There’s a very cool story to Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice as Sauron in the Hobbit films. In fact I didn’t even know that this is who did the lines of Sauron in these films. It was a great choice for the voice to be honest since Cumberbatch is able to perform the kind of voice that is just flat out creepy. Doing his entire speech while doing black speech he was undeniably evil-sounding and even he admits that he had to kind of shake it off once he was done in order to feel normal yet again. I can just imagine that speaking in some foreign tongue that sounds so inherently wrong would kind of get to a person even if they knew it was a part and nothing else. But the work that he and the director did on this part of the movie is nothing short of astounding.
It’s funny though that a lot of people are still theorizing over just what Sauron was, as in what race he belonged to. It was established that orcs, trolls, and goblins in Tolkien’s world were the inherent bad guys. Dwarves were something of an oddity since they preferred to keep to their own kind, as did elves. Mankind were perhaps just as xenophobic as anyone but were often more willing to look beyond some differences. Hobbits on the other hand were not so much xenophobic as they were leery of the bigger races, and for good reason. Tolkien had a very rich and fantastical imagination that fleshed in a lot of characters and races in ways that became the standard for many such creatures and characters throughout the fantasy world soon after.
But not knowing who or what Sauron was regarding his race still grates on a lot of people. He was a powerful being, that much is certain. Anyone that can take on Galadriel, Gandalf, Saruman, and Elrond for even a brief moment is someone you just don’t mess with. Plus, the fact that his essence being bound into a ring meant that he could eventually return was something the likes of which is still considered epic in any tale. The guy is just bad news no matter the movie he’s featured in. To be honest he didn’t even have to physically be there to be able to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, as the mere mention of his name made a lot of people quake.
Cumberbatch can produce a very sinister-sounding voice, that much is evident, but reciting his lines backward and then playing them forwards definitely gives the part a disembodied sound that was sorely needed for this character. While the Hobbit had just as many alterations and additions to it as the Lord of the Rings did, a lot of them seem to have been needed to make sure the movie flowed nicely and was able to live up to the legend that had already been created regarding Middle Earth and its mounting troubles.
