Der Herr der Ringe: Die Schlacht der Rohirrim

Story is good. I mean its Tolkien. But animation is so bad. So many problems where they mix 2D and 3D. Textures are horrible. Fake Depth of field, characters floating in the air while walking. Directing mediocre. Voice acting mediocre. Such a shame for such good story. All in all solid 6. If it appeared 20 years ago would be 8 probably. But as Art Director my self I cant over look such rookie mistakes regarding art style, cutting corners by reducing action of a characters and there movement. Comparing to modern Japanese anime this is super bad. As someone who does art, and review art in daily bases this is amberesing for such big budget movie.

The War of the Rohirrim unfortunately feels like it was made 30 years ago.

We'll start with its biggest negative, which to me is the animation. I knew what to expect, having seen the trailer, that they'd opted for a simplistic style as the source material is around 80 years old, but that is no excuse.

Scenes like riding were poor, facial animations non existent, groups of men running just a faceless mass, but even how they chose to build each scene felt lazy to me. There is one scene for example, where our lead is being chased by a mumakil (giant elephant), where instead of showing our character running with the elephant gaining pace, they opted to have a close up of our characters feet with the noise of the elephant getting louder. It truly just felt like they didn't have the budget to show what they needed to show.

And on top of that, our story is just ok, nothing special, but a lot of the lines were very cheesy, with many unnecessary callbacks to the original trilogy. The middle act felt a little stretched out too, they probably could have shaved 20 minutes or so off.

Helm Hammerhand was a great character, our lead was your stereotypical strong female, no problems there, with no other characters particularly standing out.

It's positive for me was the music, but as they reused the scores from Howard Shore, it's almost something they couldn't get wrong,

It's a shame really, I love LOTR, both the films and the books, so to have something which feels generic and lazy, feels so far gone from the usual love that goes in to making anything based in Middle Earth.

What I would love, is a film using top of the line animation like Arcane for example, and I just hope this film doesn't stop future projects like that coming together,

Overall, worth a watch, but do not expect to be blown away.

The difficulty with spin-offs is always that they are based on an original work which brings the problem of how to make them stand on their own? Usually it requires that they are cohesive and artistically distinct and unique. Making an anime based on the Peter Jackson's trilogy seemed like a mad idea but it certainly tackles this problem well.

The director Kenji Kamiyama is best known for his recent directive work on the Blade Runner anime spin off as well a the classic sci-fi Ghost in The Shell Stand alone complex -series (which is also a spin off from an original anime film). He has also worked on classics such as Akira and Princess Mononoke (which is certainly the most important reference point for War of the Rohirrim) in smaller roles. The animation style in terms of anime is generic (safe for western audiences) with a mix of 3D graphics with drawn animation at times. The quality varies a lot from one scene to another and on can see that the there was a limited time frame available for some specific scenes. Given that this is an anime film, it would've needed some more dynamism and creativity how it was used. The film very much follows the Jackson's story board formula with some anime tropes but I think the possibilities of an anime style were underutilized here. If one decides to make an anime film, it does not really make it any better for any audience if the end result seems a bit too subtle. The score from Howard Shore brings the epic feel of the original PJ trilogy, though otherwise the universe here feels a bit different as a more high fantasy setting.

The story is based on a short appendix text from Tolkien himself so it's a very universal classic storyline, though very predictable. Aside from the main character, there are really not other interesting ones. The designs are very interesting though. I also liked the English voice acting overall.

The film manages to be its own thing with it's style and story, but it is hampered down by being too safe for western audiences, as well as some of the sub-par production. I'm not sure to who was this made for? A lot of Tolkien fans are nerds who are familiar with anime so being too safe here with the style does not really make sense here. Making the animation more bland does not make it more appealing for audiences who would not like it anyway, and makes the overall film less memorable and more like a generic action animation. It's not a bad film but not a very memorable either.

The Rohirrim War unfortunately, the end result is a film that struggles to engage the viewer, offering a flat and predictable narrative.

The anime-style animation lacks depth and often appears confusing. The character designs also appear generic and unmemorable, failing to leave a mark on the hearts of viewers. The story, centered on the defense of Helm Hammerhand, is a wasted opportunity to explore the internal dynamics of Rohan. The narrative drags on wearily, lacking twists and moments of true emotion. The dialogues are often banal and repetitive, failing to convey the complexity of the characters and their motivations.

The film suffers from slow pacing and excessive length. Many sequences are unnecessary and artificially dilate the duration, boring the viewer. The lack of pace and memorable moments makes it difficult to remain involved in the story.

The lack of originality and courage in the narrative is the biggest flaw of this feature film.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rohirrim War" is a film that disappoints on every level. The boredom, the flat plot and the uninspired animation make this film a disappointing experience for fans of the saga. A wasted opportunity to explore a fascinating period of Middle Earth.

I am a long time (40+ years) Tolkien fan, and arguably fall into the category of being hard to please. I saw this film on IMAX and I must say that it looks pretty nice, with the scenery being exemplary. The animation style might put some people off, depending on preference, but I think it holds up. In summary, overall production value is up to expectation for me (picture, sound, voice acting etc).

Now, where it falls short is definitely on the script side, and I join the (growing) crowd who has a hard time understanding why they decided to change the storyline from the book instead of just building on it. I get the motive and all, but it is still a mystery why they decided to go in this direction, despite the fact that they know EXACTLY what will happen when it hits the Tolkien fandom.

Filmmakers could easily have done more or less the same story, including the Hera perspective, but without tampering with the source material and they would have gotten through this in a much better shape.

I guess it is a sign of the times. Sadly.