8 Things Every Lord Of The Rings Fan Needs To Know About War Of The Rohirrim

Before making its grand return to the big screen later this year, Middle-earth invaded New York Comic Con this week and gave attendees a taste of what to expect from “The Lord of the Rings: The War of The Rohirrim.” The very existence of the film marks a first for this franchise. In a narrative and stylistic choice that harkens back to the property’s roots with Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated “Lord of the Rings” adaptation and the Rankin-Bass “The Return of the King” two years later, the upcoming movie unfolds entirely as anime. Of course, certain purists may not feel like this style fully lends itself to J.R.R. Tolkien’s wonderfully distinct world — particularly one that takes place within the same continuity as Peter Jackson’s “Rings” trilogy. But if there’s any message that the film’s cast and crew are hoping to send, it’s that this is the absolute perfect medium for the story being told here.

And what a story it is. Set 200 years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings,” this saga takes place in the horse-centric country known as Rohan (which the biggest fans could tell you was previously depicted in 2002’s “The Two Towers”) and revolves around the legend of Helm Hammerhand, King of the Rohirrim and the namesake for the famous fortress Helm’s Deep. The downright Shakespearean tale ticks all the boxes for a proper modern take on Tolkien, filled with enough war and tragedy and betrayal to fill out an entire trilogy of movies. When you add in the fact that this will be filtered through the lens of talented Japanese director Kenji Kamiyama, the blank canvass at his disposal suddenly doesn’t seem so daunting, after all.

After attending the roughly hour-long NYCC panel (hosted by Tolkien super-fan Stephen Colbert), /Film conducted a series of interviews with the creative team and voice cast afterwards. Here’s our biggest takeaways about everything fans need to know about “The War of the Rohirrim.”

Possibly the most divisive element of “The War of the Rohirrim” might very well be its greatest strength. For a property beloved the world over, “The Lord of the Rings” has no shortage of passionate fans with very passionate feelings of how this material is “supposed” to be handled. Luckily, everyone involved in the making of the anime movie came into it bonded by one shared vision: that this story simply couldn’t have been told any other way. During the NYCC panel, returning producer Philippa Boyens (credited with a “story by” credit on the film) and director Kenji Kamiyama addressed the oliphaunt in the room. In an interesting twist, it turns out the studio brought the idea of making this into an anime to Boyens, rather than the other way around. With so many potential stories to choose from and so many different time periods to tackle, Boyens immediately zeroed in on the characters of Helm Hammerhand and the family drama that set off their epic war. With Kamiyama on board, he promptly set out to unite his sensibilities with the spirit and tone of Tolkien — anime and all.

If things seem comfortingly familiar in “The War of the Rohirrim” to those who know “The Lord of the Rings” backwards and forwards, that’s precisely the point. Boyens’ willingness to jump back into the franchise after her tireless work on both the original trilogy and “The Hobbit” paid dividends, allowing the production team to reuse many of the same artists and experts who left their indelible mark the first time around. That included prolific concept artists John Howe and Alan Lee, both of whom translated many of Tolkien’s own drawings seamlessly into live-action for Peter Jackson’s films. So, who better to help invent and innovate brand-new designs for “The War of the Rohirrim” than the ones chiefly responsible for defining the look and feel of Middle-earth? Producer Joseph Chao explained that he and the creative team had “full access” to original concept art, architectural designs, tapestries, and even the vast resources available at famed special effects company Wētā … and, perhaps even more importantly, the artists who made them. When in doubt, go to the experts!

Sensing a trend lately? Fantasy projects such as “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (which, remember, isn’t connected to the movies at all) and “House of the Dragons” had to deal with the exact same problem: How does an entire writing team expand what’s only a bare minimum of source material into full-fledged seasons of television? “The War of the Rohirrim” faced a similar challenge, considering that the entire story of Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), his daughter Héra (Gaia Wise), and their rivalry with the fearsome Dunlendings is contained to a scant few paragraphs located in the appendices of “The Return of the King.” In fact, Helm’s daughter isn’t even named in the text. The end result is that Kamiyama, along with writers Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, had all sorts of room to fill in the blank spaces Tolkien left behind. But as Gittins and Papageorgiou told me afterwards, the trouble wasn’t figuring out how to expand the story into a two-hour feature — it was condensing it all into just a single film. Given Tolkien’s legendary world-building prowess, we’re inclined to agree.

Without the benefit of thousands of pages of text, the creatives behind “The War of the Rohirrim” had to get, well, creative. Many emphasized again and again that they merely had to reference what Tolkien laid down in the appendices, and there’s certainly lots of truth to that. The broad strokes of the tale are right there at the end of “The Return of the King,” waiting for anyone to peruse at their leisure and complete in a matter of minutes. But, naturally, the other side of the coin is that Kamiyama, his writing team, and even the voice cast were hard-pressed to find unexpected sources of inspiration to help flesh out the characters and round out the story. Gaia Wise had perhaps the most unexpected answer, namedropping Hayao Miyazaki’s “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” as a key touchstone for her portrayal of Héra. Boyens pointed to real-world myth and legend. But most fascinatingly of all, writers Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou told me that enduring quarantine in New Zealand by visiting the actual locations seen in “The Lord of the Rings” made the biggest difference.

Don’t let looks deceive you — especially when those looks feel like an anime recreation of Aragorn himself. “The War of the Rohirrim” spans many, many years and touches on the childhood of Héra and her bestie Wulf (Luke Pasqualino). Most of the creative team steered well clear of anything related to the young villain, who we know is betrothed to Héra by his overambitious father Freca (Shaun Dooley). The rival leader of mixed Dunlending and Rohirric heritage clearly sets his son Wulf on a path that leads to death and destruction, igniting all-out war between both families and lending a tangible sense of tragedy to the personal arc of our main protagonist Héra. But reading between the lines, it’s clear that Wulf is practically engineered to evoke many a “bad boy” antagonist out of countless anime movies and shows past. All Boyens would tease during the panel is that girls everywhere will end up falling in love with Wulf before they end up hating him. (We’re going to go out on a limb and say the appeal won’t be limited to girls.)

Don’t let any smiling faces deceive you: Blood, sweat, and tears were poured into “The War of the Rohirrim.” In this way, the anime film lives up to the daunting standard set by Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, all of which endured rocky productions and stressful development cycles on the way from the page to the screen. Where the live-action trilogy battled the elements and actor schedules and money problems, “The War of the Rohirrim” had to scratch and claw for every second of footage to make it to the final cut as intended. In an interview with director Kenji Kamiyama and producer Joseph Chao (who also served as Kamiyama’s interpreter), the two proved surprisingly forthright about just how difficult it was to make this movie. Chao revealed that they didn’t have a completed script for quite some time and that, midway through filming, they were still asking themselves, “Are we going to be able to finish this?” Calling the process a “battle to the last minute” to deliver shots on time, the pair still made it out in one piece. Call it a rite of passage in this franchise, folks.

Comic Con and veteran character actors make for funny bedfellows. It simply takes a certain type of star to play to the crowds and genuinely light up a room. Some are cut out for it, many shrink away from the spotlight whenever possible … and others simply don’t give a you-know-what. Brian Cox is very much in that last category, and so I had been anticipating how his appearance for this “The War of the Rohirrim” panel would go. It took no time at all — quite literally the first question Stephen Colbert posed to the “Succession” star — for his personality to fully take over. Asked to describe his character of Helm Hammerhand in general terms, Cox took a solid five seconds before smirking and brusquely replying: “Well, he’s called Hammerhand.” Once the room recovered from the laughter and applause, he dug much deeper into the movie as the panel went on. But forget his distinctive voice. Cox’s dry sense of humor and visible grumpiness (complimentary!) only makes his casting as Rohan’s most intimidating ruler — he kills enemies with a single punch, mind you — all the more perfect.

Epic. Operatic. Tragic. Shakespearean. Honestly, just pick any of the most impressive adjectives that come to mind and you’ll likely come close to nailing the sweeping sense of scale of this film. The “War of the Rohirrim” marketing has hinted at the political intrigue, sprawling battles, and hidden details, but none of the various trailers released over the last several months quite do justice to the exclusive footage that Comic Con attendees were fortunate enough to see. An extended clip and preview running nearly eight full minutes gave viewers a much better sense of the headstrong Héra and her dynamic with her father Helm (which Cox described as much more akin to a father/daughter relationship than a king to a subject), her close upbringing as a child alongside her friend and future betrothed-turned-enemy Wulf, and the sheer sense of scope for this tale. Think of it as a dash of “Game of Thrones”-inspired scheming, with a dark and mature tone befitting Kamiyama’s prior anime work (such as “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” and “Ghost in the Shell”). This is Middle-earth as we’ve never seen it before.

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” hits theaters on December 13, 2024.