Moviescore, a site dedicated to tracking film music, reports that New Zealand composer and award-winning music editor Stephen Gallagher has been tapped to score the music for Kenji Kamiyama’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
Gallagher is probably best-known to Tolkien fans for his work on The Hobbit where, as well as working as music editor on all three films, he composed the songs ‘Blunt the Knives’ and ‘The Torture Song’ for An Unexpected Journey.
Perusing IMDB reveals that Gallagher has previously composed music for a range of documentaries and short films, but arguably this is his most prominent compositional role to date.
He also has a decades-long career as music editor spanning big productions like Avatar: The Way of Water, District 9 and Wolf Warrior 2 to niche films such as Amy Berg’s West Of Memphis and Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Last year, he won an Emmy Award for his sound work on Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back.
IMDB states that he’s currently based at Park Road Post Production in Wellington — a facility that’s owned by Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films.
The War of the Rohirrim is slated to release on April 12, 2024. Director Kenji Kamiyama is also currently co-directing on the final season of Ultraman with Shinji Aramaki which will debut on Netflix sometime in 2023.
SPECULATION
A speculatory post-script.
I was idly chatting with TORn staffer Justin about the leak/confirm and he wondered if the selection of Gallagher could indicate a return to the style of music that was the hallmark of the Rankin Bass animated features. After all, Blunt the Knives in An Unexpected Journey is very much a homage to the sing-along style of the animated Hobbit of 1977.
Personally, I’m inclined to say no.
I feel that both Blunt the Knives and The Torture Song (as sung by Barry Humphries) owe more to a combination of the children’s tale-nature of Tolkien’s novel and the comedic sensibilities of Peter Jackson (Meet the Feebles, anyone?).
On the other hand, the tale of Helm Hammerhand is far grimmer. It’s also a little tempting to add that Kamiyama animes typically play the material straight, but then the quirky Tachikomas (AI spider tanks/mechs) of the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex animated series are a spectacular outlier. Kamiyama leverages them in multiple ways: surreal comics, action heroes, philosophers, and ultimately as beings capable of self-sacrifice. The “cute” Tachikoma moments don’t devalue the serious ones. In fact, they make them more rounded characters (I dare say, more human — a crucial point to the story Ghost in the Shell explores).
So, if Kamiyama could see a way that a quirky, lyrically focused tune would serve the needs of the Helm story, he absolutely has the chops to pull it off.
Neverthless, I think it’s probably better to calibrate musical expectations more in line with the thoroughly grounded nature of Kamiyama’s acclaimed adapatation of the fantasy story Serei no Moribito. If nothing else, it’s still difficult to get folks to take anime as a serious artform that’s not “just for kids” without hobbling your production with a bunch of cutesy tunes. I’m surer Warner Bros. will be keenly aware of that.
All that being said, we know that Miranda Otto has a very fine singing voice. If, as Ăowyn, she’s relating this tale to someone (like her grandchild Barahir) there’s certainly an opportunity for her to sing in the intro, or some lament as the outro at the end. I like that idea.
The rollout of the Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series has re-energized Middle-earth fandom, and one thing is clear, we all love to get together, online, at conventions, and at the theater and talk Tolkien.
Reading The Hobbit during the Baggins Birthday Bash
The Baggins Birthday Bash, coming to Los Angeles at 11:30am on September 24 at Griffith Park’s Mineral Wells picnic area is the perfect way for SoCal Tolkien fans to gather and party like Hobbits. There will be games, there will be food, there will be plenty of Tolkien discussion going on, and I’m sure we can fit some fun in there somewhere.
Regarding food, in the before times it was a big buffet, and last year, we decided to ask everyone to just bring enough food and drink for their own party. This year, it will probably end up being a bit of a hybrid. Some will just bring what they want to eat, and a few will bring shareable dishes, and we’ll let the food and drink sort itself out. It would be nice if some folks bring extra picnic plates and cups, maybe some paper towels, and of course, everyone should bring a portable chair or blanket and a popup if you have it.
We would like to bring back the Cake or Cupcake contest for the best Middle-earth designed desserts. We’ve had some really creative and beautiful designs in the past, so start contemplating now on how to wow your fellow fans this year. Costumes are welcome, as usual, especially any new 2nd Age costumes. If we do trivia, there is a decent chance it will include some references to the Rings of Power show, since the 5th episode will have screened just 2 days before the picnic.
Please do RSVP on our Facebook Event page, located at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1271178800320132/ and read through the About Details, including selecting ‘see more’ to access the directions for those driving from different sections of Southern California in order to get to Griffith Park and the Mineral Wells section of the park.
Here’s a somewhat overlooked piece of news from a little while back! On June 15, voice actor Alex Jordan announced that he had a part in the Warner Bros Animation/New Line Cinema feature The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
Iâm excited to announce that Iâll be voicing the character of Lord Frygt in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. In theaters April 12, 2024. #WarOfTheRohirrimpic.twitter.com/L8hJJjbgG9
— Alex Jordan (home recording studio) (@AEJORDAN) June 15, 2022
However, it seems that his name was inadvertently omitted from the orginal English voice cast list given to Deadline at the same time. As a result, knowledge of Jordan’s involvement pretty much slipped under the radar.
More interestingly, Jordan has provided the name of the character he will be voicing — an completely original character by the name of Lord Frygt.
Seemingly a strange name, but Scandanavian friends on TORn’s IRC channel tell me that Frygt is a Danish word that means “fear”. One could interpret it as Lord Fear or Lord Fright.
Is it meant to be a Dunlending word? Unfortunately, the only Dunlending word we know of is “forgoil”. It seems to impossible to judge by extrapolating our knowledge of Tolkien. But Dunlending is supposedly related to the language of the Haladin, so it seems more likely it might be Rohirric? I’m no language expert so if anyone knows better, let me know!
A name like Lord Fear seems a little ominous as a name for someone of the Rohirrim. Could it be a Dunlending person instead? That seems a little unlikely since the leaders of the Dunlending faction are the Rohirrim lords (and outlaws), Freca and Wulf.
Instead, perhaps it’s meant to be an appellation give by either the Rohirrim or the Dunlendings to something else. Because I’m reminded of something that Philippa Boyens said when I interviewed her in June just after the casting announcement:
I can give you a little tease and let you know that, although we said this isnât about The Ring and this isnât about the Dark Lord ⊠there are the White Mountains and there are creatures [out there]. We know that there were orcs around this area.
She also confirmed that these creatures she’s referring to are definitely not the dead men of Erech.
I think Lord Frygt will emerge as some non-human being feared by either the Dunlendings, or by the Rohirrim. Or both.
The War of the Rohirrim will be released in theatres worldwide on April 12, 2024.
About the author:Staffer Demosthenes has been involved with TheOneRing.net since 2001, serving first as an Associate News Editor, then as Chief News Editor during the making of the Hobbit films. Now he focuses on features and analysis. The opinions in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of TheOneRing.net and other staff.
We are finally going back to Middle-earth and we get to see so many more places than we’ve ever been able to visit before on Tolkien’s map.
Juan Antonio ‘J.A.’ Bayona (Photo by Stuart Wilson/Getty Images)
Amazon Prime has finally released the full airing schedule, as shown below. Start marking your calendars to remind you when you can watch the show.
The first two episodes will drop together, and these are the episodes directed by J.A. Bayona. Because they drop together, it is important to note that the first episode is entitled “Shadow of the Past” so that you start off with the correct episode. These will become available on Amazon Prime on Thursday, September 1 starting at 6 pm PT, 9 pm ET and 2 am UK time early Friday, September 2. You will want to sync this info up with your own time zone.
The remaining episodes will drop once a week afterward, starting with Episode 3 on Thursday, September 8 at 9 pm PT, Midnight ET, and 5 am UK time on Friday, September 9, and continue on that same schedule. The 8th episode finale will air on Thursday, October 13 at 9 pm PT, Midnight ET and 5 am UK Time on Friday, October 14. The full schedule is posted below!
Global release occurs on either September 1, 2022 or September 2, 2022 depending on your location
The first TWO episodes will debut together on release night.
Release night timing is the following: September 1, 2022 at 6 PM PT which is 2 AM UK Time on September 2, 2022.
Both Episode 1 and 2 will be available immidiately. Amazon Studios suggests you ensure you first choose Episode 1 titled âSHADOW OF THE PASTâ for the best viewing experience. Don’t choose the second episode first by accident!
Episodes 3 to 8 will be singular weekly releases. That is, one episode per week. These episodes will air at 9 PM PT each Thursday. This corresponds to 5 AM UK Time Friday.
The week-by-week Rings of Power schedule
Week 1: Episode 1+2
Episode 1+2 will be available at 6 PM PT THURSDAY NIGHT on September 1, 2022. This is equal to 2 AM UK Time on FRIDAY MORNING, September 2, 2022.
With this schedule, you should be able to plan a Viewing Party or two, for Debut night and Finale night, if not all 7 weeks. If you choose to do so, please do share in the fun with our Twitter/Facebook/Discord social channel of choice and let us know your thoughts. There will also be some live posting, especially in our Discord on show nights, so come play along during the show, or directly afterward for a discussion on what you have just seen.
Executive Producer Philippa Boyens is pretty pleased with the casting for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
âItâs exciting — weâve been sitting on it for a little bit,â she says. â[But] it all seemed to come together in an organic way, which is what you want, I think. Suddenly, the right people come to the role.â
Boyens says that bringing in Otto as narrator was not an immediate decision. Rather it was one that gradually emerged.
She explains that Ăowyn eventually felt like the natural way into the bloody and grim tale from Rohanâs past.
âHer voice was familiar,” she says. “And then I think it started to come easily for the writers.â
She hopes that it will also help locate the story for film fans who are unfamiliar with deeper cuts from Middle-earthâs history.
Yet that was not the only reason — an oral tradition felt fitting.
âIt’s also so fragmentary, what we are dealing with in terms of the source material. It’s little bits of references here and there ⊠so the oral tradition felt kind of right. The oral tradition of her telling the tale, passing the tale on.â
She doesnât divulge to whom. But one guesses it is likely her grandson, Barahir. Tolkien not only names Barahir in The Lord of the Rings (solving any potential rights-access issues that would arise with her son, Elboron), he is also an in-world scholar and the author of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.
Helm Hammerhand: a complex and epic role
Boyens says that both the filmâs director Kenji Kamiyama, and Warner Bros SVP and producer Jason DeMarco, were well aware of Brian Cox from his recent voice role in the English dub of Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
âThey’re huge fans, of course,â she says.
âWeirdly, years ago — and this is me aging myself — I tried to go and see Brian’s performance as Titus Andronicus.â
She describes how this 1987 run of the Shakespeare tragedy directed by Deborah Warner has attained a legendary status.
âIt was just one of those ones which was fresh and shocking,â she says.
âAnd it [the Andronicus role] wasn’t a role — this is from Brian himself — that many of the other actors were interested in taking on. But he connected to it. I couldn’t get a ticket, but I had a couple of friends saw it who were just blown away. And they talked about the way in which his rage was fuelled by this grief. And the underlying horror that was in the storytelling.
âAnd that kind of resonated with me when we were thinking about the Helm role. Because it just — it spans a lot of different emotions.â
She says the role — and the film — is about delving into Helmâs choices.
âAnd the mistakes he made as well. And then his acknowledgement of those mistakes. Was there an acknowledgement of those mistakes?â she asks.
At different points she notes Helmâs hot-temperedness, and how he almost certainly under-estimated the Rohirrim lord, Wulf, who after he is outlawed leads the Dunlending invasion of Rohan.
â[Yet], I saw the tales of him slipping out [of the Hornburg] during the siege and attacking the camp for his people as literally someone trying — even with their bare hands â to protect the people as the king should,â she adds.
âSo he was a true manifestation of the king-protector.â
Helmâs heirs and the overthrow of Edoras
The grim reality, though, is that Helm is unable to protect his children.
His eldest son, Haleth, is slain when Edoras is overrun and taken by Wulfâs forces while Helm is forced to take refuge in the Hornburg. We touch only briefly on Helmâs other son but I conclude that his Hamaâs fate will remain the same tragedy that it is in Appendix A.
Boyens describes the first as a shocking and powerful moment. Powerful, perhaps, for readers, to finally see things theyâve long envisaged through Tolkienâs descriptions; shocking for film fans to see the unexpected — Edoras besieged and overthrown.
On the other hand, Tolkien leaves the fate of Helmâs daughter unclear. In fact, he never names her even though Frecaâs bid for her hand in marriage for his son, Wulf, is a key catalyst for war. Boyens concedes that we simply do not know a lot about her.
âWhere we turn to, very deliberately, is to ĂthelflĂŠd, the Lady of the Mercians. Alfred the Greatâs daughter,â Boyens says, and proceeds to provide a rapid-fire education on an era of British history that Iâd barely known of until now.
âShe never ruled as a queen per se; she’s known as the Lady of Mercians. But she seems to step in when her people needed her.
âĂthelflĂŠd was also really ingenious, which comes into play in the script. [It] was an idea that Kamiyama had, and they (he and the writers) played with that. I can’t tell you too much about it. But itâs about how you save your life when you have very little to work with?â
âAnd I really donât think that Professor Tolkien would hate this,â Boyens says. âBecause I always see him as a bit of a Mercian himself being from the Midlands.â
In case youâre wondering, Boyens confirms that neither Fran Walsh nor Peter Jackson have an official production role. Itâs more that, since theyâre long-time collaborators and have so much experience within Tolkienâs Middle-earth, theyâre sometimes just a natural sounding board for ideas.
âShe had a very natural sense of fiery-ness, but without it being petulance defiance.â
Mûmakil, mercenaries and money
While weâre discussing events at Edoras, conversation inevitably veers toward the MĂ»makil that were prominent in the initial concept art released in January.
âIn order to understand the use of those [ideas],â Boyens says, âyou need to understand the character of Wulf and the position that Wulf is in — and had found himself in. And who he would be turning to.â
At this point she pulls in another fact, mentioning the great wealth of Wulfâs father, Freca.
âHis father was not an insignificant Lord of Rohan. He had indeed grown fat and prospered,â she says, referencing Helmâs comment in Appendix A about Frecaâs large waistline.
Boyens doesnât expand any further, but my own guess is that The War of the Rohirrim will establish Wulf as the organising mind behind coordinated assaults on Gondor and Rohan, using resources wealth from his father to secure the assistance of Corsairs and Haradrim.
As Appendix A states:
Four years later (2758) great troubles came to Rohan, and no help could be sent from Gondor, for three fleets of the Corsairs attacked it and there was war on all its coasts. At the same time Rohan was again invaded from the East, and the Dunlendings seeing their chance came over the Isen and down from Isengard.
It was soon known that Wulf was their leader. They were in great force, for they were joined by enemies of Gondor that landed in the mouths of Lefnui and Isen.
A human struggle that becomes increasingly claustrophobic
If this sounds like a very human — and political — struggle, Boyens concurs. I suggest the absence of elves, dwarves and hobbits makes it a very different tale to The Lord of the Rings that most know.
She indicates that this was one of the reasons for choosing Helmâs story.
âIt’s not about the Ring, it’s not about the Dark Lord. All of that is very peripheral to the story.â
She says itâs also the attraction of examining honour, revenge and familial ties — on both sides.
âHe is his father’s son, but he has a different character. So he does actually offer [to wed] her and the writers asked: âWhy?â What was driving him? Was it just his father demanding that he do this? Was it his ambition? What was at play there?â
Even the historical grievances of the Dunlendings — that the lords of Gondor gave what the Dunlendings felt was their land to the Rohirrim — should come through in the film.
She says that all those things are in the Helm tale.
âWhen I talked to Kamiyama about it, it resonated with him. So that was the genesis,” she says.
âAnd there’s a moment in the film, which is incredibly gut-wrenching and powerful where Wulf commits himself to a course of action he cannot turn away from. And once he does that, the story darkens.â
She says it was here that the screenwriters Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou really connected with Kamiyama.
âSo, yes, it begins with these quite large-scale battles, but it actually becomes more intense and ⊠claustrophobic,” Boyens says.
âAnd the nature of the film changes almost into a ghost story.
âAs the siege takes hold, as the rumours of horror begin to spread. And I can give you a little tease and let you know that, although we said this isn’t about The Ring and this isn’t about the Dark Lord ⊠there are the White Mountains and there are creatures [out there].â
Somewhat to my relief she squashes speculation that she might be referring to the Dead of Erech. Instead, she suggests that orcs inhabited the area — a historically more agreeable inclusion.
âAlso, I can just add — and I thought it was, again, really interesting in the way that Kamiyama approached this — this was a long, cold winter that was hurting everyone.â
This suggests that there wonât be space to see Gondorâs own struggles. Gondor may come to the rescue in the end, but it seems the focus will be squarely on a life-and-death struggle within Rohan.
She wonât even confirm or deny the presence of Saruman the White in the film. Weâll just have to wait and see.
About the author: Staffer Demosthenes has been involved with TheOneRing.net since 2001, serving first as an Associate News Editor, then as Chief News Editor during the making of the Hobbit films. Now he focuses on features and analysis.The opinions in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of TheOneRing.net and other staff.
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Following yesterday’s initial casting announcement from Warner Bros., Witcher actor Shaun Dooley and Laurence Ubong Williams have revealed their respective roles in the forthcoming feature-length anime, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
Dooley is set to voice the Dunlending chieftain/Rohirrim lord Freca. Freca is the father of the key antagonist of the story, Wulf. His actions at Edoras lead to a crisis between the Rohirrim and the Dunlending that eventually lead to war.
My first ever animation work! Loved working on this! Incredibly excited to say that I'm voicing the character of FRECA in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. You'll have to wait until April 2024 to see it though!!! #WarOfTheRohirrim#LordOfTheRingspic.twitter.com/ZeQQCTut8j
