Warcraft discussion thread (spoilers)

[hunter5]

I just saw the movie and I enjoyed it. It was better paced and had better characterization then Batman vs Superman and one of the better video game movie adaptations I have seen.

[Ralin]

It was better paced and had better characterization then Batman vs Superman and one of the better video game movie adaptations I have seen.

Truly, this is high praise.

[Ralin]

You have to factor in exchange rates. The average Chinese ticket probably cost less than an average US movie ticket. So even if more people watched it, the earnings for the Hollywood studio isn't any higher than domestic earnings.

Been awhile since I've been to a Chinese movie theater, but off the top of my head prices were in the 80 to 150 RMB range for a ticket (in places like Shenzhen). At least 60. That's 10+ USD, so in the same range as an American movie theater. And that's not even getting into concessions.

[Crown]

Warcraft becomes the most successful videogame movie ever.

I hope all those critics that were giving it 0 out of 10 eat shit and die

China monstered this movie into sequel territory. Which I'm happy about, no regrets giving my money to watch this at the cinema.

[Guardsman Bass]

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I still think it's a terrible movie and hate to see it succeed. But on the other hand, a successful Warcraft line of movies makes it more likely that we'll get a Starcraft movie eventually.

[TheFeniX]

The Chinese market is a big reason we keep getting more Transformers movies, so I can't say Warcraft's success there is any indication of quality. I will say that anyone giving Warcraft a 0/10 is either an ass-blasted snob or trolling for clicks. Talking with my nerd friends who still go see movies, it's 7/10 at best, but 10/10 to them because it's A. not a terrible video game movie and B. they are huge Warcraft fans.

Still, anyone who thought this movie would flop is really out of touch with reality. WoW itself has been releasing nothing for 12 months and there's still millions who play it. You just can't kill the beast.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I still think it's a terrible movie and hate to see it succeed. But on the other hand, a successful Warcraft line of movies makes it more likely that we'll get a Starcraft movie eventually.

So, the AvP movie we all wanted while Fox was busy cramming angsty teen movies cliches down our throats. Also doubles as a poor-mans WH40k, so I'm down.

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=warcraft.htm

Warcraft has gone to $412 million revenue. The domestic re : US contribution has barely moved, like 2 million. Its the foreign market driving it now.

[Crown]

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=warcraft.htm

Warcraft has gone to $412 million revenue. The domestic re : US contribution has barely moved, like 2 million. Its the foreign market driving it now.

I'm stoked, we're so gonna get a sequel out of this!

[Iroscato]

It wasn't exactly a masterpiece, but I thought it was a solid 7/10 blockbuster. For someone who has never so much as touched a Warcraft game (put down the pitchforks, please) I didn't find it particularly confusing or hard to follow, though I did have to poke my lore-soaked friend in the ribs once or twice to clarify a couple things.
The orcs looked fucking amazing, that was some of the best motion capture I've seen since the last Planet of the Apes movie. Overall, I'd happily watch a sequel.

[mr friendly guy]

I don't see why the hate. It seems a decent film for those who like sci fi / fantasy. As a non warcraft fan I found it easy enough to follow.

Some of the hate has translated to hating Chinese movie goers, because you know, how dare studios make movies to appeal to the market. I unsubscribed to one of my movie/show/comic review channels after the youtuber went batshit insane with racial stereotyping and condescension on China and then cowardly changed the video to private before critics piled on. Seriously, if one is going to criticise Chinese movie goers as "unsophisticated" for liking warcraft, then you might not want to say in the same video that Star Trek is for "smart people," to show off your nonexistent sophistication. The only way it could be worse is if she said Twilight was a masterpiece.

[Me2005]

I don't see why the hate. It seems a decent film for those who like sci fi / fantasy. As a non warcraft fan I found it easy enough to follow.

For me, it's Blizzard's continued tearing up, spitting on, and then burning of the history they wrote that I read and enjoyed growing up. I don't play WoW and didn't Warcraft III. War I/II/IIx had some changes in tone between each, but taken together really meshed pretty well. War III compltely rewrote the book, WoW has since blown it up, this movie appears to have changed more. I suspect it's doing well in China (and other markets) because they didn't start with War I/II as much as we did in the US.

Also, while I think the CGI looks pretty good for the Orcs, I don't like that the visual treatment of orcs and humans doesn't seem to mesh well. The games make all the characters seem similarly scaled; this movie has fairly puny non-CGI humans put up against hulking CGI-orcs. I've only seen trailers as of now, and may see the movie if it's on TV or netflix or there's nothing else in the redbox or something.

[Kingmaker]

It seems a decent film for those who like sci fi / fantasy.

I'd put it on roughly the same tier as Chronicles of Riddick or the 2010 Clash of the Titans (maybe a bit worse, but mostly in a good way). Riddick was entertaining and had its moments, but it was not good. CotT was much the same (though it was substantially blander than WC or CoR).

If we considered the orcs alone, I'd rate Warcraft as a solid movie. The acting was solid, the writing was passable, the action was good. Unfortunately, the humans are also present, and they didn't do so well.

Also doubles as a poor-mans WH40k, so I'm down.

Starcraft is nowhere near grim, dark, or metal enough to be a true poor man's 40k, whatever its origins.

[Crown]

I'd put it on roughly the same tier as Chronicles of Riddick or the 2010 Clash of the Titans (maybe a bit worse, but mostly in a good way).

I liked Chronicles of Riddick but it was such an over-reach from Pitch Black that it kind of fell really, really flat. But I'd put Warcraft above the former but not the later.

[RogueIce]

For me, it's Blizzard's continued tearing up, spitting on, and then burning of the history they wrote that I read and enjoyed growing up. I don't play WoW and didn't Warcraft III. War I/II/IIx had some changes in tone between each, but taken together really meshed pretty well. War III compltely rewrote the book, WoW has since blown it up, this movie appears to have changed more.

Yeah, this sums up a lot of my feelings on it. I grew up with the story mostly of WC2, and Blizzard has steadily been crushing it under the heel of retcons because for whatever reason they don't like that the games existed or something. I don't know.

I get that this movie is its own universe, which is fine. But the setup for this universe is clearly leading to the version of Warcraft that I don't especially like, so...I'm really meh on it. There is some good stuff in there, I just don't know how to feel about the rest. I am curious to see what direction they go in for a sequel, if they do one.

If we considered the orcs alone, I'd rate Warcraft as a solid movie. The acting was solid, the writing was passable, the action was good. Unfortunately, the humans are also present, and they didn't do so well.

Llane was pretty good, though making Khadgar a butt monkey and Lothar being all over the place didn't help. That and it kept jumping around on the humans that we never really got a chance to settle with any of their characters (unless they were interacting with Garona) which makes them more difficult. Maybe it's because they were trying to do too much, whereas the only Orcs really were Durotan and Gul'dan (Doomhammer was pretty much always with one or the other) as well as Garona and her development with the humans.

[FaxModem1]

For me, it's Blizzard's continued tearing up, spitting on, and then burning of the history they wrote that I read and enjoyed growing up. I don't play WoW and didn't Warcraft III. War I/II/IIx had some changes in tone between each, but taken together really meshed pretty well. War III compltely rewrote the book, WoW has since blown it up, this movie appears to have changed more.

Yeah, this sums up a lot of my feelings on it. I grew up with the story mostly of WC2, and Blizzard has steadily been crushing it under the heel of retcons because for whatever reason they don't like that the games existed or something. I don't know.

I get that this movie is its own universe, which is fine. But the setup for this universe is clearly leading to the version of Warcraft that I don't especially like, so...I'm really meh on it. There is some good stuff in there, I just don't know how to feel about the rest. I am curious to see what direction they go in for a sequel, if they do one.

Could you explain to casual movie goers like myself, who have only seen the film, what are the huge retcons that happened with the Warcraft lore?

[Me2005]

Could you explain to casual movie goers like myself, who have only seen the film, what are the huge retcons that happened with the Warcraft lore?

I'm not sure how accurately I can, since it's been years since I've read through the WCI/II/IIx manuals, I didn't pay a ton of attention to the WCIII/WoW story other than to know it's way different from WCI/II (and it's a huge moving target with WoW now), and I've not seen the film. However, here's some links:

WCI manual
WCII manual

Note that while these are technically game manuals, they're actually pretty fully-fleshed out stories.

Also, this is what I envision when I hear "Orcs and Humans":


From what I've seen of the trailers, the movie Orcs are big hulking monsters, making the humans feel much less like a reasonable match.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. Nine foot hulking roidasaurus orcs make the whole thing seem a bit silly, in the sense of "how is this even a fight?"

[RogueIce]

Could you explain to casual movie goers like myself, who have only seen the film, what are the huge retcons that happened with the Warcraft lore?

There are some things I prefer, like the timeline (Orcs were raiding for like 10+ years before the First War began in earnest) that bother me, but it's understandable they'd be changed for the movie. I don't hold that against it.

There's been a bunch as far as the games go...but depending on how they do the movies some of the more notable ones might count as spoilers, so I'll just reserve it to what would affect what we've seen in the movie:

1. Ogrim Doomhammer. In the movie, he's Durotan's buddy and a member of the Frostwolves. In the Canon, he's a member of the Blackrock clan, same as Warchief Blackhand. In the games, he's essentially the Player Character of the first game, and commands most of the important battles that they show us (from the Orc POV, at least; there are alternate Human and Orc campaigns and the endings are mutually exclusive). In the games, he is the one to kill Blackhand and take control of the Horde, because Blackhand was seen as weak/incompetent/the time was right. This would earn him the nickname "The Backstabber" and he goes on to lead the Orcs in the Second War.
2. Garona Half-orcen. Originally, she was half-Orc, half-Human and struggled a lot with that. In the games, because Blizzard decided to compress the timeline, she became half-Draeni, the natives of their homeworld and the creatures you see Gul'Dan kill to power the Portal at the beginning. In the movies, it's ambigious but she seems to be half-Human again (maybe?) and if that's the case good on them. The manner in which she kills Llane is different: in the games it was a curse by Medivh, a last act of vengeance as she, Lothar and Khadgar teamed up to kill him. He was murdered in his throne room, not on the field of battle. This is one of those places where the movie is different, but I honestly can go either way with it. It really depends on how they'd handle her character in Warcraft II (movie version, obviously).
3. The War itself. This one is a bit unclear, but basically the Alliance was not founded in Stormwind/Azeroth* because, well, Stormwind fell in the first games. And there's a definite break between conflicts as the survivors of Stormwind flee northward and then eventually the Orcs follow and thus begins the Second War. From the looks of it, there is no First/Second War divide and it's all just one War.

It's really a lot of characterization stuff, specifically within the Horde, but the sticking points (for me) could still occur in the second movie so I'll hold off on that in the off chance you'd care about potential spoilers for a potential movie that hasn't been announced yet.

*The is another retcon. Originally, in the first two games, the Kingdom we see (the blue dudes) was the Kingdom of Azeroth. They also named the whole world Azeroth, but for the first two games the Kingdom name stuck. Then they decided they didn't like that and renamed it the Kingdom of Stormwind, after Stormwind Keep (which it was then, the City reference came later) which sounds a lot less cooler or "fantastic" to me (compare to the other Kingdom names) so I prefer to call it the Kingdom of Azeroth and Blizzard can go fuck themselves.

[TheFeniX]

Yeah. Nine foot hulking roidasaurus orcs make the whole thing seem a bit silly, in the sense of "how is this even a fight?"

Warcraft humans can get fucking beefy. They run the full Earth human gambit of physical sizes, but even foot soldiers seem to be able to roid out through basic physical training, when that should really only make them lean. May have something to do with them being descended from Vykrul.

[FaxModem1]

[*]Garona Half-orcen. Originally, she was half-Orc, half-Human and struggled a lot with that. In the games, because Blizzard decided to compress the timeline, she became half-Draeni, the natives of their homeworld and the creatures you see Gul'Dan kill to power the Portal at the beginning. In the movies, it's ambigious but she seems to be half-Human again (maybe?) and if that's the case good on them. The manner in which she kills Llane is different: in the games it was a curse by Medivh, a last act of vengeance as she, Lothar and Khadgar teamed up to kill him. He was murdered in his throne room, not on the field of battle. This is one of those places where the movie is different, but I honestly can go either way with it. It really depends on how they'd handle her character in Warcraft II (movie version, obviously).

Personally, I thought from the energy flower scene, that Garona was the wizard's daughter from his earlier days when he went dimension hopping. It seemed to be what they were implying, at least.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. Nine foot hulking roidasaurus orcs make the whole thing seem a bit silly, in the sense of "how is this even a fight?"

Warcraft humans can get fucking beefy. They run the full Earth human gambit of physical sizes, but even foot soldiers seem to be able to roid out through basic physical training, when that should really only make them lean. May have something to do with them being descended from Vykrul.

In theory sure, but even very buff and muscular humans are at a disadvantage against orcs who are eight feet tall and four feet wide, comparable to the disadvantage faced by an eleven year old child trying to fight a normal adult.

Making orcs totally, absurdly massive does make a degree of sense, but I think I prefer the idea that they are of more or less human stature, with maybe some assistance from superhumanly large ogres and so on.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

I know that using game mechanics is not always the correct way to go, but while footmen and grunts (human and Orc basic infantry units) are equal in the first two games the grunt is much stronger and better than the footman in Warcraft III, the first game not to mirror the factions stat-wise.

So, orcs being larger than humans is fine in my book - oh and as for the movie, I loved it! Fun, action-filled and visually stunning! Sure they really didn't dive deep lore-wise, but doing it 'right' would require a LOTR setup of several long movies, rather than just making it an easily-digested popcorn flick.

Also Spoiler

the humans did get dwarven engineering aid to level the playing field, boomstick-pistols seemed to be standard issue towards the end, and several orcs were gunned down at range, before they got close enough to make good of their superior strength and size.

[Me2005]

I know that using game mechanics is not always the correct way to go, but while footmen and grunts (human and Orc basic infantry units) are equal in the first two games the grunt is much stronger and better than the footman in Warcraft III, the first game not to mirror the factions stat-wise.

The trouble here is that this is A) A bit of a retcon, and B) Kinda contrary to the whole idea of the Orcish Horde. They're portrayed as giant swarming rampaging war bands* and yet they have better individual units than the Humans? How is that even a close match? In the games' narrative, it feels like the Humans are vastly outnumbered, which would make them (well, the alliance as a whole) the better one-to-one fighters by necessity. That would play well with "roughly strongman-human-sized" Orcs, who are also portrayed as not utilizing a whole lot of armor (and nowhere near as high-quality armor or weaponry).

*The handful of clans who came through the portal are nearly able to beat back all the kingdoms of the world Warcraft is in. And not just the humans; elf, dwarf, troll, ogre, etc. - all either join up or are part of the alliance in the face of the mighty horde.

[RogueIce]

It's difficult to tell because of all the cuts and odd camera angles, but in the Warcraft III opening cinematic the Grunt doesn't seem all that much bigger than the Footman?



And while stat-wise the Grunt is stronger, the flavor text says this about the Footman unit, "Though these fierce warriors lack the shining plate mail and specialized training of their noble predecessors, they still fight with bravery and honor on the field of battle." So how much of their stat-based difference is due to any physical factors and how much is from dreaded Victory Disease and the Alliance being less battle-hardened than before is open to interpretation.

And that cinematic posted earlier in here didn't make the Orc seem all that much bigger than the Human either? But again it's hard to tell when they keep jumping around like that.

[TheFeniX]

The trouble here is that this is A) A bit of a retcon, and B) Kinda contrary to the whole idea of the Orcish Horde. They're portrayed as giant swarming rampaging war bands* and yet they have better individual units than the Humans? How is that even a close match? In the games' narrative, it feels like the Humans are vastly outnumbered, which would make them (well, the alliance as a whole) the better one-to-one fighters by necessity. That would play well with "roughly strongman-human-sized" Orcs, who are also portrayed as not utilizing a whole lot of armor (and nowhere near as high-quality armor or weaponry).

Going off some memory here: during WC3, humanity has been warring with itself for quite some time. The "Footmen" are mostly hastily trained civilians who aren't top of the line soldiers like they were in WC1 and 2. While still above Militia, they aren't exactly life-time soliders, more like conscripts and volunteers. They are cheaper and require less food than Grunts. I think they trained faster too, but it's been forever.

Knights are their tanky warriors and came out of the Barracks. It was more than a match than the Orc equivalent (Raider) and anything that came out of Orc Barracks. WC3 was much more about using your race advantages than relying on brute-forcing powerful units and winning mirror match-ups. Balls of Death were much less useful in that game than any other Craft title. Footmen were about holding the line while you got out more advanced units. Unlike Grunts who were useful in endgame. Footmen are too.... to soak up artillery and other such nonsense.

By the time of World of Warcraft, they pretty much have their shit together again. Aside from a few racial stat differences: a human Warrior is more than capable of slugging it out with an Orc Warrior. Footmen were in the same vein as well. You'd constantly see Alliance Footmen going 1-on-1 with Orc Grunts. Though, mostly gameplay/cutscene contrivance, this fits with WC1 and 2.

And yes, while physically a bit larger/wider than buff Warcraft humans, Orcs were never massive compared to humans until the movie.