The Lord of the Rings: A future in animation

From the gentle beginnings in the late 1970s and early 1980s,  the Lord of the Rings has undergone massive changes from animated films to the 2001 live action films, to the live action Amazon series in 2022. But now the Rings will try to tackle something even more deadly than a mountain of fire, taking a beloved story with iconic live action characters and changing them into animated heroes. Now, a lot of true fans and even the passing bandwagon will look down on the animation and decide that it will not even be worth the time and effort that Warner Brothers will have placed into it. After all, this is the studio that made Bugs Bunny and created and dismantled Cartoon Network. Do we as fans really expect them to pull yet another bunny out of their hat and make it just as great? Short answer: Yes we do.

Since the thirty seven years since the first animated feature set in Tolkien’s vast world, the animated world has caught up. Some anime are even on par, if not better, than live action feature films. Studio Ghibli for instance. The worlds that are shown are vast and full of wonder, each one full of intricate details that only the most eagle eyed person might notice. They lack not for action or storytelling. Most anime films take up to two or three years to produce and do not require that the actors leave the safety of their home or their nearby recording studio. Thus, original actors can take the stage and reprise roles that they had twenty years ago. What’s that? You didn’t know? Miranda Otto from the live action LOTR (2001) is reprising her role as Eowyn. Perhaps the days are coming when it will be easier to produce an animated feature than an epic movie that spans eighteen months of filming. 

But what of the story you ask, is Warner Bros. going to screw the pooch like Amazon did? Scrunching down thousands of years into 8 hours and getting things so out of order and place that not even true fans would put on that ring? Well, all I can say about the War of the Rohirrim is that it takes place hundreds of years before the War of the Ring. Back to when the Rohirrim founded their country and Helm Hammer-hand was the King. This will be a blood soaked story, preying about the true horrors of war. Not just orcs and goblins, but the man vs man fighting, the siege of Helm’s Deep, the frozen winter that forced the King to be a cannibal. Yes, that’s right, Tolkien knew war far better than that other J.R.R. He knew the cost and what lengths a soldier might go to keep fighting. The story is there ripe for the taking. If liberties are taken, I hope that they leave some things in. 

There is some hope in this future. As we have seen that most production companies are trying to turn their cartoons into live action, there are not very many that are trying to turn live action into cartoons. There have been some straight to dvd or streaming service releases such as The Animatrix, Halo Legends, or Star Wars: Visions, but these are anthologies to build on previously established universes. I expect this segment of Lord of the Rings to follow suit in much the same way. This movie is not meant to tear down or reboot Peter Jackson’s films, but to reinforce them, to build upon them and make them more rewatchable. This might be the first of many films that will make the original Trilogy akin to Star Wars. A prequel sequel that will explore the vastness of middle earth and show that even the little person can make all the difference in the world.