Summary

  • Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is connected to Peter Jackson's trilogy through shared production companies and a returning cast member, serving as a companion piece and prequel.
  • The War of the Rohirrim is not tied to Amazon Prime Video's The Rings of Power show due to complex rights issues.
  • The animated prequel takes place roughly 200 years prior to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and focuses on a single event, while The Rings of Power spans thousands of years.

With The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim on the way, questions have abounded about the film’s relationship with the Lord of the Rings movies and the Rings of Power TV show. War of the Rohirrim is an animated Lord of the Rings prequel film that will tell the story of Helm Hammerhand and the founding of Helm’s Deep during a war between the people of Rohan and an army of Dunlendings. The work will be the first animated Lord of the Rings movie to be theatrically released since Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 The Lord of the Rings.

The film is directed by anime industry heavyweight Kenji Kamiyama, known for his work on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Blade Runner: Black Lotus, promising excitement for both Tolkien and anime fans with his impressive track record.

In a marketplace of Lord of the Rings content crowded by Amazon’s ongoing The Rings of Power streaming show, War of the Rohirrim’s relationship to other J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations isn’t necessarily clear. The film’s prequel status immediately calls The Rings of Power to mind, but the presumed connection is complicated by a deeper investigation of the team behind the film. War of the Rohirrim’s similarities and differences to the Amazon Prime Video series and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy require unpacking.

Hera holds up her sword in front of a group of wildlings attacking with an elephant in Lord of the Rings War of The Rohirrim.
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The complex rights of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate mean that The War of the Rohirrim is not connected to Prime Video’s The Rings of Power. While Amazon has the rights to TV adaptations of Tolkien’s Middle Earth works, the rights to produce theatrically-distributed Lord of the Rings movies are held by Warner Bros (via Deadline). While The Rings of Power and The War of the Rohirrim are both positioned as prequels to the events of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, they occupy very different positions along the Middle Earth timeline.

While Rings of Power’s showrunner stated in 2022 that the season would take “another couple of years,” bringing its release timeline dangerously close to the December 2024 release date of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.

Source: Deadline