Hi everyone, I'm Em and welcome to verbal diorama, episode 301, the Lord of the Rings, the War of the Rohirrim, and the Legacy of the Lord of the Rings. This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't. And all Middle Earth knows the tale of the War of the ring. But 200 years before that, there was an older tale. Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you are a brand new listener to this podcast, whether you are a regular returning listener, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast that's now 301 episodes old. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of the Lord of the Rings, the War of the Rohirrim, as well as the Legacy of the Lord of the Rings. Just before I start, just a huge thank you to everyone who supports this podcast, listens to this podcast, and has done over the last six years and now 300 episodes. It genuinely means so much to me to have a podcast that has continued for this time. I would not have continued with this podcast without the support of the people who listen. And it genuinely means so much to me to have you here with me on this journey. And it's not over. There's going to be plenty more history and legacies to come. I am going to be taking a bit of a break after this series of episodes, I'll be completely honest with you, but I have just cherished every moment of making this podcast, of talking about these movies, not just the Lord of the Rings, but literally every single movie that I've ever talked about. I love doing what I do and I love doing what I do for you guys. The, the people who are listening to this podcast. So just a huge thank you. And to be honest, it doesn't matter if this is the first ever episode that you've listened to. It really doesn't matter because you're still here and you're still listening. And whether you have listened to 301 episodes or one episode, I really genuinely am very grateful for your support and for your ears. So yeah, huge thank you to you for your support. And this episode here is the fisk of a five part Queen trilogy, I think is the word. I don't know. I haven't looked that up beforehand and I can't be bothered to fact check. But you know, got trilogy quadrilogy. I think it's Queen trilogy. Maybe let's just go with Quinn trilogy on the history and legacy of the Lord of the Rings, focusing on Peter Jackson's trilogy, but also sandwiching that between the two animated versions or the two most prominent, I should say animated versions, Rav Bakshi's the Lord of the Rings from 1978 and then the War of the Rohirrim which came out Last year in 2024 as of recording this episode. And when I thought about doing the Lord of the Rings, my initial plan was to only do Peter Jackson's trilogy. But if you're a long time listener of this podcast, you will know me and you will also know my ability to consistently add more stuff to my plate because I can't seem to help but do that. And I thought to myself that to tell the full story meant not just Peter Jackson's trilogy, it meant also talking about Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated movie. And so then my second plan was four movies. But then I realized I can't stop at Jackson's movies because that's not the end of the story. And I feel like I was doing a disservice. And if anything, I am an absolute completionist. So I had to go post Jackson's trilogy as well, with the War of the Rohirriam then becoming the focus of this episode. Because if you're going to start this series with the gaining of the rites and the story of Tolkien specifically, then you need to end it with, well, how did they keep those rights? And what is the everlasting legacy of J.R.R. tolkien's the Lord of the Rings? And this episode and this movie in this episode is the answer to one of those things. So just a brief summary on the episodes that come before this if you happen to have not listened. So the first episode is basically the start of the story. I would recommend you listen to it because it goes into Tolkien's history, the estate's control of the material, the movies that they tried to make before Ralph Bakshi made his version, Ralph Bakshi's version. And it talks a little bit about Saul Zaentz and his link to the rights. And that's something the rights that we're going to delve into more for this episode. And then of course, the next three episodes on Peter Jackson's trilogy, they work as a trilogy of self contained episodes as well as parts two to four of this five part series. You can choose to listen to them or indeed not. I would personally recommend them because I'm very proud of those episodes. But as I said, this is technically the fifth of a five part complete story of episodes. The Fellowship of the Ring specifically focused on the beginning of Peter Jackson's vision for the series. His dealings with Miramax, the move to New Line Cinema, the various changes he made to the source material and specifics on the Fellowship of the Ring, including casting choices and the incredible costume design. The episode on the Two Towers focused on the Two Towers, but specifically on the Battle of Helm's Deep and the introduction of the technology surrounding Gollum as well as the production and art design choices for the series. The Return of the King went into the Return of the King as well as the rest of the visual effects by Weta Workshop, the makeup and prosthetics and the music across all of the movies by Howard Shaw. And then the culmination of how it became one of the biggest Academy Award winning films of all time. Those episodes are set up not like regular episodes because obviously they filmed the movies at the same time. And so detailed production history of each movie, it's all intertwined with each other. So all of those episodes are intertwined with each other. This episode is on the War of the Rohirrim as well as the everlasting legacy of these movies and the fact that the Lord of the Rings basically set a precedent that Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy then had to follow. The effect the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had on tourism and film industries in New Zealand, and of course the retaining of the rights and the future of the franchise. Peter Jackson's the Lord of the Rings trilogy was a huge success critically, commercially, and a new word that I'm making up a warderly. But the Lord of the Rings wasn't the only thing J.R.R. tolkien wrote. But to talk a little about what happened next, we need to go back to the beginning. And you'll remember some of this if you've listened to the episode on Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version. But United Artists entered negotiations with Tolkien personally for the rights to the Lord of the Rings with an option for the Hobbit. And this was in 1967. United Artists eventually acquired the film rights to both the Hobbit and the Lord of the rings in 1969 from Tolkien with 7.5% of gross receipts, minus expenses to be paid to Tolkien. And this is going to come back up. In 1976, the United Artists sold most of the rights to producer Saul Zainz, who formed Tolkien Enterprises, which became Middle Earth Enterprises. United Artists, however, retained distribution rights to the Hobbit. Why is this important? Well, the United Artists Studio and its parent company, NGN, were for sale in the mid-1990s. And Harvey Weinstein, who I never love to talk about, but sometimes we must, he would attempt to buy the movie rights from the studio during that time and he was unsuccessful. This would lead to Peter Jackson going on to adapt the Lord of the Rings instead of the Hobbit, which, as we know, ended up at New Line Cinema. And their rights to film a version of the Hobbit would expire. In 2010, two years after the release of the Return of the King, Peter Jackson filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema for lost revenue from merchandising, video and computer games released in association with the Fellowship of the Rings. He wanted New Line to audit their accounts and find out if he was owed anything that he believed that he was being withheld. He didn't believe at the time that the suit, which he deemed minor, would stop him moving forward with an adaptation of the Hobbit. But New Line's co founder, Bob Shea, was annoyed by the lawsuit. He accused Peter Jackson of greed and stated that Peter Jackson would never direct a film for New Line Cinema ever again. Now, we know this didn't end up being true, but after a series of flops for New Lines, Shea would eventually reverse his public announcement and try to repair the relationship between himself and Jackson. New Line would end up being fined $125,000 for failing to provide requested accounts documentation. But obviously, as I mentioned, the Lord of the Rings was a huge success, critically, commercially and orderly. And so in 2006, MGN, who by that point had new owners, expressed an interest in teaming up with New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson to make the Hobbit. Because obviously MGM owned United Artists. They had the rights to The Hobbit. In December 2007, New Line and MGM announced that Peter Jackson would be executively producing the Hobbit and its one sequel. He was not the director of these movies. In February 2008, the Tolkien Estate, through the Tolkien Trust, a British Charity, and HarperCollins Publishers, filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema for breach of contract and fraud and demanded $220 million in compensation for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The suit claimed New Line had only paid the estate an upfront fee of $62,500, despite the trilogy's gross of an estimated $6 billion from box office receipts and merchandise sales. The suit claimed the estate was entitled to 7.5% of all profits made by any Tolkien films as established by the prior deal that I mentioned earlier, and the suit sought to block the filming of the Hobbit. Now. This suit was settled in September 2001 for $38 million. Development of the Hobbit proceeded regardless, and while Jackson would not be directing, in April 2008, Guillermo del Toro was hired to direct the Hobbit, and it was a book he had loved as a child and a move that pleased many fans of the original trilogy, myself included. Longtime listeners of this podcast will know how much I adore del Toro. His movies are wonderful. Now, I will say that the story of the Hobbit is probably deserving of an episode of its own one day, so. So please do let me know if you would like eventual episodes on the Hobbit trilogy. But as we know, Guillermo del Toro left the project eventually in 2010 after many delays and financial troubles with MGM, with Jackson announcing as returning to the director's chair five months later, and it was not particularly easy for him to jump into work that Del Toro had already done. There were also issues with the union dispute in New Zealand with Warner Bros. A new line considering filming outside of the country. New Zealanders wanted the production to remain in New Zealand and the government would intervene and the production would go ahead with filming in New Zealand. And then There was the two film to three film change, with del Toro always planning two. Jackson confirmed in July 2012 that there were plans for a third, which would make extensive use of the appendices that Tolkien wrote to support the story of the Lord of the Rings. The first film was subtitled An Unexpected Journey, the second was subtitled the Desolation of Smaug, and the third was subtitled There and Back again. But in 2014, the third film was renamed the Battle of the Five Armies. The Tolkien estate would file a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Again in November 2012. Alleging copyright infringement, breach of contract, and arguing the defendants exceeded the scope of their rights to Tolkien's material by producing gambling and video games using characters, and that the limitations of Tolkien's original sale of the rights in 1969 was only limited to tangible products like action figures and clothing, and not electronic or digital rights. Obviously electronic and digital rights not really existing. In 1969, Tolkien's estate claimed that the defendant's actions had caused irreparable harm to Tolkien's legacy, despite the Saul Zainz company filing a counterclaim as well as other Warner parties. The lawsuit would be settled in July 2017 for a confidential amount. The film rights and the TV rights to Tolkien's material are separate, and for that reason Amazon would come along and buy the TV rights for the Lord of the Rings in November 2017 for $250 million, with a five season commitment to a series planned to be the next Game of Thrones. The commitment was worth at least $1 billion, making it the most expensive TV series ever made. Jackson's trilogies are based on the third age of middle Earth. The Rings of Power is set a thousand years before the novel and primarily based on the appendices of the Lord of the Rings, which include major events of the Second Age of Middle Earth. For legal reasons, it's not a direct continuation of Jackson's the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit film trilogies, but younger versions of the same incarnations of characters such as Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf do appear interestingly and differently to the Jackson movies. The Tolkien estate and the Tolkien Trust worked with Amazon on the Rings of Power to, quote, protect Tolkien's legacy, unquote, which the estate felt they were unable to do with the previous adaptations. The estate imposed creative restrictions on the series, and while Peter Jackson said in December 2018 that he and his film producing partners would read some of the scripts for the series and offer notes on them, he later stated that this didn't happen. Allison explained that the deal to acquire the television rights for the Lord of the Rings required them to keep the series distinct from Jackson's films and Tolkien's estate were reportedly against Jackson's involvement in the project and as I've mentioned in the episodes that I did on Peter Jackson's movies, the Tolkien estate are, shall we say, not the biggest fans of those movies and therefore not the biggest fans of Peter Jackson himself. Now, the Rings of Power has struggled for widespread fandom acceptance and has received mixed to positive critical reviews, suggesting that there's room for improvement, but it does beg the question why Amazon themselves have never attempted to buy the film rights from Saul Zanes. I guess we'll never know. Simon Tolkien, a novelist and the grandson of J.R.R. tolkien, consulted on the series and helped develop its story and character arcs and he is credited as a series consultant. Lord of the Rings fan films have generally been allowed to exist by the Tolkien estate and the film rights holders as long as they are non commercial. Many filmmakers use these projects as showcases for their talents, with some going on to professional careers in filmmaking. Some of the most well known Lord of the Rings fan films include the Hunt for Gollum from 2009, which is perhaps the most famous Lord of the Rings fan film. It is directed, co, written, co produced and co scored by Chris Bouchard and it is an ambitious 40 minute production which serves as a prequel to the main trilogy following Aragorn as he searches for Gollum. It was made on a 3,000 pound budget, but it does feature impressive production values, costumes and visual effects in an attempt to match Peter Jackson's style. And I am going to be coming back to the Hunt for Gollum a bit later. There's also Born of Hope, also from 2009, which is another high quality fan film produced and directed by Kate Madison that tells the story of Aragorn's parents and his birth. It's set before the main trilogy and explores the time when Sauron's forces were hunting the heirs of Isildor. But we need to bring this story to the 2000 and twenties and the evolution of the rights to the Lord of the rings. In 2022, Middle Earth Enterprises, which was owned by the Saul's AIDS company which helped the film rights, was acquired by Embracer Group, a Swedish video game company. This acquisition included the worldwide rights to motion pictures, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions related to the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. The takeover stemmed from a lawsuit between Zaentz and Warner Bros. Over whether the studio was fulfilling its development obligations to hold onto its license. To celebrate the original trilogy's 20th anniversary, Warner Brothers had put into production an anime prequel to try and meet its fulfillment and retain the rights to both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbits. The Saul Zaentz Company had deemed this adaptation insufficient, hence the lawsuit. But since they were no longer in the picture, New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers Animation pressed forwards with their animated prequel. And so here's the trailer for the Lord of the the War of the Rahirrim

King Helm Hammerhand, the legendary king of Rohan and the Rohirrim courageously defend against a sudden invasion led by the vengeful dunlending Lord Wulf. Wulf, a clever and ruthless former childhood friend of Hera, the daughter of Helm, seeks vengeance for the death of his father at Helm Hammerhand's hands. He and his army forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg, a mighty fortress that will later become known as Helm's Deep. Binding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Hiram is summoned the Will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction. Lets run through the cast. We have Brian Cox as Hell Hammerhand, Gaia Wise as Hera, Luke Pasqualino as Wolf, Lawrence Ubong Williams as Freelaf Hilderson, Lorraine Ashbourne as Olwin and Miranda Otto as Eowyn. There's also archival recordings of Christopher Lee as Saruman and cameos by Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan as the Orcs Shank and rot. The Lord of the the War of the Rohirrim has a screenplay by Jeffrey Addis, Will Matthews, Phoebe Gittins and Artie Papa Georgiou, a story by Jeffrey Addis, Will Matthews and Philippa Boyens, was directed by Kenji Kamiyama and was based on characters created by J.R.R. tolkien. Two hundred years before Bill Bird Baggins found the One Ring, the legendary Helm Hammerhand, the ninth king of Rohan, was the prime target for a new animated film adaptation of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien mentions Helm Hammerhand in the appendices of the Lord of the Rings, specifically the House of Eorl section in the Annals of the Kings and Rulers in Appendix A, which details the history of Rohan's rulers. It's there that Tolkien briefly wrote about Helm Hammerhand and his clash with the Dunlending Lord Wulf, which led to the first siege of Helm's Deep, a castle only known as the Hornburg. Beforehand, Tolkien named Helm and his two sons Hammer and Halith, but his daughter remained unnamed and her fate was also unclear. There's even debate that Tolkien may not have thought of Helm's full history until after he'd published the Two Towers, the book, which famously features a battle at Helm's Deep between the beleaguered people of Rohan and the Orcs of Isengard. But the movie isn't really focused on Helm, it's more focused on his previously unnamed daughter. So let's go into that with the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, both expensive and lavish productions with years of pre production. The switch to an animated expansion of the franchise had been discussed for years before they settled on making an anime film. Leading the charge this time around wasn't Peter Jackson, but his friend and co writer Philippa Boyens, and the reasons for making a new Lord of the Rings was pretty clear from the off. This was purely to retain the film rights, and it would essentially be fast tracked to do so. Animation seemed the perfect medium to depict Tolkien's lavish worlds without the additional production budget needed to do so in real life. This, of course, isn't the first time the Lord of the Rings has been adapted into animation. The first episode in this series went into Rav Bakshi's animation from 1978 and briefly mentioned the Rankin Bass adaptations too. Anime was a slightly different choice though, but anime would distinguish it from Peter Jackson's live action Middle Earth films while still maintaining a connection to the franchise. Anime also has a dedicated global fan base that extends beyond traditional Tolkien audiences. The story of Helm Hammerhand, a mighty warrior who can kill a guy with one punch, also involves legendary battles and heroic feats that lead themselves well to the dynamic visual storytelling approach common in anime. It would also avoid the story of Sauron and the One Ring and therefore avoid crossover with Jackson's original trilogy. Director Kanji Kamiyama had previous experience working with Warner Bros. On Blade Runner Black Lotus, which was cancelled in 2022. He started as a background artist for Akira and Kiki's Delivery Service and made his directorial debut with Ghost in the Shell standalone complex in 2002. The Kingdom of Rohan would be an ideal focus, mostly because viewers were familiar with the Rohirrim and with Helm's Deep, and Boyans believed the culture was suited to an anime depiction. The movie was titled the Lord of the the War of the Rohirrim. Jeffrey Addis and Will Matthews were hired to write the initial screenplay. They previously found success as the creators of the Dark Age of Resistance for Netflix, which had demonstrated their ability to work with established fantasy properties. Their screenplay was reportedly focused on the story of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary king of Rohan who ruled during a time of great crisis about 183 years before the events of the Lord of the Rings. The narrative was said to explore the origins of Helm's Deep and the conflicts that shaped the Kingdom of Rohan during this tumultuous period. During the COVID 19 lockdowns, Philippa Boyens would ask her daughter Phoebe Gittins and her writing partner Artie Papa Georgiou to rewrite the script. And in their revised script, they moved the focus from Helm to his unnamed daughter, taking inspiration from the historic female leader Aethelflaed, as well as Tolkien's other female characters like Eowyn. They didn't necessarily want to write her as a girl boss or a warrior princess character, but as a free spirited young woman who could make her own choices separately to her role as Rohan's princess. While the War of the Rohirrim largely invented a storyline for its protagonist, the overall arc of the tale is surprisingly faithful to Tolkien's writings. In the House of Eorl, the conflict is kicked off in the exact same way, with Helm's daughter being betrothed to Wolf, the marriage falling through, and Helm killing Wolf's father and banishing him as a result. Tolkien's appendices and I'm not going to recite them all but specifically say quote to one of these councils. Freca rode with many men, and he asked the hand of Helm's daughter for his son Wulf. But Helm said, you have grown big since you were last here, but it is mostly fat, I guess. And men laughed at that, for Frecker was wide in the belt. Then Freca fell into a rage and reviled the king. He said this at the last old kings that refuse a proffered staff may fall on their knees. Helm answered, come, the marriage of your son is a trifle. Let Helm and Freka deal with it later. Meanwhile, the king and his council have matters of moment to consider. When the council was over, Helm stood up and laid his great hand on Freca's shoulder, saying, the king does not permit brawls in his house, but men are freer outside. And he forced Freca to walk before him out from Edaurus into the field. To Freca's men that came up, he said, be off. We need no hearers. We are going to speak of a private matter alone. Go and talk to my men. And they looked and saw the king's men and his friends far outnumbered them, and they drew back. Now, Dunlending, said the king, you have only Helm to deal with alone and unarmed. But you have said much already, and it is my turn to speak. Frecka, your folly has grown with your belly. You talk of a staff. If Helm dislikes a crooked staff that is thrust upon him, he breaks it so with that he smote Frecker such a blow with his fist that he fell back stunned and died soon after. Helm then proclaimed Freca's son and Nirkjun the king's enemies, and they fled. For at once Helm sent many men riding to the west marches. Many other events are also drawn directly from the appendices of the Lord of the Rings, such as the fall of Adorus, the death of Helm's sons, Freilaf arriving at the Hornburg to save the day, and Helm's one man campaign to destroy the Dunlending army in the dead of winter, which leads to him being dubbed a Wraith. Even Helm's ultimate fate is the same. As Tolkien wrote quote, Helm Hammerhand at the end of his reign, Rohan suffered a great loss by invasion and the long winter. Helm and his sons Halith and Hammer perished. Frielaf, Helm's sister's son, became king. Helm grew fierce and gaunt for famine and grief, and the dread of him alone was worth many men. In the defence of the burg, he would go out by himself, clad in white, and stalk like a snow troll into the camps of his enemies and slay many men with his hands. It was believed that if he bore no weapon, no weapon would bite on him. One night men heard the horn blowing, but Helm did not return. In the morning there came a sun gleam, the first for long days. And they saw a white figure standing still on the dyke alone, for none of the Dunlendings dare come near. There stood Helm, dead as a stone, but his knees were unbent. Yet men said that the horn was still heard at times in the deep, and the wraith of Helm would walk among the foes of Rohan and kill men with fear, unquote. And as I mentioned in all of the appendices, Helm's daughter remained unnamed and her story, like many others in Middle Earth is forgotten by history. And let's be honest, despite having a wife and daughter himself, Tolkien never really focused on women. In Middle Earth. Women were powerful women like Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn, but they were also few in comparison to the male characters. Tolkien's wife Edith was a skilled pianist, and yet she was expected to stay home and take care of the children, as many wives in the early 20th century and before had to do. It does actually make narrative sense to focus on a young woman and the shield maidens, and the idea that marriage between houses was, up until very recently in the Western world, seen as the prime objective for a young woman's life. The entry point to the story would be the narration by Eowyn herself as a character everyone knew telling the story of the ancestors of Rohan. While Helm's daughter was unnamed in Tolkien's appendices because all the family members had names starting with H, it was Fran Walsh who suggested the daughter's name also start with H and the name Hera was chosen after Hera Hilmar, the Icelandic actress who starred in the film Mortal Engines and not a reference to the goddess Hera of ancient Greek religion. After the film was announced in June 2021, the cast was announced in June 2022 with Brian Cox as Helm, Gaia Wise as Hera, and Luke Pasqualino as Wolf, with Miranda Otto returning as Eowyn. Brian Cox obviously needs no introduction. Gaia Wise you may not know, but you will know her incredibly famous Academy Award winning actor, screenwriter, mother, and that is Emma Thompson. Gaia Wise is her daughter with actor Greg Wise. Richard Taylor, the creative director of special effects company Weta Workshop, and Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe all returned from Jackson's film trilogy to work on the War of the Rohirrian. The producers didn't want to just make an animated version of Jackson's style and instead embraced anime and Kamiyama's style specifically, as well as taking inspiration from Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki. Locations in the War of the Rahim that were previously seen in Jackson's films were shown in concept art, including the Rohan capital of Edoras, the stronghold at the Hornburg, which becomes known as Helm's Deep, and the Fortress of Isengard. Old models from Weta's archives were used as inspiration for some of the designs. The animation was started in June 2021 by Solar Entertainment and the goal for the design of the characters was to retain as much realism as possible while still being recognizably anime Although the movie is animated in 2D, many techniques and styles went into the making of the War of the Rohirrim. This movie is almost a mix of the technology used to create Ralph Bakshi's version and the technology used to create Gollum. In that the team had actors do motion capture performances of the characters for the entire film before creating models of the scenes in real time. Gaming engines like Unreal to work out camera angles and movements to create 2D animation. Kamiyama was clear that his intention wasn't to do Rotoscope and instead had clear instructions for his animators to interpret and translate the motion capture as a reference for the 2D animation. Animation was chosen for this movie because it was deemed as easier than doing it in live action. That easy is subjective because the timelines on this movie were incredibly tight. And then they increased the running time from 90 minutes initially to almost two and a half hours. So more than 60 companies had to be brought on board to help finish the animation. The traditional process of anime, with keyframe animators coming up with the individual character performances and then the director giving feedback and the animators going back to the drawing board, would take too long on this particular project. Likewise, what would normally be a team of around 40 people in house doing cleanup and corrections on a project at this size was reduced to only two in house crew members for War of the Rohirrian. And so international studios were needed to help out in order to meet the release schedule. Some animators did work solo on certain scenes. Hisao Yokobori, known for his work on Lupin the Third, animated the Watcher in the water and drew the whole creature himself. And probably the one word I keep mentioning in this five episode series most often is the word ambitious. Ralph Bakshi was ambitious, Peter Jackson was ambitious, and so is the team here. What might take closer to five years and involve a big set of animation directors was instead done in just a couple of years with a single director. And everything from motion capture data to CG movement to camera check to every single shot that came up in terms of drawing was personally checked by Kenji Kamiyama. Not everything was motion captured. Some scenes were traditionally drawn, like Hera's last duel with Wolf, which was done entirely using keyframes rather than relying on motion capture with exaggerated expressions and inhuman movements that accentuated the action. And this is a movie of often breathtaking beauty. Middle Earth is captured with vivid colors and rich backgrounds which do harken back to some of Miyazaki's most beautiful vistas. And the Mimakyl scene with the watcher in the water does have a very Princess Mononoke look and feel to it. The War of the Rohirrim isn't the first animation of a Tolkien property to be animated in Japan. It was actually the Rankin Bass animated versions of The Hobbit in 1977 and the Return of the King in 1980. They were animated by Japan's top craft studio, which then also went on to make Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. And it's like a lot on this podcast, and in these episodes especially, it almost feels like a full circle moment. Also, a full circle moment is whenever I segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of the episodes that I do now. Pretty much every single episode of this podcast, apart from a few standout omissions, I do something called the obligatory Keanu reference. And it's where I link the movie that I'm featuring with Keanu Reeves. And the general rul is I can't reuse a reference from another episode. I've started to loosen that rule a little bit because after 300 episodes, it kind of starts to get a bit difficult. And the Lord of the Rings is one of those things. It's always going to be difficult to link Keanu Reeves to the Lord of the Rings or Tolkien. And animation as well. It's always hard to link Keanu to animation unless it's spongebob or Toy Story. But for this episode's obligature Keanu reference, I thought to myself, well, where is this movie set? It's set in Rohan. Rohan is the fictional kingdom of Men. And who in this world is the best of Men? Why, it's Keanu Reeves, of course, and it's a terrible reference, but it's the one I'm gonna go with, because trying to link Keanu Reeves to this movie is really hard. And it's something that I'm just gonna have to kind of wing from now on because I feel like I'm running out of references to use. But, you know, it's just a bit of fun. I mentioned last episode on the Return of the King, I spoke specifically about Howard Shaw's score for the Lord of the Rings and how I feel like it's one of the greatest scores ever made for a movie ever, because it's so varied and rich, and you can literally put a piece of music on and it will transport you exactly to that time in the trilogy where that music is played. And while some of Howard Shaw's music specifically his Rohan theme, were reprised for this movie. Stephen Gallagher, who'd been the music editor on Peter Jackson's the Hobbit trilogy, was chosen to compose the score for the War of the Rohirrim in February 2023. An original song called the Rider was written by Phoebe Gittins and composer David Long, and that was performed by British singer songwriter Paris Paloma. And obviously with a film series like the Lord of the Rings, anything that comes out surrounding the Lord of the Rings is going to cause quite a bit of fan excitement. And a first look at the film's concept art, which showed the influence of Jackson's films on its visuals, was revealed in February 2022. Unfinished footage was shown at the Annecy International Animation film festival in June 2023, and during a panel at the Annecy International film festival in 2024, it was announced that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who had previously not been involved in an official capacity, were now executively producing the project. It was, in all intents and purposes being marketed as Peter Jackson Presents the Lord of the the War of the Rohirrim. Philippa Boyens joined director Kenji Kamiyama and producers Joseph chu and Jason DeMarco on stage at Annecy for a conversation moderated by Bolan himself, andy Serkis, and 20 minutes of finished footage was screened at the festival in 2024 and was positively received, and so audience anticipation for this movie was relatively high. The Lord of the Rings has traditionally always had a December release, and this movie is no exception, premiering in Leicester Square, London on 3rd December 2024 and being released on 5th December 2024. But it wasn't always intended to be released in December. It was supposed to be released on 12 April 2024. But the SAG AFTRA strikes caused delays across the industry and a chain reaction of events meant Warner Brothers redating its releases, and this was spurred by Legendary Entertainment's June Part 2, moving from 3 November 2023 to 15 March 2024, which then pushed their other title, Godzilla x Kong the new empire, from 15 March 2024 to 12 April 2024, and no one in their right mind wants to take on Godzilla and Kong. The Lord of the the War of the Rohirrim opened on 13th December 2024 in the US, debuting at 6th at the US box office in a crowded box office with Moana 2 on top, Wicked just below it, Kraven the Hunter debuting the Same Week at 3, and Gladiator 2 at 4. Even a RE release of Interstellar beat the War of the Rohirrim in its second week of release. The War of the Rohirrim stayed in the top 10 for one week, dropping to 13th in its second, and it ended up being available on digital just 14 days after it was released in cinemas. And while this didn't have the budget of Jackson's trilogy, it was made for $30 million, which is quite a large budget for an anime, but it takes into account the many, many studios that needed to help to get this done. The Lord of the Rings the War of The Rohirrim grossed $9.2 million domestically in the US and $11.5 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $20.7 million. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 48%, with the website's consensus reading this animated deep cut from the Lord of the Rings mythos has plenty of spectacle, but its cliched characters and uneven animation resemble Middle of the Road more than they do Middle Earth. Considering how the footage had taken Annecy by storm, the critical and commercial reaction to the War of the Rohirrim was disappointing to say the least. And my personal experience of this movie, I saw it for the first time on Blu ray and while parts of the movie were really impressive, the animation was so beautiful, other parts of the movie just didn't seem to match that animation style. It was almost like some parts of the movie had lots of time spent on and then other parts felt really rushed and overall the movie felt really rushed. But it's not all doom and gloom. The truth is this didn't need to actually be a hit, it just needed to be. It did what it needed to do. It retained New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. The rights to make more movies set in Middle Earth, which is exactly what's going to happen. After Middle Earth Enterprises were acquired by Embrace the group, Warner Bros. And New Line signed a new deal with them to make more Lord of the Rings live action films. In October 2024, Philippa Boyens stated they'd begun to work conceptually on two different live action films, the first being titled the Hunt for Gollum, the second still to be confirmed and I told you we were going to be coming back to the Hunt for Gollum because yes, it has the same name as the fan film. The Hunt for Gollum will be directed by Andy Serkis, who will also reprise the role of Gollum, and it takes place in the time between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring. The When Aragorn, known as Strider, is tasked with tracking down Gollum to prevent Sauron from learning the ring's whereabouts. In February 2025, Serkis said filming would take place in 2026. Reports are that Wellington, New Zealand will serve as the production hub for the new Lord of the Rings films. Continuing the tradition to film in New Zealand. The Hunt for Gollum is scheduled currently to be released on 17th December 2027. So this is the end, the everlasting legacy of the Lord of the Rings from Tolkien's stories through each adaptation we've gone into to this the end of all things. It's time to drop the wolf into the fires of Mordor and think about how far we've come on a journey through ambition, perseverance and hard work through revolutionary visual effects while simultaneously championing practical craftsmanship. Gollum's motion capture performance broke new ground technically. While the handcrafted armor, miniatures and prosthetics showed the enduring value of traditional filmmaking techniques, these movies were, are, and continue to be the best of all worlds. What truly distinguishes Jax's achievement is how the trilogy balances spectacle with emotional resonance, creating an epic that never loses sight of its intimate character moments and themes of friendship, courage and hope against overwhelming odds. Ralph Bakshi's work influenced Peter Jackson, and his films would go on to create a global community of fans that span generations and establishing a visual language for Middle Earth that continues to inform new adaptations like the War of the Rahirrim. Countless moments from the trilogy have been absorbed into Internet culture and everyday communication. One does not simply walk into Mordor. My precious, you shall not pass. All demonstrate how thoroughly these films permeate popular consciousness. Anyone on Instagram will know of the countless memes and videos that I've been posting on my stories. There's so many of them, and they're so good. The trilogy transformed New Zealand's film industry into a global production hub, creating infrastructure and developing talent and establishing a reputation that continues to attract international productions and tourists. Lots and lots of tourists. In many ways, the Lord of the Rings and by extension the Hobbit were free marketing for the New Zealand Tourist Board. In fact, they estimate that approximately 3 to 6% of international visitors in the years following the films, which represents hundreds of thousands of tourists, annually cited the Lord of the Rings as a primary reason for visiting New Zealand. This Tolkien tourism phenomenon has generated billions of dollars in tourism revenue since 2001, and they've invested heavily in marketing, highlighting filming locations with dedicated sections on their website for Middle Earth experiences. Dozens of film specific tour companies emerged across both islands offering everything from half day excursions to comprehensive two week Middle Earth tours. Notable sites like Hobbiton in Mata Matta, the Wetter Workshop in Wellington, and numerous locations in areas like Queenstown and Mount Sunday became major tourism destinations. And the film's legacy extends beyond Tolkien tourism. The successful positioning of New Zealand as a filming location led to many other major productions choosing the country, creating a self reinforcing style cycle of film tourism. The government recognized this value by offering significant tax incentives to productions that would showcase New Zealand landscapes. Big movies that also filmed in New Zealand include James Cameron's Avatar movies, Ragnarok, District 9, the Meg and Megan. Weta Digital's Journey from Heavenly Creatures through to Gollum would mean it went on to become a global visual effects powerhouse, establishing a relationship with James Cameron for Avatar and its multiple sequels, plus collaborating on some of the biggest movies of all time including Infinity War and Endgame. They worked on the cutting edge effects of the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy, enhancing their motion capture technology further. Pioneering facial capture technology that could record subtle facial movements with unprecedented detail. Weta Digital was acquired by unity Technologies in 2021 in a deal worth approximately $1.6 billion. It's now split into two entities. Weta FX, the visual effects service business, continues to work on films and Weta Digital, the technology division, became part of Unity. It's one of the most significant success stories in the visual effects industry, creating a lasting legacy well beyond Middle Earth. Tolkien's influence on fantasy can't be understated either. The Lord of the Rings has inspired countless imitations and respectful homages like the Sword of Shannara, which is seen by many as a shameless copy, and Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. And not just books either, but games like Baldur's Gate, Everquest, Warcraft and the Legend of Zelda all have roots in Tolkien, as well as of course, Dungeons and Dragons, which contains many of the same creatures and races as Middle Earth. So much so that Gary Gygax had to rename some of the characters after a lawsuit from Tolkien's estate. Beyond cinema, Tolkien's books, Ralph Bakshi's animation, Peter Jackson's trilogy, and Kenji Kamiyama's anime sparked a renaissance in fantasy, literature, gaming and television that directly enabled everything from Game of Thrones to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while demonstrating the audience's crave's sincere, emotionally resident spectacle over cynical entertainment that they wanted earnest, practical filmmaking over swathes of CG that they wanted an enduring, shared cultural touchstone that bridges generations with the themes of friendship, courage, and hope against darkness, resonating as powerfully today as they did 70 years ago when Tolkien originally published the Lord of the Rings in 1954 and 1955. The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places, but there is still much that is fair. And though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the Lord of the Rings, the War of the Rohirrim, or indeed of this series in general. Please let me know your thoughts about it. And of course, thank you for your continued support of this podcast. If you want to help and see this podcast grow further, you can get involved. You can tell friends and family about this podcast. You can leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast or this episode. And you can find me Follow Me on Social Media I am erbaldiorama on all major social media platforms and you can like post, share, post, comment on posts. It all helps. Now this is the part where I normally see say what I'm doing next, but in all honesty, I'm going to be taking a bit of a break from this podcast after working so hard on these five episodes. So I'm going to be taking a couple of weeks and then I'm going to be coming back with something a little bit special I think. A couple of years ago I did a series on this podcast which I called Kaijun and it was Kaiju movies in the month of June. Now we are going to be in the month of June and I can't really do a full Kaiju series in the month of June because there's only going to be two weeks in the month of June. But I thought I want to do something. I want to do some monster movies because there's nothing I love more than monster movies. So I'm coming back after a couple of weeks with the movie Anaconda from 1997 because technically it is a Kaiju movie. Kaiju is just basically big monster movie and you know my Anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hun. So I just just want to get that line into the episode somewhere. So please join me in a few weeks time for episode 302 on Anaconda now if you enjoy what I do for this podcast or you simply just want to support an indie creator who does literally everything by herself. If you have some spare change. You can financially contribute to the upkeep of this podcast. Now you are under no obligation. This podcast is free and it always will be free to listen to. But if you do get value out of what I do, there are a couple of ways you can help. If you wish, you can make a one off donation@verbaldiorama.com tips or you can subscribe to the Patreon to support the show@verbaldiorama.com Patreon and all money made goes back into this podcast by paying for things like software, subscriptions, website hosting or new equipment. Huge thank you to the incredible patrons of this podcast. I could not do what I do without their constant support. They are Claudia, Simon, Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dade, Stuart, Nicholas, so, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Ali, Stew, Brett, Fav, Philip, M. Xenos, Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle and Aaron. If you want to get in touch, you could email verbaldioramail.com you can also visit my website@verbaldiorama.com and you can fill out the little contact form. I'm going to go and have a bit of a sleep after this incredible epic journey that I've been on. But I will be back in a few weeks. I hope you have enjoyed this series, my precious. And finally. Bye