Looking back on the Warcraft Movie

[Clone]

To what end? Nothing happened in between those two points of any relevance. You would essentially be just making up lore for a period of time where nothing really happened and it would give next to no context as to what the warcraft series is about.

The original plan was to make a movie about how the Alliance and Horde relations deteriorated. It would also let people see a WoW they are more familiar with.

[Zulkhan]

They should have gone with the original way, humans living in Azeroth in peace and then out of no where orcs appeared killing them

Except that's precisely what the move gave you. The original game was never about focusing on one faction, it was always about playing both sides and learning the perspectives of both. The only difference of the movie with the original game is that the orcs in the latter were rather one-dimensional villains but all the movie did was adapting the most recent depiction of those events (Rise of the Horde, Tides of Darkness ecc).

Focusing on the human side entirely would have just meant going the LotR route. If you really had to choose a side then focusing on the orcs would have done wonders to show Warcraft as a real alternative to your average fantasy flick.

OT

I think a lot of good ideas were behind the movie but the ultimate execution has been half-assed to say the least. Who's most to blame is probably Universal and to a lesser extent Legendary, too afraid and definitely not trustful enough towards a project they tried to handle is such a "safe" way that it resulted completely botched in the end. Duncan himself mentioned about countless cuts he was forced to make and how these singularly may have looked like little stuff but once combined you realize your movie has become something it was not meant to be.

I honestly appreciated the idea to start with the First War, no need to waste further time with long ass exposition scenes trying to give the sufficient context to the audience in order for them to care and I thought the idea of showing both sides was absolutely on point and it even worked to an extent. But mere 2 hours was a too short runtime for a movie like this, it's the entry point for a potential cinematic universe, there's need of space to breath. If only the studio would have placed more faith in the project, they would have released the movie on December rather than summer and release it as a 3 hours long movie. Word of mouth would have been way more positive than what has been and the critics, while I doubt many of them would have wasted words of praise for the movie, wouldn't have tore it apart as they did.

One thing I definitely didn't like about the movie is, as some people said already, the young cast choices. Khadgar and Garona were "fine" but King Llane and Lothar felt out of place. The movie definitely suffered from the lack of the usual "wise old man" of the situation. I would have picked someone else for Medivh too, as much as I appreciate Ben Foster as an actor I think he wasn't the best choice for the role.

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The original plan was to make a movie about how the Alliance and Horde relations deteriorated. It would also let people see a WoW they are more familiar with.

It was still meant to tell the story from an Alliance-centric perspective, which would have been a grave mistake IMO.

[Otaka]

Uh no, little fanboy. Just no. One, no shit fel magic is demon magic. You think a non-initiated viewer knew that? Of course not. They have no idea what "fel" means, so it was a terrible dialogue choice. And arguing that the script was even remotely competent despite horrible dialogue, cheesy cliches, and infantile scene transitions establishes you as someone whose opinion is not to be trusted.

Christ, you probably liked the DOOM movie too.

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Sure. But that was NEVE EXPLAINED TO THE AUDIENCE. Any moviemaker worth a damn knows that they need to clue the non-initiated into what's going on. Otherwise non WoW players are gonna watch the movie wondering why green=bad with no understanding that it's DEMONIC magic that is corrupting these characters.

Thats because fel magic is quite unique for warcraft.... calling it demonic magic might make people think of something else theyve seen in another movie or franchise.
Fel is warcrafts evil magic... its better to ran with something that is unique to your story than go with something people have seen before. They do talk about it in a way that makes it sound bad... people arent stupid, most people can catch that tone and realize its not supposed to be good magic... unless a person is stupid like you and needs everything explained to them like a child who doesnt yet understand emotions and expressions.

You try to say my opinion is not to be trusted when you are simply saying this and that but not a single reason or example given... anyone could say about any movie that "it was bad" and not explain why and what made it bad, that makes their opinion invalid since their opinion is based on delusional reasons.
Especially yours since you seem to think your opinion is greater than anyone elses despite you probably not having ANY experience in script writing let alone movie production... i bet your opinions are highly affected by well known critics or websites like rotten tomatoes, so you just go with what they say and expect to be treated as an entitled movie expert.

Looking at your other aggressive posts about this it might seem you are the real fanboy here... the movie clearly wasnt what you wanted so now its supposedly the worst possible? unlikely...

Its easier to criticize than create after all, youtubers get to experience this first hand in the comment sections if youve ever been there.

[Gourmandise]

I just hope the skip the sequel and focus on a Netflix series of Arthas' downfall.

[Traveler Voltin]

Enough with the online only shit.

[Jshadowhunter]

I just hope the skip the sequel and focus on a Netflix series of Arthas' downfall.

Without introducing Ner'zhul, not bloody likey.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I can pretty much say there is nothing redeeming about the movie, at all. Lore deviations are ridiculous, CG looked awful, writing and pacing were terrible, and the actors seemed like they were on the set of a soap opera. In short, it basically is yet another video game to movie adaptation in line with all the other shitty video game to movie adaptations.

I kept my expectations very low, and still was disappointed by it.

[Zulkhan]

I can pretty much say there is nothing redeeming about the movie, at all. Lore deviations are ridiculous, CG looked awful, writing and pacing were terrible, and the actors seemed like they were on the set of a soap opera. In short, it basically is yet another video game to movie adaptation in line with all the other shitty video game to movie adaptations.

I kept my expectations very low, and still was disappointed by it.

I struggle to take seriously someone who starts his line of complaint with "lore deviations". That's an absolutely insignificant factor when it comes to judge an adaptation.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I struggle to take seriously someone who starts his line of complaint with "lore deviations". That's an absolutely insignificant factor when it comes to judge an adaptation.

I suppose you also struggle to read beyond a single complaint, because the rest of my post is hammering the movie on points that have absolutely nothing to do with the lore.

[Huntaer]

Warcraft should've been a series.

World of Warcraft could be. Every expansion could've been a season. Vanilla could even have been 2 or 3 seasons.

[My User Name]

World of Warcraft could be. Every expansion could've been a season. Vanilla could even have been 2 or 3 seasons.

Their budget could not handle races besides human&elf in a TV series.

[Al Gorefiend]

Their budget could not handle races besides human&elf in a TV series.

The best budgeted TV series do have some decent CGI. The newest season of Agents of Shield as an example.

But yeah TV CGI generally sucks.

[Syegfryed]

to me, the movie could have like 1-2 more hours, like LotR, was rly short

more gore scenes, and Ogrin as a blackrock orc, was stupid put him into the frostwolf

[Techno-Druid]

Their budget could not handle races besides human&elf in a TV series.

Honestly I would prefer to see an animated series on HBO or Adult Swim. I really appreciated Lord of the Clans, because it was able to show a darker side of Warcraft and I think I would like to see that carry over into an adult animated series.

Maybe that's just my weird preference.

[Hisholyness]

Honestly, I didn't like the whole... Youngening of characters. I understand them pretty much ignoring the whole Medivh-Sargeras-Khadgar plot, but Lothar, Medivh and Llane really felt wrong.

dont forget the creation of lothar's son simply to have him die

[Osmeric]

There should be a MST3K version.

[Zulkhan]

I suppose you also struggle to read beyond a single complaint, because the rest of my post is hammering the movie on points that have absolutely nothing to do with the lore.

You must have struggled to read my post to begin with as I much clearly wrote "starts his line of complaint with".

[Captain Kennedy]

Warcraft isn't great. But it's still a good movie. The biggest problem overall is the pacing. Duncan Jones said 40 minutes was cut, and my god does it feel like 25% of the movie was cut. We are simply thrown between scenes at such a rapid place it's sometimes hard to feel involved. You can tell there is good writing and performances underneath though when we get scenes like the cliff side camp. This film really needs an extended cut, and it look like we'll never get it. Jones says he's keen to continue the series but with less chefs in the kitchen. I really hope he gets a chance to make it right.

The other problems I have are small:

- Ironforge, given how much was cut, this should have been one of the first things. They easily could have moved the forge story wise to the Dwarven District in Stormwind. It's a pointless location that serves only as fan service and nothing else. It just needlessly complicates it for newer audiences. Even if the film was longer I'd still argue this point. Because this film bombards you with a lot of geography and anything that can be cut and simplified should be. Ironforge plays as much relevance in this movie as Quel'Thalas.

- Gul'Dan. The thing that bugs me isn't that he's Warchief, it's his strength. Gul'Dan is much more interesting to me as a frail character who is mighty because of his magic. But without it he's powerless. I just wish he didn't fight Durotan the way he did in the end, because he stood half a chance without his fel magic. Now I know some will say "well the only reason he's beefed up is because of the Fel", but when you look at this movie alone, you don't ever get the feeling he was - at some point at least - a frail and physically weak character. That to me is an essential part of who Gul'Dan is. And the film doesn't depict that in any fashion.

- Lothar's Son. Whilst he's pretty universally disliked as a character and plot, I understand Jones' reasoning for this. I just don't think it was required to accomplish what he wanted. At the heart of the Warcraft film, are stories of fathers and their children. Durotan & Thrall. Lothar & Callan. Medivh & Garona. Llane & Varian but too a much lesser degree. And Khadgar has no relationship with his parents. This is what he intended and obviously also ties in heavily to his own relationships, with his father dying and his first child about to be born. I feel this could have easily have been accomplished by focusing on D&T and M&G, with a bit more L&V if you wanted. Lothar doesn't have to be a actual father in order to tell a story about fathers and their relationships to their children.

I think a more interesting route would have been Lothar losing his wife and child to the Trolls or some other war before the film even begins. The way he deals with this is having a strong relationship with Varian, his best friend's son. And eventually during the story forming a strong bond with Khadgar, who is established as being given up by his parents and shamed by the Kirin Tor to the point where he can't face them. This was a perfect opportunity to have a father-son esque bond in two characters who don't have those relationships. That to me would have been far more interesting and offer something different from the other characters. That family isn't just blood, it's what you make it. It's a simpler, yet more interesting way to do it IMO.

- Lothar & Garona. Just pointless and doesn't seem like it was ever going to go anywhere.

[Deleted]

They shouldve just started with the Lich King. The Orcs vs Humans plot was boring and uninteresting.
A trilogy in which you follow Arthas from a young age to becoming a paladin, to becoming a Death Knight to eventually becoming the Lich King and being defeated.

With a story like that, you have both fans and people that are unfamiliar with Warcraft happy.

Oh yeah, the cast was also very bland and acted like they were in a tv movie.

[Zulkhan]

They shouldve just started with the Lich King. The Orcs vs Humans plot was boring and uninteresting.
A trilogy in which you follow Arthas from a young age to becoming a paladin, to becoming a Death Knight to eventually becoming the Lich King and being defeated.

With a story like that, you have both fans and people that are unfamiliar with Warcraft happy.

Not really. Arthas may be a fan favorite but is not important enough to waste a franchise's potential over his story alone, moreover if someone considers all the fuck ups they had to do to focus on Arthas' story while discarding everything else. Despite the glaring flaws, I would choose what we got over something like that every day of the week.