“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” Trailer Unveils Anime Trip to Middle-earth
Fans got their first look at The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this past June, when none other than Gollum himself, Andy Serkis, was on hand to reveal 20 minutes of the film. But now, Warner Bros. has unveiled the official trailer to the rest of the world, and it’s a beaut.
Helmed by visionary director Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex), The War of the Rohirrim is based on a brief portion, included in the appendices, no less, of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” The story is centered on Hèra (voiced by Gaia Wise), the daughter of the legendary Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), a mighty king of Rohan, and tracks the Hammerhand family’s attempts to protect their lands from the Dunlendings. The action takes place some 183 years before the events depicted in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, with the trailer splicing in some footage from Jackson’s original trilogy. This live-action footage makes the switch to Kamiyama’s anime vision so stark. It also vividly depicts how well LOTR lends itself to the medium.
“All Midde-earth knows the tale of the war of the ring, but 200 years before that, there was an older tale,” Hèra says at the top of the new trailer. We’re then shown a fateful offer of marriage, proposed by the Dunlendings, meant to strengthen Rohan’s position and forge an alliance. But Hèra resists the marriage proposal, and Helm Hammerhand ultimately sees it as a power-seeking grab by his rivals and ends the discussion with a right hook that will change the fate of Middle-earth. Talk about a potent punch.
The action heats up after that, with giant eagles and war-ready elephants in action and Hèra offering to help her father put down the aggressors. The aggressors are led by Wulf (voiced by Luke Pasqualino), a ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, which forces Helm and his people to make a last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg—the mighty fortress that we’ll come to know later in the LOTR trilogy as Helm’s Deep.
“We did not want to make an animated version of a Peter Jackson film,” Serkis said at Annecy. “We wanted to make a Kenji Kamiyama anime feature film that lives within that world. And that’s a difficult, difficult task that requires a lot of delicate balancing between two types of filmmaking that haven’t really collided like this before.”
Cox and Wise are joined in the cast by Miranda Otto, who voices Eowyn, and Shaun Dooley, who voices Freca, among others.
Kamiyama directs from a story by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, with the script penned by Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou.
Check out the trailer below. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim arrives on December 13.
For more on Warner Bros., Max, and more, check out these stories:
First “Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos” Trailer Unveils the Making of a Mob Masterpiece
Michaela Coel Creating Follow-up Series to “I May Destroy You” for HBO & BBC
HBO Reveals First Look at “The Last of Us,” New “Game of Thrones” Spinoff & More
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) WULF voiced by LUKE PASQUALINO and HÉRA voiced by GAIA WISE in New Line Cinema’s and Warner Bros. Animation’s epic anime adventure “THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
