Lord of the Rings film director attempts animation adaptation
In this review at Deadline Hollywood, they tell about a new animated take on J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which is coproduced by film director Peter Jackson, who oversaw the trilogy's live action adaptations over 2 decades ago:
As for Jackson and company, interesting they're now venturing into the world of animation, and good luck to them, but does LOTR really have to be milked for all it's worth? Adapting it to animation is a great idea, but all the same, I do think it's time to put some of these franchises to rest, and come up with new ones. Certainly in live action.
Amazon’s Prime Video since 2022 has been doing its own attempt to capture the magic of J.R.R. Tolkien’s wildly popular Lord of the Rings universe with The Rings of Power, setting it apart from Peter Jackson‘s LOTR and Hobbit trilogies, but still suggesting it is a distant cousin of those films. Now, however, Jackson himself is behind another incarnation, the animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, joined by his key LOTR contributors Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens — all won a boatload of Oscars and film immortality in the early part of this century with the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, each nominated for Best Picture, and finally sweeping it all in 2003 with 11 Academy Awards for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. This was followed by the Hobbit trilogy.When a Japanese director is involved, I guess it is possible to say this is like anime, and certainly far more than the pretentious Netflix's Blood of Zeus. Even so, if this is foremost a USA production, it's still pretty silly to say it amounts to anime wholesale. "Anime" is just the Japanese pronunciation, and it's not wrong to just call this a "cartoon", considering that's what it is in the end, in the English language.
That had appeared to be it for the Middle-earth adventures of Jackson and company, but now they have found a way back in for producing partner New Line Cinema and Warner Bros Animation by turning Japanese as it were, at least in turning to the world of Japanese anime and one of its singular current talents, director Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series).
Certainly War of the Rohirrim‘s trailer is trying to lure the Jackson faithful, with the first words appearing “PETER JACKSON PRESENTS” and then even live-action footage from the past films merging finally with Kamiyama’s soaring anime sequences.
As for Jackson and company, interesting they're now venturing into the world of animation, and good luck to them, but does LOTR really have to be milked for all it's worth? Adapting it to animation is a great idea, but all the same, I do think it's time to put some of these franchises to rest, and come up with new ones. Certainly in live action.
Labels: animation, Europe and Asia, history, manga and anime
