In a 1951 letter to the publisher Milton Waldman, J.R.R. Tolkien described his youthful ambition to create a cycle of connected legends, some of which would be tales told in full and others that would exist merely as scraps and fragments.
These fragments would, he hoped, be a catalyst for future writers and artists to develop: “The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.” Tolkien’s wry comment on his own ambition, in that same letter, is that is was “absurd”.
Despite this self-reflexive ruefulness, Tolkien’s approach to the creation and writing of Middle-earth was indeed to view it as a myth cycle – that is, a linked series of stories with recurring themes and characters that span time periods and cultures.
It was complete with various languages, songs and a creation story (as told in The Silmarillion). In the appendices to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien offered hints and fragments of older tales and heroes who shaped the cultures of the Elves and the histories of Gondor and Rohan.
Which is where The War of the Rohirrim comes in, some 200 years before Frodo and the Fellowship embark on their quest to destroy the Ring of Power.
The trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.The setting will be familiar to fans: the plains and mountains of Rohan, the fortified town of Edoras and the hall of Meduseld. All of them have been recreated in lush 3D animation using the design of Peter Jackson’s landmark film trilogy.
As well as the clear visual signifiers, Miranda Otto reprises the role of Éowyn, now acting as narrator. This situates this film firmly within the Middle-earth of Jackson’s adaptation.
Fans are swiftly introduced to our new cast of characters: principally Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), King of Rohan, and his daughter who is nameless in Tolkien’s appendices and has now been christened Hèra (Gaia Wise). An unscrupulous local lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) wants to marry off his son Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) to Hèra, a proposition rejected by both Helm and Hèra.
The resulting fracas leaves Freca dead and Wulf vowing to destroy all of Rohan, partly to avenge his father but mainly to punish Hèra for rejecting him. War ensues and the people of Rohan retreat to Hornburg – which will soon to renamed Helm’s Deep.
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There is a clear thread of female empowerment running through the story that connects explicitly to Éowyn’s own narrative arc in The Lord of the Rings. Éowyn tells the tale of her ancestor who, like her, is marginalised and largely disenfranchised by the men in her life. She longs to fight alongside them and defend her homeland. Hèra idolises the Shieldmaidens of Rohan, already an old story by the time her own begins.
So far, so very familiar – and it’s the familiarity that is, perhaps, the problem. Hèra’s two brothers, the warrior Haleth (Benjamin Wainwright) and the less experienced and more artistic Hama (Yazdan Qafouri), are all-too reminiscent of Boromir (Sean Bean) and Faramir (David Wenham), with Wainwright’s vocals even sounding similar to Bean’s.
There’s even a banished-but-still-loyal nephew, poised to return with aid as soon as his uncle the king requires it. Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan (who played hobbits Pip and Merry in the original triology) voice cameo roles as a pair of orcs, and are clearly having a blast. We even get a line, courtesy of an archival recording, from Christopher Lee’s Saruman.
The King of Rohan’s daughter Hèra (Gaia Wise). Warner Bros. PicturesIt feels at times that – perhaps after the mixed reception of the Amazon series Rings of Power – the filmmakers are going out of their way to show that this is still very much Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth. Reassuring fans that they aren’t going to mess around with it too much. Unfortunately though, this makes comparing this instalment with the original trilogy harder to resist.
The battle sequences in Jackson’s trilogy were always spectacular, but it was the emotional connections, the love and loyalty played out in small, quiet moments that always resonated the most and gave the story its emotional heft.
A touching dedication during the credits to the late Bernard Hill serves as another reminder of the tenderness he brought to the role of Théoden, a quality that made him one my own favourite characters in the trilogy.
Brian Cox is on booming Shakespearian form as the mighty Helm, but the performance feels somewhat at a remove. Overall, characterisation is thin with little to no character development during the film’s two-hour-plus runtime. The most compelling relationship is between Hèra and her maid Olwyn, who is the last of the original Shieldmaidens and becomes her mentor.
But elsewhere characters remain one-note with tired clichés and visual signifiers deployed in place of personality. You can expect us to believe that Hèra is spirited and Wulf is villainous just because she has red hair and he has a scar on his face.
Hèra’s spirited nature is signified by her red hair. Warner Bros. PicturesDirector Kenji Kamiyama handles the battle scenes with brio – a deadly confrontation during a blinding blizzard is a stand-out set-piece – and brings a distinctly animé aesthetic to the characters’ design. However, the 2D animation of the characters sits uneasily against the almost photo-realistic 3D animation of the backgrounds. It often unintentionally recalls the clunky rotoscoping effect of Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings (1978).
With all of the fantastical opportunities offered by both Tolkien’s source material and the limitless potential of animation, it feels like a missed opportunity that the film remains so stubbornly earth-bound.
And yet, there are the occasional spine-tingling moments. Snatches of Howard Shore’s score worked into the soundtrack are thrilling but, again, are a callback to the original trilogy. The film does connect to the “majestic whole” of Tolkien’s “legendarium”. It passes by pleasurably enough, but does frustratingly little to expand upon and revitalise the myth cycle.
