Today at New York Comic Con, cast and crew for the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim took to the stage. Talk show host and noted Lord of the Rings fan Stephen Colbert moderated. Marking the first anime film in the LOTR universe, The War of the Rohirrim takes place almost 200 years before the events of The Hobbit.
The film came about when producer Phillipa Boyens wanted to further explore Tolkien’s world in a different medium. Previously, Boyens co-wrote The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.
“What about anime?” Boyens found herself asking. “This story sprang to mind immediately. Somehow the Rohirrim would work in the world of anime.” Boyens noted the themes of tradition and morally grey areas that resonate in Japanese filmmaking. Only after choosing the medium and the story did she remember all the horses they’d have to animate, but noted that “didn’t flinch” and that “we’ve tried to be faithful [to the source material]. We never change anything lightly.”
New York Comic Con attendees were treated to an extended look at The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. In the clip, Hera, the daughter of Rohan’s King Helm Hammerhand, explores the tunnels beneath the fortress. After encountering orcs, Helm himself helps her to safety. The clip began with narration from Eowyn, voiced by a returning Miranda Otto.
And while the team hardly changed the source material, it’s worth noting that the story itself appears in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. Helm Hammerhand’s downfall is noted but there’s much to extrapolate.
“I felt that a helm hammerhand story is very tragic. A legendary figure causes a chain of events that ends his bloodline. What causes that?” posed director Kenji Kamiyama via translation by producer Joseph Chou. Kamiyama fleshed out the story and created new characters. When asked about major expansions by Colbert, Kamiyama noted that for Hera, he “started imagining what she would have been like. She’s not dying [in Appendix A]. She survives. What kind of skills does she have?”
“Tolkien didn’t name her but he did put her at the heart of this conflict,” added co-writer Phoebe Gittins.
And it helped that the team had a lot of access to the team from the live-action films. “Peter [Jackson] and Fran [Walsh] gave us a lot of comments,” explained Joseph Chou, noting that in viewing materials, “no doors were closed to us.” They even had access to tapestries from the films and the people who originally made them.
Cast members Gaia Wise (Hera), Luke Pasqualino (Wolf), and Brian Cox (Helm) also attended and talked about their respective roles.
“She’s tenacious. What I would call a horse girl, probably,” remarked Wise on Hera.
Pasqualino explained a bit about Wolf, who starts as a friend to Hera but eventually “tries to bring down the Hammerhand household” after a tragedy.
And Helm? Helm lives up to his last name. “He respond to a punch like “uh,” noted Brian Cox, juxtaposing this with how he personally responds to a punch. You’ll have to take my word it was significantly louder.
Colbert noted that Hera is a Shieldmaiden, something that Eowyn would call herself later on.
And Colbert was quizzed on his Lord of the Rings knowledge by none other than Peter Jackson himself. The director popped in via pre-recorded video to try to stump Colbert, asking for the name of the horse of the Rohirrim that Shadowfax is descended from.
Colbert knew immediately, responding that’s it’s the Mearas.
And finally, Boyens shared a QR code for fans to scan to get a sneak peek (near hear?) of a new song made for the film. You can click on the link here to sign up to hear it early and check out art and gifs of the film.
You can check out the film itself when The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim arrives in theaters on December 13th.
