[Movie] Warcraft (June 2016)

[Deleted]

To whoever is saying that critics are right and votes are positive because everyone who saw the movie is a Blizzard fanboy, I must tell you: Blizzard fanboys are extremely rare nowadays! Actually, it's very hard to please Blizzard gamers. Remember when MoP was announced? There were more haters than fanboys. Same with WoD now, everyone is saying the expansion is shit. Or D3, 90% of gamers think it's crap compared to D2. Or SC2, everyone is bashing the story. So, just because someone plays or used to play Blizzard games, it doesn't automatically mean they are a fanboy who's going to give the movie 10/10.

P.S.: still waiting for the boobs from a few pages earlier.

[sweter]

I was actually quite surprised at how full the cinema was on Monday at 4pm (ok, bank holiday) on a 2D screening and with people of all ages.

[Soulwind]

Today, Youtube recommended me this:

[Noobie]

P.S.: still waiting for the boobs from a few pages earlier.

We need them to effectively promote te warcraft movie ^_^

[Anduin94]

Glad to see one of the italian movie-blogs I trust the most gave a positive review for Warcraft.

[ravenmoon]

I think they are right the story doesn't quite hit home. The original story clearly painted the horde as the bad guys, and showed a much more human centric view.

I think they played the movie like they play the game...which is too skewed and doesn't work for a story. The game has tried very hard to balance the factions, it has had a near unbroken run of horde building up from TBC, Legion is the first that really comes out from that by focusing on the night elves in a neutral capacity ala WC3 style. And so they have tried to rebuild the original story in a balanced way I think is a mistake

Because the horde not been evil, is a huge revelation in WC3, that is only hinted at in WC1/2 by the actions of the orcs vs gul'dan. Then you get to find out the real reason behind their corruption. And I don't like the news that Thrall is going to play a major role in the following movies. He needs to be there ofc, and come out in WC3, but he is only a 3rd of the story, humans and the scourge is the bulk, night elves start half way through but carry on into TFT as a major part. but it sounds like their involvement is going to be quite minimal, cos your'e not going to have enough time to show everything.

I would have preferred they started by focusing on a character. Notice how in LotR, there is a slow build up, you see Frodo and co as very relatable characters, in a relatable setting, with only one odd thing, when you realize they're not quite human, being much shorter standing next to Gandalf. But all the relatable stuff builds character, builds humanity...before all the fantasy stuff comes full on.

I remember watching D&D -- and feeling the same thing as I did in warcraft. It looked amazing (at the time) but wtf is all of this, didn't understand any of the customs, things, circle of mages - no introduction to them, what they are what they mean, it just felt so ... out there. Same for Warcraft.

If they had started with maybe showing young Lothar and his sister, meeting young Llane, build them up a bit as the people you care for. You care for the Stark's in GoT, making Edward Stark's father's death quite emotional. It's not the same for Llane. While a lot more realistic and enjoyable, it doesn't a great movie make.

[Wilfred]

There is also Blackhand in the movie, but why he is not in the trailers???
Is he not that importatnt character for the movie??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/fullcredits/

[Tornwar]

There is also Blackhand in the movie, but why he is not in the trailers???
Is he not that importatnt character for the movie??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/fullcredits/

He IS in the trailers

[ravenmoon]

There is also Blackhand in the movie, but why he is not in the trailers???
Is he not that importatnt character for the movie??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/fullcredits/

he's there, not everything can be shown in the trailer, pls don't let that spoil it for you. He's there.

[Frozen Death Knight]

There is also Blackhand in the movie, but why he is not in the trailers???
Is he not that importatnt character for the movie??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/fullcredits/

He has a bunch of scenes where he is playing an active role in the movie. He does appear in the original trailer, but it's Gul'dan who is the main antagonist in the movie. They portrayed both Blackhand and Gul'dan really well in the film.

[Soulwind]

I think they are right the story doesn't quite hit home. The original story clearly painted the horde as the bad guys, and showed a much more human centric view.

I think they played the movie like they play the game...which is too skewed and doesn't work for a story. The game has tried very hard to balance the factions, it has had a near unbroken run of horde building up from TBC, Legion is the first that really comes out from that by focusing on the night elves in a neutral capacity ala WC3 style. And so they have tried to rebuild the original story in a balanced way I think is a mistake

Because the horde not been evil, is a huge revelation in WC3, that is only hinted at in WC1/2 by the actions of the orcs vs gul'dan. Then you get to find out the real reason behind their corruption. And I don't like the news that Thrall is going to play a major role in the following movies. He needs to be there ofc, and come out in WC3, but he is only a 3rd of the story, humans and the scourge is the bulk, night elves start half way through but carry on into TFT as a major part. but it sounds like their involvement is going to be quite minimal, cos your'e not going to have enough time to show everything.

I would have preferred they started by focusing on a character. Notice how in LotR, there is a slow build up, you see Frodo and co as very relatable characters, in a relatable setting, with only one odd thing, when you realize they're not quite human, being much shorter standing next to Gandalf. But all the relatable stuff builds character, builds humanity...before all the fantasy stuff comes full on.

I remember watching D&D -- and feeling the same thing as I did in wow. It looks amazing (at the time) but wtf is all of this, didn't understand any of the customs, things, circle of mages - no introduction to them, what they are what they mean, it just felt so ... out there. Same here.

If they had started with maybe showing young Lothar and his sister, meeting young Llane, build them up a bit as the people you care for. You care for the Stark's in GoT, making Edward Stark's father's death quite emotional. It's not the same for Llane. While a lot more realistic and enjoyable, it doesn't a great movie make.

GoT has ten hours per season to build up whatever they want as much as they want. Movies, even 3-hour long ones, have to achieve the same with a lot less time.

In the case of Warcraft, it seems they could have done a lot with just 15-30min more of character and world building, which may or may not have been part of the original cut. But considering Jones previous movies have a strong focus on characters, and Universal is known for action-oriented movies, it's not hard to believe the Director's Cut version would have been a better film, perhaps at the expense of some box office, as it would have had fewer total screenings.

There is also Blackhand in the movie, but why he is not in the trailers???
Is he not that importatnt character for the movie??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/fullcredits/

Perhaps you were looking for this



But in the movie he looks like this

[Deleted]

I think they are right the story doesn't quite hit home. The original story clearly painted the horde as the bad guys, and showed a much more human centric view.

I think they played the movie like they play the game...which is too skewed and doesn't work for a story. The game has tried very hard to balance the factions, it has had a near unbroken run of horde building up from TBC, Legion is the first that really comes out from that by focusing on the night elves in a neutral capacity ala WC3 style. And so they have tried to rebuild the original story in a balanced way I think is a mistake

Because the horde not been evil, is a huge revelation in WC3, that is only hinted at in WC1/2 by the actions of the orcs vs gul'dan. Then you get to find out the real reason behind their corruption. And I don't like the news that Thrall is going to play a major role in the following movies. He needs to be there ofc, and come out in WC3, but he is only a 3rd of the story, humans and the scourge is the bulk, night elves start half way through but carry on into TFT as a major part. but it sounds like their involvement is going to be quite minimal, cos your'e not going to have enough time to show everything.

I would have preferred they started by focusing on a character. Notice how in LotR, there is a slow build up, you see Frodo and co as very relatable characters, in a relatable setting, with only one odd thing, when you realize they're not quite human, being much shorter standing next to Gandalf. But all the relatable stuff builds character, builds humanity...before all the fantasy stuff comes full on.

I remember watching D&D -- and feeling the same thing as I did in wow. It looks amazing (at the time) but wtf is all of this, didn't understand any of the customs, things, circle of mages - no introduction to them, what they are what they mean, it just felt so ... out there. Same here.

If they had started with maybe showing young Lothar and his sister, meeting young Llane, build them up a bit as the people you care for. You care for the Stark's in GoT, making Edward Stark's father's death quite emotional. It's not the same for Llane. While a lot more realistic and enjoyable, it doesn't a great movie make.

I agree with you and disagree at the same time, but the way you want it to be is too long and it will require a trilogy for each war, because we have so many characters and so much to explain that it'll take forever. The best way is through a tv show but it's very expensive ) so i think they did the right thing with the movie.
P.S. They filmed the part with the relationship between Lothar, LLane and Medivh, it was cut at the begining of post-production

- - - Updated - - -

GoT has ten hours per season to build up whatever they want as much as they want. Movies, even 3-hour long ones, have to achieve the same with a lot less time.

In the case of Warcraft, it seems they could have done a lot with just 15-30min more of character and world building, which may or may not have been part of the original cut. But considering Jones previous movies have a strong focus on characters, and Universal is known for action-oriented movies, it's not hard to believe the Director's Cut version would have been a better film, perhaps at the expense of some box office, as it would have had fewer total screenings.

I hope the movie will do great and they will decide to spend some money to render all the scenes(like trolls atacking stormwind)

[Anduin94]

Just read the two very first italian reviews. One is happy about the film being decent (praising a lot Duncan Jones' directing especially), and the other one is enthusiastic. The comments to the second reviews are enthusiastic too (some of the commenters saw the movie too and agreed with the review).
Besides, in the local theater here there are already 84 booked seats, which is so good

[ati87]

So can somebody just give me a decent answer

as a general movie fan, should I just skip this and wait for the digital release or go the movies?

[jdbond592]

Do we have more box office numbers? Right now, that's the only thing going for this movie..

[Deleted]

BestEve just posted an interesting link on Reddit. Russian critics seem to like it:
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/277328/

Critics:
World (RT): 4 positive + 17 negative = 21 total (19% positive)
Russia: 9 positive + 2 negative = 11 total (82% positive)

User rating:
Russia: 8.244
IMDB: 8.1

[Soulwind]

So can somebody just give me a decent answer

as a general movie fan, should I just skip this and wait for the digital release or go the movies?

If you like Avatar, the MCU movies and other fun not-very-smart blockbusters, you'll like it. The CGI is amazing and the cinematography is excellent. The story is the worst aspect, and even then it's not terrible, just serviceable.

[Arrowstormen]

A lot of people have mentioned the "characters only drive the plot forward" thing, and while I don't entirely agree, it might be right. However, it is not wrong for a story not to flesh out its characters too much, or to not have them be the most important part of the story. That is a myth that has come from somewhere. Orson Scott Card once made something up he called the M.I.C.E. Quotient, where the letters stands for Mileu, Idea, Character and Event.

Mileu is stuff about the world, Idea is stuff about information in the story, Character is stuff about, well, character, and event is stuff about what happens in the story. Every story has each of those things in different ways and various degrees of them, but usually there is one that is dominant. For example, Lord of the Rings is a Mileu story, Inception is an Idea story, etc. Warcraft is a Event story with a strong secondary element of Mileu, where Character and Idea comes after those. And that's not necessarily bad. Some might prefer a different type of story, or might have wished that the Character element was stronger, but not being a Character story is not bad in of itself.

- - - Updated - - -

If you like Avatar, the MCU movies and other fun not-very-smart blockbusters, you'll like it. The CGI is amazing and the cinematography is excellent. The story is the worst aspect, and even then it's not terrible, just serviceable.

The story is pretty solid imo.

[Frozen Death Knight]

So can somebody just give me a decent answer

as a general movie fan, should I just skip this and wait for the digital release or go the movies?

If you want this movie to succeed your ticket will be more useful. Ticket sales will determine if Hollywood will keep investing in future movies, especially since video game movies have not been very profitable in the past.

I can at least tell you that if you like action, visual spectacle, fantasy, and magic this movie will not disappoint. It has its issues, but as long as you are not expecting a masterpiece of cinema, you will have a good time. The story is pretty simple to follow as well and it has some pretty fantastic moments scattered throughout the film. It's a good movie and a great popcorn action blockbuster.

[Soulwind]

A lot of people have mentioned the "characters only drive the plot forward" thing, and while I don't entirely agree, it might be right. However, it is not wrong for a story not to flesh out its characters too much, or to not have them be the most important part of the story. That is a myth that has come from somewhere. Orson Scott Card once made something up he called the M.I.C.E. Quotient, where the letters stands for Mileu, Idea, Character and Event.

Mileu is stuff about the world, Idea is stuff about information in the story, Character is stuff about, well, character, and event is stuff about what happens in the story. Every story has each of those things in different ways and various degrees of them, but usually there is one that is dominant. For example, Lord of the Rings is a Mileu story, Inception is an Idea story, etc. Warcraft is a Event story with a strong secondary element of Mileu, where Character and Idea comes after those. And that's not necessarily bad. Some might prefer a different type of story, or might have wished that the Character element was stronger, but not being a Character story is not bad in of itself.

The story is pretty solid imo.

I haven't seen the movie yet, it's released the 3rd here. But from my understanding, Jones tells these events and ideas through the characters. Instead of having a narrator or a bunch of text like Star Wars (terribly tacky in my opinion), he chooses to shape the world around Durotan, Lothar and Garona. Which is great, it's the kind of storytelling that elevates Warcraft, an otherwise generic fantasy tale with shiny visuals, into something a bit more unique.

However, unlike event-focused stories, if the audience doesn't connect with those characters, the whole thing becomes an unstable house of cards. That's why the lack of proper character and world building scenes at the beginning may have hurt this movie more than it would have others, because this is a character-driven story, one that's supposed to introduce you to two worlds and four or five different factions no less.

So it's not about what happens that may be boring, it's that what happens is seen through the eyes of people you may not have grown fond of.

And again, I haven't seen the movie and when I do, I'll do it through the eyes of a fan. None of this matters if you already know these characters and events, because you'll fill in the gaps. It's people who may not know enough about Warcraft, or fantasy in general, who may have trouble feeling immersed in this world.

I wish you dummies would get it through your heads that RT doesn't represent reviews from around the world. It's a US site aimed at US audiences. That means at most you get some English language reviews from other countries on there, but mostly US reviews. Metacritic is similar.

It doesn't even take into account non-written formats, such as podcasts and youtube reviews, which have been fairly positive from what I've seen.