In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the line comes from the sequence known as the Three Hunters.
After the Fellowship breaks at Amon Hen, Uruk-hai seize Merry and Pippin and race across the plains of Rohan toward Isengard, Saruman's fortress of Orthanc. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli pursue them for days and nights without rest or food.
Aragorn tracks the ground, finds Pippin's discarded leaf-brooch from Lórien as proof the hobbits still live, and the three press on over the rolling grasslands.
Legolas peers into the distance and answers that the Uruks turn northeast, that "they are taking the hobbits to Isengard."
Aragorn simply says “Saruman.” The moment is brief and urgent, underscoring both Legolas’s keen sight and the hunters’ growing dread that Saruman’s forces have already won the race.
The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy epic set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, where the fate of many kingdoms and peoples becomes tied to a single object, the One Ring. The Ring was created by the Dark Lord Sauron in the fires of Mount Doom, and it contains a great portion of his power.
If Sauron recovers it, he can restore his full strength and use the Ring to dominate Middle-earth.
The story, originally written by J. R. R. Tolkien before making it to the cinema by director Peter Jackson, begins when the Ring comes into the possession of the hobbit Frodo Baggins. His uncle Bilbo had discovered the Ring many years earlier, but the wizard Gandalf eventually realizes that it is not an ordinary magical ring. It is the One Ring that Sauron has been searching for. Frodo is therefore given the task of carrying it from the peaceful Shire to the distant land of Mordor and destroying it in the same volcanic fire where Sauron originally forged it.
Frodo does not begin the journey alone. He is accompanied by his fellow hobbits Samwise Gamgee, Merry, and Pippin, along with Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf.
Together they form the Fellowship of the Ring.
Their purpose is to protect Frodo and help him reach Mordor, but the power of the Ring gradually creates fear, temptation, and division within the group.
By the end of the first film, the Fellowship is broken at Amon Hen. Frodo decides that he must continue toward Mordor because he realizes that the Ring is becoming too dangerous for the others to carry. Sam follows him, refusing to allow Frodo to make the journey alone.
At the same time, Merry and Pippin are captured by a group of Uruk-hai serving Saruman.
This is where the story of the Three Hunters begins.
Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli refuse to abandon Merry and Pippin.
They travel light, in order to pursue the Uruk-hai across the enormous plains of Rohan, following their tracks for days without proper rest.
Aragorn eventually discovers one of the Elven brooches from Lothlórien that Pippin has deliberately left behind. He realizes that the hobbits are alive and that they have left the brooch as a sign for their rescuers to follow.
When they reach a rise overlooking the land, Aragorn asks Legolas what his elf eyes see.
As an elf, Legolas has exceptionally keen eyesight and hearing, allowing him to see and hear things from great distances that ordinary Men cannot perceive.
And this is when he says that: "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard."
It is a memorable scene, and quote, especially among fans.
But things went further when Dutch musician and photographer Erwin Beekveld turned that single spoken line into a two-minute Flash video he posted to Albino Blacksheep on August 2005.
He looped and chopped Legolas's delivery, set the fragments against a driving techno remix of Howard Shore's score (drawing especially on the Concerning Hobbits theme), and intercut other dialogue: Gollum demanding "What did you say?" and calling someone a "stupid fat hobbit," Celeborn repeatedly asking where Gandalf is, and a stray "Balrog of Morgoth."
The visuals jump between Legolas, reaction shots of Aragorn and Gimli, Galadriel, and the hobbits themselves.
The result is a hypnotic, absurdly catchy electronic track whose entire identity rests on the endless repetition of one dramatic sentence.
Virality arrived almost immediately, and others quickly reuploaded the Albino Blacksheep video to YouTube, and others making their own take and version of the video.
The peak of official recognition arrived in June 2013.
At the time, during Orlando Bloom's final day filming The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, director Peter Jackson filmed him in full Legolas costume singing along to the remix.
The "Goodbye Orlando" ” video received more than 6.9 million views and over 7,000 comments in just five days, instantly reviving the original and confirming that the cast and crew had long been aware of the fan edit.
Beekveld later called Bloom's performance the ultimate recognition.
Academic writers have since cited the video as an early example of postmodern mash-up culture and as a case study in the legal gray zone of fan remixes under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Even after Beekveld's death from lung cancer in 2022, the track continues to surface whenever new Middle-earth projects are announced, its two-decade run of pure, looping virality still intact.
