This epic animation gets one important thing right.
Professor Tolkien was a grumpy and demanding man, and judging by his comments on the scripts of the unfilmed adaptations, he would not have been pleased with even Peter Jackson's trilogy.
But there is a suspicion that of the official adaptations, he would have liked The War of the Rohirrim more than others. But not because it is the best. Its creators treated the stories of Middle-earth not as literature, but as a medieval epic on which to build something new.
The Creators Turned the Short Source Material Into a Worthy, Detailed Story
The Professor described the story of Helm Hammerhand in just a few lines, so the screenwriters had enough room to invent a lot of their own without contradicting the book too much. They made Helm's daughter, whose name was not even mentioned by Tolkien, the main character. In analogy to her father and brothers, she was named Hera.
But the nostalgia for Jackson's movies is still pressed with the force of a hammer. The first seconds of the movie feature Howard Shore's recognizable music from the trilogy. Miranda Otto as Eowyn serves as narrator.
Here and there are visual quotes and small references, and for a second you even see Saruman, voiced by an archival line from the late Christopher Lee.
The War of the Rohirrim Is an Independent Work That Respects the Legacy
And yet, The War of the Rohirrim is a story in its own right, and its main connection to The Lord of the Rings is its epic spirit and personalities. Despite their completely different appearances, Eowyn is recognizable in Hera, and Theoden in her father Helm.
The main thing that the creators of The War of the Rohirrim managed to do was to convey the spirit of not even fantasy, but a medieval epic, a story of brutal warriors of the past.
In the animated movie, unlike in The Lord of the Rings, there is no war between the forces of good and evil. Here, men fight men, and men, like the heroes of the epic, are driven by passions. The evil here is not in Sauron or Morgoth, but in the hearts of ordinary people.
In the heart of Wulf, who is ready to flood the land with blood in revenge, not so much for his father as for his insulted dignity. Both positive and negative characters are hot-tempered, stubborn people, obsessed with honor, ready to die rather than retreat.
The Main Drawback of The War of the Rohirrim Is Its Age Rating
The most offensive drawback of this harsh medieval epic is that for some reason it has been censored for a PG-13 rating. This means that countless fights take place with virtually no blood, at most – scratches on the face.
Dramatic deaths sometimes remain off-screen, and on-screen characters seem to be fighting with blunt clubs. For example, when Haleth smashed the mumakil's head with an axe, there was no blood even on the weapon. Further proof that The War of the Rohirrim would have been better suited for a streaming release.
The War of the Rohirrim Is a Worthy Offshoot of the Franchise
This is certainly not The Lord of the Rings – just an animated supplement, a dark epic composed by Eowyn for children at night.
It would be better suited for the small screen without censorship, to really breathe the medieval gravity of the epic into our faces. Without it, the movie seems dramatic but toothless and not beautiful enough for the big screen.
Still, if the big studios are going to make returns to Middle-earth, they better make them like this. Not remakes, not legacy sequels, but forgotten legends that reveal the Tolkien universe through color and music and drama.