Just when I thought it might just be idle dreaming that Blizzard wanted to make a movie, this happens. While I still have absolutely NO idea what plot they are going to go with, at least it may actually be possible for the movie to be fun, dare I say awesome?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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My hubby is a huge Sam Raimi fan but he hates wow (probably because it sucks my attention away from him.) I sent him this link a coupla hours ago... he didn't seem to thrilled by the prospect.
I just hope they don't cast the horde in a bad light. Maybe it'll show the horde and alliance fighting together against the scourge or some such.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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Damnit I wanted a Starcraft movie.
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It's an inviolable law of the universe that movies based on video games always suck. I don't expect anything different from this one, no matter who directs it.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I want them to make a gorgeous CGI Tauren. Twelve feet tall. Massive. Powerful. Every detail perfect. And the movie is about two hours of this creature sitting at a computer in his mom's basement, eating hot pockets and 25-manning Uludar in an acrimonious guild raid.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: If the Warcraft universe were even remotely interesting, this would be a mediocre movie.
The Warcraft universe has more workable flesh behind it than a great quantity of fantasy pablum, and there is absolutely stuff they can work with here. Even though I want to sit back and make fun of this all damn day I can't say that it is not interesting or that people won't be interested in it.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Jon Boy: I enjoyed the first couple of Resident Evil movies... I never played the game though...
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Starcraft The Movie--A two hour Zerg Rush-all CGI all the time.
You got it close but not perfect.
The Starcraft movie is going to be, you sit down in a movie theater, and the zerg rush occurs before they can get through the previews.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Samp: I love the mental picture of Zergs rushing the previews and killing the characters of other movies!
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:300 producer Thomas Tull revealed at BlizzCon 2007 that the film would have a budget of over $100 million and was to be set one year before the events of WOW.
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World of Warcraft is certainly filled with lots of "weak" ideas that aren't particularly original. That's because it's a big world and making every single aspect of it mindblowingly original is, well, hard. But I believe whole heartedly that there are more than enough meaty parts to form a truly good movie.
A while back, when Blizzard announced that Legendary pictures would be making the movie, one of the highlights of the press release was "Legendary pictures, like us at Blizzard, believes in taking as long as necessary to make sure a quality product is delievered." That gives me some hope. By all indications they're approaching this the same way they do their games.
Unfortunately, they did state a while back the movie would probably focus on the alliance, because that's what "people can identify with better." I think that's stupid, an alliance movie would feel a lot more generic. People can identify with anything if you do it right (take a look at Pixar movies) and the thing that really DOES make WarCraft an awesome universe is the quality of the horde characters.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Samp: I love the mental picture of Zergs rushing the previews and killing the characters of other movies!
Jack black running and screaming like a little girl as stuff blows up, Shia LaBeouf's head rolling while we watch Optimus Prime get steamrolled by an ultralisk. Matt Damon appears in a new Bourne trailer, pulls another chip out of his skin but instead of a bank account number it just says "kek" and then him and Mel Gibson mumble something about imbaness right before the lings pour through windows and stuff. Possibilities are endless.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Unfortunately, they did state a while back the movie would probably focus on the alliance, because that's what "people can identify with better."
I personally cannot identify better with a generic faction filled with all the mangina femmes and typically less creative players??
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Samuel L. Jackson pull out two shotguns and yell, "Get these M#@$@#!@ @#$@#$@# Zerg off my M@#$@$@$ @##$#)#$ trailer."
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Samp: I love the mental picture of Zergs rushing the previews and killing the characters of other movies!
That might just be the greatest movie opening of all time. Seriously, imagine the audiance sitting there, watching lighthearted previews for some family film or another... then BAM! Zergling rush! And it goes right to the movie without the typical opening images.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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Making it an alliance movie almost guarantees it will be generic pap.
The only interesting bits about the alliance side are the night elves, I think. Otherwise it's just standard LotR ripoff schlock.
A story about the Horde is far more compelling, I think. The orcs have some cultural depth to explore (and it would be "new" to cast orcs in a positive light), the Tauren have a fair amount of cultural depth to explore, and the Trolls have their whole tragic "our own people are evil and want to kill us" thing going on.
I think the problem is the racial stereotypes on the horde side. The Taurens are obviously native americans with bull heads and the trolls are jamaicans with blue skin and tusks.
Still though, I hope someone decides to make a compelling movie on the Horde side of the line rather than a standard-fare-humans-against-the-monsters Alliance movie.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I am having the same concern. The interesting faction in WOW is the Horde. We have Thrall's tale and Sylvannis's. We have the uneasy alliance between the Kalimdor Horde and the Forsaken/Blood Elf horde. We have the "neutral" Goblins and their wonderfully unselfconsious mercenary attitudes. All the alliance has it a LOTRs knockoff plot.
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If Blizzard has artistic control, and the Hollywood folks say, "It has to be an Alliance picture" rest assured....it will be Horde.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Blayne Bradley
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What I would really want though is a Warhammer 40k movie, Event Horizon is not enough!
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One game I think actually could provide a very solid backbone for a movie: Mass Effect.
It's very story- and character-oriented. And it has smart, but mainstream-friendly scifi elements, which would be easy to translate to screen.
The fundamental problem with most game-to-movie translations is that games by their nature typically aren't story-driven, or character-driven.
Posts: 273 | Registered: Jul 2009
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Just read this on a gaming forum I frequent, posted by our resident "knows more than anyone should possibly know about Blizzard" user:
quote:Just so everyone knows, went back to my old sources to refresh my information on the movie.
The storyline is going to be set before WoW, but after WarCraft 3. Right now interviews have been saying that it will be set a year before vanilla. This means No Draenei, No Blood Elves in the Horde, No Outland, etc...
It is not going to be a LOTR-eque film that revolves around a group of adventurers, instead going more to the roots of WarCraft and being about war between factions on a larger scale. The rumored storyline is going to be from the point of view of a human character, as he gets swept into racial tensions between the two sides and ultimatly reaches a climax with a massive battle. The Horde are not going to be presented as villians, but instead just another side in the conflict. Metzen said in an old interview that his heart belongs to the Horde, so even if the Alliance is getting the focus the Horde will still get a lot of love and not just be treated as fodder.
Also, like I said before, they are going to consider this an "Ultimate" version of WarCraft. It will have it's own continuity outside of the games, comics, etc... and thus events can happen in the movie outside of events that happen in the games, like the rumored massive battle that will happen between the factions. The only things that will be the same are the setting, and we will see cameos from characters like Thrall, Cairne, etc... but it can diverge if needed.
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There's a difference between "has characters" and "is character driven." I don't think Halo would make a particularly good movie because while there are some interesting characters in it, the game isn't really about them and the character arcs they went through, it's about blowing stuff up.
WarCraft has several prominent characters that went through major arcs, and the world is big enough (and has been shown from multiple angles, i.e the macro of huge armies to the micro of individual characters) that they're very free to choose a plot that makes sense for a movie instead of trying to shoehorn a video-game plot into 90 minutes.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I'm not gonna really get my hopes up just yet, but I'm not gonna shoot the idea down either. Video games-to-films have a disastrous track record, but then again I remember the first time I saw a poster for the first "Pirates of the Carribean" film I thought "A movie based off a theme park ride? Well that's gonna be crap." As long as they actually get passionate, smart writers, and the filmakers put as much love into it as Blizzard does put into its games, they could make something special out of it(and thank goodness it's Sam Raimi in charge and not Uwe Boll).
I actually have never played WOW and don't plan too (I fear that my life would get sucked away by it), but I played the first 3 strategy games. The story of War Craft, as far as games go, is pretty good, but compared to what we expect from a quality movie or novel is really just a big convoluted melting pot of generic fantasy ideas. There is potential in some the storylines and character arcs from the series, though, so, yeah, I think it's really gonna depend on the writers. It kind of makes me sad that people are saying it'll be set after War Craft III. I don't really know what the events leading up to WOW are supposed to be, but if they're doing a Warcraft film I'd have probably most wanted a film about Arthas or Thrall (and would definitely want an appearance onscreen of Illidan, because he's freakin' awesome).
I think a Star Craft movie would be a better idea. Its storyline's a little less convoluted and more straightforward, and I think it really does have some great characters (Jim Raynor's got the Han Solo/Mal Reynolds appeal; the Protoss are really cool; and Sarah Kerrigan is an amazing character, no matter what kind of entertainment meduim you're talking about).
Anyhow, best of wishes to Sam Raimi.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Feb 2009
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StarCraft's story is going to get plenty convoluted when the inevitable World(s) of StarCraft comes out (I am pretty confident they will spend StarCraft II expanding the universe the same way WarCraft III did so that it can sustain a massively multiplayer game). I don't think the original WarCraft story was overly complex, it became complex as they expanded to fill up a world.
Most of the ideas are generic fantasy to begin with, but I think they do a good job of fleshing them out to feel original. (At least the original WarCrafts did. With Wrath of the Lich King they started trotting out random ideas like Vikings and Cthulhu with thinly disguised names... but those wouldn't be the focus of the movie so I'm not worried).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Tuukka: I've never played WOW. What's the concept behind the world/story?
There is a massive amount of lore contained int he WoW universe, I will sum it up for you as best I can.
There are these beings named "Titans." Essentially they are a group of Gods that travel through space and create planets and life throughout the universe.
One planet that was created was named Azeroth, where WoW takes place. Eventually one of the titans, Sargeras, decided that the Titans had it all wrong and wants to destroy everything they have created. He rebels from the other Titans and recruits races from different planets to form the "Burning Legion." The Legion travels from world to world snuffing out all life. Most of them have a demon like appearance and are called demons by those they come into contact with.
On Azeroth they are able to defeat the Burning Legion, becoming the first planet to do so. Sargeras finds a warrior race called "Orcs", on another planet called Draenor, and corrupts them over time. One of them, a very powerful warlock, manages to open a portal to Azeroth with the help of Sargeras. The orcs pour through the portal and begin to destroy everything in their wake. Eventually they are beaten and taken as slaves to be used by the humans for sport.
The warlock that opened the portal is granted great power for his work but eventually is betrayed and killed by Sargeras and the other demon races of the Legion. His spirit was trapped in a place called Icecrown.
Eventually an orc by the name of Thrall escapes the humans and is warned by a prophet to travel to the western continent of the world, as the eastern continent will soon be destroyed. He follows the advice, and soon allies himself with races such as the Trolls and Taurens.
Back on the eastern continent, the legion creates something called "The Scourge," an army of undead. The humans have great trouble fighting the undead. Each one of the alliance soldiers that falls in battle rises as part of the undead army.
Eventually the scourge is stopped by Prince Arthas. He finds out that a demon lord by the name of Mal'Ganis is behind the scourge and vows to chase him to the ends of the earth. Over time Arthas becomes more and more obsessed with revenge, and begins to perform horrid acts of violence, such as killing an entire city of people infected by the scourge plague before they had turned.
The Legion is once again eventually stopped by the Alliance (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes) and the Horde (Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, and Forsaken)
Meanwhile, Arthas was up in the northern continent, appropriately named "Northrend" searching for the remains of the orc warlock. The warlock was manipulated by the Legion into creating the Scourge. The warlock was able to break the control over him, but was rapidly losing power and needed Arthas to help. Upon discovering the Frozen Throne, Arthas put on the armor that contained the spirit of the warlock, and was posessed, thus becoming the Lich King.
Four years pass, which we do not know a whole lot about, then WoW begins. Right now in the game the Alliance and Horde are in Northrend, readying themselves for an all out battle against the Lich King.
This is not even a drop in the bucket lore wise, I just threw a few of the most important parts in. Hope this helps!
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor are awesome.
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Unless they've reversed course, Blizzard has said that their upcoming MMORPG would not be based in any of their existing universes. That was almost two years ago, so plans certainly are prone to change. WC III did a lot to transition from RTS games, into a hero unit based game (to something in between with Rexxar), to WoW. I don't see SCII taking such significant steps away from being pure and unadulterated RTS.
I'm not even sure I'd classify myself as 'cautiously optimistic' about this film. Blizzard does a great job quality controlling their ideas. There's plenty of story / lore to pull a single movie out of. Sam Rami is a good fit to bring on board and make the movie both fun and approachable. Yet there are so many ways this could go horribly wrong.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: There's a difference between "has characters" and "is character driven." I don't think Halo would make a particularly good movie because while there are some interesting characters in it, the game isn't really about them and the character arcs they went through, it's about blowing stuff up.
WarCraft has several prominent characters that went through major arcs, and the world is big enough (and has been shown from multiple angles, i.e the macro of huge armies to the micro of individual characters) that they're very free to choose a plot that makes sense for a movie instead of trying to shoehorn a video-game plot into 90 minutes.
Have you read the backstory? There's like 4-5 books.
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I'm sorry, the world of Warcraft just isn't very original. No, not even your precious Horde. Ooh, they're actually a mis-understood race of noble warrior-savages with a deep spiritual side... Yeah. Never seen that before. The one quasi-original thing the world has going for it is some steampunk elements mixed in with the high fantasy. We need a hundred-million-plus treatment of the story of Thrall like I need a hole in the head.
I might go because good people with a decent budget might be able to distill a watchable entertainment out of a fairly conventional high fantasy world. But Warcraft itself is not a big draw for me.
'Course, I'm not one of the WoW crowd; maybe they'll show up in droves, who knows.
And beware the notion that Blizzard is going to salvage the artistic purity of the source. Acti-"to hell with any game that isn't a known bankable license or sequel"-vision owns their souls now.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor are awesome.
Yes!
I want to see a StarCraft movie! I think it should start with the burning of Mar Sara (or chau sara, forget which comes first) And follow Kerrigan until she is captured by the swarm.
*HEEH*
*daydreaming about the hypothetical movie*
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
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I'm sorry, the world of Warcraft just isn't very original. No, not even your precious Horde. Ooh, they're actually a mis-understood race of noble warrior-savages with a deep spiritual side... Yeah. Never seen that before. The one quasi-original thing the world has going for it is some steampunk elements mixed in with the high fantasy. We need a hundred-million-plus treatment of the story of Thrall like I need a hole in the head.
Out of curiosity, when's the earliest you remember this happening in traditional fantasy, and how often do you see it there? It was my experience that I always WANTED to see bad guy races turn out to be good, but WarCraft III was the first time I actually saw it happen. And soon afterwards they started showing up everywhere. Beforehand I saw a few barbaric versions of good races but not a whole lot of genuinely "evil races" (orcs, trolls, etc) turn out to be good.
I know Blizzard didn't invent the noble savage concept (and I know Klingons predate orcs by a while), and even the coolest parts of WoW are usually dumbed down versions of something you could find elsewhere, but they're not things I've seen given skilled treatment in a movie/book big enough to enter the public consciousness.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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As long as the movie is better than Dungeon Siege In the Name of the King, I will watch it.
The movie was so bad it was comical. A total train wreck. I saw the previews with Jason Statham and John Rhys-Davis and thought that the movie may be a decent action movie. Then I realized it also had Matthew Lillard and Ray Liotta in it. I can't think of one movie that wasn't ruined by having Ray Liotta in it. Ok, MAYBE Dominic and Eugene, and perhaps Field of Dreams.....But they came close. Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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