Warcraft is on Syfy right now

Community General Discussion
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And there it is. I was expecting “ThEy ShOuLd HaVe DoNe ArThAs!” inside of ten posts.
To be the very first reply actually exceeded my expectations.

I’m not going to do a deep dive on the matter, but honestly Warcraft is WAY too lore heavy to go straight into covering WC3 (or even Wrath as some folks suggested), and anyone thinking otherwise clearly doesn’t have a mind or feel for proper pacing, especially if the plan is to try and make a series of film adaptations out of the IP.

I actually had a topic on this last year:

It was ILM. Honestly, I wouldn’t expect anything less from them or Weta.

Obviously, liberties generally need to be taken for gameplay purposes (seriously, look at how often lore characters and bosses are made much bigger for visibility/gameplay purposes)

With that said, look at some of the CG cinematics. Granted, the armor makes Anduin look much bigger than he is, but you can still clearly see Thrall and Saurfang are huge compared to him and are pretty much in line with what we saw in the film.

Hey, I like Arthas too, but I can at least recognize the need for world building and setup, especially when dealing with the average moviegoer who has never played a single Warcraft game.

Good luck explaining it to everyone else however. These people constantly fail to realize that what they are asking for is the equivalent of saying that the first Lord of the Rings film should have started with either Helm’s Deep, or Pelennor Fields.

If you took the original Star Wars trilogy, this is like saying the first film should have started on Endor. It’s skipping the first three John Wick films and going right to the fourth one.

How about TV and anime examples?

It’s like saying you should start watching Cowboy Bebop on episode 25.

It’s skipping the first four seasons of Buffy or Burn Notice. It’s starting Dragon Ball on the first episode of the Android Saga, or Game of Thrones right after the Red Wedding.

I could go on and on, but I think my point is made. Not that it’ll make a difference to the folks that see no problem starting a Warcraft film series right in the middle of WC3 or Wrath, but at least those that understand the need for world building for the casual viewer with no prior knowledge will get it.

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sorry, but not everyone is on the internet 16hrs a day so we dont triggered by what people say about 7yr old movies as easily

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Triggered?

You’re funny :grin:

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There’s actually a trope for that:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NetworkDecay

Once again, good luck actually trying to explain that to everyone that sees no problem with it. Just because they understand the lore and really want to see it, that doesn’t mean the average moviegoer (you know, the people that most of the ticket sales come from, and the ones that hold the fate of sequels in their hands?) isn’t going to be totally lost.

If you lose the casual viewer due to them not understanding the story, then you’ve already failed. No great battle or spectacle happening on screen is going to save it for them at that point. They’ll only remember that the plot was confusing and tell their friends that they didn’t like it.

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How is it a bad thing for a video game adaption movie to not have a corporate attitude of “Appealing to everybody or anybody who is simply casual”? I mean, if video games that try to appeal to everybody fails, why can’t we apply this same attitude towards movies? As in “It shouldn’t be for everybody” mentality. And vice versa with if there’s Video games, adapting the movies and etc. We wouldn’t have great movie license games like Spiderman, South Park and so on, if they weren’t keeping fans a priority by making an authentic adaption.

Why you think the Super Mario Bro’s movie from 2022 was better received then the live action one back in the 90’s? Nobody wants to see a live action adaption, they want to see the game on the big screen.

It Amazes the fans and draws in new people alike, despite not knowing jack about the lore about the game/Tv show/franchise.

I just think it’s really strange to care solely (And kind of soullessly imo) what a corporation thinks as a consumer, instead of what fans think. Like, it’s really not much of a bad thing if somebody is lost in trying to follow the lore or etc. Not saying they have to, i’m saying it’s not a problem with the directors here.

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My favorite part in the movie was when the other nations of Azeroth failed to come through for Stormwind in their time of need, but they had Stormwind win on its own and the Dark Portal was destroyed, and then somehow the whole population of Stormwind is shouting “For the Alliance!”

Adaptations always need changes, but the fall of Stormwind as the catalyst for the Alliance forming is too foundational to the franchise. I know it’s old, but even watching this old 90’s computer-graphics movie from the opening of WarCraft 2 still gives you the sense of the dramatic tension the primitive game writing was able to evoke for the would-have-been-sequel.

(Edit: Small point of potential confusion, back when WarCraft 2 came out, Azeroth wasn’t the name of the world but the name of the nation that had Stormwind as its capital, Blizzard later changed Azeroth to being the name of the world, and just made Stormwind the name of the nation as a whole).

Instead of that sense of “humanity is doomed” as a bunch of soldiers watch a giant orc fleet descending on them that had just destroyed the mighty Stormwind, the movie set up a story where… Stormwind’s still standing, worried about orc refugees and maybe this orc baby matters in 20 years?

Some people say they should have done an Arthas movie instead of WC 1, but it’s hard to fault WC 1’s setting when they didn’t commit to it. If the same team did an Arthas story, they’d probably have him cure Stratholme, kill Mal’ganis permanently using the Light, but then have Arthas decide in the end that he should pick up that Frostmourne blade anyway and they’d end with him inexplicably being a Lich King (and forget entirely about Ner’zhul).

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Dude nothing is a bigger disappointment than the history channel.

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I mean, if we’re being fair on the matter, it’s still essentially the start of the First War. I’d imagine a second film might have started with the fall of Stormwind and a montage showing that the orcs weren’t really slowed down at all.

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That’s not how Hollywood works :dracthyr_shrug:

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I’m simply saying that they shouldn’t water/dumb down or remove the elements or etc on what made the franchises great in the first place while adapting it to another medium.

So if there must be a 4 hour arthas story in total without losing the things that made it great to begin with, so be it.

And video games, aren’t the only thing that Hollywood botches.

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No the problem is they wrote and produced the movie for 1 audience. WoW Players. It would have done MUCH better if they had structured it more for the General Audience who has never played wow and knows nothing about it.

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It’s in my favorites list. I really, really wish they would just say “screw it” and go ahead and make the next one.

Leaving it at a screaming baby Thrall just wasn’t cool.

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Did you see what they did to The Dark Tower? I abhor that movie on many levels, from the miscasting (Idris would not have worked if they brought Detta/Odetta in) to the chopping up of a 7 novel series into an hour and a half movie that made no sense.

Warcraft was 100 times better despite it’s flaws.

I’m maintaining this opinion even after I’m dead.

At least Duncan TRIED.

in The Dark Tower’s case: they didn’t really even try.

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I was actually the only person sitting in the theater when I saw it. I remember enjoying it for what it was.

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I’m not much of a movie goer, so no. I just know that video game adaptions on the big screen are more misses then hits. I’l take your word on this one.

…Didn’t the movie had a Garona being half human, and Half orc, despite the fact there’s NO humans on Draenor prior to the portal opening?

When she’s suppose to be half draenei, half orc?

…Don’t you think details like that, even if it’s minor, are important enough to get right here?..

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This was a Stephen King adaptation. It had been stuck in production hell for 2 decades.

I expected a lot better.

Warcraft was a much better movie, both in butchered lore and sets/CGI.

You’re focusing on something that really in the long run doesn’t matter in that regard.

In the novels, Roland is described a a white, long tall and ugly (think young Clint Eastwood) and it actually had a point in the character development of the series as far as Odetta/Detta goes.

I mean I don’t expect perfection, but at least read the source material. Duncan at least knows his source material (I’m sure it was the writers who changed things).

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It was established that Medivh traveled across dimensions and sired her when he was much younger.

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I’ve been wanting to watch it again but I remember it being pretty nonsensical. I think there are some fan edits out there, maybe I’ll try one

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My husband knew nothing other than a few basic things I told him before going into the movie (as well as a couple tiny things during) and he thought it presented well to people unfamiliar with the IP. On the other hand, that was also it’s problem. Generally, people unfamiliar with the IP didn’t care and generally wouldn’t have gone unless they were being taken by someone who who did love Warcraft/WoW – but it didn’t do a lot for people already familiar with the IP because it retraced a lot of “this is how things are in this world” which actual fans already knew.

Myself, I had fun with it. Enjoyed some parts more than others. My theater FELL THE HELL OVER in laughter when the one guard got sheeped. :joy: I would go to another if they make one, ESPECIALLY if it covers the things leading up to and including Wrath of the Lich King’s story line. I’m kind of hoping against hope it’s popular enough in China to encourage a second movie but that’s looking shaky right now. (Plus I can’t see how they could ever, with any amount of editing, possibly cover the Lich King story and show it in China with China’s laws regarding showing corpses.)

But the best thing about the movie was I went opening night and wore my Pepe. I have the original plush Pepe for which I bought a headband allowing him to firmly sit on my head. When we were buying the tickets, the guy selling them to us must not have played WoW, because he kept looking up at the Pepe then back to typing in the ticket order… glance at the Pepe then back to the ticket order… glance at the Pepe and then (in a voice you reserve for telling people something they might not know, but which they would probably want to know if they don’t) he very seriously told me: “You have a bird on your head.” :joy: It was hilarious. :joy: I crack up every time I think of him saying it. :joy:

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Ahh. Yeah, Stephen King movie adaptions are also hit and miss. Sometimes you have ironic gold, and sometimes you have unironic gold. And sometimes ya have both.

I mean, i guess the CGI looks okay, and the sets look expensive so… ehh. :man_shrugging:

The devils are in the details.

Of coarse the quality of adapting something matters to everybody. Because that’s the basis of the quality of the movie, how well you’ve adapted it.

Those who aren’t fans, will like the story elements, the characters, and action, and what not, may be interested in trying the games or etc if it was good. For the fans, they will love for how accurate they were if they are accurate and good. Not in looks, but in acting, casting, etc.

And i speak as somebody who is a casual myself. There are many things i’ve became a fan of, despite not having experienced with their prior works beforehand. Simply because it was a good adaption of the thing i wasn’t previously interested or heavily interested in. And that matters a whole lot.

Like Spiderman, i owe my ‘sort-of-fan’ to Sam Rami for excellently adapting (Well the first 2, and some parts of 3) Spiderman. I know i will never read the comics, but i wouldn’t care much for Spiderman otherwise have the movie been just a total meh-fest because it’s appealing to everybody.

:face_with_raised_eyebrow: