Warner Brothers Studios has announced an anime movie set in the world of The Lord of the Rings titled The War of the Rohirrim. The movie features on the human kingdom of Rohan and features the return of The Lord of the Rings actor, Miranda Otto, to reprise her role as Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan. This is a weekly Let’s Get Nerdy article series highlighting a different piece of Tolkien I think you need to know about!
Last week, ahead of this week’s upcoming debut of The Rings of Power, Warner Bros. treated Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fans to the first full length trailer for this year’s upcoming anime feature film, The War of the Rohirrim:
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim | Official Trailer
Peter Jackson presents a groundbreaking journey back to Middle-earth through the eyes of legendary director Kenji Kamiyama. #LOTR The War of the Rohirrim – only in theaters Christmas. New Line Cinema’s original anime feature “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” returns audiences to the epic world brought to life in “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy, based on the revered books by J.R.R.
In addition to introducing us to key cast members and important characters there are Easter Eggs littered throughout and I want to make sure you don’t miss them!
The first and most obvious is the inclusion of Miranda Otto reprising her role as Éowyn from Peter Jackson’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy of films. Otto will serve as the War of the Rohirrim’s narrator.
The trailer relies heavily on footage from the aforementioned original trilogy wherein we hear Howard Shore’s iconic, original, award winning music, and a look at Helm’s Deep – which the trailer then reintroduces us to mere moments after its completion. However, Stephen Gallagher (who composed music for past Peter Jackson projects including The Hobbit trilogy and The Mortal Engines), has original score credit on War of the Rohirrim.
Also immediately recognizable from The Lord of the Rings trilogy are the Great Eagles! Someone is flying somewhere in this film!
Along with Oliphants (clearly on display as Deus Ex Machina in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), which are not explicitly in attendance of this conflict, per book canon, but definitely visible in the trailer.
This trailer offers us the first look at Dunlendings! Although dedicated fans of The Lord of the Rings trilogy will have heard them referenced throughout. War of the Rohirrim offers actual Dunlending characters including Freca and Wulf (voiced by Shaun Dooley and Luke Pasqualino, respectively). Dunlendings are the occupants of Dunland (also referenced in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), and go on to seed the Wild Men of Rohan who cause trouble during The Third Age of Middle-Earth (and we saw during the introduction to Rohan in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers). It will be very cool to get a deeper look at this culture for the first time in adaptation!
The very end of the trailer seems willing to step on potential Rings of Power territory leaving us with the menacing question:
“What does Mordor want with rings?”
Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original text the inclusion of rings during this Age would diverge from canon, but we shall see.
War of the Rohirrim hits cinemas on December 13th, 2024.
