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01-10-25, 03:56 PM
Continuing on with my AMC A Lister status, I went to my local theater to watch LOTR: The War of the Rohirrim. It focuses on a royal family of Rohan long before the events of the Lord of the Rings or even the Hobbit.
Hera is the headstrong daughter of Helm Hammerhand, King of Rohan. She is a terrific heroine, and an interesting main character. Hera is brave, smart, strong and kind and completely uninterested in marrying Wulf, a man she's know since childhood, whose father has eyes on the throne.
As interesting and multi-faceted as Hera is, Wulf is pretty one note. The only thing we ever learn about him is that he had a dad (who dies), and he wants to marry Hera. It's literally his only motivation and it makes him more than a little boring. His motivations seem to usually just be "whatever would be the most annoying thing for the plot".
I am a big fan of the LOTR series, and have seen the original trilogy a handful of times, and despite some of my complaints I really do think this is a good film. The story is solid, and I like most of the characters.
My main points of concern are: the dialogue, and sometimes the animation.
1. The Dialogue: Like I said, the story was solid, but some of the dialogue felt a little "written by AI". There would be a scene where something important is supposed to be happening and all the dialogue gets clunky and wooden. This wasn't always the case, so I'm not sure what that's about.
2. The animation: For the most part, the actual fight scenes of this movie were terrific. I was on the edge of my seat for most of them, and they look great. Mostly. However, they seemed to have cut corners in scenes where things are more slowed down, or a lot of dialogue is happening. Removing the number of frames in some motion scenes probably saved them a lot of time and money, but the frame rate was so choppy my eyes kept thinking I was looking at stop motion animation under construction. It makes sense they'd put the money where the most exciting things are happening, but still...
Quick notes:
1. Why does Hera have a thigh gap?
2. Oh, you have a friend named Gandalf, huh? (Gratuitous calling out of named characters is very gratuitous)
3. One of the people who co wrote the story (Philippa Boyens) worked on the original trilogy (Good sign)
3
Hera is the headstrong daughter of Helm Hammerhand, King of Rohan. She is a terrific heroine, and an interesting main character. Hera is brave, smart, strong and kind and completely uninterested in marrying Wulf, a man she's know since childhood, whose father has eyes on the throne.
As interesting and multi-faceted as Hera is, Wulf is pretty one note. The only thing we ever learn about him is that he had a dad (who dies), and he wants to marry Hera. It's literally his only motivation and it makes him more than a little boring. His motivations seem to usually just be "whatever would be the most annoying thing for the plot".
I am a big fan of the LOTR series, and have seen the original trilogy a handful of times, and despite some of my complaints I really do think this is a good film. The story is solid, and I like most of the characters.
My main points of concern are: the dialogue, and sometimes the animation.
1. The Dialogue: Like I said, the story was solid, but some of the dialogue felt a little "written by AI". There would be a scene where something important is supposed to be happening and all the dialogue gets clunky and wooden. This wasn't always the case, so I'm not sure what that's about.
2. The animation: For the most part, the actual fight scenes of this movie were terrific. I was on the edge of my seat for most of them, and they look great. Mostly. However, they seemed to have cut corners in scenes where things are more slowed down, or a lot of dialogue is happening. Removing the number of frames in some motion scenes probably saved them a lot of time and money, but the frame rate was so choppy my eyes kept thinking I was looking at stop motion animation under construction. It makes sense they'd put the money where the most exciting things are happening, but still...
Quick notes:
1. Why does Hera have a thigh gap?
2. Oh, you have a friend named Gandalf, huh? (Gratuitous calling out of named characters is very gratuitous)
3. One of the people who co wrote the story (Philippa Boyens) worked on the original trilogy (Good sign)
3