I went this weekend, along with my oldest son and a friend, to see the new Lord of the Rings animated film, The War of the Rohirrim. The film is done in anime style, and tells the story of King Helm Hammerhand of Rohan, about two hundred years before the events of The Hobbit and LOTR. I wanted to share a few thoughts on what I found to be an enjoyable and faithful telling of this story, but before I do, I’ll just say here that a few light spoilers follow from this point.
The story is drawn from the Appendices to LOTR, where the story of Helm is given about two pages of treatment. I was pleased with how true the filmmakers stuck to the story that Tolkien outlines, outside of one key change, which is the centering of Hera, daugher of Helm, as the main character. In Tolkien’s writing, Hera goes unnamed and does not play a central role outside of being the hand asked for marriage by Wulf, who is the primary antagonist of Helm’s story. Despite my best attempts to evade most LOTR-related forums and such on social media (I don’t feel like I need to explain the toxicity of online fandom, especially the too-online Tolkien bros who make up most of the LOTR conversation online), I have seen a bit of entirely predictable gnashing of teeth about a woman main character, or about changes made to the story to make it flow better on screen, or just general complaints about any attempt to adapt Tolkien’s work.) I don’t share these feelings at all; I love the good faith attempt at adaptation, even when some changes are made to the source material. Its for this reason that I also have loved The Rings of Power, the Tolkien-based TV series on Amazon Prime; I feel the same way about The War of the Rohirrim. Tolkien’s works aren’t scripture, forever etched in stone unchanging for future generations to venerate and fear; Middle Earth is a story, one that is on-going, that we get to play in now. Maybe one day I’ll write about Tolkien’s take on subcreation, but for now, suffice to say that if you don’t like The War of the Rohirrim, or The Rings of Power, or even Peter Jackson’s films, and you want to maintain some form of mythical purity for the original text, well, you don’t ever have to watch any of this stuff, and you also don’t have to spend any time attacking those of us who want to and find enjoyment in it. Protect your personal Tolkien totem as you wish; the rest of us will enjoy a fascinating and powerful tale that isn’t done being told.
My only quibbles with the film reside in the nature of anime storytelling. I am not an anime fan; I don’t particuarly care for the animation style, and I find the overly dramatic style of storytelling grating and distracting, especially in a universe that is so often very understated and self-serious as Tolkien’s is. This quibble, though, is entirely personal and not a broader statement on the quality of the film or the storytelling. Anime doesn’t work for me, in general1. But I would – and will – gladly watch The War of the Rohirrim again.
There are so many unexplored and lightly alluded to stories and threads contained in the brief historical frames Tolkien included in his Appendices. I would love to see more of those stories expanded and adapted, and if The War of the Rohirrim is any indication of the quality and the faithfulness this endeavor will be approached with, then we are in for some good storytelling in the Middle Earth.
I want to add a new little feature to these Daily Diaries, one that I draw from something the “Morning Hoddle of Coffee” posts at Cartilage Free Captain, and which Greg Sargent used to do waaaayyyy back in the day when he blogged for the MaddowBlog on MSNBC. This feature is sharing, daily, a piece of music I have been listening to or that’s been on my mind, for whatever reason. I don’t listen to a ton of music, but I have a few things I really like. So, I’ll share a song each day, with a few words why.
Today’s Song: “Good Time Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin is my favorite band of the 70s, and I’ve been on a bit of a kick the last few days. This is first song from their first album; one hell of a way to announce themselves to the world, if you ask me.
- The Star Wars: Visions series on Disney+ is a noted exception for me, as well as the Miyazaki classics. ↩︎
Justin DaMetz 