SXSW News

New round of SXSW 2025 speakers includes Candace Parker and more

WNBA star Candace Parker will be participating in a talk about how athletes represent brands.

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South by Southwest (SXSW) is back with another round of featured speakers, including WNBA star Candace Parker, Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones, and a UT-educated lawyer who has become a favorite advice-giver for musicians entering the industry, Donald Passman.

This second round follows the year's first lineup announcement in September, which also detailed featured speakers, and a music announcement in October. It also contains the first information about 2025's first keynote speaker: IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna.

“Exploring the benefits of new advances in technology while addressing their potential challenges represents a core part of the SXSW experience we curate each year,” said co-president and chief programming officer at SXSW Hugh Forrest in a press release. “We are excited to announce Arvind Krishnaas our first Keynote Speaker of the 2025 season. His session on the convergence of AI and quantum computing will cover what this monumental shift in technology will bring to humanity."

Krishna's keynote presentation will be called From Sci-Fi to Society: The Next Era of AI and Quantum Computing.

The decentralized conference and festival, which is hosted by businesses and cultural institutions around Austin, is scheduled Mach 7-15, 2025. This is the 39th edition of the conference, and there are 23 "tracks" organizing topics: Music & Tech and Music Industry, Psychedlics, Transportation, Culture, Climate & Sustainability, Government & Civic Engagement, and more.

A full list of official speakers and their topics is available at sxsw.com. for more information. For easier skimming, we've pared the announcement down to panel names, and speaker names and titles (as they appear in the release).

Second round of featured speakers for 2025:

7 Non-Obvious Secrets Of Understanding People To Predict the Future with founder and chief trend curator at The Non-Obvious Company Rohit Bhargava.
10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 with MIT Technology Review executive editor Niall Firth.
All You Need to Know About the Music Business: Right Now with innovation and fan experience expert David De Cristofaro and author and music attorney at Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman Donald Passman.
The Art and Science of Organic Trendbuilding For Climate Initiatives with co-anchor of PBS News HourGeoff Bennett and director and social media strategist Alex Haraus.
Building a Legacy: How Indies Create Long-Term Success with A2IM president and CEO Dr. Richard James Burgess, co-founder of VP Records Patricia 'Miss Pat' Chin, founder and CEO of EMPIRE Ghazi, and US General Manager for Rough Trade Records Melanie Sheehan.
Cleaning Up Our Atmosphere: Carbon Removal Prepares to Go Mainstream with chief operating officer of Climeworks Douglas Chan and author, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, and a Horn Distinguished Professor and endowed professor of Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech University Dr. Katharine Hayhoe.
The Future of Human Connection with Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones and and NBC News anchor Savannah Sellers.
The Great Rethinking: How to Navigate the Future of Work with author, speaker, teacher, advisor, podcast host, and futurist Rishad Tobaccowala.
Spill the Tea: A Strategic Guide to Office Gossip with workplace expert, podcast host, author, and Contributing Editor at the Harvard Business ReviewAmy Gallo.
Today's Athlete is a Brand's Best Megaphone with WNBA Champion, WNBA Finals MVP, two-time WNBA MVP, two-time Gold Medalist, WNBA Rookie of the Year, and broadcaster Candace Parker and Chief Brand and Communications Officer at Stagwell Beth Sidhu.
Unlock Your Creative Problem Solving Super Powers with Gen AI with head of learning design and strategy at MasterClass at Work Dr. John Scott and author and creative technologist Don Allen Stevenson III.
Activist and astronaut Amanda Nguyen has an unnamed talk.

Movie Review

Lord of the Rings animated sequel depends on nostalgia to make impact

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Hèra (Gaia Wise) in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.

The Peter Jackson-led Lord of the Rings movie trilogy in the early 21st century was such a smashing success that people have been trying to recreate that magic for a long time. First came the ill-conceived The Hobbittrilogy, which made lots of money despite mostly poor reviews. The recent Amazon TV series, The Rings of Power, has gotten generally good reviews, but doesn’t seem to hold a place in the wider pop culture consciousness.

And now comes The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an anime-style film that seems like an attempt at both reclaiming the world in animated form from the weird 1978 film, and a nostalgia play for fans of the original series. Set 200 years before the events in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, it nonetheless takes place in two very familiar locations that are recreated to appear exactly how they looked in Jackson’s films.

The story centers around Hèra (voiced by Gaia Wise), the only daughter of King Helm (Brian Cox) of Rohan. An early conflict with Lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) leads Freca’s son, Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), to develop a deep grudge against Helm and his family. Wulf pursues that ill will for years, eventually driving his foes into a fortress in a valley to make a final stand against his aggression.

Based on information found in the appendices of Tolkien’s novels, this is the rare instance when choosing to use animation holds back the creativity of a film. Typically, animation allows filmmakers to do things that wouldn’t be possible in the real world, but director Kenji Kamiyama and his team seem beholden to the look of Jackson’s films. While the animation itself is great, it doesn’t offer the fluidity of live action, and so the action scenes are often stilted and flat.

The story itself is not very compelling, as a quartet of screenwriters have concocted a plot that relies on revenge and heroism tropes that allow the audience to predict almost everything that happens. There are a few surprises to be had, but as the conflict revolves around a strong-willed female character and her unwillingness to be told whom to marry, it’s generally clear how the story will be resolved, with only the specific details left to be discovered.

It also would have been great if the film weren’t so dependent on nostalgia for the original films. The two main locations are ones that played a big part in set pieces from those films, and their usage here doesn’t measure up favorably. Eowyn (Miranda Otto) serves as narrator, and other characters/actors from the original trilogy also make appearances, leaving little room for this film to establish itself on its own terms.

The majesty of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, with its New Zealand vistas and incomparable visuals created by Wētā Workshop, set a high bar that none of the subsequent projects have been able to meet. The War of the Rohirrim is a competently made film, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny with the Oscar-quality work of 20+ years prior.

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The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in theaters on December 13.

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