The world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one of the most recognizable and well-regarded fantasy worlds in all of fiction. Through the lands of Middle-Earth and Arda, Tolkien crafted a mythology that is full of countless stories, both heroic and tragic, legendary characters, and an ever-shifting balance between the forces of good and evil. The most well-known story of Tolkien’s world is The Lord of the Rings, which has received many adaptations over the years ranging from Ralph Bakshi’s animated film in 1978 to Peter Jackson’s trilogy in the early 2000s. In the last decade, the world of Middle-Earth on-screen has continued to expand through another Jackson-directed trilogy based on The Hobbit and, most recently, Prime Video’s The Rings of Power, which explores the climactic story of the Second Age of Middle-Earth.
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The War of the Rohirrim already has a release date set for April 12, 2024. It will be a 2D-animated film that tells a story set approximately 180 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. The War of the Rohirrim will detail the violent wars between the Rohirrim horse-lords (last seen in Jackson’s The Two Towers and The Return of the King) and the Dunlendings that occupy the lands to the west of Rohan. The central protagonist of the story will be Helm Hammerhand, the ninth King of Rohan, after whom the fortress of Helm’s Deep would be given its name. Hammerhand was a legendary figure in Tolkien’s mythology, known for his aggressive demeanor and his particular inclination towards slaying his enemies with his bare hands, hence the nickname “Hammerhand.”. The story of The War of the Rohirrim will be narrated by the familiar voice of Éowyn, who fans will know as the Rohirrim shield maiden responsible for killing the Witch King of Angmar during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King. The actress Miranda Otto will be lending her voice to the character, reprising her role from Jackson’s films.
The Lord of the Rings series is no stranger to animated adaptations. There have been several animated adaptations of Tolkien’s most iconic stories over the years, though it has been a hot minute since one was actually produced and released in any large-scale manner. The last major animated adaptation of Tolkien’s work was the 1980 Rankin/Bass animated television special based on The Return of the King. Because it has been so long since the world and stories of Tolkien have been explored through animation, The War of the Rohirrim has a real opportunity to move the series in some exciting new directions. Here’s how:
Telling Stories Through Animation
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By telling stories through animation, creative hands and minds are much freer to depict stories; however they will. They are significantly less restricted by the budgetary hurdles that come with the building of sets and the hiring of visual effects companies. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still other expenses such as the hiring of different animation houses and voice talent. On the whole, though, it is much easier (and cheaper) to depict epic stories of such a grand scale through animation than it is to tell the same stories in live-action. The creatives behind The War of the Rohirrim, such as director Kenji Kamiyama and screenwriters Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, are able to tell the story of Hammerhand and the wars of the Mark without having to sacrifice major moments or vast action sequences because of either monetary restrictions or the challenge of coordinating a live-action shoot. They are free to let their ambitions run and to make the story, its characters and its action sequences as big as they wish.
The possibilities of animation are quite literally endless. The only real limitation is that of the creative mind. It’s precisely because of that limitless potential that animated films are such a perfect match for fantasy storytelling. There are countless animated movies out there that frankly could not have been as beautifully or masterfully executed if they were to have been told through live-action instead. A few key examples are the work of director Hayao Miyazaki, who has brought to life numerous truly outstanding fantasy universes through films like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. Even some of Disney’s classics, like Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin and The Lion King, have an immense animated magic to them that just cannot be recreated in live-action.
By being the first new animated Lord of the Rings story in over forty years, The War of the Rohirrim has a massive opportunity to redefine what Middle-Earth can be on-screen. In terms of design, the film is taking direct inspiration from the work that Weta Workshop and Jackson did on the widely beloved live-action trilogy. Those films are well-known for their grandiosity and scale, and The War of the Rohirrim is looking to recapture much of that magic through its animation. The concept art that has been released so far proves that Kamiyama and the animation team are fully taking advantage of the limitless nature of the medium. With the immense success of animated films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the explosion in popularity of anime over the last decade, general audiences (particularly in the West) are finally getting to a point where they are embracing animation as a medium for real storytelling and not just as a method to make children’s movies. If The War of the Rohirrim can continue to build on that trend, then there are countless other tales from Middle-Earth that would be worth exploring through animation as well.
Exploring One-Off Adventures
Another way in which The War of the Rohirrim is breaking new ground for on-screen adaptations of Tolkien is that, as far as we know right now, the film is a complete story in and of itself. It’s not the first part of a new Middle-Earth trilogy, nor is it the beginning of an extended series or streaming show. It’s one, single animated movie that is telling a cohesive story from beginning to end. Unless WB decides to make the same mistake they did with The Hobbit by needlessly stretching this story out into multiple installments, The War of the Rohirrim will essentially serve as an anthology film within the world of The Lord of the Rings.
The concept of telling these kinds of one-and-done stories is new to the world of Tolkien on-screen, but it’s an idea that could yield fantastic results. As exciting as it can be to tackle the lengthier, world-defining stories like those of War of the Ring and of the Second Age, there are so many more stories that can be pulled from Tolkien’s texts that would make for stellar feature-length films. By taking on this kind of singular story, The War of the Rohirrim will break the precedent and prove that not every Middle-Earth story on-screen needs to be a trilogy or multi-season television event. For every story about the Dark Lord Sauron or the Rings of Power, there are infinitely more about various cultures and societies of the world, and many of those stories would make for outstanding anthology movies.
Delving Further Into Tolkien’s Legendarium
Believe it or not, there is actually a lot more to Tolkien’s creative output than just the tales of the Rings of Power and the Dark Lord Sauron. While there’s no denying that those stories are Tolkien’s most well-known and applauded, a significant portion of what makes them great is the outstanding world-building within them. Tolkien establishes so many lands, peoples and histories within the realm of Middle-Earth that there is an almost endless supply of different characters and stories that could be brought to the big screen. By opening up modern Tolkien adaptations to the medium of animation, in addition to live-action storytelling, there is suddenly a lot more room for the more obscure stories of Tolkien’s writing to be told on-screen.
While The Rings of Power currently has staked its claim solidly on the Second Age of Tolkien’s world, there is significantly more story to be told within the First and Third Ages of Middle-Earth anyway. Considering The War of the Rohirrim is set less than two hundred years prior to The Lord of the Rings, the new animated film is firmly a Third Age story. Beyond that, there are many other Third Age stories that could be wonderfully brought to life through animation as well. There are more epic war-based stories, such as those of the Angmar War, between the Witch King and the men of Arnor, or the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, which was already briefly seen in a flashback in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. There are also more adventurous tales such as the arrival of the Wizards (either all five or the final three, depending on who you ask) in Middle-Earth, as well as Aragorn’s various journeys prior to The Fellowship of the Ring, which were wide and action-filled.
Some of the most epic of all Tolkien’s stories, however, come from the First Age of Middle-Earth and the times that preceded it. Many of these tales were outlined in The Silmarillion, which is essentially an extensive religious and historical text that details the entire history of Middle-Earth and the larger world of Arda. There are countless key characters and heroes from the First Age, and while there are innumerable major events and stories, there are three specific “great tales” that would make for excellent on-screen stories. These epic stories of Tolkien’s have been published posthumously under the titles of The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin. All of them have are available as standalone books of varying complexity, but each of them has a compelling story to tell. All three stories are full of the adventure and tragedy one would expect from any story of Tolkien’s. Considering the First Age is significantly more fantastical than the ages that followed it, and it’s essentially uncharted territory on-screen, there is immense potential to be found in telling First Age stories through animation.
The point here is that there are so many incredible stories that Tolkien has written that have been completely left on the sidelines when it comes to on-screen adaptations. By embracing the endless creative directions that animation can provide, many of these tales could be made into truly outstanding films. The War of the Rohirrim could just be the first of many similar animated and anthological films set within Tolkien’s world. The tale of Helm Hammerhand is one that, for a long time, fans would have never expected to get a theatrical adaptation of. Now that it is actually happening, the floodgates could finally be opening.
