First Warcraft Movie Review - SFX Magazine

[clevin]

In the closing credits, count the number of names you see. Those are folks who have a vested interest in seeing this movie exceed. Add to that all the investors who want a return. Disregard those who gave a high / low score after never seeing the movie yet.

You'll total 1k+ votes. The 8.8 IMDB rating is going to go down though. It always does, for any movie. It's an initial hook to trick people into spending $15 for a movie ticket. Younger movie watchers are their target. Older seasoned movie watchers are already familiar with advertising gimmicks / shenanigans / lies that have been going on before their own birth.

What's your point? None of those people can be said to have seen the movie in its final form (MANY will not have) and be credible sources of reviews.

[quras]

SNip...

More reviews will come in the next few weeks. This is just one. Not the best we wanted, nor the worst we feared. That picture may yet change.

I'm not shocked the movie is getting mediocre review.

They didn't cling to enough of the warcraft story that hooked people and left out to much that made "the beginning" interesting (and I've harped on that for a long time now with how they are damn near skipping over what made the orcs what they were in the beginning - demons and demon blood drinking).

Jones and company (and I'm sure with a bit of metzen thrown in there) they tried to warp the warcraft story into something else just because this is a movie. They hid behind it being an "adaption" but still couldn't get that right to a high enough degree to made it a decent movie.

It's another video game to movie thats sure to miss the point while you have to listen to catch phrases like, "It's a fan made film." or a worse phrase like the film makers have, "have passion in making this film." yet none of it good enough or didn't hit enough good spots for the fans while they changed or screwed up other parts hoping to grab the general audience.

So as a fan thats bad enough to see those changes. Then you see the acting problems and script issues mentioned. Thats a lot of issues to get around and good CGI can't save a movie from those issues.

[RobertoCarlos]

CGI should never be the focus of a movie. Sometimes you can sell the spectacle and that can work with films like Avatar/titanic but ahh..no one is impressed by more orcs after a lengthy lord of the rings movie run and similar CGI beasts in superhero films that saturate the market. How is warcraft different from someone who knows nothing about the world? There armor looks different and from the 80s? Is that hook going to work? Maybe, but I highly doubt it.

[Theendgamelv3]

Ridiculous comparison. Civil War has 8 core issues & about 100 tie-ins. There is literally no way to turn it into a faithful movie adaptation, even if you only focus on the 8 core issues (Civil War 01-08) & just the major characters' tie-ins (Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America) since that's still a minimum of 20 issues total. Regardless, even then you'd still be losing massive amounts of events occurring throughout in the background (tie-in issues) like Wolverine doing bla bla bla, & bla bla bla, while the Thunderbolts are bla bla bla, bla bla bla.

Besides the fact that Marvel doesn't even have the movie rights to the Mutants, & they haven't even introduced half the cast of Civil War in the MCU yet, that is.

Regardless, at least Captain America: Civil War actually adapts the source material in broad strokes. If you want to talk about one of the worst CBM adaptations of all time, Age of Ultron is the way to go. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the source material, but the only real connection between the Comic Book & the movie is Ultron itself. Other than that, the movie is its own thing completely.

They shouldn't call it Civil War then. They only took bits and pieces, nothing more, nothing less. Outside of a few things it is no where close to Civil War in the comics. Don't release a comic or a series of comic books telling how it happens and then release a movie telling how it happened differently. Don't have mutants or certain characters that are key to the plot, don't call it the same thing. Call it "Captain America: The Fall of the Avengers" or something. The argument you just made for Cap Civil War can be applied to the Warcraft movie. Is there a war between Humans and Orcs, yea. Is Garona and other major characters in there, yea. Is Gul'dan appearing to manipulate the Orcs into going to war, seems like it. Going by your logic, the Warcraft movie too adapts the source material in broad strokes. Ultimately we won't know what is in the Warcraft movie cause we haven't seen it yet, but I can tell you one thing, you're already wrong in one part, there are space goats https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...p4q6a6gewb.jpg

[Zenotetsuken]

Movie Critics are about the worst people to get movie reviews from...

I mean, the movie Snowpiercer was praised by most critics and it's the biggest steaming pile of trash I've ever seen (unless it's reviewed as a slapstick comedy stoner movie ... then I guess it's just below average, as far as that goes). I don't know if you could write a worse movie.

I feel the same way about Moon, which is why I have 0 faith or interest in the Warcraft movie.

[Zulkhan]

I'm not shocked the movie is getting mediocre review.

It wasn't you who openly claimed to trust the "general populace" over reviewers? I wonder to which excuse you'll cling upon if this, by any unfortunate chance, ends up to be your typical "blockbuster success" generally snobbed by the critics.

They didn't cling to enough of the warcraft story that hooked people and left out to much that made "the beginning" interesting (and I've harped on that for a long time now with how they are damn near skipping over what made the orcs what they were in the beginning - demons and demon blood drinking).

I understand you felt the irresistible desire to exploit this chance to push your unsubstantiated agenda on the matter (abundantly exposed as such already) but a bare degree of logical thinking suggests that adding further unresolved plot threads and important yet irrelevant characters to the main plot wasn't going to positively change the opinion of a reviewer who deemed the very presence of these things one of his biggest complaints, it was going to make it worse.

[quras]

It wasn't you who openly claimed to trust the "general populace" over reviewers? I wonder to which excuse you'll cling upon if this, by any unfortunate chance, ends up to be your typical "blockbuster success" generally snobbed by the critics.

IF you had actually read what I wrote you would see I take more of a middle ground of the two but thats asking a bit much of you I guess.

I understand you felt the irresistible desire to exploit this chance to push your unsubstantiated agenda on the matter (abundantly exposed as such already) but a bare degree of logical thinking suggests that adding further unresolved plot threads and important yet irrelevant characters to the main plot wasn't going to positively change the opinion of a reviewer who deemed the very presence of these things one of his biggest complaints, it was going to make it worse.

I felt the desire to tell my opinion on an opinion board. Pretty much same as you. Like I said, if you're going to tell the beginning, they should tell it as we have seen in game and read in the books. An omission of such a pivotal point in orc story and lore doesn't sit well with me. There are certain plot points that should not be skipped simple because this is a movie. Mannoroth and the demon blood drinking being a main one. It sets the entire stage and story on orcs for the next many years. Thats a pretty solid and understandable by any viewer on why the orcs do what they do from "the beginning" on out will redemption. About the only thing you've proved is you're willingness to accept a half assed story on orcs.

As far as unresolved plots go. Demons are one that should be unresolved in the first movie. They play too big a role to be omitted or changed to some back story because WTF it's a movie. Might as well have a Captain America "the beginning" and have nothing of the super soldier formula. It's poor warcraft story telling.

Given the other problems that are coming out about the movie no. It would be difficult at this point to change my opinion. However, it could have started off in a much better place had they got the story a bit more on par with what we know. Sure, its great to know some names and places in the movie but the they screw up the story whats the point. It never had to be 100% copy of book/game story to movie but shit they could have done better then this.

[Deleted]

They shouldn't call it Civil War then. They only took bits and pieces, nothing more, nothing less. Outside of a few things it is no where close to Civil War in the comics. Don't release a comic or a series of comic books telling how it happens and then release a movie telling how it happened differently. Don't have mutants or certain characters that are key to the plot, don't call it the same thing. Call it "Captain America: The Fall of the Avengers" or something. The argument you just made for Cap Civil War can be applied to the Warcraft movie. Is there a war between Humans and Orcs, yea. Is Garona and other major characters in there, yea. Is Gul'dan appearing to manipulate the Orcs into going to war, seems like it. Going by your logic, the Warcraft movie too adapts the source material in broad strokes. Ultimately we won't know what is in the Warcraft movie cause we haven't seen it yet, but I can tell you one thing, you're already wrong in one part, there are space goats https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...p4q6a6gewb.jpg

"Draenei Mother" - unnamed character played by an unknown actor with no resume. Oh great, Space Goats get a cameo appearance! - Assuming that thing is even real.

As I said though; there is literally no way to make a faithful Civil War movie adaptation. There's enough source material there to make an entire Mini-Series ffs, & there's no way Hollywood is going to give up on its time-old tradition of cashing in on established names, either. "Captain America: Civil War" automatically draws in more interest than "Team Captain America vs. Team Iron Man" or whatnot.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like how Marvel's playing fast & loose with anything & everything from Winter Soldier, Civil War, Age of Ultron, Infinity War, Ragnarok, etc. & I do agree they could have made far more faithful adaptations of at least some of their movies (& they generally screwed up with most of Phase 2), but I also accept it's impossible for them to make absolutely faithful adaptations of these, anyway. The MCU & the Comic Book Universe have always been two completely separate things, right from the very beginning, & besides that, there's another important factor to keep in mind; you can't compare Blizzard, who still owns the rights to every one of their characters, to Marvel, who sold off all their A-Listers in the late '90s to avoid bankruptcy.

Marvel, right from the beginning, cobbled together an Avengers line up based on what IP's they still possessed. I can guarantee you, if they had the rights to Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the "Mutantverse" etc, they wouldn't have started us off with a B-Lister like Iron Man, they'd have gone with Spidey or F4. From there, they'd have moved on to the X-Men, etc. & the Avengers would have been an afterthought, featuring a modified roster to the one we have now. This is how Pre-MCU Marvel was. Their primaries were Spidey, F4, X-Men, etc. & the Avengers, while major, weren't their "go-to" people.

Not to mention how the guy they put in charge of the MCU doesn't have a "redesign the characters into something else" agenda the likes of which Snyder & Metzen have, & that's another important thing. Marvel didn't compromise. "Alcoholism is unpopular? Who cares, do it anyway. It's a staple of the Tony Stark character, & we will make this adaptation faithful to him." Sure, "Iron Man (2008)" itself does take some liberties with the second half, but the first half is an excellent adaptation of his origins - updated for the 21st century (originally he was taken by VietCongs during the Vietnam War, so yeah, some changes were mandatory regardless of what).

If Blizzard wants to do the same thing as Marvel & DC (have a Movie Universe completely separate from the Comic Book Universe), that's fine, they're welcome to it, but they need to tread far more carefully than if they were adapting a Comic Book. CB fans are used to timeline reboots, character redesigns, etc. They know it comes with the medium. In turn, they know that their reaction to the redesign/reboot will affect/define the future of that particular character's Comic Book run (not to say the entire Timeline Reboot itself - see DC's New 52, for example). Hollywood/Blizzard however is far more arrogant than DC/Marvel, Blizzard in particular. They continue to develop WoW under the formula of "Blizzard knows best, so shut up & take it," & I have no doubt having them involved in the movie will likewise have similar consequences upon both "Warcraft - The Beginning" & the planned "Warcraft Cinematic Universe" as a whole. As such, until Blizzard proves they understand that they don't have the same maneuverability as Comic Books/Video Games (we're talking about different completely mediums, ridiculously different source material, & most of all, absurdly different fanbases - WoW fans are not very interested in seeing important things retconned "because Chris Metzen."), there's a lot to be concerned about.

Especially considering Hollywood's history with Video Game Movies.

In summary: You want to see a faithful Civil War adaptation? Wait until the day Fox signs the Mutants back over to Marvel, & then Marvel in turn launches a massive "Marvel TV Universe," because that's the only way that'll ever happen. Civil War is just way too big to be properly contained/framed into a single 2-3 hour movie. Hell, they probably couldn't even get it into a movie trilogy without cuts. It's just that big.