The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Theatrical poster
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
Information
Director	Kenji Kamiyama
Screenplay	Phoebe Gittins Arty Papageorgiou (screenplay) Jeffrey Addiss Will Matthews (story)
Based on	The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Producer	Joseph Chou
Starring	Brian Cox Gaia Wise Luke Pasqualino Miranda Otto Laurence Ubong Williams
Narrator	Miranda Otto
Music	Stephen Gallagher
Studio	New Line Cinema Warner Bros. Animation Sola Entertainment
Distributor	Warner Bros.
Released	13 December 2024
Runtime	130 minutes
Country	United States Japan
Language	English
IMDb	Profile

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is an anime fantasy film based on the The Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien. The film, set 250 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, is primarily based on the Appendices and covers the story of Helm Hammerhand, and the history behind the founding of Helm's Deep.

Synopsis

The film is set around 250 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, covering the period of time when Helm Hammerhand was King of Rohan. Helm was King of Rohan from T.A. 2741 to 2759.

According to Deadline: "The War of the Rohirrim focuses on a character from the book’s appendix, the mighty King of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand, and a legendary battle which helped shaped Middle-earth heading into LOTR. The anime pic will expand the untold story behind the fortress of Helm’s Deep, delving into the life and bloodsoaked times of Hammerhand. Overall, the movie is a companion piece to New Line’s LOTR trilogy and is set roughly 250 years before that movie during the third age".

Plot

Éowyn narrates the tale of Héra, a shieldmaiden of Rohan, daughter of King Helm Hammerhand, who lived nearly two centuries before Bilbo Baggins came across the One Ring.

Freca, a Dunlending chieftain, arrives at King Helm's hall accompanied by his son, Wulf, a childhood companion of Héra. Furious upon learning that Héra is to be wed to a noble of Gondor, Freca attempts to compel a union between Wulf and Héra in a bid to seize control of Rohan. Though Wulf harbors genuine feelings for Héra, she has no desire to marry at all. A confrontation between Helm and Freca escalates into a fist-fight outside the hall, during which Helm, with a single blow, unintentionally kills Freca thus earning the name "Hammerhand."

Stricken by grief and rage, Wulf swears vengeance and disappears without a trace. Years later, Héra and her cousin Fréaláf discover the corpse of a dead Southron warrior—a tamer of Oliphaunts. Moments later, the warrior’s rabid Oliphaunt emerges and attacks them. Héra cleverly lures the beast to a forest lake, where it is seized and devoured by a lurking Watcher in the Water. Soon after, she is captured by Targg, one of Freca’s old commanders, and taken to Isengard, now Wulf’s stronghold. There, she learns that Wulf has risen to lead the Dunlendings. In an attempt to stop the coming invasion, Héra offers herself in marriage to Wulf, but is rescued in time by Fréaláf and her lady-in-waiting Olwyn.

Wulf marches on Rohan. Helm, refusing Fréaláf’s counsel to evacuate Edoras to the refuge of Dunharrow, brands him a coward and banishes him. Helm prepares for war after Lord Thorne pledges support, but Héra uncovers Thorne’s treachery. He attempts to kill her, but she survives and slays him with the help of her steed, Ashere. Realizing Helm’s army has been betrayed and outnumbered, Héra leads the people of Edoras to safety at the Hornburg. In the ensuing battle, Wulf kills Helm’s son Haleth, then captures his brother Háma, executing him before Helm’s eyes—ignoring Helm’s plea to take his own life instead. Wulf lays siege to the Hornburg throughout the bitter winter, constructing a massive siege-tower.

Gravely wounded and broken-hearted, Helm begins venturing out under cover of darkness via a secret passage, slaying foes with his bare hands. On one of these night raids, Héra finds him and aids him in defeating a troll. During their return, she witnesses two orcs from Mordor looting rings from the fallen, acting on the orders of their master. Helm escorts her back to the Hornburg, then stays behind to hold off the enemy. He perishes in the snow, upright and unyielding, frozen in death.

Héra sends an eagle bearing her father’s armor to summon Fréaláf. Donning an ancient bridal gown, she rides out to confront Wulf on the siege-tower bridge he has just lowered to storm the Hornburg, issuing a challenge to single combat. Her goal is to buy time for the Rohirrim to escape through a hidden tunnel. She defeats Wulf and demands his surrender. Targg, who had previously urged Wulf to abandon the siege, agrees with her, but Wulf slays him in defiance. At that moment, Fréaláf arrives with reinforcements, bearing Helm’s horn and armor—symbols that terrify the Dunlendings, who believe Helm has returned from the grave. Panic spreads, and the enemy flees. Wulf lunges at Héra, but she kills him by strangling him with a shield strap, thus bringing the war to an end.

Helm’s legacy is immortalized in the naming of Helm's Deep, the valley and fortress of the Hornburg. Saruman is revealed to be the new master of Isengard, offering friendship to Fréaláf, who is crowned king. Héra, disinterested in ruling, sets off with Olwyn to explore the wider world. Her first new journey brings her to Gandalf, who seeks answers about the orcs she saw and their quest for rings. Éowyn concludes her story, saying that Héra remained fierce and free-hearted to the end of her days.

Cast

Credited

	Actor	Role(s)
1	Brian Cox	Helm Hammerhand
2	Gaia Wise	Héra
3	Miranda Otto	Éowyn (narrator)
4	Luke Pasqualino	Wulf
5	Lorraine Ashbourne	Olwyn
6	Shaun Dooley	Freca
7	Benjamin Wainwright	Haleth
8	Yazdan Qafouri	Háma
9	Laurence Ubong Williams	Fréaláf
10	Michael Wildman	General Targg
11	Janine Duvitski	Old Pennicruik
12	Bilal Hasna	Lief
13	Jude Akuwudike	Lord Thorne
14	Billy Boyd	Shank
15	Dominic Monaghan	Wrot
16	Alex Jordan	Lord Frygt
17	Bea Dooley	Young Héra
18	Elijah Tamati	Young Wulf
19	Will Godber	Young Rohan Refugee
20	Christopher Lee	Saruman
21	Calum Gittins	Wildman
22	Matt Beachen	Dunharrow Captain
23	Shane Bartle, Zac Bell, David Cox, Adam Rhys Dee, Daniel Denova, Alison Dowling, Daniel Flynn, Stephen Gledhill, Peter Hambleton, Nick Haverson, Oliver Hembrough, Ronny Jhutti, James Ladanyi, Simon Lawson, Anthony Lewis, Jonathan Magnanti, Gary Martin, Neil McCaul, Naomi McDonald, Carmel McGlone, Joshua Miles, Louie Nixon, Hilary Norris, Fergus O'Donnell, Nigel Pilkington, Lyndee-Jane Rutherford, Stephanie Thomas, Martin Tidy, Gemma Wardle, Rob Alderman, Jay Clare, Daniel Entwistle, Keith Robertson, Gavin Newton, Luke Blick, Lewis Collins, Callum Pearson, Adam Taylor, Dan Hyams, Kieran Milne, Matthew Kennedy	Additional Voices

Uncredited

	Actor	Role(s)
1	Carlos Damasceno	Orc Warlord

Production

Announcement

The film was announced on 10 June 2021 in the run up to the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The film had the blessing of Peter Jackson.

All of us at New Line feel a deep affinity for the extraordinary world J.R.R. Tolkien created, so the opportunity to dive back into Middle-earth with the team at Warner Bros. Animation is a dream come true. Fans know Helm’s Deep as the stage for one of the greatest battles ever put to film and, with many of the same creative visionaries involved and the brilliant Kenji Kamiyama at the helm, we couldn’t be more excited to deliver a fresh vision of its history that will invite global audiences to experience the rich, complex saga of Middle-earth in a thrilling new way.

Carolyn Blackwood, Warner Bros. Pictures Group chief operating officer, and Richard Brener, New Line Cinema president and chief creative officer.

Development

New Line Cinema, currently owned by Warner Brothers-Discovery, and the company behind The Lord of the Rings film series, announced that they were fast-tracking development of this 2D anime film. Warner Bros. Animation will be partnering with Sola Entertainment, and it was announced also that the film will be directed by Kenji Kamiyama. The screenplay will be written by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, with Philippa Boyens - who worked on both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series -acting as a consultant.

In February 2022, it was announced that the script was now being written by Phoebe Gittins, Philipa Boyens' daughter, and her The Sorrows writing partner Arty Papageorgiou, based on a story by Addiss and Matthews. It was also announced that special effects company Wētā Workshop, its creative director Richard Taylor, illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe, and dialect coach Roisin Carty, all having worked on Peter Jackson's Middle-earth film series, had joined the film's creative team, with Philippa as executive producer.

Philippa had divulged that Eowyn "passes the tale" of the "hot-headed" Helm and a "fiery" Héra (the latter moulded on Æthelflæd, who served as a queen and military leader who built forts and led campaigns against Viking attacks on Mercia in the ninth century) and the Dunlendings' historic grievances with the Rohirrim. Philippa said a major focus was the motivation of the "ruthless and clever" Wulf: "What was driving him?" asked Boyens, "Was it just his father demanding that he do this? Was it his ambition?" Using his father's substantial wealth to acquire the services of Haradrim mercenaries, this results in "quite large-scale battles" before Wulf "commits himself to a course of action he cannot turn away from", says Boyens. Consistently described as a "bloodsoaked" story, the film shifts into a "ghost story", while Hèra tries to "lead a resistance." Boyens said Sauron and the Ring are "very peripheral" to the story, and suggested Gondor's own tribulations with the Corsairs would not be featured, but left room for speculation about a cursory role for Saruman, and teased the presence of Orcs in the White Mountains.

A full trailer has been assumed to air "around October 2023", while a teaser "could come much sooner." Warners will show a 65-minute "Behind the Scenes look" At Annecy Film Festival in June 2023.

Casting

Voice casting had begun by June 2021,when executive producer Jason DeMarco confirmed that hiring for voice artists was underway. Philippa personally called Otto to have her narrate, while Cox was hired in-part because she heard of his performance in Titus Andronicus.

In June 2022, the main voice cast was announced. At least some of the voice-work was already completed by that point, although in May 2023 Otto said she is due to attend some more sessions "in the next six to 12 months." Peter Jackson called the cast "amazing."

Announcement Reaction

When it was announced, Shaun Gunner, Current Chair of The Tolkien Society, said in a statement that "Tolkien fans will be delighted to see more of Middle-earth on screen. In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy we got a hint of the wider history that underpins Tolkien’s creation, and the Rohirrim are no exception. I’m excited to see a different interpretation of Tolkien’s works, and in a different visual style. I hope it brings even more people to reading Tolkien’s creation—it will certainly resend me back to the book!"

Release

The film was released theatrically on 13 December 2024 in the USA. It was distributed by Warner Bros.