On prime of that, The Conflict of the Rohirrim options two distinctive shoutouts to the aesthetics and narrative decisions of the Rankin and Bass animated films, and really particularly, the 1980 model of Return of the King. Early in The Conflict of the Rohirrim we get some minstrel music motion, giving us the sensation that we’re listening to a story from deep previously, or as Miranda Otto’s narration tells us, the story of a heroic shield-maiden whose title isn’t discovered within the “previous songs.”
However the telltale folk-y minstrel music ought to transport sure forms of Tolkien followers proper again to the Rankin /ass films. The 1977 Hobbit very famously depends on the Glenn Yarbrough people tune “The Biggest Journey,” which may be heard all through the film. In the meantime the 1980 Return of the King extra liberally asserts an precise minstrel character into the narrative body of the film. At some fictitious future-tense birthday for Bilbo, past the occasions of The Lord of the Rings, the Minstrel (once more, Glenn Yarbrough) sings a ballad known as “Frodo of the 9 Fingers,” which goals to clarify to the marginally forgetful Bilbo about why Frodo solely has 9 fingers now—due to all the pieces that occurred with Gollum, , biting a kind of fingers off.
That is all hilarious because it sounds, however the allure of the animated Return of the King is that this goofiness is for essentially the most half performed fully straight. As inventive diversifications of The Hobbit and The Return of the King, these movies merely determined to lean on the folky-minstrel factor, which implies the allusions to comparable music in The Conflict of the Rohirrim can’t be an accident.
Should you stay unconvinced that The Conflict of the Rohirrim is particularly linked to the animated Tolkien movies of the previous, there’s one other smoking pinecone of proof. Though the Conflict of the Ring remains to be roughly 200 years sooner or later from the occasions within the new 2024 anime film, there are just a few overt references to these occasions nonetheless sprinkled all through Rohirrim. This features a near-the-end look of Saruman (voiced by the late Christopher Lee) taking on as the brand new grasp of Isengard. However there’s one second that’s an excellent greater reference.
At one level, within the aftermath of one of many assaults from the wraith-ish Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), we see two orcs gathering random rings from fallen troopers. These orcs are nervous and pissed off, and amongst themselves, surprise why Sauron, their grasp, needs so many rings collected.
E book readers know that that is the second in time the place Sauron is attempting to trackdown all of the rings he helped create, and likewise, in fact, is seeking the One Ring, which at this level is lacking. However it’s the habits of those orcs on this scene that’s most evocative of the 1980 Return of the King. Neither ruthless nor fierce, these two orcs are skittish, and pissed off. This recollects the Orc marching tune from the animated Return of the King, “The place There’s a Whip, There’s a Method.” In that tune, among the orcs sing, “We don’t need to go to conflict at present,” indicating that not all orcs have been actually enthusiastic about Sauron’s darkish deeds, however merely had no different alternative. (The Rings of Energy gestured at these extra well-rounded orcs just lately as effectively.)
