Scenes from the film “War of the Rohirrim” in New York shook our faces

The new Lord of the Rings animated film War of the Rohirrim takes fans back to the era of one of Rohan’s most famous kings: the legendary man who gave Helm’s Deep its name, Helm Hammerhand. But if the footage shared by Warner Bros. with attendees at the New York Comic Con panel for the film is anything to go by, we’ll see a much darker side of this heroic character.

The scene opened in front of the audience in New York with a classic, familiar sight for any Lord of the Rings fan: an illustrated map of Middle-earth, depicting Westfold and Rohan, with a voiceover from Eowyn (Miranda Otto, reprising her role from the Lord of the Rings films as a framing narrative device) setting the stage for a wintry scene in the valleys outside of Helm’s Deep. Dunlending guards look out into the mist and snowy expanse as they fend off wild men fleeing towards them. “They’re all dead… and torn up.” Helm Hammerhand is “no living man,” a bystander tells one of the guards.

Inside Helm’s Deep, we shift to Herubrand (Jaya Wais), stunned and calling out for her absent father, before seeing him in the snowy storms, a shadow of a man with only his fists as weapons. Night after night, the narration tells us, a dreadful horn sound emanates from the depths, heralding the arrival of a killer ghost.

We then cut to Wolf (Luke Pasqualino) looking upon his camp in Dunland, filled with the bodies of his men killed by Helm, described by the narration as “king no more.” Returning to Helm’s Deep, Rohirrim women and children who have sought refuge from the Dunlendings and the cold gossip about Helm turning into something beastly, while Herubrand wanders, hearing her father’s voice as she explores deeper into the sanctuary by candlelight. Believing she sees him twisting in every corner as she delves deep into the caves below Hornburg, Herubrand pursues her father until she finds a crevice leading to the frozen wasteland… where two orcs are scavenging bodies around the outer section of the fortifications.

It turns out the orcs are searching for her jewelry among the bodies. “What does Sauron want with the rings?” one orc asks another, as Herubrand sneaks up on by a massive, horned creature who resembles a minotaur more than a dwarf. Just as the orcs think about feeding her to the beast, her father rescues Herubrand, leaping from above to strike at one of the creature’s horns. “Clean with his bare hands.”

The scenes concluded with Helm pulling his daughter back towards the main gates of Helm’s Deep, shouting for the standing guards to open them. Herubrand was thrown inside as the gates closed behind her – and as the Dunlendings started to pour in – she pleaded with her father that Rohan still needs him. Instead, behind the closed gates, he pleads that Rohan needs her, and it’s her time to lead her people. From there, the scenes gave way to a heavily edited trailer from many similar shots that appeared in the initial teaser earlier this year: Herubrand facing a giant eagle, villages across Rohan burning at the hands of the Dunlendings, and massive armies on horseback, led by Helm, charging into battle. The trailer reached its climax with a return to the duel between Wolf and Herubrand that appeared in the first trailer, swords clashing on horseback. “You may wear a crown on your head, but that doesn’t make you a king,” Herubrand snarled at Wolf as the two accused each other.

In our first extended look at the film, War of the Rohirrim definitely wants you to know it’s part of Peter Jackson’s original vision of Lord of the Rings. Even in new mediums like animation, and even in a stylized manner, the footage shown to the audience captures the beauty of those beloved films reaching back to their starting point – and in manipulating a fantastic part of Tolkien’s legendarium, it does a lot to put its own spin on things even in the midst of familiarity.

Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim will be in theaters on December 13.

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