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The new Lord of the Rings animated movie War of the Rohirrim is taking fans back to the reign of one of Rohan’s most famous kings: the legendary man that gave Helm’s Deep its name, Helm Hammerhand. But if the footage Warner Bros. shared with attendees at the movie’s New York Comic Con panel is anything to go by, we’re going to be seeing a much, much darker side of this heroic figure.
The scene shown to audiences in New York today opened with a classic, familiar view to any Lord of the Rings fan: an illustrated map of Middle-earth, depicting the Westfold and Rohan, as voiceover from Eowyn (Miranda Otto, reprising her role from the Lord of the Rings movies as a narrative framing device) sets the stage for a wintery scene in the valleys outside Helm’s Deep. Dunlending guards looking out into the mist and snow spot scrambling wildmen fleeing back toward them. “It killed them all… tore them apart. Helm Hammerhand is no living man,” a straggler tells one of the guards.
Inside Helm’s Deep, we cut to Hera (Gaia Wise), as she is startled and calls out for her absent father, and then we see him out in the blizzards, a shadow of a man, with no weapon but his fists. Night after night, the narration tells us, a ghastly horn sounds in the deep, heralding the arrival of a deadly wraith.
We cut to Wulf (Luke Pasqualiano) as he looks over his Dunlending camp, littered with bodies of his men killed by Helm, as the narration describes him as a “king of nothing.” Back in Helm’s Deep, Rohirrim women and children taking refuge from the Dunlendings and the cold discuss the rumors of Helm’s transformation into something monstrous, as Hera wanders, overhearing the talk of her father as she explores deeper into the keep by candlelight. Thinking she’s seeing him turning every corner as she plumbs the depths of the caves below the Hornburg, Hera chases after her father, until she comes across an opening out into the frozen wastes… where she finds two orcs, scavenging the bodies around the exterior of the fortifications.
It turns out the orcs are looking for jewelry on the bodies. “What does Mordor want with rings?” one of the orcs asks the other, as a sneaking Hera is caught by a massive, horned creature that looks almost like minotaur more than a troll. Just as the orcs contemplate feeding her to the beast, Hera is saved by her father, leaping from upon high to punch one of the creature’s horns off clean with his bare fists.
The footage concluded with Helm dragging his daughter back up toward the main gates of Helm’s Deep, yelling to the guards standing watch to open them. He throws Hera inside as the gates close behind him—and as chasing Dunlendings begin to draw in—and Hera begs with her father that Rohan still needs him. Instead, from behind the closed gates, he implores that Rohan needs her, and it is her time to lead their people. From there, the footage gave way to a trailer largely cut from similar shots shown in the initial teaser earlier this year: Hera encountering a giant eagle, villages across Rohan burning at the hands of the Dunlendings, and massive armies on horseback, lead by Helm, charging into battle. The trailer climaxed with a return to the duel between Wulf and Hera glimpsed in the first trailer, clashing swords on horseback. “You may wear a crown on your head, but that doesn’t make you king,” Hera snarls at Wulf, as the two charge at each other.
For our first extended look at the film, War of the Rohirrim definitely wants you to know that it feels a part of Peter Jackson’s original vision for Lord of the Rings. Even in a new medium like animation, and even stylized, the footage shown to fans captures the aesthetic of those beloved movies down to a tee—and in playing with a fascinating part of Tolkien’s legendarium, it’s doing a lot to put its own spin on things even amid the familiarity.
Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim will hit theaters on December 13.
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