Just watched The War of the Rohirrim finally (on my flight), and I'm left with mixed but mostly positive feelings. The story leans heavily on familiar tropes and at times it feels a bit too much like “Éowyn, but animated” with a classic rebellious daughter arc, but it still worked for me. It was gritty enough as well.
The animation, which I don’t usually go for, felt surprisingly fitting. A visual style that respected the world more than it tried to modernise it. Helm Hammerhand’s transformation into a spectral legend? That’s pure Tolkien saga, and it was handled beautifully. Easily the most compelling part of the film. And a bit of a relief after the somewhat corporate Héra storyline.
Compared to The Rings of Power, this felt less like corporate IP exploitation and more like someone actually read the appendices and cared. It’s not flawless, and you can feel the screenplay straining a bit under the weight of trying to build emotional arcs from sparse lore. But it gets the tone right, and that matters a lot.
Would happily take more Middle-earth stories in this style, as long as the writing keeps improving.
️
