About Warcraft movie

[Turmoill]

Now, I've seen a lot of negativity about this movie (and not much discussion about it since December), BEFORE there was even anything solid released about it (not counting the live action trailer that was shown at Comicon only and never again), so I'm just gonna take it that most of you weren't watching Blizzcon, and are living in fear of the unbroken "Game movies suck curse" and just chose to accept it as inevitable.

Link to the Blizzcon Movie panel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hULgdwfCLDo

Now to clarify, this won't be a movie retelling the story of Arthas from Warcraft 3, simply because that would mean they would start the story in the middle of all things. It would be like starting original Star Wars saga with "The Empire Strikes back", especially because it's put in time that's 20 years after the original Warcraft (and lets face it, Arthas' story would be like telling the story of Anikin Skywalker).
Warcraft franchise is so big that it mite be second only to Star Wars franchise. Hell, in World of Warcraft alone there's enough text to fill 12 Lord of the Rings books.

That being said, the movie will start where the whole Warcraft franchise begun, with Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.

Those who are having so little faith in this movie, we have Duncan Jones working on it, remember? The creator of Moon? Not to mention most of the other co-workers on it are long time Warcraft fans, which will make sure that the movie stays true to the franchise.

And for those who are complaining about writers, they do have them; more specifically the book writers, so they can make the book adaptation easily.

Regarding faction bias, Duncan explained, to avoid it, they will have it set so that it's viewed from the sides of both factions, so that it won't fall on the whole LOTR's "Humans=Good, Orcs=Evil formula".

So, connecting the previous with the whole book writers thing, you ask "what's that got to do with anything"?

Well, there are 2 books that are connected to the 1st war in Warcraft.
The 1st being "Rise of the Horde", which explains how the orcs became the Horde and invaded Azeroth.
And 2nd, the Last Guardian, which shows the Orcs invading Azeroth and beginning of the 1st War.
After that they can easily put the important bits from the game into the moves, it ends with Horde's victory and Human survivors retreating north with ships.

Okay, people will whine when they hear it's PG-13 and not R or NC-17 and it will be sort of Gladiator gritty live action type movie, but is that rally bad?

Somebody said that, someone has to break the chain of "bad game-based movies", so why not put some faith into Warcraft and hope it succeeds instead?

 

[Elfgore]

I'm so glad they're not just portraying the horde as evil monster who rape women and children. If Warcraft did one thing right, it was making both factions shades of grey instead of black and white.

I'll hold out hopeful optimism for this movie. But I could easily understand why some people would be upset. The Warcraft name has been nearly milked to the bone and this movie only makes it worse. We have Warcraft: Manga, Comics, Novels, figurines, clothing, phone cases, and nearly everything besides television and movies. This just seems like a chance for them to make even more money from the franchise.

 

[Sixcess]

Despite my deep dislike of the directions WoW has gone in these last few years, I do still admire the quality of the lore and the story telling (admittedly mostly pre-Cata.) It's not exactly literature, but the storytelling is good, solid stuff, so they've got something to work with there... and if they need some tips on how to stage the action then they just need to look at the intro cinematics for vanilla and The Burning Crusade - because years on they are still really well done.

But against that my overriding reaction to the movie is that it's about 5 years too late. WoW is still big, but it's nowhere near the phenomena it was from launch through to Wrath of the Lich King. I think had there been a movie then as opposed to now we'd see a lot more anticipation for it.

 

[Nosferatu2]

Despite my deep dislike of the directions WoW has gone in these last few years, I do still admire the quality of the lore and the story telling (admittedly mostly pre-Cata.)

Honestly I thought most of it was contrived nonsense. Blizzard tricks you though if you ask me. They have wonderful art direction, and grate cinematic's. But I find it an honest to god shame that the characters have to talk.

But whatever I guess you can make a good movie out of anything.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Considering that the movie is beyond the reach of canon, I think I'll take the story experimentation with a grain of salt. I'm excited to see Durotan and Lothar in action.

Despite my deep dislike of the directions WoW has gone in these last few years, I do still admire the quality of the lore and the story telling (admittedly mostly pre-Cata.)

Honestly I thought most of it was contrived nonsense. Blizzard tricks you though if you ask me. They have wonderful art direction, and grate cinematic's. But I find it an honest to god shame that the characters have to talk.

But whatever I guess you can make a good movie out of anything.

The lore isn't supposed to be looked into too deeply. Warcraft 3 is a great story the first time through. The second time, when you see all of the distracting plot holes and contrivances, it loses some of its magic. The dialogue is pretty terrible but I didn't notice until later.

 

[Turmoill]

doesnt matter how much lore there is, doesnt matter how well known it is, doesnt matter who they put in it. it will still turn out like dungeon siege or dungeons and dragons the movie.

And you know the future because...?

Considering that the movie is beyond the reach of canon, I think I'll take the story experimentation with a grain of salt.

I'm confused. what do you mean "the movie is beyond the reach of cannon"?

 

[RJ 17]

Regarding faction bias, Duncan explained, to avoid it, they will have it set so that it's viewed from the sides of both factions, so that it won't fall on the whole LOTR's "Humans=Good, Orcs=Evil formula".

That's funny, seeing as how in the first war the orcs clearly were meant to be evil. Completely under the control of demons, remember? Or are they just going to leave that little tidbit out and ruin the story right from the git-go? It's only in the events of WCIII that we see the Orcs in a more noble light thanks to the leadership of Thrall. In the first two games they're bloodthirsty invaders hell-bent on conquering Azeroth. Granted, Doomhammer finally came to his senses and realized that his people had been corrupted, going on to slay Blackhand and assume the title of Warchief for himself. But even then, he didn't exactly tell the Horde to pack up and go home...he still went on a bloody path of war and ultimately conquered Stormwind.

Somebody said that, someone has to break the chain of "bad game-based movies", so why not put some faith into Warcraft and hope it succeeds instead?

Because I hate Blizzard and hope that every venture they undertake fails?

 

[Guffe]

I'm hoping this does good.
A long time Warcraft III fan, played some WoW, but the best moments I had was in RP, and there was waaaay too little of that.
I hope this movie is good, and I hope it succeeds!

 

[Turmoill]

Regarding faction bias, Duncan explained, to avoid it, they will have it set so that it's viewed from the sides of both factions, so that it won't fall on the whole LOTR's "Humans=Good, Orcs=Evil formula".

That's funny, seeing as how in the first war the orcs clearly were meant to be evil. Completely under the control of demons, remember? Or are they just going to leave that little tidbit out and ruin the story right from the git-go? It's only in the events of WCIII that we see the Orcs in a more noble light thanks to the leadership of Thrall. In the first two games they're bloodthirsty invaders hell-bent on conquering Azeroth. Granted, Doomhammer finally came to his senses and realized that his people had been corrupted, going on to slay Blackhand and assume the title of Warchief for himself. But even then, he didn't exactly tell the Horde to pack up and go home...he still went on a bloody path of war and ultimately conquered Stormwind.

Somebody said that, someone has to break the chain of "bad game-based movies", so why not put some faith into Warcraft and hope it succeeds instead?

Because I hate Blizzard and hope that every venture they undertake fails?

Yes well, books changed all that and they came before WC3, except Rise of the Horde, which went more in-depth WHY Horde didn't just pack up and leave Azeroth after Doomhammer became Warchief.

Blind hatred? Good... good... lets the Hate flow through you~

 

[RJ 17]

Yes well, books changed all that and they came before WC3,

Sorry my friend, but the books are based off the game, not the other way around. This means that the game's canon is the official canon. The books are little more than Blizzard-endorsed fan-fics. WCIII establishes that the Orcs were corrupted by the Legion and turned into rampaging, ruthless mauraders who want nothing but war for war's sake. WoW further cements this via in-game books that can be read.

Edit: Just for fun: http://www.wowwiki.com/History_of_Warcraft End Edit

Blind hatred? Good... good... lets the Hate flow through you~

Who said anything about "blind" hatred? I hate Blizzard because of their greed revolving around WoW and how - at least in my opinion - they allowed it to spread and corrupt SCII leading them to split it into 3 separate games.

 

[The Madman]

I used to follow the story throughout Warcraft pretty closely and considered myself a bit of a lore nerd in that regard so for what little it's worth I do hope the movie is good. But then considering I also haven't played WOW in years and even when I did I was becoming increasingly annoyed with the direction Blizzard kept taking the story, I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up pretty bad either.

Guess I'll just have to wait and see. Low expectations but high hopes.

When the movie was first announced I figured it was probably going to be about Turalyon since he's been absent from the story for so long and yet is such a major character, but I'm not willing to watch an hour long panel to see if there's any hints of plot dropped. Any ideas what the movie is actually going to be about yet, or is it still all just speculation and vague plans?

 

[Nosferatu2]

That's funny, seeing as how in the first war the orcs clearly were meant to be evil. Completely under the control of demons, remember? Or are they just going to leave that little tidbit out and ruin the story right from the git-go? It's only in the events of WCIII that we see the Orcs in a more noble light thanks to the leadership of Thrall. In the first two games they're bloodthirsty invaders hell-bent on conquering Azeroth. Granted, Doomhammer finally came to his senses and realized that his people had been corrupted, going on to slay Blackhand and assume the title of Warchief for himself. But even then, he didn't exactly tell the Horde to pack up and go home...he still went on a bloody path of war and ultimately conquered Stormwind.

In my opinion the "moral gray" in Warcraft went a little like this.

Orc. You're being a dick!

Human. You tried to kill me twice. . .

Orc. Yeah, but you don't have to be so angry about it. I mean I have a child man.

Human. Yeah I had one of those, your allies killed him. . . .

 

[Turmoill]

Sorry my friend, but the books are based off the game, not the other way around. This means that the game's canon is the official canon. The books are little more than Blizzard-endorsed fan-fics. WCIII establishes that the Orcs were corrupted by the Legion and turned into rampaging, ruthless mauraders who want nothing but war for war's sake. WoW further cements this via in-game books that can be read.

Edit: Just for fun: http://www.wowwiki.com/History_of_Warcraft End Edit

Blind hatred? Good... good... lets the Hate flow through you~

Who said anything about "blind" hatred? I hate Blizzard because of their greed revolving around WoW and how - at least in my opinion - they allowed it to spread and corrupt SCII leading them to split it into 3 separate games.

That's your opinion. Why should novels be discarded as NOT CANNON if they set the setting for next game lore? Maybe that's what happens in other franchise, but in Warcraft, if it's in the book = "CANNON".
But seriously... a company who created a game hires a writer to form a story and than publishes it and you call it a fanfic...
No offense, but now you're starting to sound like a Pokemon purist who are crying that Generation 1 pokemon are only true pokemon. =P

And what do you mean they corrupted SC2?

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

The reason it's "fan-fic" is because it can't be both ways. Either the Orcs were corrupted by the Legion and used as a precursor invasion - meaning that the Orcs were most specifically fighting for the side of evil in the first war - or they weren't. According the most recent iterations of the lore (WCIII and WoW), they were. As such, the game's canon takes precedence over anything that the books may have said. Click the link in my previous post to get to the warcraft wiki timeline of WC's lore, you'll see that it agrees with me.

The only way they could paint the orcs as "good guys" would be if they focused their attention on Durotan and the Frostwolf Clan, but they were pretty marginalized during the first war, not even really a part of the official horde since Blackhand exiled them for speaking out against *gasp!* the demonic corruption taking hold over the orcs.

And I'm not getting into a discussion about SCII. It has little to do with the topic at hand, I simply brought it up to illustrate how my distaste for Blizzard isn't "blind".

 

[Turmoill]

Snip

The reason it's "fan-fic" is because it can't be both ways. Either the Orcs were corrupted by the Legion and used as a precursor invasion - meaning that the Orcs were most specifically fighting for the side of evil in the first war - or they weren't. According the most recent iterations of the lore (WCIII and WoW), they were. As such, the game's canon takes precedence over anything that the books may have said. Click the link in my previous post to get to the warcraft wiki timeline of WC's lore, you'll see that it agrees with me.

The only way they could paint the orcs as "good guys" would be if they focused their attention on Durotan and the Frostwolf Clan, but they were pretty marginalized during the first war, not even really a part of the official horde since Blackhand exiled them for speaking out against *gasp!* the demonic corruption taking hold over the orcs.

And I'm not getting into a discussion about SCII. It has little to do with the topic at hand, I simply brought it up to illustrate how my distaste for Blizzard isn't "blind".

Than please tell me how can you just accepted Thrall as leader of the horde at the start of WC3, even tho the orcs were beaten back through the portal and than sealed behind along with alliance expedition? Doesn't matter how many times you say it, at this point GAME and BOOK cannon are EQUAL.

And technically, Durotan and Frostwolves were part of Horde back on Draenor, except they refused to drink the demon blood. The exile happened after Gul'dan started cutting throats of draenei kids as means of ritual to open the portal.

 

[RJ 17]

Than please tell me how can you just accepted Thrall as leader of the horde at the start of WC3, even tho the orcs were beaten back through the portal and than sealed behind along with alliance expedition? Doesn't matter how many times you say it, at this point GAME and BOOK cannon are EQUAL.

And technically, Durotan and Frostwolves were part of Horde back on Draenor, except they refused to drink the demon blood. The exile happened after Gul'dan started cutting throats of draenei kids as means of ritual to open the portal.

That example doesn't quite work, seeing as how Thrall being in charge of the Horde is something left out of the games but filled in by the books, while whether or not the Horde was a marauding band of demonically-fueled brutes is something that, apparently, you're claiming the books contradict since the both WCIII and WoW (again, the most recent iterations of the lore) have that pretty firmly established as fact.

No matter how much importance you place on the books' interpretation, that doesn't change the fact that the history as it currently stands says the orcs were most specifically working for the side of evil during the first war.

And WCIII's tutorial stage gives enough prologue to set Thrall up acceptably as the new leader of the orcs. He is, after all, the one that roused them from their lethargy.