skygiants | (no subject)

We ended up bookending the new year by going out to the movies twice, so my last film of 2024 and my first film of 2025 were both brand new animated pictures -- this however is probably as much similarity as I can draw between The War of the Rohirrim and Flow.

The War of the Rohirrim reminded me of nothing so much as classic Rankin and Bass animated films of my childhood like The Hobbit and Flight of Dragons. Notably, I don't think either of these films is considered to be particularly good, but I loved them very much. I think War of the Rohirrim is probably better and definitely prettier than either of the movies to which I have just compared it, and had it come out when I was a child I also would have loved it very much. As it was, I had a very good time but

genarti and I did somewhat regret that we did not have the theater to ourselves ... apologies to the two guys sitting right behind us ....

The War of the Rohirrim concerns a very heroic princess of Rohan who gets caught in the middle of a long war and brutal siege when she rejects her childhood friend's marriage proposal right before a fight between their dads, in a one-two punch that turns said childhood friend tragically evil. (The childhood friend and his people are all brown-haired and dark-skinned in contrast to the blonde Rohirrim, but not to worry! our heroine has a very heroic dark-skinned cousin and the tragically evil childhood friend has an Honorable Advisor, the movie would like to assure you that it is Not racist and please not to think about it too much.) It is mostly a very normal Heroic Fantasy War Movie with a lot of moments of stirring and tragic heroism and there are only about thirty minutes where I kept catching Beth's eye and then had to completely cover my mouth to stop from laughing.

Ten of those minutes are early on in the film when the heroic princess of Rohan runs into an angry oliphant, and then lures the oliphant into the forest to get COMPLETELY SLURPED UP WHOLE by a stray Watcher in the Water who lives in a pond somewhere nearby. We spend several minutes watching this slurp. The animators really, really loved drawing it. God bless.

Then the next twenty come much later on, during the brutal siege bit of the plot, when our heroine's wounded and elderly royal father, the old king, mysteriously disappears from the siege hall where he is tragically failing to recover from his wounds!! meanwhile, outside, the besieging army whisper tales that the old king's spirit is haunting the troops and murdering people in the night!

Our Heroine, investigating, accidentally finds a secret passage that kicks her out of the fortress onto the freezing hillside where she finds the orcs who are the ones who have in fact been picking off the besieging troops, for unrelated reasons. We also assumed at this point she would tragically find the body of her father ....

BUT NO! Her father is ALSO hanging out on the mountain in the middle of the blizzard! Somehow he lost his sleeves and got incredibly buff! They fight their way back to the front gates to get back inside the besieged fortress .... BUT ALAS. The door is stuck and will only open wide enough to admit her, because her dad is TOO BUFF! So instead he turns around and fights the besieging army and kills like a dozen guys by himself.

ME: STOP praying for my grandpa! you are making him too strong!
BETH: catch these Rohands!

Then he heroically freezes into a grandpapsicle on the mountainside, after which the siege and the plot continues completely as normal.

Anyway. Pretty movie! Fun to watch! I recommend watching it in a situation where you can talk to your friends so you can ask them questions like "why do these elephants have cat-eye pupils, isn't that an evolutionary disadvantage?" and "is she wearing knee-high boots over thigh-high boots?" without bothering anybody else in the theater.

genarti and I also spent a lot of time catching each other's eyes and covering our mouths with our hands while watching Flow, but that was NOT to stop from laughing, that was because a little cat had its EARS BACK and was making SAD SCARED NOISES and we were pretty sure that cat was going to be fine but that did not stop us from being STRESSED.

Flow is a beautifully animated Latvian film about a cat's adventure through a surreal magical flood and its encounters with a variety of other animals along the way, and how they end up helping each other to survive in a transformed landscape. All the animals act exactly like the animals they are, if those animals were just like ten degrees smarter than the average (smart enough to figure out how to steer the rudder of a boat, for ex.) but that aside the Behaviors are really well-observed -- I especially loved every sequence in which one creature tentatively tries to make friends by mirroring another creature's posture.

There are no humans in this movie, although the signs of their presence and absence are felt throughout. There is no dialogue. The animals make animal noises. (Except the capybara, which, according to Wikipedia, makes baby camel noises.) The sound design is really incredible -- I never want to hear a human actor speak out of a cartoon cat again. We had plans to run errands after the movie, but we ended up having to make a detour home first to pet our cats. No regrets.

Threaded | Flat

From:

genarti

EVERYBODY SHOULD SEE FLOW IF THEY CAN (unless they can't deal with cats being stressed but ultimately fine) IT'S JUST SO GOOD

I had other thoughts but they're all completely lost now because I just have to keep giggling at "grandpapsicle," RIP to Helm "Popsicle" Hammerhand

From:

sovay

that was because a little cat had its EARS BACK and was making SAD SCARED NOISES and we were pretty sure that cat was going to be fine but that did not stop us from being STRESSED.

I may never be up for this movie, but I'm glad it's so good.

Being too heroically buff to get through a door hence a magnificent defeat in battle feels like the sort of thing that could happen in a Norse or Anglo-Saxon saga and probably easier to take in that form.

From:

twistedchick

When I petted a capybara at the Buffalo Zoo, many years ago, it cooed like a mourning dove.

From:

luzula

when she rejects her childhood friend's marriage proposal right before a fight between their dads, in a one-two punch that turns said childhood friend tragically evil
*rolls eyes* I have had my declaration of love tragically rejected several times in my life, but at no point did it turn me evil.

The door is stuck and will only open wide enough to admit her, because her dad is TOO BUFF!
So...how did he get out? And if he freezes to a popsicle, why don't the beseiging troops do so?

From:

alias_sqbr

Thank you for these reviews I was curious about both movies!

From:

starlady

I saw Rohirrim on NYE and quite enjoyed it. It is very anime, especially in the beginning. Really it's for all those of us who were pissed that PJ bowed to the haters and removed Arwen's scenes at Helm's Deep from the theatrical cut, I think. Also I found the thigh-high boots distractingly incongruent with the rest of the clothing in Rohan? And I think she really should have put the dress on over her shirt too? But these things were explained by it being an anime.

I also think the orcs should probably have name-dropped Dol Guldur instead of Mordor. I can't remember when Mordor was reoccupied without checking the Appendices.

From:

graycardinal

I have not seen either of these movies. However....

(1) Athena Scalzi (20-something daughter of John Scalzi, emerging blogmistress of the Scalzi Web presence, and woman of firm opinions in her own right) has commented at length on The War of the Rohirrim, and while I'm in no position to discuss the film on its merits, the review's contrasting opinion strikes me as well-expressed and the ensuing discussion is likewise worth a glance, as a number of the denizens Over There are, ah, mature enough to supply a profitable discussion of the earlier animated Tolkien oeuvre. (I observe for the curious that Ms. Scalzi has not to this point been anywhere near as thoroughly bloody-minded as her comments here might suggest; in fact, I find her writing on food-related subjects extremely vivid, enthusiastic, and well worth following in its own right.)

(2) The Flight of Dragons is a very, very strange cinematic creature, having been simultaneously the film adaptation of an art book (per the film title) and a Gordon R. Dickson fantasy novel (The Dragon and the George). For its time, it is/was visually stunning, but structurally and narratively speaking, it is at best odd.

(3) Purist Tolkien fandom did not receive the Rankin-Bass Hobbit particularly well at the time - it is short, condenses the novel by a good deal, and the animation style is perhaps a bit primitive (in the artistic sense of the word more than the technical) for its own good. However, there has been much praise then and since for the movie's amazing voice cast and for its remarkable score (to the extent there's a split there, it's over the one original song added to Tolkien's own verses by folk artist Glenn Yarbrough). Nowadays, there is a non-trivial segment of Tolkien fandom that strongly prefers the Rankin-Bass Hobbit, short as it is, to its Peter Jackson three-film counterpart.

Edited Date: 2025-01-05 08:57 am (UTC)

From:

sperrywink

Helm fighting everyone in the snow was hilarious I agree. The great-nephew had me watch an episode of "One Punch Man," and his fighting in that scene was VERY reminiscent of that anime! Ahaha.

Still, I enjoyed the movie a lot, particularly the landscapes done. So wonderful.

ETA: Thanks for the Flow rec. I'll try to find it.

Edited Date: 2025-01-05 11:01 am (UTC)

From:

slashmarks

The Flow trailer looks fun! I'll see if my wife wants to see it this week.

From:

jazzfish

FLOW was in fact unexpectedly quite low-key stressful! Also very very pretty and sweet and occasionally narratively startling. I am so glad I saw it and want to see it again in the hope that I will be less stressed and can concentrate on all the different things it's doing.

We had plans to run errands after the movie, but we ended up having to make a detour home first to pet our cats. No regrets.

Hard same.

From:

kore

"a little cat had its EARS BACK and was making SAD SCARED NOISES and we were pretty sure that cat was going to be fine but that did not stop us from being STRESSED"

Yeah it's confirmed I will never see this movie, sadly.

From:

osprey_archer

Her dad who was just recently dying of his wounds is TOO BUFF to get through the door into HELM'S DEEP and DIES HEROICALLY INSTEAD. That is simply... so much...

Flow sounds fantastic. Sweet little cat with its ears back! Want to pet! Perhaps it can snuggle the capybara for comfort....

From:

jesse_the_k

Epic movie reviews! Thanks!

From:

ceitfianna

I didn't realize the Rohan movie was actually coming out in theaters, I thought it was a streaming only thing, it sounds like a lot.

Flow sounds beautiful but like it could be stressful.

From:

krait

War of the Rohirrim was a very fun movie! The animators were all in when it came to seizing the chance to draw an Oliphant vs. Watcher fight scene, and I don't blame them one bit. Who would NOT leap at the opportunity to draw that? It isn't a chance you get often, so seize it! :D

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who had a thought regarding the implausibility of vertical pupils on an animal taller than a horse. (Dear moviemakers everywhere, but particularly fantasy-setting ones: please hire a zoology student when designing your fantasy animals.) Did you and Genarti also laugh out loud when a horse galloped down a 45-degree-sloped staircase? Because as a lifelong Horse Nerd(tm), I definitely did. (Dear moviemakers everywhere, if you are going to animate a movie about people whose Whole Thing is horses, please hire a horse nerd... or at least send your animators to observe some real horses in motion and buy them a few of those 'How To Draw Horses' books aimed at horse-crazy 10-year-olds. Some of the horse roles in this film appeared to be played by beef cattle; someone ought to have cut their feed significantly!)

I'm going to buy it once it's out of theatres, so I can make my non-LOTR nerd friends watch it with me. :D

From:

hokuton_punch

ME: STOP praying for my grandpa! you are making him too strong!
BETH: catch these Rohands!

I CACKLED. Maybe I need to see this movie after all. :D It sounds like the sort of ridiculousness I can enjoy.

From:

oracne

Flow sounds AMAZING.

"Grandpapsickle" LOL!

From:

chestnut_pod

Do you PROMISE that the cat is ultimately fine??? I don't think I can handle it if not!

Between you and elperian, I think perhaps the Rohan movie is not for me :(. I was so excited, but tbh I think I would strap on my own knee-high boots over my own thigh-high boots and go out to fight the horse animators.

From:

lacewood

Thank you for the reminder about Flow! I saw the trailer earlier, thought "hey this looks good" and then... forgot to check when it was actually in theatres here, which turns out to be RIGHT NOW. It's a gorgeous movie and feels like a great study in creating characters without any dialogue whatsoever, and without turning animals into people too (well, maybe very slightly).