Everything you should know before watching Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim

Shake off any misgivings you might have about animated adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim — based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s history of Rohan, land of horse lords and shield maidens — is from a top team of Middle-earth talent, and their dedication and skills have delivered an action-filled fantasy drama as only animation can provide. 

Despite its anime stylings, courtesy of director Kenji Kamiyama and Sola Digital Arts (Blade Runner: Black Lotus) War of the Rohirrim is from a lot of the same people who made Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the movie was explicitly designed as an expansion of that version of Tolkien’s world. 

That’s a difficult connection to put on a movie poster, or even in a TV spot. So let us unpack how War of the Rohirrim fits into Tolkien’s chronology, Jackson’s movies, and your movie-watching time. 

How long is War of the Rohirrim, and does it have a post-credits scene? 

WotR is surprisingly long for an animated film, running two hours and 14 minutes. But if you don’t want to sit around for the movie’s signature song, Paris Paloma’s “The Rider,” or the names of all the people who worked on the film, set to the Howard Shore-inspired soundtrack, you can skip out when the credits start to roll. 

The War of the Rohirrim doesn’t have a post-credits or mid-credits scene, and there are no sequels on the board to tease. Unless, of course, you count the already existing Peter Jackson Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies, which follow this one in the timeline. See below. 

Is War of the Rohirrim a Peter Jackson movie? 

Directly? No. But spiritually, visually, and in intention? Yes. 

The War of the Rohirrim is a rare theatrical release for Warner Bros. Animation — best known currently for its regular releases of DC Comics adaptations, like Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths and Merry Little Batman — but it’s got Jackson Lord of the Rings DNA all through it. The scripts for Jackson’s movies were co-written by him, his partner Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, and Jackson and Walsh have executive producer credits on The War of the Rohirrim. Boyens is even closer to the production, with a story co-credit and producer title. 

Boyens also recruited creative director Richard Taylor and artists Alan Lee and John Howe to the production, all pillars of the Jackson Lord of the Rings design team. And Kamiyama’s crew took advantage of full access to Wētā Workshop’s archive of props and designs created for Jackson’s movies. 

“We didn’t want the live-action movie fan to think that it’s different,” Kamiyama told Polygon, “or that this is not something that they were familiar with. […] We wanted to make sure that they feel that it’s connected, and this is a connected universe.” 

Is War of the Rohirrim an original story?

The War of the Rohirrim is based on Tolkien’s real lore! Tolkien invented a lot of details of Middle-earth that informed The Lord of the Rings but weren’t central to the books. When The Return of the King was published in 1955, he included six appendices, each digging deeper into some of that world-building. 

The first appendix of The Return of the King included a history of the horse-riding peoples of Rohan, with about two pages devoted to Helm Hammerhand, the last king of Rohan’s first dynasty. That’s the story Boyens and her team decided to expand on for The War of the Rohirrim, featuring Helm’s unnamed daughter as their main character, Héra.

When in The Lord of the Rings is War of the Rohirrim set? 

The War of the Rohirrim takes place about 250 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, during the reign of Helm Hammerhand, king of Rohan. Or, to give you another kind of perspective on things: Helm’s Deep, the massive mountain fortress where the climax of Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers takes place? That’s named after Helm. 

So, you won’t see Éowyn, Théoden, Aragorn, or any hobbits in The War of the Rohirrim. Even so, there are a few cameos thrown in there. Speaking of which… 

[Ed. note: Minor spoilers about a brief legacy character appearance in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.]

Was that really Christopher Lee as Saruman? 

Yes! Lee delivers a line as Saruman via an archival recording from the production of Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, used with permission from his widow, Birgit Kroencke. And it’s no random cameo, either. 

Saruman’s appearance here is lifted straight from Tolkien’s writing, which states that Rohan’s long war drew concerns about its people’s safety as they recovered — concerns that were allayed when Gondor invited the wisest of the council of wizards to take up residence in the long-abandoned tower of Orthanc on Rohan’s western border. Saruman was still there, in Orthanc, 250 years later when he finally revealed his secret, evil ambitions, as seen in The Fellowship of the Ring (the book), and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (the movie). 

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is out now in wide theatrical release.