Is it any good? War of the Rohirrim Review (No Spoilers)

It's late (or early) for me, really need to sleep. Always tough to make a video this fast 😅 I hope you still like it. Curious what you people think of the film.
Have you seen it already? Will you watch it? How did you like it? Also shall we discuss this in more detail, in a live stream?

Let me know ^^

PS: I liked the film enough to include it in my yearly LotR watch party stream cycle (next Watch Party Stream will be Two Towers btw, quite fitting 😄)

But isn't Tolkien's "classical" stories that he tells in the books almost always tragic? Like Turin? It seems like the protagonist always suffer from some pride. And I think that that is an interesting and relatable idea.

In this movie, when they changed the story to the daughter, they decide to do the usual "everybody ignores the girl because she's a girl", and yet she triumphs later because she's stronger than the villain. And to me (regardless of whether she's a Mary Sue or not) that's just kind of a predictable and perhaps a dull story to tell.

But yeah the animation is not good. Think of the rotoscoping that Bashki did in the '70s is probably better than this. Or even Mrs Howell's Castle.

It sucked.....💩💩💩💩💩

😂 YES IT IS AWESOME and no one will ever know because nobody watched it!

Could have been better but Its decent. Would buy it on physical when its available.

I did not plan on watchingit, not a fan on anime... maybe one day, when I can se it on a download page ^^
Thanks for the balanced review.

But it is by far not so offensive then rings of power. I am sorry that Philippa Boyens choose this self insert. But all together the story Tolkien told about Helm HMmerhand is almost lore accurate declared. Since I like the small stories in the lotr its not bad

Freijalaf should have been the protagonist. I aam so bored of Mary Sues. I like the Peter Jackson references. Bu to show all men as wrong in their decisions all the time is also something that I do not like, while Herra is allways right. This trope of; I dont want no man I dont need no man is old and boring. The sufferings of the long winter are not really in there . Herra and her elderly shield maiden feels like self inserts of Philippa and her daughter. Wolf is shown only as an angry refuted Herra symp.

I really loved the film! Great review!

It wasn't bad but it wasn't all that good either. The film went downhill after Helm's death.

I really enjoyed it for what it was. Sure i wish we got to spend more time with the characters, or maybe at times the references were a bit too on the nose? But for a separate movie, not a remake or prequel or sequel I think it was solid. At least i really enjoyed the story and the dialogue.

This film would have been considerably better if it ended shortly after Helm's departure. The dragged out action with that siege tower, or generally the last 30 minutes of the siege were quite a pain to watch. The concluding scenes were okay, though Christopher Lee's voice sounded strangely afar.

Chris, when did you watch the movie? If I remember correctly, you uploaded this video Thursday before noon, I mean, which cinema showed the film that early 😅

So far this is the best review that I found about the show. And I when I say best, I mean it as it is close to reality when it comes to describing the movie's strengths and weaknesses.

I was worried that Hèra would do everything and be better than all the men but I didn’t see that in the movie. I don’t like the current cinema tv and video games pushing women into masculine Mary sue girl boss do everything well and be strong as hell but Hèra wasn’t like that at all. She didn’t believe in herself and she was pretty feminine even with her not wanting to get married. Judge it for yourself but she’s not a Mary sue imo

It’s worth a watch but probably longer than needed to be. The middle of the film is the best part the beginning was ok and the end not so great. People need to relax it was just a different take on some Tolkien work. To say they spend billions on rings of power to be such a cheap looking cringe fest is more to be upset about then this

Thanks for a more measured and positive review than the knee-jerk reaction most content creators are having. It feels like female protagonists have become a battleground to the point we can't have a regular female character lead a movie without everyone wanting to course correct where things have been headed. There's a lot of terrible mary-sue female characters created specifically to push an agenda in modern cinema but I didn't feel that from Hera. Stand Alone Complex which was also directed by Kamiyama has a much stronger female lead in The Major/Motoko and she's generally praised so the backlash against Hera is surprising to me and seems to be coming from a lot of people who didn't see the film.

She's often vulnerable in the film, she doesn't climb onto the back of an oliphant, singlehandedly kill all its riders and then hack through its skull with an axe. She doesn't go toe-to-toe with a troll unarmed, she often needs to be protected. It just blows my mind how she's being called a Mary-Sue in the same movie where a guy scales an Oliphant, kills all its riders and breaks its head open with an axe, I guarantee if she had done that instead of her brother there'd be numerous complaints but I haven't seen it mentioned once as something that would be incredibly difficult for even a trained fighter.

Fan fiction self insert crap basically.

Thnx for this review my friend!

While I do like anime, especially avatar the last airbender, it's not exactly the most grounded of mediums out there.

Regularly the characters pull off superhuman feats and don't get hurt by things that would be greviously damaging to people. This more flimsy nature of anime doesn't really mesh that well with Tolkien. Not for me. Not after the trilogy.

And considering it's seemingly good but not great. Not sure this is for me.

"Yes, we had one Battle of Hornburg. But what about a second Battle?"

I liked it. It was never going to live up to the original trilogy, and that's probably where a lot of hate is coming from.

Not enough Helm Hammerhand, questionable cameos by the watcher in the water and the white wizard, kinda wished for a more rigid animation style like was actually teased, but overall 8/10.

Certainly a breath of fresh air after Rings of Power🤮

I saw the film yesterday. To be honest, this one wasn't disappointing because my expectations were very low to begin with. I genuinely think the critiques of Hera being a girl boss are true. I didn't care for her whatsoever. I'll never understand why they focused the story on her. Her tale is almost exactly like Eowyn's, and Eowyn's story did much more for me emotionally while her story wasn't even the main focus in the original trilogy. Helm Hammerhand and Wulf came across as total dicks. I didn't buy Wulf's cruelty. It felt like his motivations were poorly written. The same goes for Helm. I know he loves his people, but he's one of the most arrogant men I've seen on screen. None of the characters listened to Hera, which felt like a cringe girl boss plot to me. Those flaws crushed any emotional investment in the story I could have. Let's just say I enjoyed the animation style, the music, and the voice acting, but that's it. It's not nearly as bad as ROP, but that isn't saying much. The Rohirrim have an amazing and expansive history. Why not make an animated show about the most important happenings of said history?

Endlich eine kompetente Review. Danke!

So Héra did all these great things and yet somehow its never been mentioned in the books? Must be the patriarchy that erased her from LotR history, lol.

In all seriousness tho. A made-up male character would've made more sense than this Mary Sue girl boss character who defeats her male opponent (Wulf), who is bigger and stronger than her, one-handed. Its also pretty clear Héra and her old lady friend are self-inserts of Boyens and her daughter... Just dumb.

Animation looks A.I generated.

I liked it! Maybe a bit too much Mary Sue in Hera but I give it a 7/10, still had better dialogue than Rings of Power.

This movie was a joke. Woke slay princess that emasculates all the Canon lead characters even Helm Hammerhand himself! All with 20th century feminist values of not wanting to marry or have kids independent of any man but always having to save them.

It's a movie? I thought we were getting a show. Bummer

all the men in this movie are dumb, must be true to Tolkien's work.

Imagine having a licence to print money and then making this film

Mickey Mouse cringe fanfiction.

w0ke girl-boss shyt thinly coated in anime.

Well anything is better than ROP. While, i think it was a bit dumb to make a one sentence no name character and have heard of the loops they are jumping through to justify why despite her efforts isnt mentioned, but i can understand the logic of showing someone at the hornburg taking over after helm died. Listening to the music and the voice acting, i dont believe this was done half heartedly....like rings of power....so more than willing to go and see it for myself.

Though there is no logic to having her been the one who kills Wulf and then the appendices saying it was her cousin.

I really liked the movie. It's so much better than RoP. This captures the Middle Earth spirit in full for me. Helm is a total BA and Hera was a cool character and much more feminine than Guyladriel. I feel like the daughter of freaking Helm Hammerhand would at least be a bit of a menace.

Fighting scenes were cool, story was compelling and the visuals were pretty good.

Overall solid 7,5/10 for an adaptation

Seeing it tomorrow, thanks!

Why does she have red hair? Those people have blonde hair, not red.

Just started the review you sound like the guy from The walking dead game who Lilly kills in s1

Will be seeing it Monday

We can upscale it into a fully believable live-action like experience, thanks to the generative transformer models.
Thank you for the honest review of this piece, Chris.

I don't mind the girl bossing but i wish they would have animated them with more tears, show us more emotions when you have already shown us tragedies , show us they have character arc and growth , they are vulnerable, grieving mourning yet strong and won't give up in the face of great misery and challenges , then it would have been perfect, one minor nitpick, that her kidnap scene is ridiculous, she isn't even get knocked out, it is only a gunny sack cover her head and she somehow pass out and in the Isengard , what a poor way to convey that situation

Greetings from Germany :)
I will not watch the movie in a theater because I find this particular animation style totally off-putting, and I am not overly interested in the story. But you made a nice and very fair review.
Just one minor thing: you shouldnˋt try to roll the "Rs". It sounds totally unnatural, and it doesnˋt even make a lot of sense if you are just mentioning a few names. I think itˋs only necessary in actual dialogues of the characters. But rolling the R in "Helm HammeRhand" doesnˋt make any sense whatsoever! "Hammerhand" is an English word after all, and it should be pronounced the English way. Tolkien himself only rolled the Rs when he used his invented languages or names which were used by the people who spoke these languages.
As I said, itˋs a minor thing - but itˋs like a pebble in a shoe ;)

At least this was a fair review. Other ‘critics’ just bash it simply because ‘it’s not like Rings of Power’ (remember. They gave the show a 85 compared to this)
And others (the viewers) just bash it because of ‘girlboss’ as if they’ve seen the movie

Thats good to hear. Rather this mediocre movie that follows lore than anything absolutelly rubbish

Looking forward to seeing the movie. I've been meaning to watch some animes for years, maybe this will be the start.

Watching this one with the japanese dub should be nice ^^