Nothing is perfect, but how faithful is the Warcraft movie to the source games? What was done right? What did they mess up? Welcome to Games on Film, a new series where we find out just that.
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00:00 - Intro
01:20 - A Long Time In the Making
08:00 - Quick Plot Synopsis
09:54 - The Good
21:07 - The Bad
29:10 - Adaptation or Bastardization?
32:41 - Stand Alone?
35:14 - The Future & Outro
#warcraft#movie#review#gamesonfilm#videogamemovies#adaptation#warcraftmovie
Yes, I agree that Garona is half Draenei in the games. But in the new "cinematic canon" she is not. She is half human, and Medivh is her daddy. Don't shoot the messenger. What other tv shows/movies should be added to the series? Thanks for watching everyone. Love ya
I have heard conflicting perspectives on the Ratchet and Clank film from a few years back, that’d be interesting to see covered
Detective Pikachu.
Hey! I just asked if you covered TV shows in the comment section of another video and then you release this! Haha Was wondering if you could cover David Xanatos from Gargoyles or maybe Megabyte from Reboot. Keep up the great work man
What about the Tomb Raider movies? Seems like that could fit your channels niche maybe?
Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat (all three), Silent Hill, Sonic, Another series you could try is the opposite concept. Movies with Video Game adaptations. Some of them are quite good.
my grandfather took me to this movie because he knew i liked the game. that alone is more than enough to like this movie
My dad watched it because he remembered back in the day when id play wc2, he enjoyed it, and i didnt mind slugging through it with him. It could have been decent with a few changes.
Aw man this made me remember that my Grandpa really like warcraft as well. He used to keep this promo poster for Warcraft 3 on the door to the computer room. I don't think he ever played but he always said he likes the look of the green guys. I thought the movie was fucking awful but thank you for bringing this memory back to me.
My grandpa watched the movie with me even when he can't tell the difference between a videogame and a tv show or movie He is no longer here, but i'll always remember that he liked medivh
my grandpa took me to see this and he touched me in theatre. hes gone now, but I'll always remember how his big wrinkly hands felt on my body.
@@auto1nfanticid3 I almost shit myself to death laughing at this.
This movie is SIX YEARS OLD? My god I can feel my decrepit flesh and withering bones.
that's crazy. I had the total opposite vibe. I was SHOCKED to hear that this movie is ONLY 6 years old. I really thought this came out right after I left highschool, well over a decade ago.
Get some lotion sam..San... that's not normal. Meant to tell you
Dude I went to an antique store the other day and found a set of Ninja turtle bowls i had growing up. That was a shot in the groin of age.
And it doesn't even feel like 6 years either. Man it sucks how fast the years go by.
I feel you man. I can hear my knees crack the movie came out when i was 20 ffs
"All the good writers went to team orc" Me: hmmm, kinda like most servers in WoW...very immersive. on a side note, can't believe how many years it's been since the first warcraft game, I can still remember going home from school then playing warcraft or chip's challenge, kinda sad what's happening to the story and the game.
Dude chips challenge is GOAT bummer
As much as I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Warcraft movie, I definitely would not want to see a sequel in collaboration with the current writers at Blizzard
Yeah no thanks
What's wrong with Christie Golden? Because I'm very confident she would be involved with the writing process as the current writer of Warcraft books. I'd say most of the problematic "core" have gone recently, will there never be problems? No, welcome to life, there'll always be assholes. In every company. Everyone raves about FromSoftware games, have you seen their company practices? It's a terrible place to work. We still have Ubisoft, EA, Riot, and this is just the video game world of bad acting companies. Wait until you know what happens in others out there. Are things improving globally? Absolutely, but there's still a long way to go.
God no.
I wouldn't even trust Steve Danuser with writing a grocery list.
@@coconutz11 he'd put the dumbest shit on there just because it's "unexpected"
the human side was definitely what dragged the movie down, kirin tor, lothar romance, llayn's extended family, it didn't need to be this way but was anyway. pointing out there are no old people is spot on I think, were prepared to suspend our disbelief viewing the alien orcs, any thing can go really, but the humans are just regular dudes in big armour with a mix of edgy and awkward game of thrones dialogue, it doesn't work when theres no badass old dudes to pass on the torch with dark tidings of winter
The problem is that the plot was too complicated for a random viewer and too retconned for a Warcraft universe fan. Trying to appeal both to fans of the franchise and to people, who never had anything to do with it failed epicly. Reminds me of the Dungeons and Dragons movie from many years ago, with the only difference of the budged for special effects in WC.
What really dragged it down was that a screen adaptation of warcraft cannot successfully be done as monolithic cinema pieces for large arc plotlines for a general audience. The best you could hope for would be like Avatar where the background is taken as a semi-mysterious given and you go right into a specific conflict and resolution without much general exposition. It could have been a success if it went with a 10-12 part hour long show ala GOT, Vikings, witcher, mandalorian etc, and then have one or more cinematic releases focused on either culminations of plots or transitions between plots. You do the background character/world building in series as a run up to one of the large confrontations/events, the movie focuses on the exciting/tragic/mysterious event; OR the series deals with a whole arc and then a movie transitions from one arc to another, then back into a series. There are simply too many characters, too much lore, too much world building and exposition to fit coherently into a movie to ultimately care about the world or the characters or their choices within it. Ex: 10 part series about the corruption of arthas and the beginnings of the plague, then a movie about the culling of stratholme and the aftermath. Likewise a series and movie about the defias or bolvar or thrall pre warchief could be engaging and have themes that are relatable to general audience in the trappings of high fantasy. Sacrifice, betrayal, revenge, subterfuge, abuse, reconciliation, etc. They could also use such series and movies to finally rectify and deconvolute the various story changes over time and cement certain aspects of lore going forward in the game space, which is a total fucking mess at this point.
Have you ever considered attending a public elementary school in order to improve your written communication skills beyond that of a toddler?
@@ahall9839 this is KZhead bro, save communicating clearly and concisely for the job your application to taco bell
@@l.p.7585 So... that's a no?
As a die-hard Warcraft lore fan, this movie was so weird for me. You mentioned Alodi and how confusing that was, but that character's presence was even more confusing from a lore perspective. A man, long dead with his only legacy being the Council of Tirisfall, is showing up in a storyline that has nothing to do with him as...a cube? With an old lady inside? Why did they not use Aegwynn, you know, Medivh's mother and the character whose confrontation with demons directly led to the corruption of Medivh and thus the opening of the Dark Portal? Make the cube a magical artifact of her own design, drop one sentence of exposition to explain it, and bam! You have a much stronger connection with Medivh and a real reason for the character to be aware of Medivh's fall. Moreover, why was Dalaran flying? The only reason Dalaran flies in WoW is because they needed to move the city to Northrend to fight the Lich King in Wrath. If Dalaran is flying, that implies they moved it for some important reason. But that reason was never addressed so it just raised needless questions regarding the lore, distracting from the main plot. And the largest travesty of all was the lack of a strong relationship between Medivh and Khadgar. In Warcraft and in WoW, Khadgar's character is burdened with the responsibility of living up to the legacy of his mentor. There's a whole book, "The Last Guardian" devoted to building the relationship between the two characters as master and apprentice. Elements of this book are present in this movie, with Medivh opening the Dark Portal, being corrupted by demonic influence, and the last showdown in Karazhan. But the two main characters of the book barely get any time together to build the relationship which is so crucial to Khadgar's actions in the future. It was a huge missed opportunity, and they really should have used the time from Lothar and Garona's half baked romance to instead focus on Khadgar and Medivh. Overall I wasn't disappointed in the movie, I was just confused. Between the breakneck pacing and just the random, unnecessary lore changes, I had a hard time actually engaging fully with the movie. That said, I still was interested to see where they would take the story in the future, and I'm sad that they seemingly haven't moved forward with more movies since then.
Also if they tried to continue the rts story the attack on dalaran in the next generation had to be modified if not cut off entirely
I agree the crappy romance should have been replaced with a friendship arc between Medivh and Khadgar. Especially since in Warcraft 2 Khadgar comes into his own and is one of the most powerful Mages who is tasked with destroying the Dark Portal.
Dalaran flying was the thing that annoyed me the most. It’s like they wanted to skip to the end without realizing all the cool bits are in the beginning and the middle.
Chill down freak, you make 0 money here go write books
@@ligmabouls yuck
That was excellent. Orcs were definitely tops but yes, they needed way way more dwarves- ha! Keep it up, man. You're killing it!
aye thanks man, been watching you for years. appreciate the kind words!
Rock and stone!
Kinda hate how they're the size of ogres though. When that one orc lifted the horse over his head... Extra dumb.
Hell yeah Dwarf Niggas up in some shit!
Wow i watched your DF videos years ago...what a coincidence. Glad to see your channel grew. Keep it up man.
Despite all the bad in this movie, it is still one of the best video game movie adaptations that have been made. Granted, thats not a very high bar to clear, but we need some moderate successes to show that there is potential.
And now, Mario and sonic
Better than Resident Evil and Hitman?
@@TeacherDoug7 they made a hitman movie?
@@lazyliongames6660 "They made a hitman movie?" made me laugh out loud (fair enough if you genuinely didn't know, it didn't make a big impact)
@@TeacherDoug7 Resident evil movie adaptation is shit bro, like all off them.
For me This movie released little bit late.İmagine they releasing to movie between 2007-2010.When Wow hype was at peak.Also I was expecting Arthas story as live action.He was an interesting and relatable character can pull general audience to this world.
Too bad they botched Arthas in WoW. Not only did they just kill him off like any other raid boss, they kept hinting at his redemption throughout WotLK's quests. Then they added insult to injury by having Uther the Lameass throw him into nothingness, totally disregarding the emotional turmoil that was Arthas' story as though Arthas was just the most purely evil person in all of Warcraft, when obviously he wasn't.
The visual qualities of this movie needed the time which ultimately is why the visuals are so great.
@@TheAustinKendall Looks about as good as Avatar. I think they could have done it way sooner. Especially with the budget they had during the most popular days.
I discussed this with my friends who had only played WoW after we saw the movie on cinema and the thing about the Arthas's story is there's quite a bit of backstory to his whole arc. If you kick off the movie from Warcraft 3's starting point you dont know why orcs are on Azeroth, who is the Burning Legion, who is this Nerzhul guy the undead talk so much about, who is Medivh, who is Thrall and why he is so important. Sure you could try to make a shortened recap because Arthas can hold most of the story together, but you skip over 2 entire games worth of story. There's also the timeframe issue, how much of Arthas can you fit in one movie?, does it include the best parts of his story?. A movie might at best get to when Arthas turns into a DK, or maybe up to when he resurrects KT, and even then you're missing out on the whole Frozen Throne part of the story which is where most of his characterization as a Death Knight happens. There's also the whole Archimonde thing going on along with Arthas's story in WC3 and then we also have to include Illidan in the Frozen Throne storyline Adapting Warcraft 1 was a good idea specially with how it lined up well with the upcoming expansion at the time Warlords of Draenor, introducing many of the older characters that would be present on the MMO and also being a logical start point for the game's story. Even with WC1's story being rather short in comparison to WC3, the movie feels too fast at times and its hard to keep up with everything going on if you're not familiar with the whole setting. Arthas's story would have been far worse for people unfamiliar to the story without the slower pace of a videogame dozens of hours long allowing newcomers to learn about the universe.
@@arforafro5523 Dude İt's not a bad thing to establish story if it is done well.İn Warcraft movie Human kingdom was most boring story ever.Everyone agrees Orc story way more interesting than human.When King died in the end I didnt care less.İf we had an interesting human character like Arthas we could pull to story and wait for next movies.And I agree a simple text of explanation would be enought for new comers with this way people could dive to old games .Now unf series end before start. :(
I honestly feel like with the amount of talent blizzard has behind their in game cinematics etc, its a real shame they haven't made anything like league of legends Arcane yet. Azeroth is so rich and interesting and cool and they are absolutely capable of making something awesome out of it
Lol 100% must be a Gen Z to say something so stupid
Because even if show is popular like arcane is lost of money, riot lost alot of profit working on arcane instead of giving players just new skins
@@timotejlovrec9029 Pretty sure Arcane netted Netflix a top 10 spot for streamed services each episode that came out. That means 10s of millions of viewers. Netflix made the financial investment, not Riot. Ergo, LOL lost no real money, and gained massive positive advertising for 9 weeks straight. Given that Arcane is already guaranteed a second season, I think Riot is happy with the development.
@@looking4themountain im sure blizzard could manage to pull off a similar deal with netflix or amazon. Although given their recent controversy id say theyd have to wait for their rebranding to go through before any such deal would be struck.
@@timotejlovrec9029 fuck is wrong with your thinking? Arcane is one of the most successful animated series in the last like 4-5 years, there's literally no money to be lost here, only earned.
Man this movie would have been so damn good if the human story was a little bit closer to the quality of the orc perspective.
The Humans were so lame...The Orcs made me cry.
They got movie actors for the orcs and borderline tv actors for the humans, and it really showed on screen.
One of my gripes is that they never really explained anything about the origins of Fel magic. Not once do I recall them mentioning demon or anything like that, so Medivh suddenly turning into a demon at the end of the movie caught people a bit off guard. As a fan of the series, I knew what was up. I already knew that Medivh was possessed by Mega Warcraft Satan, but some of the people I know who aren't into the series were left scratching their heads as to what Fel magic even is and why Medivh got all spikey all of a sudden. Really, as much as this movie was primarily for fans, they could have done with more world building.
They mentioned a demon to him that talked with gul'dan While someone into warcraft can recognize who it was the plot just left it there I wonder if they left some stuff on the air because they wanted a sequel...
Yeah that was on of my biggest gripes too. They had to do changes there because of China. They could not talk about blood of Mannoroth etc. And they probably also decided to dumb it down further by not including another name like Sargeras.
Wow, okay. You guys need to take a beginner's class to writing. You also need to brush up on Warcraft's story, and I don't necessarily mean the full extent of the lore. Now prepare for a wall of text. The movie depicted the events of the First War. Names like "fel," "Sargeras," "Mannoroth," etc. didn't become relevant until the Third War. In fact, Blizz didn't finalize their concept of "fel" until well into WoW; that's something old school players remember because there was a lot of confusion back in the day over "hellfire" and "fel fire." It's also why warlocks and the Burning Legion were associated with voidwalkers, because it wasn't until later lore that Blizz separated "the void" from "The Twisting Nether," making it an isolated thing more associated with the Old Gods and shadow priests, despite warlocks retaining voidwalker pets. Characters like Sargeras and Kil'jaeden were just footnotes at the time of Warcraft 2, while Archimonde and Mannoroth hadn't yet been created. Adding to the lack of refinement, the quel'dorei were originally depicted with a lunar motif in their debut in Warcraft 2, hence why the capital is "Silvermoon," before Warcraft 3 saw the invention of the night elves, prompting a retconning of the quel'dorei (and later sin'dorei) as having a solar motif, despite retaining the city name. Now, this movie's writing is obviously following much of that revision, but you still need to realize what the *story* is conveying. In the First War, humans had virtually no concept of the Burning Legion and demons, and Medivh was in no way inclined to share that confidential information. Medivh originally didn't even know he was possessed, let alone by whom. The Old Horde didn't even know much about the Burning Legion, its leadership, and its full machinations; the Legion had a habit of appealing to those they corrupted through lies and misinformation. Both Ner'zhul (who should've been depicted as the head of the Shadow Council) and his apprentice Gul'dan didn't even fully understand what they were dealing with until the events of the Second War, by which time Ner'zhul tried backing out while Gul'dan was only further seduced. They were given limited power, which in the First War was mostly depicted with necromancy, as their casters were necrolytes, not proper warlocks. Most of the Alliance's initial information regarding the Legion would be learned by Khadgar in the Second War, and then at greater length as a result of the Legion's invasion during the Third War, where the Legion's leadership became more well known. So neither side would know anything about the origins of fel at this point. We could argue that someone should know about Sargeras because of the later story involving Aegwynn defeating his avatar in Northrend and turning Suramar's Temple of Elune into the Tomb of Sargeras, but that sort of information would've likely been highly confidential, not to mention it wouldn't suggest that Aegwynn and the Council of Tirisfal would know all the relevant information. Aegwynn was a very vain person, not inclined to share her secrets, at that. If Medivh knew anything, he was constantly being controlled by Sargeras, so there's no reason why the titan would want any information leaked if those upon Azeroth were largely ignorant and he had an invasion planned in the near future. Now, from a writing perspective, none of that information is relevant to tell to the audience in the first outing. Why would it be? Information provided in films typically have to be plot-relevant; I don't mean, "They're fighting against fel, so they should know about it." I mean, the only purpose the origins of fel serves in a film script is if there's an effort to neutralize it. If they neutralized fel in the first film, it removes it as a threat in later installments. If fel can't be neutralized, then there's nothing for its explanation to be included. Film writing hinges heavily upon Set Up and Pay Off. If you're going to tell the origin of fel, it needs a viable pay off later in the film. If you're just going to tell the audience its origins just so they know, then you'll end up with an audience who knows something that doesn't actually matter, because knowing it doesn't do anything for them except to burden them with excess information. Likewise, name dropping significant characters who aren't appearing in the film doesn't help the audience, because they're just goofy names that mean nothing to those unfamiliar with the lore. The best way to introduce that information is in later installments, if this movie had succeeded enough to merit more. Most anyone in the audience unfamiliar with the story could obviously tell that the neon green magic is evil because the bad guys are using it (see: "Visual Cues"). So you do the First and Second Wars where the Alliance fights against the Horde's warlocks and felsworn, cementing that neon green magic is bad, and in the third movie where the Legion invades, you have a mage character exposit the information surrounding it because the audience is going to see the demons actually emerge, particularly the big names like Archimonde and Mannoroth. So your need to have that information added for the sake of the uninitiated in the audience doesn't help them, it just sates your need to be the loremaster they can all refer to when they ask for more information. Which, honestly, isn't likely to happen. If they didn't play the games and they were hit with all the unique terminology of the story, they're probably still not going to care because it will just sound like gibberish to them. You're just going to sit there feeling smug because you know it all, but they won't care to ask, deflating your little ego boost.
@@mallios13 Are you serious? You don't think the side that actively used warlocks, plural, during the first war... The side that willingly drank demon blood to gain their iconic green skin (which they had long before the invasion of Azeroth) would know the origin of Fel magic? Look, it doesn't matter how condescending you sound, it doesn't make you right. Maybe you should brush up on your Warcraft history: News flash, Stormwind City burns to the ground at the end of the first game, and the "alliance" is forged by King Terenas in Lordaeron. There are *many* revisions and just inconsistencies in this movie. And if you think it would have been bad writing for Durotan or Doomhammer to at least offhandedly mention "that demon and his fel magic" or how the "Blood of Manneroth" has corrupted their people... Well, maybe you're not as good at writing as you seem to think you are.
@@mallios13 Ad hominem and being condescending does not make you right. The horde first drank the blood of Mannoroth before the fist invasion. Also Medivh's possession by Sargeras is revealed during the events that lead to the battle with Garona, Khadgar and Lothar (I also hate that they did not show that Khadgar aged significantly during the fight). Alodi also had nothing to do with this story. It was Aegwynn that appeared on the visions. The lore might have not been complete during the initial release of the games, but that means nothing. Why would they choose to adapt an incomplete version that could lead to inconsistencies? As for "Set up" and "Pay Off", not everything is about it. Sargeras is one of the biggest villains of the WoW universe. And you are claiming that his name is "irrelevant" and just information? Including him makes huge sense as world building.
I wish that this movie was more focused on the orcs and their time dreanor. I would have loved to see a movie centered around Gul'Dan betraying the orcs, turning them to the burning legion and ending the movie off when they get to azeroth, I feel like there's enough story there for a whole movie and enough characters to get people involved. I think it would be a harder sell to non fans but I think it would have made for an overall better movie
Yep. It should really have been a "Rise of the Horde" adaptation. Nerzhul getting tricked by KJ and Guldan betraying him and creating the Horde wohld have set up a great universe for sequels up to and through the Lich King
@@ac833 my thoughts exactly! They had like 3-4 movies worth of content right there, and REALLY strong story too
I love this movie! I really wish they’d do a w2.. or jump to the w3 story. Honestly surprised it’s not a tv series at this point… that’d be so good
Sell some rights to hbo, netflix or disney for the series adaptation
Seeing how the massacred my boy Master Chief, I'd rather not
The best thing they could have possibly made was the story of Arthas joining the silver hand, except make him around 11 when it happens instead of the lore accurate 19. We get to set up the famous WC3 Arthas story, we introduce important characters for the universe like Jaina, Varian, uther, Muradin, King Terenas, etc. And we get the added benefit of exploiting what I call the "Harry Potter effect" by having arthas be a kid and making kids fantasize about growing up in this universe. We could also make Arthas' arc about learning to weild the light and falling in love with jaina, by showing arthats being a troublemaker with Varian in the beginning of the movie, and king Terenas deciding he needs a harsher disciplinarian than Muradin. Arthas becomes a pupil of Uther (we make him very intimidating), and he follows his tutor into a mission where he might learn to weild the light and maybe prove himself worthy to be a squire of the silver hand. Oh, and on the same mission is an "exchange student" by the name of Jaina Proudmoore, by whom Arthas is immediately smitten. Arthas tries very hard to make her like him, and all the while half-assing all of Uther's teachings, but Jaina, while being sensitive to his sense o humor, finds him too brash and repulsive. After a stern talking to by Uther, Arthas decides that he would use the night to ride Invincible back to Lordaeron and leave Uther and Jaina behind, like the bratty teen he is. Except that once he gets far enough, he gets lost and a group of orcs finds him. He rides Invincible as far as he can in a very stressful chase scene and narrowly escapes them, but while looking behind him, he misses a ravene and falls in it. He wakes up the next morning all bruised and battered. Invincible is completely broken and is slowly bleeding to death. The young prince is completely distressed. His voice cracks as he screams to Invincible to hang on. He remembers. Uther had tried to teach him a basic healing spell with the light. Arthas wants to use it, but he has no idea how, he tries to remember the incantations, but he can't recall them for the life of him. Invincible is drawing his last breaths, Arthas screams at him to stay. It's no use. Fade to black as Arthas screams and cries on his dead carcass. It's the next morning. Arthas is still passed out. Uther and Jaina finally find him in the ravine, and Uther rappels down its side to get the young Prince and get him back up. Arthas later wakes up next to a fire with Uther and Jaina tending to his wounds. He sees Jaina's face first. There is obviously a bit of relief on his face, but it cannot overtake the deep sorrow he feels. He slightly turns his face and sees Uther using the light and also some water to relieve the pain where his his wounds used to be and only a scar lays now. He locks eyes with him. Uther has a stern and harsh look in his eyes, but the rest of his face remains calm. Arthas looks at him with a great sense of sorrow, shame and guilt. He can keep up only for a fe seconds before e starts tearing up and looks away. Neither of them say a word. After a while Uther gets away to forrage for some food. Arthas sits next to the fire whith his elbows on his knees. Jaina approaches and asks if he's alright. He looks at her for a sfond before breaking down in tears as she tries to comfort him. He blames himself for what happened and says that he should have been able to save invincible. This scene being the first where Arthas and Jaina show any sense of meaninful bonding. Fade to Arthas sparring with Uther and showing some actual dedication this time. Throughout this training, Uther tells him how the light works and teaches him that only if he has faith in the righteousness of his actions can he muster the power of the light. The young prince still cannot do it, but he shows some promise. Later, they reach a village that was on their path, but instead of finding a welcoming population with a cozy inn for them to stop at, they find the entire village decimated. It would seem the group of orcs they had set out to fight pushed further into the kingdom of Lordaeron than they had expected them. After the trio does what they can to help shelter, heal, and feed any survivors left, they prepare to go meet the group head on. Arthas is very touched by the sight of his people in such a state, and the pleading words of the old women and young children who ask their prince for help fills him with a sense of responsibility and resolve. Uther tells Arthas and Jaina to leave any heavy load they couldnt use in combat, as he does so himself. It is time to hunt some orc. The trio ends up finding a cave system where they have set up camp, and once Uther devises a strategy, they all decide to follow it. At first, the plans works perfectly and everything goes according to plan, but Arthas and Jaina end up separated from Uther and unable to regroup with him. Arthas and Jaina are surrounded by more orcs than they can handle, and while they fight as valliantly as they can, Jaina gets gravely wounded. As the sight of Jaina bleeding and falling to the ground, the young Arthas gets a second wind of energy and manages through great struggle to defeat all the orcs that were still around them. Afterwards, Arthas runs to Jaina, dropping his sword and taking her in his arms. She whispers with her eyes barely open: "It hurts... It hurts too much..." Arthas cries, and promises he will save her. Though he was close, hehas yet to learn how to properly use the healing spell. He tries it and fails. He tries again. A little spark of light leaves his fingers, but no more, as Jaina tries to talk again. She whispers: "Arthas?... Is it over?... I see only darkness before me..." He stars shaking, clearly distressed. He lost a loved one to his incompetence before and he couldn't stand to have it happen again. He calls her name and she doesn't answer. He calls again, louder and louder as he screams a last Jaina. With his scream, light starts emanating out of him, light sparks seeping out of the openings in his armor. The music swells, and we see the sparkles flowing towards Jaina until the entire cave is filled with light, and then starts to fade back out while he collapses, unconscious, with jaina still in his arms. Fade in. He opens his eyes. He is in a bed. It is not as regal as what he is used to, but it is the most comfortable he has ever laid his back on. The window is open, the sky is bright blue. There are birds chirping. He jumps up, remembering about Jaina and the cave, when he sees Uther standing at the end of the bed, looking at him with a proud look on his face. "Jaina?!", asks Arthas, visibly worried. Uther points to his left with his chin. Arthas looks. She is on the bed beside his. He looks back at Uther with an uncertain smile on his face. "You saved her", says Uther. "She wouldn't have lived if it weren't for you". Arthas jumps from his bed and hugs Uther who laughs and says "I wasn't done, I found some surviving prisoners in the cave. So, in effect, you didn't just save Jaina. You played a part in saving all those villagers." As he finishes these words, Jaina wakes up. Arthas runs towards her andtakes her in his arms. As she realizes, what is going on, she hugs him back. Uther looks up in amusement and says "Hey kids, you might want to come over here.", as he opens the door. On the other side are villagers who, as soon as they see the young royals awake, jump from their streets and sing the praises of their young saviours, mostly their own prince young Arthas. The trio leaves the room and come out to celebrate as the camera pans back and up until it is fully on the blue sky. The sound of the villagers fade as the camera pans down on as the young Arthas walks in front a procession of knights in armor who salute him as he walks by towards his father's throne. He is wearing a much more flattering ceremonial armor and in front of him, right before the king and his throne, stands Uther. Once he reaches him and stops, he gives one last look to his left, as he sees the young Jaina and his friend Varian, looking at him in pride. He looks back at Uther as he gets on one knee and brings his head down. Uther puts around him a blue cloak and attaches it to his armor with a pin showing carrying Tyr's sylver hand and declaring Arthas a squire of the silver hand, before he gets out of the way. Arthas stands up as Uther, king Terenas, Muradin, Varian, Jaina, and all of Lordaeron's royal court applauds. Later, Arthas runs towards Varian and Jaina. They hug him before Varian congratulates him and says that he will be going back to Stormwind shortly. Arthas shows some disappointment at this, but the slightly older Varian says it will be alright and they will still see each other from time to time. He then points with his head to Jaina while hinting that he should probably talk to her. Arthas goes to her and says "So, I guess you're going back to Dalaran after this..." -Yeah... -... Will we see each other sometime? - I don't know... I get to leave and go back to my family in the islands one minth every summer. You could join in, if you want. -Islands! I've never been to the sea! How is it? "Well,..." she says, as she starts describing. And the camera pans back again, leaving through the window next to them until we get a panoramic view of Lordaeron in the sunlight. Then something funny goes by the camera, like a gnome struggling to hold a griffon, obscuring the shotfor the credits to roll.
I still think that a trilogy of the rise and fall of Arthas would have been so much more engaging for fans and new people alike.
Yeah, it's the idea that you'll start on a chapter where everything's already established, so you'll need an exposition to catch people up on at least the foreign world they're being immersed in from the get-go. Not only that, but unlike say Avatar where you have one race to explain, you have Orcs, Night Elfs, Dwarves, gnomes, goblins, dreani, tauren, trolls, undead, etc. Though not to say an exposition couldn't work, heck Lord of the Rings explains most of the races while explaining all the rings of power, ending it on the one ring to rule them all. So, like it can definitely be done, it's just a difficult sell when you have so many key characters to introduce all in one movie. I think they thought they were keeping it small in this film with as many characters as they had and the harsh reality was they probably had to go even smaller than that to properly sell this film. Warcraft 3 has a lot of characters but had a lot of time to flesh everyone out. To do so, even in 3 hours is a stretch, to say the least! Let alone 2 hours! This film had cut scenes that could've benefited staying in the film, and the gripes in film are justified, perhaps they were hoping the movie would be so successful that it would stretch into the Arthas phase and by then all the actors would be 10-20 years older, and sell their roles accordingly. By then you'd be in a 3rd or 4th film at least, if not the 5th or 6th, and people could keep up with the many characters and races in the film, so once Arthas steps in, they can focus more on him than needing to catch people up on the world building and what races live in it or what characters lead them.
Agreed
It still keeps me up at night thinking about why the animation team found is necessary to make the orcs the literal size of Tauren. Its such a fever dream of a movie. I feel like they would have been better off animating everything, including the humans.
I was never able to see the orcs as anything but cartoon characters. They were well rendered and animated, but their proportions just took me out of it. There was never a time when I believed that any of it was real. It was all so ridiculous, which is a bad, bad thing to happen when the setting and characters are already so childishly cartoonish. They really, really need to ground it more in reality
Seeing Durotan on the big screen was the highlight of the movie.
I'll tell you the real truth.... I'm a long time Warcraft fan and I was tripping the first time I saw this film. About halfway through, I paused the movie to go have a ciggarette, but I paused it at a particular moment where Garona just had this look on her face. And in my acid-addled mind, that look said everything. It said, "This movie isn't great", "I'm disappointed that I'm in a movie that isn't great", and "I know WHY this movie isn't great." Poor Garona.... It's kind of funny. Overall, I respect and appreciate what this film tried to do. I love the little moments. I love the Easter Eggs. I love when that orc picked up a whole freakin' horse and threw it at the humans. I like Lothar enough. Durotan and Gul'dan were both awesome. But even though I'm a huge fan, I can't overlook this movie's glaring flaws. The scene where Lothar's kid dies is just laughable. Medivh was real weird through the whole thing. Overall, I think I liked it more than I disliked it, but I really kind of go back and forth. Could have been so much better. Also, drugs are bad, mmkay?
How films depict language barriers is one of my favorite little things to look over-that analysis of the orcs and humans negotiating at the end of the Good section fulfilled me a little bit 😂
I just LOVE the magic in this movie! They not only showed the different magic "schools" and recognizable spells from the game but the overall magical effects are still absolutly stunning. And as a warcraft player since 2006 i adore the easter eggs. I watched the movie four times in the cinema and one time i was with a friend, who has never played the game and knew nothing about the story and the characters, only is a fantasy fan. She enjoyed it too.
I lOVE this movie. I cant really explain why, I just enjoyed the freaking hell out of it. I rewatch it every year. So sad, it wont get a follow up - the Warcraft universe would had provide some damn good storys to tell.
It's just a very fun straight-forward movie. Might not be the most "lore accurate" but it has quite a few nods and does pay enough respect to the source material for any non-snob fan to enjoy.
I thought a second movie was in the works? but got massively delayed due to covid
Thanks for doing this review! I enjoyed it. As a die-hard Warcraft fan, I loved this movie, not because it was perfect, but because it was made at all and did do some aspects very well. That being said, I have some comments to share. What I liked: -The orc CGI, writing and characterization: IMO Durotan & Gul'Dan were home runs -Medivh: IMO the acting and writing served well the transition from protagonist (Guardian) to villain (Sargeras) and back again , it wasn't precisely W1 lore-based but I enjoyed the film story arc -The Magic: IMO the conjurer spells and warlock Fel magic were visually and audibly impressive (the W2 Polymorph technically didn't belong in W1 but it was funny) -Costumes/Settings: IMO the armor and battle tactics of the Azerothian footmen and knights , and the orc warriors was extremely well done ; the design of the orc structures (including the Portal) and the human buildings looked fantastic -Khadgar: he matched the impression I had of an apprentice conjurer and future hero of the Alliance in W2. -King Llane: some people may have disliked him, but IMO he matched the impression I had of a noble yet misguided (and ill-fated) king of Azeroth in W1. What I didn't like: -Lothar: his son Callan and that whole story arc slowed the plot down, reminded me of The Patriot (son, you can't go to war at this age you might get hurt oh no you dead now I must avenge you) and it was not W1 lore-based. Also, Lothar came across (to me) in the film as a loose cannon which I found offensive, he should have been the brave warrior of W1 lore and future champion of the Alliance in W2. I also felt him riding a Gryphon around was almost like a Deus Ex Machina moment which could have easily been avoided with proper plot writing. -Garona: A romance with Lothar and semi-sympathetic to humans? C'mon. she was an assassin and killed King Lane because she was badass. -IMO, The Kirin Tor /Dalaran part of the film was a joke, it wasn't even part of W1 lore . Alodi was certainly part of W1 lore, but she wasn't really relevant to the film story, IMO a waste of time and slowed the film down too much. -Weaponry: Boomsticks???!!! I have no words. Where are the archers?! Where are the catapults?! -Also missing in action: Necrolytes, Clerics, Elementals, Spiders, Scorpions, Skeletons. -The film's ending was terrible: So the king is obsessed with the idea of rescuing prisoners (who may or may not be alive) from the enemies stronghold (which is heavily defended and has no route of retreat) and with only a handful of troops. In what world would that succeed? It's an insult to the human campaign from W1. In RTS, there are attacks that fail , and then there are just fails. And then in the film, Lothar's all like "For the Alliance!" Uhhh...why is the Alliance even being mentioned while Lothar is standing in an unmolested castle Stormwind? Where is the epic final siege of the castle and its destruction by the orcs? Where are the Azerothian survivors & Lothar retreating and heading via the Great Sea to Lordearon? I think there was a missed cinematic opportunity there. In closing, I really liked the movie but it left me feeling a bit cheated. Hopefully they make another one about W2. But that is a story for another time...
Guldan's VA has such a heavy asian accent it sounds so awful compared to the ingame VA. Garona was also an absolute wreck in this film.. but I like it overall. Really bad but really good. I think they nailed the art style but could have went a little more "edgy" with the Alliance costuming. The goofy young actors all looked like they were cosplaying.
My son and I played WoW since the start and went to see this movie together. It was a great time.
The RTS flows in waves focused on one faction at a time. A focus on the orcs likely would have come at a larger expense, and not to mention some added disappointment for Alliance fan base. But the Horde tale was the stronger story to work with beginning the emotional tie with the audience. Their world dying, the butchery of the Draenei, Gul'dan's treachery, the merciless invasion of Azeroth, and ultimately the fall of Stormwind at the hands of the greatest assassin in the game. These are fantastic plot points that outweigh the need to bring a human perspective into the story. Limited introductions of lead Alliance characters who are struggling to survive genocide would have served to emotionally prepare us for them in the future. Warcraft Two: The Tides of Darkness would have been the right point to switch gears in favor of Alliance plots as they overcame the horde for a second movie. And of course the Arthas plot ties the three most beloved characters together for a third and final movie.
That's definitely one of the things that cripples the human side - they're on the back leg, they have little idea of what's going on, they're stuck indecisive and reluctant to commit... Which would make a fine movie on its own, but it clashes with us _seeing_ the other side, what's happening, how they're doing it, who they are... Both sides of the story work great (if you imagine them as two separate movies with a full runtime), but combined, it severely diminishes the human story. I don't know if there's a script where changing the perspective between the side that has the initiative and the side that doesn't works. And yes, even in the games, while the story often has one side with initiative and the other without... you're playing the one with, and exploiting the one without. Even in the scraps of the first game's story, _you're_ the one who always pushes for initiative (even though the other humans behind you are still very indecisive). Lothar's arc in the movie has enough of this to work well, but much of the rest on the Azeroth side is like watching UN "speeches" and "debates" - mind, I still loved it, but I'm a sucker for surprisingly realistic outcomes, so there's that :D
Great video, i'm glad i found your channel some days ago and am happy to see this now. And no matter what anyone else says, i highly enjoyed this movie. Yes there were some story re-writings and changes, but somehow I didn't mind that so much. I just loved to see a lot of memorable characters from the Games (even warcraft 3) to be seen in this, for example Antonidas and Grommash, the latter with not much if barely any lines and a lot of times in the background. This excitement of awaiting to see another big character every second, boi that was just too good. Heck i hate Murlocs to the bone, but the one at the bridge in the very first few minutes of the movie was just so well-placed in the movie, that i had to like it.
When I went to see this in theaters (being a long time Warcraft fan myself) I had pretty low hopes for it but I found it to be surprisingly fun. Hopefully we do get a Warcraft movie detailing the events of the second Warcraft game but I won’t hold my breath.
My favorite little detail thrown in for the nerds to notice is that in a few of the orc scenes you can see Grom Hellscream just chilling in the background, I thought it was neat that you instantly know who he is just from his character design.
The cut scene with Hellscream actually talking about the fel and what not is awesome. Can't believe they left it out.
I really like the usage of two seperate scores for this, I think it's a clever way to add a lot of context to your approach on criticizing the film
devils advocate we never get enough high budget fantasy fims or even half decent adaptations 80/100
Another thing that kinda "killed" the immersion for me was the SIZE DIFFERENCE between orcs and humans, Humans in the Warcraft universe are SWOLE AFFF, they actually have a fighting chance against the orcs but in the movie they are just regular sized humans vs orcs that might weight 4 times as them.
lol should have gone the path of 300 here!
Best shown in Mist of Pandaria trailer. Humans in Warcraft universe are tall and strong, and built like brickhouses.
They made them Warhammer sized instead of WoW.
@@thehermitman822 There are some big ass humans in Warhammer Fantasy, but I get ur point.
EXACTLY! Imagine in game Kul tiran heavy infantry in plate armor stomping around orcs like the nothing they are. Not only are they too big here, but Imo they shouldn't even be as big in lore. They should be equal to a warcraft human, just like in wc2. I mean there are 200kg men (without armor) called strongmen IN OUR WORLD, heck even bodybuilders, that was just orc simping at its finest in my opinion. At most they should have 1 advantage over the humans. Stamina. Just like the Uruk hai in Lotr, they were made to run day and night.
As much as I like the movie, it would've been better to split this movie into two, based on the books Rise of the Horde to portray the Horde side, and The Last Guardian for Alliance. The stories are more tightly packed and focused.
I think Warcraft would have worked better as a multi-season HBO show that covers all the three RTS games.
I remember dragging my friend in high school to see this because I grew up with Warcraft, like Warcraft 2 was one of the first games I played when I was 4. And through out the movie I would kinda lean over and be like “oh yeah the orcs were actually green because of this” and obviously I loved it and I was genuinely surprised that my friend liked it too because I was there to sorta course-correct the plot. Hopefully Microsoft can clean up blizzard because I think a second movie or a series would be some good press for the company
This was me...with my mom. I took her, completely blind to any of the game other than me showing her Thunder Bluff and her knowing my raid schedule. She enjoyed it, and pointed out some interesting story stuff I didn't think of (like the golem as foreshadowing). She enjoyed it overall, which was nice to hear. When I went with our big group (buncha folks we raided/PVPed with since Vanilla), I had read the prequel and comic ahead so I knew the lore changes, and I got to answer all the consistency questions over dinner. It was a blast, honestly.
WarCraft 2 would be amazing!
The first warcraft game, orcs and humans came out when I was in high school and my friends and I played the crap out of it and the subsequent expansions. I got to play the alpha of wow (a whole year before release). So for someone who is an original core lore junky and would rather listen to chalk board scratching vs all the terrible fanfiction out there this movie just warmed my warlock heart, more than a paladin going full avenging wrath. Really sad they didn't make more. I would have loved to have seen each expansion play out in its own movie. Really shocked that they didn't at least do a Lich King movie after this.
They should make the Arthas trilogy to begin with, make him as a hero part 1, turn to Death Knight Part 2 and become Lich King Part 3. I know Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is the first game, but the lore are not interesting.
Not a Warcraft fan in the slightest, but I absolutely love this movie. Duratan is absolutely one of my favorite characters and is legitimately a great role model. His death actually got me emotional. Didn't care for the human story at all because the Orc story was more, human. Also, are you implying that female Orcs aren't attractive because listen, I can't say I agree with Medivh on much but creating a half-Orc, presumably the old fashioned way, is something I can get behind, and in front of, really however she wants. Finally Fuck Gul'dan! All my homies hate him.
homie I'll play horde with you
Yeah, they really nailed Durotan. As a character that did not really appear in WC1-3, I had no connection with him initially but for a CG character to be portrayed so well really means something. I actually felt something when he died in a silly movie that is full of CG, well done.
@@powersurge_beast I'd take you up on that but MMORPGs aren't really my cup of tea. The world and lore are genuinely interesting and I'd probably enjoy it once I really got into it. I certainly used to really want to play it. But I'm a mediocre tank and terrible at the rest. If I ever find myself in WoW I'll hold you to it
@@dr.calibrations7984 ay man solo casual is the way to go lmao that's what I do
@@christopherjohnson2171 "silly movie that is full of cg" how old are you? Nowadays, the only good cinematic stories are the animated ones, your thinking is old.
I loved this movie, I wish I could see future films with Deathwing, LichKing, and Illidan. Other then what you stated in your video, I wish they had removed some of the polish from the human side. It all seemed very plasticy and not like hardened metal. Everything CGI, blood elves, dwarfs, ORCS!!! it was all perfect but then the human side looked as though everything was on a clean swept stage. I pray we get another live action adaption. If they really want to have their own universe (as all films try due to marvel money) they really should slow it down and flush out characters. Arthas (pre LichKing) would be a great place to start.
hey man! just found your channel because the vid got recommended, good job! i really enjoyed the movie overall. what really bother me are the lore (and other) changes. the way the "fel" is depicted is really weird (and medivh stuff), cant find that in the books and games, which i all devoured 10 years ago. yeah sure, the story is really big and convoluted, you gotta make some cuts/changes so non-warcraft people 'can' watch it, but i honestly believe they could have sticked more to books/games and still apear to non-warcraft-connoisseurs when i showed my girlfriend that movie last years (i only watched it once when it came out), i really had to stop the movie every 5mins (didnt really do that tho) and explain how the story really went, kind of feeling responsible for the og story but who cares tho, normally i am more of a youtube/twitch lurker. dont know why i am even writing this comment right now
thanks for watchin and sharing your thoughts buddy!
I remember my dad telling me about the movie years ago when it was first announced, and he would always update me when he heard more news. When the movie finally came out we went and saw it together. We weren’t blown away, but it was nice finally seeing something we had been talking about for 10 years. I’ll have to watch it a second time soon.
What a great new series. Can’t wait for some Uwe Boll masterpieces in the future. Warcraft is odd in that it somehow managed to make people less hyped about it the more they showed. It felt like everyone knew it wasn’t going to be good.
woah my favorite daggerfall content creator is here.
We knew it wasn't going to be good because they flat said the movie isn't gonna be about Warcraft 3, the home of their most iconic characters and story. Warcraft 3 and beyond is where the vast majority of Warcraft fans fell in love with the lore and franchise. But instead they made a movie about Warcraft 1, a story the most dedicated warcraft fans struggle to remember and retell. Instead of making 1 good movie about characters and stories that the fans want and love. They decided to try their hand at copying the MCU and tried to make it into a franchise before they even got started. When people were asking for a Warcraft movie, literally nobody was asking for a fucking Warcraft 1 story based around Garona Halforcen jfc.
Wait how did comment before the video release
@@dvnsyaswanth9936 Magic 😉
I loved the movie for what is was, and it looked incredible.
I personally don't mind Khadgar being so young. The movie took place before he was magically aged, so it's nice to see him when he was still young and baby faced
I actually really enjoyed the WarCraft movie and would love for a sequel to be made!
I really loved it and I wished it had kept going... really sad when it seemed it wouldn't get a series. Then again I saw Eragon in theaters twice and didn't even bat an eye. Maybe I'm just a sucker for adaptations.
Loved this movie so much. I wish it would have continued! Thank you for this!
Alodi was the first guardian and he was a guy and we get to meet his spirit in WoW in Legion frost mage questline for the artifact weapon. The person inside of the "cube room" was probably Aegwynn, who is Medivhs' mother, a previous guardian who battled the Avatar of Sargeras and trapped him within the Tomb of Sargeras on the Broken Isles. What she didn't realize was that Sargeras' spirit wasn't imprisoned and actually attached itself to Aegwynn herself and stayed dorment for a time. Aegwynn, at some point, decided to pass her powers (the guardian powers) to her son Medivh, this wasn't the custom for the guardians but she did it anyways against the will of the Kirin'tor. What she didn't realize was that with her passing over the powers to Medivh, she also passed on Sargeras' spirit as well.
thank you DEEPLY for this, I have never seen such a good, varied, yet opinion on this movie. I do love it with, I would say, a lot of my heart. I have a deep love for orcs and could not be happier over their depiction. They are a stand-out, absolutely magnificent, and I gotta say, back then, I didn't realize just how much better their dialog actually was. I sadly did not care for basically any other non-orc character, besides Khadgar. He was IMO the one well-written human/non-orc character who you could root for because he got enough screen time to show a range of his characteristics. This movie has a place in my heart that will never leave, just like the entire Warcraft franchise. I just can't help but be sad about the lost potential, the over-ambition that eventually lead to mediocrity. Their ideas were so good, honestly, it was just so over-ambitious. I was praying it would match the threshold at which a sequel would be planned soon after because a lot of mistakes were able to be fixed IMO. But video game movies are hard to make and hard to hit satisfaction with, so I get it. Still happy it's still the most successful video game adaptation so far lol
If I had to pin point a thing I really actually hated, it has to be Garona. Man, her writing made me actually mad. I drew her a lot back then just because I hated her design so much lmao
I like your sense of Humor, honestly. Laughed more than once while watching. 👍 I watched that movie back when it released and i didn't like it but also didn't dislike it. It was just... there. I would have prefered a movie on wc3. The Fall of Arthas is my favourit Story inside the whole WC Universe, but i should add that i am not a huge Warcraft Fan. I kinda always prefered Starcraft.
Another fantastic video as always, really excited to see what other movies you cover! I've only played WoW in small stints and never saw the movie, but its enough for me to really understand all your points. The most amazing thing to me is that visual style, they've captured it so perfectly - in direct comparison to The Witcher which has similarly unique style and the most important parts are lost in the Netflix show. Blizzard really are known for their super dorky looking armours with big weapons and even bigger pauldrons, yet they make it look so natural when put onto real humans. I love how you can still see the cartoony flair on it all too, especially when looking at the shields around 18:19 and 15:28.
A Warcraft 2 film would be cool, and help the first a lot. Human side would show us the birth of the Sons of Lothar, Lothar and Turelyon getting a father-son dynamic (giving Lothar's real son purpose), this time the father dying. The Horde side would have a dastardly teamup of convenience between Gul'dan and Zul'jin. I always had this cool idea for a scene: Initial meeting between the two. Zul'jin gas something of a rockstar bearing, draping himself over the meeting chair, and along with his iconic scarf and mohawk is covered in voodoo trinkets. Zul is largely dismissive of Gul'dan'w attempts to talk him into the Horde, who keeps trying to press his authority and power play to no avail. Eventually he get enraged and attempts to life drain Zul'jin, but then the voodoo charms activate and Gul gets rebuked by shadow magic. Tension builds before Zul'jin dismisses it with a laugh, finally impressed by the power of Gul'dan (if still wary) and strikes a deal: his help in exchange for elf extermination.
The problem is that Blizzard was trying to tell two stories at once, which actually is not their strong-suit. Their strong-suit is telling one complete perspective, then swapping to another perspective with its own story until it is finished. That's literally how starcraft and warcraft stories played.
This was a great video. I remember as a fan who saw it in theatres with my parents (A dad who vaguely played Warcraft 1 and a mom who knew nothing about the franchise but likes fantasy), it was really interesting to see the mixed reception in my own family let alone the internet at large. I still think the biggest thing that detracts from the movie as a whole, aside from the writing/lore changes, is simply the live action at all. Keeping the movie fully 3d/cgi like the orcs would have prevented a lot of weird uncanny valley with the orcs and humans both being on screen, likely kept the visual aesthetics much more coherent, and you could have likely done more with said human actors than their live action counterparts. But that's just me.
I loved the movie, the visuals were stunning.
If they could adapt the culling of Stratholme and subsequent downfall of Arthas (becoming the Lich King), I think they could get more critic appeal, and if done right, absolutely please the fans. It would be a slippery slope because if they changed anything or messed it up, it would be disastrous
I didn't start playing WOW until 2007, but I did read a lot of the books. What so many people didn't realize is this movie WAS / IS WARCRAFT, NOT WORLD of warcraft !
The orcs in this movie look so damn good it made me want to create one in WoW. Then the character models let me down :(
You forgot to mention the soundtrack score! Ramin Djawadi (musical composer for Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Iron Man) really crushed it with this one, he really got the bombast and physicality of the source material right with imposing horns and percussion. As much as I love the musical compositions made for the World of Warcraft game, I can't help but hear this version of the theme when I think about Warcraft
I hate how Grom Hellscream is just in the background, to be in the background. Dude doesn't say one word, he just exists so we can say "Look its that guy"
That Warcraft 3 soundtrack is so charming. I'm glad you used it instead of more modern WoW music. They really capture the races perfectly.
You do realize that LotR also has an "original" and "cinematic universe" cannon too right? Because adapting material that wasn't written for the screen to the screen is always a difficult task. Just look at how GoT messed the hell up with ASOIAF. They had to create their own cannon AND they ran out of material in that case, but everyone has to create their own cannon when adapting work to screen, it just comes with the territory. The question is why? Every single thing you change has to have a reason and as you so well put it, some of these changes are just pointless which makes the whole "new cannon" thing annoying.
Most likely the changes are political in the world of writing. It gives the writers room to grow their portfolio if they tell their own versions of the story. Which comes at a cost for the fan base.
Babe wake up Babe?!
14:44 “I’m a big dwarf guy” Hmm….something doesn’t sound right here…
My mom actually saw the movie before I did about a year ago. As someone who had never wanted to know about the lore of the game, she was left visually satisfied, but she was so confused about the characters and the progression. I had to go back and watch it with her and give her cliff notes on who people were, what they were doing, and what their greater impact in the lore was. I appreciate the dedication of the adaptation, but if they wanted to start at the pivotal Black Gate invasion, then there should have been a simpler story surrounding it for the new comers. Spend a bit more time establishing character titles and positions, for example. It would have been fine if the team had to shimmy things around to make that work, as long as the spirit of the world was there, which they definitely succeeded in. To me, I think the critique of, "They tried to fit too much in too soon" is definitely apt. I still think that with all the recent goings on with the story in game, the universe has incredible potential to be adapted to screen. It showed what COULD be done to a video game franchise for film adaptation and still be well regarded by the fans. If they did want to create another movie, I think that having it CGI'd in Blizzard's cinematic style would be a better choice, and keep the storyline simple, like watching Thrall grow up and keep the story centered around him, his hardships, and his rise to becoming Warchief.
I wish they had done wc1 from the perspective of wc1 and cut all the wow bloat and retcons made for the sake of validating expansion and raid story lines. The wc1 storyline would have been a great framework for an actually good movie, assuming blizzard allowed them to write one. Also the live action stuff just looked weirdly out of place mocap through the whole thing to keep humans consistent with the warcraft style would have been nice.
Blizzard needs to over-moralize the orcs it seems. Someone who grew up playing the RTS would see Thrall as a moral Orc who reformed the Orcs from violent warring tribes under the influence of demons and necromancy into a rebuilt people. The people who grew up with WOW lore were told that the Orcs were always good and were being mislead and Thrall is a bit of pansy for not being as tough as his predecessors. Two very different perspectives. If they do continue the Franchise into 3, audiences are going to dislike Thrall as they'll see him as a wimp instead of the strong moral centre of the Horde and will drift in favour towards Grom Hellscream as a result of the WOWification of the lore.
As someone obsessed with Warcraft lore, I can say from a position of high authority that it isn't that the movie was bad, it's that Warcraft 1 is a boring storyline, compared to literally every other Warcraft game and/or expansion. Now, I did find the lore changes interesting, but obviously this movie doesn't take place in the True Timeline, and is clearly an alternate timeline, since there are insane changes, that completely alter the story. I really hope they continue to make these, though. I'd kill for a 3 or 4 part WC3 movie.
A noob here since the Burning Crusade. I couldn't wait for the movie to come out and then very nervous when it did. Like most fans I suspect it felt very personal. The might have been a couple of small things that could have been done a bit better but overall it would just be looking for things to pick on. I took my better half with me to watch it on the big screen. She doesn't play the game, doesn't like fantasy or sci-fi movies but I had to watch Bridget Jones so there we are. She loved it. I was glad to see that it wasn't me just looking at the movie through rose colored glasses but that the movie stood on its own. I would be willing to bet that people that didn't like Warcraft are the same people that wouldn't like LOTR and other similar movies. If you don't like Orcs, Trolls and other 'monsters' than you will never get passed that to actually enjoy the story and everything else the movies has to offer. All I can say is that I hope they make another one soon. I know it won't happen but I can dream.
Great review, its nice to see a review focus on the positives as well as the negatives of this movie and not just completely bash on it. I still think the WC3 story would of been best and I'm not a simp for Arthas I just think the structure would of worked better for a movie and would of fit into a trilogy nicely following both bands of adventurers with Arthas and Thrall and how their stories eventually collide just seems to tie nicely together. I understand they wanted to set up the lore of the universe but I think people already know what Orcs, Dwarves, Elves and Minotaur's are even if the audience isn't very aware of the Warcraft Universe, their back story could of been fleshed out through dialog or perhaps the odd flashback but I think most audiences can accept in high fantasy Elves and Orcs etc exist.
As a fan from the time when the first game was made, and a HUGE human fan from that era too, This movie made me very sad. Lothar, LOTHAR one of the most important, beloved characters, fell flat for me personally, and I loved General Lothar. But this adaptation of him did not present itself as a good example of that part of humanity that gave the orcs, these big green murder monsters, pause. The human soldiers never hold their own well in a fight here, and while I know they lose the first war, it was not because their soldiers were ineffective at killing, it was because they were taken by surprise and outnumbered. The second war proves humanity could not only take the fight to the orcs, but it was when humanity out right bested the horde. But in this movie, humanity is just there to be a foil to the more interesting and cool orc stories.
What Jones actually wanted was a second viewpoint. He wanted to show the war from both orc and Human perspective, yes, BUT he also wanted to change both orcs and humans to be good sides just on the opposite ends of a war with a corrupted mage pulling the strings from the background... That is all nice BUT it also completely redcones the whole lore. That is not what happened in the lore. What actually happened was that 3 years before entering the Dark Portal, all orcs drank the Blood of Mannoroth, binding themselves to the demons and receiving huge power boost at the cost of going brutally savage, they did it before marching upon Shattrath, so all orcs except for the Frostwolf clan already were corrupted long before entering Azeroth for the first time.. (also some individulas like Orgrim refused to drink the blood). The Frostwolf clan did not refuse to drink the blood, instead they were forbidden by GulDan. In addition both Drakka and Durotan were Assassinated, shortly after ariving on Azeroth because they planed a Coup, and the rest of the clan was banished(yes the main protagonist is not even in the war on Azeroth he is already dead before the war begins and only saw a couple of small skirmishes in the swamps with the humans). To make a picture for yourself how savage the orcs became, in just a couple of years they plundered the whole continent on draenor, the whole infrastructure of the Orcs collapsed, they would go extinct unless they would find a new enemy to fight and plunder... They were unable to do anything but war. The only form of food they were able to produce was hunting, most species were almost hunted to extinction... The orcs after drinking the Demonic blood went absolutely berserk. That is what the horde was... Not this portrayal. And yes this all happened over just three years. When GulDan was contacted by Medivh, and together they created the Dark Portal, Medivh on Azeroth and Guldan on Draenor, GulDan did not do it because he had some special demonic Plan at the time, but because he literally had not other way to not Cause a complete extinction of his whole race, a savage brutal race that was only able to fight and destroy at this moment.. Yes the plans changed once he found out some stuff later on but that was not his main goal at first. Oh and this is the moment where the first game starts... At year 1 after entering the portal, or technically it is year 562 on Azeroth.
I actually want more warcraft movies. But I want an illidan or arthas movie. I think doing movies based around iconic characters and giving each big character their own movie would be the best way. Kinda similar to the marvel avengers movies.
“Which co worker should I sexually harass next?” That earned you a like
The best Easter Egg for me was seeing Grom Hellscream.. My favorite Orc, was soo glad they included him. And I guess I missed it but I dont think Medivh is Garonas dad.. He mentioned that he met a woman from another Race, but I dont recall him saying Orc. I will have to rewatch after this great vid anyways, so thanks i guess.
15:55 Reminds me how many times our Warlock carried us through Heroic Siege of Orgrimar.
One scene I would have loved to see is Lothar fighting and killing a Troll or Murlock as his introduction just to show case what War is like for mankind. I would have also loved to see some scars on some of the characters, or something that tells a story of the wars they have fought in the past. Something that shows the human faction is more then the shiny armor and fresh baby faces. This scene would likely be the next right after the title. I would have also loved to see Orcs raiding and pillaging a village up close giving us a good idea the terror the orcs can spread among ordinary people.
I was happily surprised when I first watched this movie. I've just played Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne but I always held that game in a special place in my heart because it reminds me of school time so I was very happy to see they captured the spirit of the game in this movie. As you well said, it's so difficult to capture an entire game, let alone a saga, into a movie of 2 or so hours long. There's so much to cover and tackle... But knowing that most attempts of adapting video games into movies tend to fail, this one did pretty well. Another movie that was a happy surprise and quite enjoyable is The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Could you please make a video about that movie adaptation?
As someone who had essentially no experience with Warcraft besides playing Vanilla WoW to late 50s until the Blitzchung incident (and reading absolutely no lore/quests/dialog) I believe I have a somewhat fresh perspective. That said, I do have a lot of experience in related spaces through the sublimation of gaming culture and the like. I tend to agree with most of your points against the movie, particularly with the Lothar romance (a bit too fast, but believable to me), the death of Lothar's son (which is oddly similar to the death of Kim in GoW, which mostly just happens randomly), and the weird, rushed characterization of Cadgar particularly early on, and the unexpected Medivh-is-a-father (which I totally missed upon my viewing, to be honest, so I'm just taking your word for it.) I saw this movie with some friends, one of which pointing out some of the easter eggs you mentioned, while omitting most in order to focus on the experience, and I had no trouble keeping up. Your issues with the original guardian, to me, are completely unfounded and suitably hand-wavy magical, though the human political dryness I feel like was understated by you. All said, my experience with the movie was dramatically more positive than your critical perception, but I am far from a critic, so what do I know. I was shocked by how good this was and how well-thought-out several moments are, such that I was able to intuit and anticipate several narrative turns and allegiances before the reveals, without it feeling to me as "predictable." In closing, my biggest issue, as you similarly noted, was the size of the cast and the consistency of characterization of specifically Cadgar. I had no idea who he was early on (of course) and only gathered that he is somehow important around halfway through or so, despite his oddly handled detective work. tl;dr 8/10 it mostly felt rushed only in retrospect
I think for the average non-gamer that just landed on this movie it likely came off as one of those weird random 80's fantasy films like Krull. The little those 80's films did correct was probably organize the film into a clear journey from point A to B. They kind of did it with Khadgar, but there were just too many subplots going on. It would have been more beneficial to just make it into a Neflix 8-episode series where you could absorb it little by little. Every race would also deserve an 8-episode season on their own where its entirely from their point of view and you just get limited crossovers with the different stories around them. While I know you said they captured the visuals well from the game, I think a bit of a adaptation would have gone a long way. Especially in the wardrobe department. Just felt like they dressed them up in Party City armor. The High Elves also looked frightening as hell in their 5 second appearance. In game, I always imagined them to be the most polished and pleasant looking race. It's like they have LED bulbs for eyes with those pink slimy looking choppers for teeth. Should have just worked with regular real eyes that have a subtle glow.
My man slipped in the dalaran music...I started running around the block.
31:08 the inserted clip really got me good. Spongebob is just such an amazing show.
Literally just found your channel this morning and heard you’d be starting a new series soon. I didnt expect to see it immediately lol. Already love the content coming forward and I cant wait to watch the channel grow!
He’s really a gem!
I am pessimistic about Blizzard doing a Warcraft 2 movie right, unless it is broken up into two parts. In the old lore back in the 90s, it was fairly simple: Doomhammer kills Blackhand, Guldan pledges loyalty to stay alive, they head north for greater conquest, Lothar asks for aid, the Alliance is formed, Orcs free the Trolls, Enslave the Ogres, and Humans come to the aid of the Elves and Dwarves. Guldan goes to the Tomb of Sargaras, Orcs are beaten back. Beyond the Dark Portal Exp is something else entirely. The problem is modern Blizzard wants to over-humanize the Orcs and overplay the politics of the Alliance. I always assumed Thrall's nod to Doomhammer to be out of respect for his accomplishments, not necessarily him being an eternal moral figure. Kind of like someone saying they are proud of their Confederate heritage, even though they would personally be against slavery. Doomhammer in many ways is more of a monster than Blackhand was in his disregard for anything outside his own power. Likewise, the Alliance was purely defensive and has been portrayed in Warcraft lore since 3 as a bunch of squabbling power hungry kingdoms that are irrational whereas in the Second Game they seemed pretty united in protecting one another (minus Alterac and Gilneas). I believe Blizzard would make the Second movie about Doomhammer being tricked by Guldan to invade North/Follow Lothar, about him wanting to save the forest trolls, and being a bit of a family man, while making the Alliance a bunch of self-interested assholes, with the Elves being only interested in helping themselves, with the leaders having to bully everyone to keep them in line, and like a secret plotline where Lothar finds out Terenas wants to secretly enslave the Orcs and he rode to Blackrock Spire to warn Doomhammer and is tricked into an ambush by Guldan or an ally of his and the bloodthirsty Alliance goes in to murder everyone and enslave them and we get a "who are the real monsters!" storyline while the "good orcs" go and try to stop Guldan from opening the Tomb instead of killing him because he disobeyed orders.
This is a very generous take, and that’s refreshing. The essayist clearly enjoyed this film a great deal more than I had and KZhead needs more commentators like this, people who actually seem to like movies. For as universal as the notion of “Doug Walker BAD” appears to be, the effort to actually get away from what MAKES him bad is barely present
Just imagine Demons and Legions in great CGI holy moly...
20:44 was also one of my favorite parts of this movie
I saw this in theatres with a friend (Warcraft fan, but he hates WoW). It's worth noting that it's a bit difficult to make out what the orcs were saying on the big screen with booming bass. Add to that the usage of out of the ordinary names, verbiage, and terms (the fel etc.) which go mostly unexplained for the average viewer... and the world was confusing. I've been saying for awhile that they needed a slower intro similar to Fellowship of the Ring where it's kind of slow motion spark in the darkness narrated backdrop type stuff where they kind of vaguely express the nature of the cosmos and maybe even tease Kil'Jaeden showing him or parts of him as he controls Ner'Zhul or something as the narrator explains a few of the "forces" of the lore like the demons. AFTER this slower setup intro I think is when they should've kicked off the ACTUAL intro they used with the orc fighting the human, and then made it a point to brush up a few of the weak casting points made in this video. The way they kill off Lothar's kid to try and "force" you to feel something was dumb, he was a meaningless character that they don't give you any time to care about, not to mention a pretty poor actor in that role at least. Much like WoW, this IP has serious untapped potential on the big screen. It could take over the fuckin world if they got the Arthas story right, so I really think it's worth the investment for them to try again. I will say that I'm super grateful that Travis Fimmel was able to kick ass in this movie, his Ragnar in S3-4 Vikings and now Warcraft turned him into probably my favorite actor. He kills it for someone who says he hates acting.
imo the early parts of the movie were part of what sunk it as well. The early pacing was incredibly fast, jumping about with no sense of direction, scale or distance. Even as someone who has played WoW for most of its life, knowing where everything is, knowing the events, it was still difficult to keep up with the breakneck pace the movie was showing the attacks on the human kingdoms. It jumped from the Black Morass to Stormwind to Goldshire to Lakeshire to Karazhan to the Dark Portal to somewhere in eastern Elwynn Forest...all in the span of about 10 minutes. It was a bit dizzying. The diversion to Dalaran seemed unnecessary as well, considering Dalaran should be literally the other end of the continent (still on the ground, where it should be for the next 30 years or so), but also it kind of removed the eureka moment from Khadgar where he finally connects all the pieces to discover Medivh's corruption. That should have been his moment, but instead he just gets told outright by someone who was only on screen for abut 30 seconds, and whose only role was to do that. I also think that the Burning Legion needed a bit more teasing than a single missable throwaway line from Garona about how Gul'dan spoke to something "with a voice like ash" (clearly Mannoroth, but this really should have been shown as a "walking in on conversation" moment for, say, Blackhand, and then at the end of the movie, Gul'dan runs off to grovel before Mannoroth to apologise for his failure, only for Mannoroth to offer his blood to drink as a solution). There's the whole thing that Medivh being possessed by a portion of Sargeras's soul was never really hinted at either - it was just more fel corruption, rather than Medivh being a puppet for a world-ending demonic god, but that's maybe not as big a sin...
04:16 Almost choked on my coffee
I still hope that one day they will make high fidelity animation full feature movie based on Warcraft lore.
In my view, the best way for the studio to go about making this movie would’ve been to adapt it from the first war novelizations (Rise of the Horde and The Last Guardian), then making a sequel based on the Second War novelizations (Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal), then completing the trilogy with a third movie based on Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. If done right, a trilogy like this might’ve done a lot to get more people into the game, since they’d want to see what happened next, and provide a more accessible way for people to learn the some of the Warcraft lore.
The most surprising thing about that movie is that it didn't get a sequel. It was actually good despite a rather mediocre plot and "meh" ending. It should have been a bigger success than it was. As a fan of the games myself I was mostly disappointed and annoyed at some of the random changes, like having Dalaran already flying, which doesn't line up with the story and would have had a pretty big repercussion to the inevitable bad ass scene of destruction that happen in Warcraft 3. it didn't need to be there, didn't add anything to the story and just felt like a tryhard push for "MOAR FANTASY", because apparently a mage city isn't enough fantasy, it needs to fly. Oh yeah, and cutting the couple of scenes of Grom was just a very weird choice, thos scenes were great and he is one of the most beloved orc characters out there.
I think being Doomhammer from frostwolf clan instead blackrock was letdown to me, because Durotan and Doomhammer are proof that different clan can stick together while it also fits when you know what doomhammer do in this movie. Even though there are still different things.
9:55 that music and singing triggers me alive every time. Holy crap....I think I will ascend to Heaven with that music one day.
At the beginning of A Hunt For Red October, which start in Russian, has the camera zoom in to a characters lips as the language used changes to English. Very similar language transition used in Warcraft.
i remember that scene. what a great movie that is
Can't wait for the new series to tackle more films! Great start as well.
I LOVE your videos as a podcast. Thank you so much for the effort
I believe the issue with the writing being so different between human parts and orc was because they really did have different teams working on them, so to speak. The sympathetic slant toward the orc story came on with Duncan Jones, I believe, so the added love and care put into the orc side of the story REALLY stood out without some sort of rewrites on the human parts. Also, the movie novelization shows where some added stuff could have smoothed out the speed. There is some internal stuff that wouldn't make it, of course, but some scenes that would have helped a great deal if put in/left in the movie. There was also I think somewhere between 10-20 min trimmed, too, but it's been a while since I read that tidbit.
I've watched this movie a fair few times, and I have to say I NEVER noticed that their dynamic was supposed to be father and daughter. I've sat there and critiqued to anyone who would listen that I didn't understand why Garona didn't show any genetics of being half Draenei. The dialog in that scene was hard to understand, so I appreciate that you've pointed it out. I am partially glad that they've chosen to go with a different universe that's coming from someone who has played Warcraft 3, and WoW for 17 years, as it makes it far more digestible to newcomers. But I still have a slither of hope in seeing an Arthas movie, as long as they don't mess it up ;)
The way they portrayed people speaking in different language WITHOUT subtitles is amazing !
I’ve played wow since release and have seen every lore video ever and still I loved this movie more than anything