Real-Life Horror Inspires Fantasy in First TOLKIEN Trailer

He was a man who inspired the world with his stories. Now we’ll hear his in this brand new biopic, Tolkien. The trailer for the anticipated film about author and linguist J.R.R. Tolkien dropped today to fan excitement. Soon we will follow the man through his life and see what horrors (and joy) led him to creating Middle Earth.

While only 55 seconds long, the trailer takes us on a journey. We see a young Tolkien roaming the halls of school, celebrating with friends and falling madly in love with his future wife, Edith. All of these happy memories are intercut with the hardship of World War I. Death and anxiety are rampant as battles never seem to cease. Men all in black seem to morph into terrifying black riders. Pillars of black smoke form into towering gods. War has changed him.

The trailer makes it abundantly clear that production is going to heavily rely on Lord of the Rings imagery. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as the story doesn’t lean too heavily on it. Some of it makes it even more haunting, especially the shot of the smoke forming into a Sauron look alike. I cannot even begin to imagine all the horrors of war and how deeply it affects the mind. However, I did really like seeing Tolkien and Edith together, as I find his love for his wife to be one of the greatest love stories. She was the Luthien to his Beren, afterall. I’m looking forward to seeing all this film has to offer.

Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think! Be sure to come back to Geek Girl Authority for more fantasy fun. Tolkien is directed by Dome Karukoski and written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford. It stars Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Anthony Boyle, Patrick Gibson, Tom Glynn-Carney, Craig Roberts, Laura Donnelly, Genevieve O’Reilly, Pam Ferris and Derek Jacobi.

TOLKIEN explores the formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. This takes him into the outbreak of World War I, which threatens to tear the “fellowship” apart. All of these experiences would inspire Tolkien to write his famous Middle-Earth novels.