Forum - View topicREVIEW: The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim Movie Review
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18489 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Saw this last night. The review doesn't gives central character Hera enough credit (she's more the protagonist than Helm is) and I felt that the high points of the visuals (the character design and the better animated sequences, especially one scene where Hera is using picks and crampons to scale a cliff) more than balanced out the low points (agreed that the animation/background integration was far from flawless, especially in some forest scenes). Can't dispute that the course of the story is far more ordinary and familiar, however; it was certainly (and probably deliberately?) paralleling the LA movie The Two Towers in many places. Also agreed that the movie also doesn't stand out as much some of director Kamiyama's previous triumphs (GitS: SAC, Moribito, Eden of the East) did. Still, I can recommend it both as a franchise view and a standalone watch.
One interesting point about Brian Cox voicing Helm: back in the '90s he received many accolade for playing the titular role in King Lear. I don't doubt that factored into him being chosen for this role. |
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 899 |
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The animation & action scenes are worth watching on the big screen.
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TheLineOfSight
Posts: 16 |
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Saw this in 4DX. Last night. I did like it. Hera, the hero, was very vanilla the entire time which is only real complaint. Other than a cool line at the climax, she was very forgettable. I agree with Helm being the highlight of the movie but right below him for most interesting was Wolf, the antagonist. This "bad" guy was so comically misguided it just became more and more hilarious w/ every poor decision he made. I wish the story had provided him a much better reason for being such a focused jerk other than having a dead jerk dad. The animation was good but I wasn't blown away. I REALLY appreciate the swamp kraken scene because it actually reminded me that there are some interesting creatures in Tolkien tales other cut and paste western dragons. I am not a Lord of the Rings buff but did recognize some minor (to me) cameos and references. They might have a deeper meaning to die hards. All in all, War of the Rohirrim a pretty good animated feature to add to your holidays theater runs if you have already watched Flow, Interstellar 5555 and Moana 2 from the last couple of weeks.
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snake-eyes
 Posts: 164 |
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War of the Rohirrim will Join My list of Essential LOTR viewing. It easilly tops the Hobbit Trilogy for me!
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db999
Posts: 343 |
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I quite enjoyed the movie. I had some complaints, Hera was a bit too basic and vanilla than I wanted, Miranda Otto’s Eowyn narration was completely superfluous and added nothing to the film, and the pacing plummets off a cliff once the movie makes it to Helms Deep. However the first act is fantastic, and it eventually managed to escape it’s slow pacing issue. I think you could shave about 15-20 minutes off of the movie and heavily improve the whole thing, but I did enjoy the film as a whole.
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mdo7
 Posts: 6436 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Although LOTR (both the novels and the franchise in general) doesn't really appeal to me, but if you liked that movie, please don't forget to watch the 2 previous LOTR animated film done by Rankin-Bass/Topcraft: The Hobbit, and The Return of The King. I have made statements and argued that LOTR: War of the Rohirrim may not be the first LOTR anime to have a anime film, that honor goes to the 2 previous Rankin-Bass animated/anime films given that Topcraft did the animation for it and yeah, you know where I go from there.
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2611 Location: Germany |
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The film got a B CinemaScore and these are used to accurately predict the multiplier (a sub 2 in this case). A B is catastrophic for both animation and IP-driven nerd media. The modest budget will lead to a modest loss of let´s say 50 million, all of this is by design, and the film will be wiped from the collective memory as fast as the Bright anime film (it´s ok) and nearly all anime spin-offs. The film is too generic to become a meme or a cult flick. It doesn´t even look "anime". Highlander: The Search for Vengeance has that going for it.
Many cooks spoiled the broth. Cheap AF WB is the main culprit but "adapting" 2 pages of frankly uninteresting source material, look up the House of Eorl appendix if you are curious, was always ripe for disaster. It´s why the Dune EU is such dreck. 2 to 3 pages worth of notes were turned into over a dozen books and other crap with no end in sight. Tolkien´s legacy too is in danger of being turned into unrecognizable slop. At least it´s mediocre slop? The Dune EU, dear lord... |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 384 |
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Topping the Hobbit Trilogy isn't exactly a high bar 
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TurnerJ
Posts: 483 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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I for one thought the movie was really terrific. Granted, I did enjoy The Hobbit trilogy overall (even though I personally think it needed to be a two-parter, not a three-parter), but relatively speaking, this sits comfortably in between that series as well as the original LOTR trilogy. My only complaints are the occasional blemishes in the otherwise beautiful animation (the opening shot for instance), and Wulf being a bit more monodimensional than he should be (although he still comes across as quite cruel and nasty). Elsewise, however, I was totally blown away. There's a lot of great stuff in this movie; the scene where Hera takes down an Mumakil by luring it into a swamp and having it be devoured by a monstrous sea creature is thrilling.
I personally think this will find its audience on DVD and streaming, as I do think it has that kind of "cult status" appeal. Of the animated adaptations I've seen of Tolkien's work, War of Rohirrim is the best. The Rankin-Bass movies streamlined too much of their source materials, and in the case of Return of the King, interrupted the story one too many times with out-of-place, dated musical numbers. Ralph Bakshi's version, despite some good voice work by John Hurt as Aragorn and music by Leonard Rosenman, is otherwise hideous, with with a non-existent "ending" and very distractingly bad animation. Shifting erratically between crudely drawn characters and live-actors with odd light filters really brought that film down for me. This one, while not perfect, is at least the most consistent and ambitious of the four. The music and settings are beautifully consistent with Jackson's versions. Very criminally underrated and I'd gladly revisit this one again. |
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nyaa
Posts: 157 |
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I happen to really like LOTR or related things and this was right up my alley. I'll definitely get it when it releases on bluray. Would I go see it again? Damn right I would! And yes, to me it's anime. I really don't know what a viewer who goes to see it is expecting, I was expecting an LOTR movie and it delivered that in spades-what more can you ask for?
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14891 |
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It's direct-to-video Warner Bros** put out every year that got a bit out of hand
[** If ya know that WB put out DCAU movies every year] |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1462 |
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I, for one, loved this movie and I'm very glad I got to watch it on IMAX. What I appreciated the most about it is how much of it is hand-drawn when they could have just littered the screen with CGI horses and soldiers. It's the kind of big-screen, hand-drawn epic we haven't seen since Princess Mononoke, and I'd say it's Kamiyama's best work since Moribito. The voice acting (which was apparently recorded before the animation) is also superb, and leagues above any English anime dub I've ever watched.
Lastly, I was surprised to see most of the credited key animators are Chinese. Either Chinese animation has seriously leveled up over the last few years or Miyako Takasu, Kazuhide Tomonaga and the other credited animation directors did a ton of corrections to ensure the movie looked great all the way through. |
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