The Warcraft Movie: Blizzard Is Serious About It (I guess)

[RogueIce]

I can't wait to see what they do with this. Metzen already promised to "tune" things WRT canon, which is about par for the course for Blizzard. I wonder how much of the first game will get retconned. Probably everything except "yes there was a war between Humans and Orcs, and the names are the same" except the Kingdom of Azeroth which will probably be officially Stormwind in order to conform to later retcons. Also from this summary:

•The games weren't the best way to tell this story originally, so the movie will be a great opportunity to tell the story in an even more epic way.

I have read on SB that people opine Blizzard doesn't like the original games much. This makes me believe them. Also I can't wait for the retcons whitegreenwashing the Horde.

I mean shit the two main characters are Lothar - a logical choice - and Durotan, who from my reading of the lore actually sat out the First War and took his clan into exile. So...this being a movie about the First War, one of the main characters is someone who didn't actually fight in it?

So either they're going to give us Warchief Durotan or this movie will have two parallel plotlines that don't really relate to each other. I see this ending well.

Also as a non-serious edit:

•Jones liked the script, but it was very Alliance centric. He thought it would be better to make it about both sides and the original Warcraft.

Fuck you Alliance you can't have this movie LOK'TAR OGAR

Actually it's a nonsense statement anyway because there was no "Alliance" in the First War, just Azeroth Stormwind Azeroth (fuck you Blizzard). Yet another example of WoW's damn faction system poisoning things.

[Darksider]

It seems like Blizzard is putting serious effort into kicking old-school fans in the nuts this week.

[RogueIce]

Also this makes me lol:

•WoW doesn't have scabbards, so where swords will go has to be worked out.

Seriously, Blizzard? Actually what do "holstered" weapons do in WoW? Do they just magically hang on your back or vanish?

Anyway just make fucking scabbards for the movie. Then include them in your next expansion.

[Darksider]

No doubt this film is going to be loaded with bullshit about how the Horde "has" to invade Azeroth and slaughter its people in order to survive, thus they aren't truly evil.

I can believe I was ever excited about a WoW film.

[Imperial528]

•WoW doesn't have scabbards, so where swords will go has to be worked out.

No scabbards my ass.



Give all your swords to ol' Footy here, he's got plenty of room in his scabbard. Especially since he likes to place his sword in his gut instead.

That said I wouldn't mind a WarCraft movie if only because I'd like to see the eye candy. Blizzard has always done good cinematics, and at the least this'll just be a really long one.

•The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.

That's... er... good? I don't think we'll get any in a lead roll, but at least they're trying. Hopefully we won't be seeing chainmail bikinis and whatnot either.

[RogueIce]

•The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.

That's... er... good? I don't think we'll get any in a lead roll, but at least they're trying. Hopefully we won't be seeing chainmail bikinis and whatnot either.

Blizzard will find a way to have Jaina fuck things up for Azeroth, don't worry.

One lady they should definitely have is Garona. Who should be half-human because fuck that half-Draeni retcon bullshit. It worked so much better the first way, you asshats, and if you hadn't needed to compress the timeline for God-knows-what reason it would fit.

[Grumman]

•The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.

That's... er... good? I don't think we'll get any in a lead roll, but at least they're trying. Hopefully we won't be seeing chainmail bikinis and whatnot either.

I think that sums up what I'd want out of a Warcraft movie - aesthetics that I can take somewhat seriously, and proper representation of women. Maybe one day they'll make one with the Night Elves in a leading role, and we'll get an action movie where 4/5ths of the protagonists are women.

[Sharp-kun]

Be wary of what you read on the net, even if its taken from the Blizzcon panels. Blizzard tend to be jokey and sarcastic about some things in panels and in responses to Q&A and I'm amazed sometimes how some news sites don't realise when they're not being serious. The scabard thing seems to me like this.


The fluffs going to need a tweak anyway if they want to make a 20 year old RTS into a movie. I doubt there's any reason Blizzard "dislike" the old games outwith the fact that tools were more limited then and now they wish they'd been able to do more.

I'm on the fence until we actually see a trailer.

[Lord Revan]

I agree until we see anything like trailers or production stills I'm gonna be on the fence about it.

[TheFeniX]

Blizzard was "serious" about this back in LK when WoW was at it's peak. Didn't Hollywood scare them off with it's insanity or was that Microsoft with Halo?

Would really be a boring movie except in the "there's an Orc Shamn, I PLAY ONE OF THOSE" kind of way. There's nothing "alien" about the horde anymore. There's no mystery: they're just green humans with tusks that seem to be a callback to Native American cliches. The only interesting "race" would be undead, which never made any sense they'd side with the living about anything, much less the Horde or even that the Horde would put up with them.

Also, a movie about Orcs, Trolls, Dorfs? Going up against The Hobbit releases? Blizzard writers? Just make a Diablo movie, would be safer as only the Catholics would get riled up about it.

[Kuja]

Blizzard was "serious" about this back in LK when WoW was at it's peak. Didn't Hollywood scare them off with it's insanity or was that Microsoft with Halo?

From what I've read, the issue primarily arose from the fact that Blizzard wants to keep a very, very tight leash on its IP. Although this is quite an understandable thing in and of itself (just look at what Uwe Boll does to videogames that don't) in this case it meant that Metzen effectively locked horns with the Hollywood writers and the project wound up going in circles for years. Raimi came on board to direct, was given absolutely nothing to work with, and so backed out leaving the project effectively at square one. It doesn't surprise me at all that things are grinding forward now that someone preaching "both sides" is on board - Metzen is obsessed with the 'noble savages' trope and anything that massages that idea is going to get his favor.

[Grumman]

Blizzard was "serious" about this back in LK when WoW was at it's peak. Didn't Hollywood scare them off with it's insanity or was that Microsoft with Halo?

They did it with 40K as well, wanting the brainwashed killing machine to have a love interest. Of course, it would be a lot easier these days, because they could just throw Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium! at them.

Also, a movie about Orcs, Trolls, Dorfs? Going up against The Hobbit releases? Blizzard writers? Just make a Diablo movie, would be safer as only the Catholics would get riled up about it.

Better The Hobbit than The Lord of the Rings. And it's not like there's not enough time for two fantasy movies in the year.

[Darth Yan]

Honestly, in Blizzards attempts to make the horde awesome they forgot what made them appealing to play as. In the 2006 book rise of the horde Thrall says

"To pretend it [the demonic corruption] did not exist is to forget how dreadful the impact was. To make ourselves into victims, rather than claiming our participation in our own destruction. We chose this path, we orcs. We chose it right up until it was too late to turn back. And having made that choice, we can, with the knowledge that we have of the end of that dark and shameful road, choose not to take it."[1]

Back then, playing the horde actually felt like a redemption quest. It raised the point that while the orcs were still tricked into walking the path of darkness, they still consciously made the choice to walk it, and had a hand in their own fall (they still bought into kil'jaeden's lies, they still slaughtered the draenei because they thought they were a threat (though to be brutally honest any human society can do this. The Balkan genocides, the holocaust, are all cases), they still drank the blood, they still ruined their world and turned their back on the shaman way.) Even though they were lied to, and regretted what they had done, they still played a role in their damnation. Because of that, playing as the horde honestly made me feel like I was playing as a redeemed warrior trying to survive while making amends for the sins of my people.

Now, the Horde just seems like a bunch of assholes who have learned nothing. While I get that Daelin's actions and growing up the internment camp definately helped to make the orcs bitter (face it if you spent the first years of your life in crowded internment camps with daily beatings, no food medicine water shelter etc and were constantly crowded and crouching in your own feces you would be pretty bitter) it still feels like they haven't learned anything. For all his flaws Grom did ultimately make the right choice when he rejected mannoroths third and final attempt to tempt him to the dark side. Now the whole redemption (what made the orcs cool) just seems insincere.

In Starcraft, it's implied that while Amon's taint did influence Kerrigan, it was at best a partial influence (amplifying anger and rage that was already there.) Kerrigan is ultimately a better person in heart of the swarm, but she still did nasty things until she was called out on it.