Tales of the Shire, War of the Rohirrim Have One Great Thing in Common

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 13, 2024 5 Views 7 Min Read
Tales of the Shire, War of the Rohirrim Have One Great Thing in Common



The Lord of the Rings is seeing several new properties in the span of a few months: Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game, and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an animated movie set some centuries before the events of the War of the Ring.




Both of these new properties share something beyond their narrative world: their diversion in art style. While most of The Lord of the Rings properties since Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies have attempted realism, both Tales of the Shire and The War of the Rohirrim have adopted very distinct art styles that are different from one another. Animation isn’t new to The Lord of the Rings, but these two releases break a trend that’s been affecting the depiction of The Lord of the Rings since the release of the movies that made Tolkien’s world mainstream.

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The Value of Tales of the Shire’s Art Style


As Tales of the Shire and The War of the Rohirrim are a video game and an animated movie respectively, they should be approached with different art styles, but unfortunately this isn’t a given. The Lord of the Rings video games have had a tendency to be adapted with a realistic art style, which doesn’t often translate well, as seen in the Gollum game, where a stylized and simplistic art style would have looked better and have been a better adaptation for the developer’s budget and timeframe.

Tales of the Shire‘s simple art style is both colorful and charming. It’s completely different from the art style in the Peter Jackson movies, but it’s also different to The Lord of the Rings movies that came before it. Instead, it bears more similarities to other cozy games such as Animal Crossing, with a bright and vibrant color palette, very simple character models, and textures that are more akin to a simple painting than anything attempting to be realistic.

This is deeply appropriate for the genre and tone, and matches the atmosphere of the Shire far more than a realistic style could. The models of the hobbits and other characters are depicted as cute, and the feeling of safety and warmth of the Shire is foremost in the game.


A Completely Different Take on The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim isn’t a cozy game, and is instead a war movie, but animation is a medium and does not inform the genre of the story it depicts. Animation is a great medium for depicting epic scenes, and costs far less to depict than a live action would while looking better with the same budget.

While there are many in-world art styles The Lord of the Rings that would be incredible if translated as an animated art style, The War of the Rohirrim is very distinctly stylized as anime, especially in its depiction of its characters, but the clothing and architecture of the world remain true to Rohan’s as described by Tolkien, achieving a pleasing blend of The Lord of the Rings style in an anime world.


New media for The Lord of the Rings should continue the trend of embracing animation and experimenting with different art styles, especially as CGI in movies becomes easier to spot. Rather than attempting hyper-realism through CGI, a move in the other direction with beautiful animation and art that brings Tolkien’s world to life should be considered, and these two endeavors may be the first steps towards that.

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