So if there there is an ten minute sequence in the movie where an real character does something cool its worth sitting through 2 and a half hour of fan fiction. Reminds me of what an buddy of mine once said: "Aliens vs predators is a good movie because it has a ten minutes sequence where they fight. The rest of the movie is garbage but those ten minutes makes it worth it." I disagree.

how is the mod coming along?

I think asmongold also didn’t wanna get to in depth and was talking mainly about the 3rd age like with how there were only 2 interferences I think that’s more for ones we see especially in the 3rd age

The issue with orcs is that Tolkien chose to depict them as beings who chose to be evil since Tolkien believed in the inherent right of free choice. But it's not easy to write Orcs consistently on choosing to be evil. You basically have to depict them always as dumb and always selfish. So then we go to the logical part of them having children and possibly families. Then Orcs would raise children only for their own selfish reasons, like their children serving them and such. But since Tokien didn't live 1000 years himself to actually finish all his ideas in the perfect manner he wanted to write as he was a perfectionist then any author going into this would have to actually make assumptions or stuff up.

Great video. I’m fascinated by romestramo and alatar

Woke crap, girlboss

There is a famous interview with Peter Jackson where he says they were not interested in putting their own messages into the film. They wanted Tolkien messages. With WoTR These writers put their own ideas into the film in place of Tolkien.

Oh, re: best rider. Sure, the horse has a lot to do with it, but so does the rider's skill (and weight). Being a slender woman, Hera is no doubt less of a burden for any horse than a more heroically proportioned Rohirrim male would be. It would make sense that assuming that the horses are roughly equal, she would be able to beat anyone else. Especially since her own horse is probably near the best available, her being a princess of the Horse Lords. Borondir who rode to summon Eorl the Young and the Eotheod to Gondor's aid is described as a great rider. So there is some precedent for this in Tolkien's own writings. (Now based on your review, the one time that this comes up is silly in extreme, as it is not just her who is riding away, so it shouldn't matter how fast she is, but who is the slowest in the bunch...)

I'm a woman and I wish we could see good female characters again, not girl bosses and Mary Sues.

Personally I don't like matching anime aesthetics with middle earth stories. Nothing against anime as an artform but for me this doesn't work so I'll pass.

Sigh. I had such high hopes. I'm obviously a sucker. I had the same hopes for RoP and look at that garbage. Fool me twice...

Honestly, final score of 6.5/10. Half added in because I like amine style, plus do I didn't experiencing choppy senses. Film play pretty smoothly at my local theater.

It's for the mOdErN AuDiENcE. Hard pass. This is NOT Tolkien, what a surprise.

So it sounds to me that this film could be improved a lot by some editing by fans. Rescued, even. Which is frankly better than I feared. :)

Distant? My stepfather taught me full well that orcs are common among us, they just wear similar-looking skin. Trauma both episodic and generational, breeds sociopathic and narcissistic coping traits that feed on and/or amplify some of our inborn male characteristics. Embarrassment and insecurity become a point of blame to cast fault away from ourselves and we invent the other, and we dehumanize them to avoid seeing in ourselves the embarrassment, the fault we blame on them, and in trying to reject this through casting it on others we become the very thing we try to avoid. Others wanting to avoid embarrassment help us create a web of excuses we hold up together and call "honor". What word was more uttered by the emperors whose insecure pride led to the world wars?

Hi there! I saw the film yesterday and it's great! It's a textbook example of how to add to existing lore without destroying it. For the record, I'm a huge fan of Tolkien and I dislike Rings of Power with a passion - RoP is disrespectful of the source material, misunderstands Galadriel badly, and destroys existing lore in the name of a ridiculous storyline. However, War of the Rohirrim has all the known lore in all the right order and is extremely respectful of it, and the film builds a great story around that scaffold of existing lore. Rings of Power should take notes. Yes, the story of Helm Hammerhand is told through the eyes of the daughter unnamed by Tolkien - note, unnamed by Tolkien, so it's fine for fanfic or anyone else to name her. And why not? Now we know all three of Helm's children. Bravo! And Hera is not a Mary Sue or a girl boss, and nor does she become Queen of Rohan, which would indeed have been destructive of existing lore. She follows in the tradition of the venerable shield maidens of Rohan, and presages the ultimate shield maiden to come, Eowyn, and behaves as we imagine a princess of Rohan might. She's (spoilers) even captured by men at one point and has to be rescued by a man! All charges of feminism at this point melt away. This is a straight adaptation, with a little spice in the form of a modicum of welcome poetic license, just like the original trilogy and the underrated Hobbit trilogy were. I fail to see why this film is being decried as woke, especially when RoP still exists. We need to pick our battles. This film isn't one of them.

Choppy animation, dialogue that didn’t even come close to being token at all and just a load of fan fiction…

I love the last quote.

My biggest impression is that part of the voiceover feels like video editor instructions.

❤❤❤❤❤😊😊😊😊❤❤❤❤😊

I give up, i'm going to watch this.

I i i i i i i i

🎉🎉🎉

Not an expert, but in the movie, Arwen did say she was faster than Aragorn when they needed to rush Frodo for the cure. Even if it is wrong, it is still consistent with Peter Jackson's version.

This will be a long post so you can check out of it now if it too long for your tastes. I saw the movie this past Saturday and I mostly agree with your assessment of this movie. It is infinitely better than RoP and it does feel like Middle-Earth to me. It's not a bad movie and I did enjoy watching it but it's not a particularly good movie either. There were a number of relatively minor things that I don't feel fit that well with what Tolkien wrote but the major problem I have is making Héra, who was really a tertiary character in what Tolkien actually wrote, into the protagonist. This was a simply a big mistake because it's not the tale Tolkien wrote and we were told was being adapted. No, I don't agree with the idea that this change is OK because it is an adaptation; it's still based on what Tolkien created. Yes, I'm aware that Jackson's films made changes as well; I disliked quite a few of those changes. But what they did here was basically give Fréaláf's role to Héra. Once Helm died, the movie should have gone back and forth from the Hornburg to Dunharrow instead of giving one small scene to Fréaláf before he and an army of the Rohirrim showed up at the end. And yes, you can make that work. After all, in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, depending on exactly what point we are in of the story, we are following as many as 4 sets of characters in different locations. The final fight between Héra and Wulf is cringeworthy, particularly having her fight in a wedding gown, and so are the final scenes. The movie went downhill after Helm died. I actually got frustrated with what they did with Héra because I liked most of what they did with the character early on. She was smart, clever, and could think fast on her feet. She was interesting. But they blew it at the end. I'll watch the movie again but not in the theaters. In comparison, I watched all the Hobbit trilogy movies several times in the theaters and the LOTR trilogy movies far more times than I remember. In the showing I attended, the theater was only about a quarter full although some of that was undoubtedly due to some unpleasant weather we were having. Another thing I noted was that there was no applause when the credits rolled whereas I remember the LOTR movies getting applause at least most every time I went, sometimes standing ones. Initial box office returns are disappointing. I've heard the argument that Warner Brothers mainly made this movie to retain their rights to make more movies. But I can't help but wonder that if this movie ultimately ends up a money loser that WB might reconsider their plans. A Tolkien movie should be one that has people eagerly waiting for it to come out and that doesn't appear to be the case here, even if most people who did see it liked it. In the showing I attended, the theater was only about a quarter full although some of that was undoubtedly due to some unpleasant weather we were having. What follows, for anyone who cares to read all of this already lengthy post, is a list of issues I have with the movie. 1) While I was fine with the Mûmakil being present, "a watcher in the water" made no sense. It's pretty clear in LOTR that whatever that beast was, it was nothing anyone in the Fellowship had heard of, including Gandalf, Aragorn, and Boromir. But apparently they are common enough in Rohan that they are fairly unremarkable. 2) The appearance of a Great Eagle or Eagles marks an event of great significance. Yet here they initially show up to get fed like they are somewhat domesticated? The Great Eagles are servants of Manwë after all! 3) Who lets a couple of small children have actual swords and lets them go play at fighting one another completely unsupervised 4) The character of Olwyn doesn't really make sense. As you pointed out, she's a servant yet acts like one of the most powerful people in Rohan. She really grated on me. 5) Maybe I misunderstood what I thought was happening but there were 1-2 moments where events were happening in eastern Rohan but Dunlendings were showing up there instead of still being in the western border areas. Then suddenly the same characters are in Isengard. 6) Is it really feasible to build this giant siege tower in the middle of The Long Winter? 7) Why would Helm just suddenly vanish and cut off contact with his own people to start killing Dunlendings? He was still the king of Rohan. 8) How did Helm and Héra survive being out in this horrible, freezing weather while not wearing anything resembling appropriate winter clothing? They are not Valar. They are not Maiar. They are not even High Elves or Númenoreans. This pair should not be immune to surviving such conditions clad as they were. Yes, I know Helm was a legendary warrior king and he did eventually freeze to death but the way it was portrayed really messes with the ability to suspend disbelief. 9) Why do two orcs and a troll suddenly appear in the midst of this siege looking for rings? The whole scene comes off as completely contrived so they could give Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd a scene in the film even though it just didn't fit in the story. 10) Why did the Rohirrim wait to set the siege tower on fire? Seems to me they should have done that right away. 11) By the time we see that final fight between Héra and Wulf, Wulf has grown up to become a full grown man who has undoubtedly seen much combat. Héra may be unusually skilled with a sword but there's no reason to think she has been a part of Rohan's army and acquired the skills such a warrior would have. She never should have been able to win that final combat with Wulf as it is depicted in the movie, particularly as depicted with her wearing a wedding dress. A pure facepalm moment for me. It was roughly the equivalent of if Jackson and Co. had changed the Return of the King to have Éowyn leading the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of the Pellenor Fields. 12) We're cheated out of seeing Fréaláf's forces defeat Wulf's army and Fréaláf slay Wulf, which is what Tolkien wrote. 13) In such a deeply patriarchal society as that of Rohan, the notion that Héra should have become a ruling queen is completely at variance with the society Tolkien created. 14) Héra is depicted as very devoted to the people of Rohan yet at the end she decides to leave. Why? Surely she could have played a big role aiding Fréaláf in ruling the kingdom as a counselor. 15) Based on what was in the movie, only Héra know about this 'collecting rings' business. So, how did Gandalf find out about this to send word that he'd like to meet with her? Seeing as Gandalf was so much the nomad, it seems more likely he would have come south to meet with her upon finding out. Bottom line for me is I had high hopes for this movie when it was first announced and I saw many of the names that would be involved but when the trailer came out, it became apparent that we were going to get a movie depicting a tertiary character as the primary one. Sure, Héra deserved an greatly expanded role but not to the point where she took over the movie. The movie I watched was somewhat better than what I expected but so much less than what my original hopes were. And it's really frustrating to see that they had a real chance to make a movie that followed the story as Tolkien laid it out and they didn't do so. I wanted something good and what I got is something pretty average.

I enjoyed this film. I wouldn't say there was any "girlboss" stuff. In fact, Héra was rescued multiple times by men in the film. Héra has been fighting all her life and her dad is literally one of the most badass men in the history of Arda (especially for a third age character), and her brothers are arguably more capable warriors who both met untimely deaths, so she survived them because she wasn't taking all of the same risks as them. I didn't feel like she was "always right", and Gandalf wanting to meet with her at the end would be because of the experience she reported specifically about the orcs looking for rings, NOT because she was the best or anything. She puts in work like any character and never really has any arrogance. She doesn't seem like a Mary Sue at all. I felt like her character mirrored Éowyn's a bit in the same way that Tolkien had Helm, like Théoden, outlive his sons (one of which dies in the same place Théodred dies), and some similar dynamics to Théoden's relationship to Éowyn ensue, and it works IMHO. While Tolkien didn't exactly tell us anything about Helm's daughter, I did feel like Héra was a believable version of what she could have been like.

Dude she was beaten up like 3-4 times during the movie. She's definitely not a Mary Sue. The movie has many ways where it could be improved, and I'm not a fan that they took an unnamed character and made her the focal point, but it does not detract from the lore in a meaningful way. Hera just shows the hallmarks of a good leader, because she learned from her father, who is just as arrogant as she is. All she does is is emplore her father and brothers to listen, but she didn't know what would happen for certain. She isn't going to help Gandalf, she's going to seek him out. Lack of consequences?! She lost her father, her brothers, and her childhood friend to pride. It's like we watched different movies. Hera reminds me Jael the wife of Heber in the Bible.

This is garbage.

Just a quick thing I would add you said Saruman was added as "Memberberries" but he is explicitly mentioned to have attended Frealaf's coronation in the appendices. "It was at the crowning of Frealaf that Saruman appeared, bringing gifts, and speaking great praise of the valour of the Rohirrim. All thought him a welcome guest. Soon after he took up his abode in Isengard."

The main protagonist being a character that was so insignificant that Tolkien didn’t even give her a name, instead of her more interesting father HELM FREAKING HAMMER HAND was a brighter red flag than Hera’s hair.

If Rohirrim women can fight anything like Hera can, why do they not make up the majority of Rohan's fighting force? Is it the patriarchy?

Kills mumakil: THAT STILL COUNTS AS ONE.

This was an amazing movie, i enjoyed it immensely, the artwork was next level especially the scene with the siege tower

I don't know why I allowed myself to have hope for this film, maybe because I love the Rohirim and Helm Hammerhand's story. Leave it to modern holywood to find an unnamed female character and then "protagonize" her, creating a mary sue around which the entire plot hinges, and who is unescissarily given all the heroic moments. I'm fine with the female character having more of a role, or even having a trait like being a very fast horseback rider, but having her fight and kill everyone is beyond dumb 🤦‍♂️ I wish they could have done this story justice.

It was an okay movie. Nothing amazing but not terrible either.

I initially made a long comment about the style of the show and the use of 3D animation, then realised this was, in fact, designed by a Japanese man and intentionally made to look like Miyazaki's work. I am not a fan of the 3D element, as it is just so awkward. It's a pity that they chose to make it about an unknown character that will never show up again and whose legacy is "erased". Far better had it been about Helm and the tragedy of his rule and the Second Line of Kings through Frealaf, but I think we all know what this genuinely is: a way to retain IP.

Ive watched every review you fid and this is hands down the most disappointing. Im the fool for believing you were an actual fan when in reality you are just another grifter vontent farming styff you know is wrong to do like defacing JRRs work its cultural vandalism and you are helping

I haven’t seen this movie yet, but about the Mary Sue thing; we don’t actually know about her lack of or limited training (I presume). In the movie trilogy Éowyn clearly wants to use a sword, can use a sword, and is fearless to a point. She’s not arrogant though. Eowyn says, “The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them. I fear neither death nor pain” So I think we should probably discount Hera’s Mary Sue status. I think we don’t like it much, her ferocity, because she has no impact on the literature lore as is implied in this anime movie. But again, I haven’t seen it yet

So cynical. I like it. And this is far better than sitting through that crap myself. lol

Ty for the review, I will pass on this because I have sworn off all girl boss films.

I was Just thinking that, what qualities does a raider has to improve to be the "fastest"? Maybe if she is just lighter than men? That could work...

You're wrong. Woke bullshit killed this franchise.

An emotional appeal chiefly aimed at conservatives.

Ultimately, what does this add to the LotR narrative/lore? Nothing. We could never hear about Hera's events and it would make no difference to the greater story. It's just a corporate money grab to keep their marketing rights alive, and they've admitted as much. Also, "Hera" is just about he laziest most out of place name they could've ever chosen. It's just plain bizarre and makes no sense whatsoever.

Thanks for the in-depth review, saves me from going to see it.

I watched it last night. It we all thought it needed more frames. It was visually very jarring.

I enjoyed it, despite the more annoying scenes. For me it was the overemphasis on the whole shieldmaiden thing, Olwyn, and some of the dramatic scenes going a little too long at times. Like when Hera blows the mahout's horn and the POV just circles around her 8 or 9 times. That honestly made me dizzy to watch.