The return to Middle-earth is nearly upon us, with The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim just around the corner!
Before the film’s release, Geeks of Color spoke with producer and story writer Philippa Boyens. Boyens is no stranger to The Lord of the Rings realm, having worked as a screenwriter with Peter Jackson on both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies.
Boyens expressed her excitement about returning to Middle-earth, Miranda Otto reprising her role as Eowyn and explained how the animation medium, specifically anime, allowed the creative team to bring something new to The Lord of the Rings world that they hoped the audience would enjoy.
Check out the full interview with Philippa Boyens below:
The prospect of returning to The Lord of the Rings might seem daunting, but Boyens described it as a “really nice” way to immerse yourself in the world while expanding on the existing one from the film series.
“This was actually a really, really nice, slightly more gentle return, I have to say. You know, we weren’t staring down the barrel of this like big epic trilogy live action film. Having said that, though, it did require a lot of a lot of effort on so many people’s part, and it required the incredible vision of Kenji Kamiyama. I think I started to see some of the concept art really early on, and it started to give me a sense of what this could be. And I just started getting more and more excited. So that process of getting more and more excited has just continued until we’re here at this moment, and now I’m incredibly excited for us to hand it over to the fans and to the audiences,” Boyens shared.
Regarding Kamiyama’s vision and the idea of sharing this story as anime, Boyens explained that the form/medium for telling the story came first. Although the idea of making an animated Lord of the Rings film had existed, the proper form and story had yet to emerge – until now.
“So what happened was actually the form came first. So the idea of doing an anime came first. We’d been playing around with the idea of doing an animated Lord of the Rings film, but we hadn’t hit on that combination of the right form and the right story. And when they suggested anime, this particular story immediately sprang into my mind. And I think it was because I felt like I had an instinct that the Rohirric culture, the culture of the Rohirrim, would work really well within that great Japanese filmic tradition, and hopefully I’m right,” Boyens said.
While The War of the Rohirrim takes place before the events of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, there are still through lines throughout the film that connect to Jackson’s films. The most prominent is Miranda Otto’s return as Eowyn, as she narrates the audience through the journey.
“It came about in the storytelling. Because, you know, there’s some time jumps in this. There’s also, you know, it did feel like bringing a little bit of the live-action in, but not in an obtrusive way. So that, you know, you had that through line, because there is a through line. Well, the through line from this to the live-action films that was going to be an interesting thing to play with. So when Miranda came back, and she’s such a brilliant actress, and you know, it only took her five minutes, and there was Eowyn, Daughter of Kings standing in front of us. But, you know, I talked to her about it, and we tried to make it not just a narration, but it’s personal, You know, and even a little emotional,” Boyens shared.