Take a look at the trailer for (deep breath) The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. That’s a mouthful. They slap that ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in front to make sure you know exactly what they are selling. Probably not a bad move by warner bros. Can’t get too mad at em. The people in marketing want that brand recognition! So, check out the trailer and scroll down. I have some concerns. As a writer and as a Tolkien fan. And just as a guy who likes movies!

So, we’ve seen that. Now let’s talk about the concerns about (deep breath) The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Ready? It just feels like Warner Bros cashing in. That’s what bothers me a bit. Did anyone feel like this was the movie they had to make? Is this a labor of love of the source material or Warner Bros accounting looking at receipts and saying: “Boy, if you could squeeze another movie out of the appendices from LOTR you’d make a lot of money.” Again, that’s how it feels.

So you shove big piles of money around and attach a couple names from the movies. (For street cred) And you make sure you have a strong female lead (for equity and DEI cred) and you fire up the anime team. That’s another bad sign. The anime element. You know what animators don’t like to do? Draw large crowds. It sucks. Big armies. Why in the world would you animate this thing? It seems pretty standard in terms of movies. Yeah, you have the occasional CGI giant Elephant or Giant Eagle but mostly you do this movie live action. Unless… your pretty sure it’s just a cash grab. Then you animate and run to the bank.

Lastly, why are there Giant Eagles in this movie? This will just perpetuate the myth that Giant Eagles are the Sky Taxis of Middle Earth and Frodo should have ridden one to Mordor. Eagles are not Sky Taxis. Just saying. (Deep breath) The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim hits theaters Dec. 13th.