Orcs may not be the strongest creatures in Middle Earth, as even the hobbits were able to take out several of them, but they do have the numbers. In The Lord of the Rings, there is a scene where viewers see what is apparently some type of birth, where full-sized and viscous Orcs are born from a muddy, sludge-filled membrane ready to fight. This scene leaves a lot of questions like how does this happen, are they all born this way, and where did the first Orcs come from.
There is some confusion about the different types of Orcs there are, as well. Tolkien used different terms to describe these creatures, but no matter what they are called, they are still all classified as Orc-type. The different divisions of Orcs include Uruk-hai (which are the Orcs bred in Isengard, sometimes called Isengarders), Hobgoblins (a breed that is stronger and larger than a normal Orc), and Goblins (who live underground in places like the Misty Mountains). There are also lesser-known divisions like Half-Orcs and Mordor Orcs. There was a Dark Lord before Sauron was in the picture. Morgoth (also known as Melkor) was the first Dark Lord, and he is the one who first bred the Orcs. Mordor Orcs refer to the Orcs that Sauron bred for his own army.
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The first Dark Lord Melkor took hostage some Elves from Cuiviénen. He tortured them, beat them, and broke their bodies into the first deformed and twisted beings known as Orcs. Tolkien confirmed that female Orcs did exist. The fallen Maiar (spiritual beings that have existed since the beginning of time) and Orcs led by Melkor lived underground in the dark depths of the world, where the Orcs began breeding and multiplying. This large group of festering evil lived underground and out of sight until they emerged from the depths of their own Middle Earthly hell. The first race to encounter the Orcs was the Dwarves. The Orcs were scattered, divided, and leaderless at first, not posing much of a threat.
When viewers find themselves asking where did the Orcs come from after watching The Lord of the Rings, they are most likely asking about the Uruk-hai and the birthing scene. Although this division refers to Orcs bred in Isengard, there were also Uruks from Mordor who worked in Sauron's Dark Tower called Barad-dûr, and they used the symbol of the Great Eye to bestow fear in Middle Earth, just like the Uruk-hai from Isengard used a white handprint or white Elven rune to symbolize that they were from Isengard and served the White Wizard. Unlike the first Orcs who were created from the tortured and mangled bodies of Elves, the Uruk-hai were bred by Saruman the White using the dark arts.
Magic in The Lord of the Rings is more of the mind than the physical. Saruman conjured up the Uruk-hai not so much by waving a wand and the Uruk-hai were there, but more so from a formula and spell—like a curse. Saruman also enchanted the minds of Men or were enemies of Rohan into joining forces with the Orc army. It's not said in any book or even by Peter Jackson (director of the trilogy), but it is suggested that the Uruk-hai were the result of crossbreeding Man and Orc. There are several works of fiction (usually horror movies) that explore the idea of putting a curse on a woman's baby (either before or after it is born like in Rosemary's Baby), and the type of magic Saruman used was similar to this to result in the Uruk-hai—which are different than Half-Orcs.
Saruman briefly explains how the first Orcs came to be, asking one of the Uruk-hai, "Do you know how the Orcs first came to being? They were Elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured, and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life. And now, perfected. My fighting Uruk-hai." In the films, Saruman's Uruks rip their way out of a membrane of some kind that is deep under the Earth, and other Orcs help dig them out of the mud. Like the Eye of Sauron, this was another interpretation of the book that Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens made based on what Tolkien once said about how Orcs "worm their way out of the ground like maggots."
Saruman bred the Uruk-hai to be stronger, bigger, and with better armor than Sauron's first Orcs were. And although there was a bit of magic involved, the Orcs were made from hate, evil, and pain. The scene in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings was just a metaphor for how nasty and mean the Orcs were and how they seemed to come out of the ground (since that is where they first lived) from nowhere, and it might have been a little strange to see thousands of Orc or human women giving birth to baby Orcs.
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