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The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim

I'm not surprised I'm in the minority, but I loved it. I found the film to be a magnificent adventure that is a worthy tale expanded within the realm of Tolkien.

The story occasionally leans a little heavy upon nostalgia and lore (although I loved every bit of all of that!) but the core plot is a thrilling fable about a woman pushing heavily against what other men want in the face of a raising conflict. Unsurprisingly, the root issues of said conflict can simply be boiled down to a father's archaic stubbornness and another man's inability to accept rejection from a woman.

The animation style is a lovely mashing of modern anime and sweeping paintings with just a dash of Rankin/Bass (and I mean that as a compliment) with its slower FPS. I get why that's off-putting for some people but I thought it worked well for the most part.

I also enjoyed how the film poked at typical film tropes, even a few from Peter Jackson's films, and molded them for the best use of the film.

There were two other people at my showing, but that's not a surprise for a random Tuesday afternoon. Still don't care about the box office takings. All that matters is that I enjoyed the film and I look forward to watching it again.
 
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Rich Watson said:
You didn't watch it in the cinema and on Friday you'll have the chance not to watch it at home.

deadline.com

‘Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim’ Heading Into Homes After 14-Day Theatrical Window

New Line Cinema's anime feature The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which opened on Dec. 13 to a very low $4.5M, will be available on digital in home on Dec. 27, repping a 14-day theatrical window.
deadline.com deadline.com
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But I did watch at the cinema and I'm glad I did.

So there. :p
 
I don't really have the ability to go to the cinema right now, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the film a lot at home.
 
Allyn Gibson said:
Oh, I have seen the Bakshi film. Several times. I have all three animated films on DVD. I'd love to see an animated film that completes Bakshi's story, too! :)

If Warners can finish The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo after almost forty years, they can finish the two animated Lord of the Rings series. :)

ETA: Finishing Bakshi would be pretty straightfoward. Finishing Rankin-Bass, I'd want to maintain the feeling of Return of the King, being told in flashback by the Hobbits, to make them "A Tale of the Hobbits" like RotK was. Fellowship I would have as a story told by Sanwise to his children, ending at the point where he and Frodo go off alone, with Samwise saying, "I'll tell the rest," and Two Towers I would tell from the perspective mainly of Pippin and Merry, maybe of a great moot of Hobbits at the Great Smials when Pippin is Thain, so the three (Pippin, Merry, and Samwise) all tell the next generation of Hobbits about their great adventures. Focus on the Hobbits and Gandalf, the other characters are kinda shoved into the background, though they get iconic moments.
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I would be ecstatic if we ever got to see a Rankin/Bass Balrog vs Gandalf, or Battle of Helm's Deep. I only wish they had done it back then so we could get John Huston and the rest of the cast to voice all the characters. Whoever the hell Brother Theodore is, his version of Gollum will ALWAYS be my favorite; so much creepiness and despair in his voice, it was easy to fear and pity him.
 
Theodore is... well, this appearance on Letterman is wild. His monologue is Gollum on acid. 😂

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Well, I wanted to see it in the theater, but the people I was going to see it with had to cancel twice so we wound up just renting it today. I really enjoyed it. My only negative comment would probably be that it was a little bit too long. The animation was absolutely stunning.
 
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I saw it, and I liked it a lot. It definitely had that anime thing of cutting the animation quality in talking scenes and saving the budget for action scenes, and the backgrounds could be too CG, but overall it looked very good. The story was also enjoyable, although there is 100% no chance that it would have matched what Tolkien would have done if he had fleshed the story out (there is a reason that Helm's daughter didn't have a name in the written material, because she only existed to be someone the bad guy wanted to marry), but unlike what regularly happens with Rings of Power this was at least used to tell a good, if completely lore inaccurate, story that stands on its own.

A solid 8/10 movie, and one I'll definitely pick up on home media to add to the physical LOTR movie collection.
 
I'm not really sure how they could have fleshed out this story to the point that they did without giving Hera a larger role (and a name). Helm and both of his sons died before the story ends, and we do need a protagonist character to follow. Frealaf might have been able to fill that role, but making it Helm's daughter makes it a much more personal story for Helm.
 
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And I think I take issue with describing the movie as being "completely lore inaccurate" as well. Although greatly expanded from the original three page treatment, every single lore event described in those three pages was accurately depicted in the movie. There were additions to the story, but there were no changes to the lore. In that sense, it's actually the most accurate Tolkien adaptation ever made.
 
Tolkien would probably have made Helm's nephew the POV character, or at least the co-POV character switching between him and Helm until Helm's death. I think he would have expanded the daughters role, but he wouldn't have given her any fighting scenes. I could see him having her send a message to the King's nephew but if she did that would have been her one "action" scene. Also, adding stuff to a story automatically makes an adaptation inaccurate, even if the source material was thin. That doesn't mean its bad, but its definitely inaccurate.

Again I enjoy the movie and I like Hera as a character, it makes sense if you're fleshing out the story to have a POV character in Helm's Deep who isn't Helm and there were a few outright female warriors in the old Lore, but it just doesn't quite match up with Tolkien's general style to me. I'm glad they did it the way they did, this isn't a "how I wanted the story to go" or "creative choices I would make" thing, but it just doesn't quite match up with Tolkien's style to me.

That said, the only thing I legitimately think would have really irritated Tolkien was naming the daughter "Hera". He would never use a Greek origin name, he barely tolerated using English words that were borrowed from non-English languages in general much less as proper names.
 
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The film was fine. I just wasn't invested in the story. It has little to no connection to LOTRs so I wondered what the point of it was (from a story standpoint). I had no issues with the animation or voice acting but the flips and high jumps by characters make it feel less grounded.

Allyn Gibson said:
If Warners can finish The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo after almost forty years, they can finish the two animated Lord of the Rings series.
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Nice to know I'm not the only one who appreciates them finishing the thirteen ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
 
Just watched this on MAX over the weekend.

Overall, I found it disappointing in story and execution. :shrug:

For a Japanese animated feature film. the animation quality wasn't great (not horrible either but it definitely smacked of direct to streaming/video OVA quality). but since it's a Lord of the Rings licensed product, some upstairs thought they could make extra money releasing it to theatres first.

And story wise, Hela's inability to want to kill Wolf when she had the opportunity - especially after he murdered her captured and tied younger brother in front of her earlier - near the end of the film (which would have ended the conflict because even Wolf's second in command and Wolf's own people were loosing faith in him and his single minded quest for vengeance) - really stood out as a MAJOR story flaw. If she was that against bloodshed she should have just married the man without asking anything.

Then there's the whole asking the Great Eagle to take her King/Father's armor (and who can kill 3 Orcs and a giant Uruk-hai bare handed who's now dead for no real reason beyond - "we need him to sacrifice himself at the gate" plot complication) to her cousin to give him a clue to come to their aid... which IMO makes no sense because we never really saw her for a bond with it previously - unless it was the own she fed a beef leg to in the opening of the film, but if it was it sure grew a LOT in a year...

Overall, yeah, it just seemed to be a garden variety vengeance story and it's only hook was that it was set in Tolkien's middle Earth, and (rightfully) IMO no one really has told it before because in the end, there's nothing really special about it or the 'heroine' Hel'a in Middle Earth itself.

In the end we see her Cousin (now the new King) welcome Saruman the White - who pledges his aid to Rohan (yeah, we know how that'll turn out) - and we see Hel'a riding out to meet Gandalf (who sent her a letter) because somehow he found out she encountered 3 Orcs and the giant Uruk-hai her father all killed bare handed and wants to know more; and in the end we have a shot of her riding with the narrator saying she remaind 'wild' and unmarried until the end of her days... >Yawn<.
 
Turtletrekker said:
The animation was absolutely stunning.
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I felt it was stunningly mediocre in some places.
Turtletrekker said:
There were additions to the story, but there were no changes to the lore.
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They changed who killed Wulf, and where it happened. ( Also, in the film Freca threw the first punch. In the book Helm just marches him out to the fields and one-shots him. )
Noname Given said:
who's now dead for no real reason beyond - "we need him to sacrifice himself at the gate" plot complication
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I guess the reason would be that he died in the book, in pretty much the same way.
 
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Hi Peeps - random merch post: the McFarlane action figure line has finally hit retail here in New Zealand, as I found the full wave of four figures at The Warehouse, Paraparaumu - however, there was no Helm Hammerhand to be found - the one figure I was after!

The price of a single figure however was $49.00 NZD - which is a little bit too rich for my blood, and considering how small / slight this scale is - it feels like the bare minimum in terms of product, with the highest price tag of pretty much all other figures / scales, IMHO.

Somewhat disappointing.

Anywho, just thought I’d share.
 
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