be considered an inaccuracy.
What disappointed me with the Orcs of Goblin-Town was their largely troglodyte appearance. Where are the Goblins who "make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones" although they "had not advanced (as it is called) so far" - I like the little point Professor Tolkien makes by giving the Goblins the 'technology gone wrong' angle. The Orcs of the Mountains have always come across as sort of anti-Dwarves/anti-Noldor to me, perhaps like the difference between Melkor and Aulė, ie industry vs craft or something of that nature. I would have liked to have seen the Goblins as perhaps more of a foil to the Dwarves: smithing, forging, albeit perhaps with slaves rather than the love of using their own hands etc. We got some mention of elaborate torture devices from the Great Goblin which is consistent with the novel but I wouldn't have said no to that being echoed substantially more in their overall design and aesthetic. That being said PJ probably would have given us a "wacky" mad scientist Goblin with frizzy hair and comedy test tubes or something so maybe we're better off this way...
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