THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM

Name: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM
Item: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM
Author: Review

"Saving a Kingdom Under Siege"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is an animated version of a short story by Tolkien, who wrote LORD OF THE RINGS. The reign of Helm, the Ninth King of Rohan, is plagued by conflict with “wildmen” from Dunland. A wealthy warlord from Dunland proposes marriage between his son, Wulf, and Helm’s daughter, Héra. However, Helm refuses and mocks the warlord, who challenges Helm to a fight. Helm knocks him dead with one blow. Wulf vows revenge. Four years later, he overruns Rohan’s main fortress. Helm retreats to a mountain fortress, against which Wulf and his armies lay siege.

THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is beautifully animated and directed. It has exciting moments, but the long winter siege slows down things. Tolkien’s original story is sad and tragic. However, the filmmakers turn the king’s daughter into the main hero. So, like Tolkien’s story, WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM shows the evils of pride and revenge, but it also celebrates heroism in the face of evil and protecting women and children against dark forces. There are many intense battle scenes. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.

Content:

(BB, Fe, L, VV, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview warns against the evils of hubris, pride and revenge but also celebrates heroism in the face of evil and protecting the weak and innocent against forces of darkness, but the movie takes an original tragic story and lightens it up by making an unnamed female character in the original story and turning her into the main hero instead of her three brothers, so there’s a feminist subtext;

Foul Language:

Two “d” obscenities (one is an old-fashioned reference to damnation);

Violence:

Strong, sometimes scary action violence such as medieval battles featuring swords and archers, many men die, young woman faces a scary lake monster with tentacles that drowns and eats a large fantasy elephant, men and woman fight evil foes, angry father punches another man and kills him, the dead man’s son vows revenge and wages war, son starts a long winter siege of a mountain fortress with catapults, and heroine overhears some demonic orcs talking about eating dead human soldiers during the siege while secretly searching for an evil ring of power;

Sex:

No sex;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

Some alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Hot-headed king insults a warlord and goads him into a fight where the warlord is killed, which leads to some tragic outcomes when the warlord’s son vows revenge and refuses to repent, which doesn’t end well for the son, not to mention the hot-headed prideful king.

More Detail:

THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is an animated version of a short story taken from the Appendix to THE LORD OF THE RINGS and other writings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Set nearly 200 years before the War of the Ring in LOTR, the story involves the Ninth King of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand. Helm’s reign was plagued by war with the “wildmen” of Dunland. A powerful, wealthy warlord from Dunland comes to King Helm’s fortress and proposes marriage between his son, Wulf, and the King’s daughter. However, Helm refuses the marriage and mocks the warlord, who challenged Helm to a fight, but Helm knocked him dead with one blow. Wulf vowed revenge. Four years later, Wulf overruns Helm’s main fortress, and Helm retreats to a mountain fortress called the Hornburg, against which Wulf and his armies lay siege.

The movie WAR OF THE ROHORRIM takes this barebones story and puts a name to Helm’s daughter, calling her Héra. The movie paints her as an independent young woman who loves riding horses and can shoot arrows. When her father retreats to the mountain stronghold, Héra leads the women and children in the stronghold, which is called the Hornburg. Her father is driven mad when he learns his two sons have been killed.

Will Héra and the people of Rohan survive?

THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is beautifully animated and directed. It has exciting moments, but the long winter siege slows down the story. Kudos to the filmmakers, though, for taking a downer, tragic story and giving it an heroic ending. The original written story is a cautionary tale against hubris, pride and revenge. The movie contains these same themes, but the story of Héra and her survival against Wulf and his terrible siege becomes the story’s heroic center.

As noted above, THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is a cautionary tale against hubris, pride and revenge. However, it’s also a tale about heroism in the face of evil and about protecting the weak and innocent against terrible forces of darkness.

That said, the movie has lots of strong action violence. There are battles between armies and between the forces of good and the forces of evil. There’s also an encounter with a scary lake monster whose tentacles grab a large fantasy elephant that’s chasing the heroine. Also, there’s a scene where the heroine hides from some orcs. She overhears them claiming to have been eating the dead soldiers during the winter siege. She also overhears them saying that they’re looking for some kind of ring for their master, presumably Sauron, the major villain in THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. In this way, THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM makes a direct link between itself and the popular, critically acclaimed trilogy.