+1 Do you have a source about "Tolkien's finals views on the matter was that Orcs were corrupted Men."?

@Lexible Last I knew Tolkien never settled on anything, but he's been posting a bunch of stuff from The Nature of Middle-Earth in a bunch of questions. I have not read it yet, but maybe he found something in there.

@Lexible - Christopher presents the various late writings concerning the origin of orcs in the "Myths Transformed" section of Morgoth's Ring. Tolkien's later writings settle on Men as the most likely origin and later writings, such as "Of Dwarves and Men", proceed to use that origin. Also the only major problem that Tolkien had with the Men version is that it would require the timeline to be reworked (to move the awakening of Men earlier than the first appearance of Orcs), and the various time schemes in Nature of Middle-earth show that Tolkien had clearly decided to make this change.

@Lexible - See also user8719's answer to this question.

"As orcs were of elves' seems pretty damn conclusive to me

@Valorum - Ah, but does it mean "corrupted from elves" or "bred in mockery of elves"? Also Tolkien in his later years was very happy to rework the underlying worldbuilding and make any edits to existing works as needed, George Lucas style.

Great answer. So it seems the final answer is more or less "no"; to me, these passages suggest that orc were made and bred "in mockery" of elves in the Elder days, but not actually made from Elves. Knowing what we know it is clear that this is what is actually meant, but you cannot really infer it from this text alone.

@Wade - I guess Jackson has sufficient cover to claim that it's not a Silmarillion exclusive

@Valorum Yes, that is also true. So the answer is more or less "No, it is not stated in LOTR" as well as "No, he did not infringe copyrights" ;) (Not that I know anything about actual copyright laws - I was thinking about the idea, not the actual law or what would happen in court, naturally)

@Wade - Actually, there's a good chance that Tolkien wrote these passages (or at least the first one) actually meaning "bred in mockery" and not "made from". (The "corrupted elves" idea only really came about around 1950, after most of LotR was already written.) You'd have to check the dates and the original drafts of the passages though.

Interesting. That was definitely not my impression when reading LOTR (hence my surprise when watching the films).

@Wade - It is very likely that Jackson read it on the internet and decided to throw it into the movie assuming it was from LotR. These projects usually hire a lesser known Tolkien Scholar (e.g. Janet Brennan Croft on the Hobbit films), whose job it is to identify which elements are being pulled from works not within their rights to use, but changes get made to a script at every stage of the production and are often done long after this review process.

You don't think he read the Silmarillion? Say what you will about the films, the guy sounds like a Tolkien fan.

@Wade - I'm sure he's probably read it at some point, but that doesn't mean he remembered this line. Could have very well been "we want some line about orc origins" > "lets look it up" > "orcs from elves". Not necessarily even from the internet.

From listening to years of Dr. Corey Olsen podcasts I understand that Tolkien's original concept was construction of Orcs from stone, slime, etc. Later, to reconcile Orcs with his religious belief that only God can create, Tolkien shifted toward the corrupted elves idea. But toward the end of his life, he was backing away from that as well, because as Elves, they would have redeemable souls. In that case, slaughtering them mercilessly would be evil, not heroic. Personally, I choose to believe they were bred from evil maia and beasts.

@erickson - You don't need Olsen or personal beliefs here. You can read Tolkien's writings and see for yourself.

The point is that all of these ideas have support in Tolkien's writings; he never committed himself irrevocably to a particular origin for Orcs.

@erickson - Tolkien arrived at a conclusion in 1959, and kept to it ten years later. Obviously it wasn't actually published during his lifetime and could have still changed it if he wanted to, but I'd say it's as definitive as any other final versions we have of his first age stuff.

@Wade 1950? are you sure? it's been a while since I read LOTR but I definitely remember the corrupted from elves thing being in there, if it's not in the books then it's in the Silmarillion .. which iirc I think was developed from his previously unpublished background notes after his death?

@Pelinore - (I assume you were replying to my comment.) The prevailing story from about 1937 to 1950 was that orcs were new creatures bred in mockery of elves. In 1950, in the Annals of Aman, first enters the new idea that they were corrupted elves. (This is the version that Christopher used in the published Silmarillion.) In 1959, Tolkien went through a lot of different options in quick succession, and eventually decided on orcs being corrupted men. This was his final written idea and persisted until at least 1969, but he never got around to rewriting it into the Quenta Silmarillion.

@ibid "I assume you were replying to my comment." [facepalm] I was, popped the wrong @ on it :) ta for the response o7