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Warcraft |OT| You Are Not Prepared

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K

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Catdaddy said:
I figured they would make their money back in China, no matter how bad it does in the US, there is a good chance we'll see a sequel...
Click to expand...

And the next entry will see the addition of Arthas and Illidan, no doubt. Which will move some box office bucks.
 
A

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
xtrasauce said:
Or, you know, a movie that has not been cut to shreds by studio executives.
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Well it's too late for that, the movie is out and it is what it is. Best we can hope for now is that a potential sequel doesn't have the same problems (which include editing it down too much.)
 
F

Finaj

Member
kinoki said:
And the next entry will see the addition of Arthas and Illidan, no doubt. Which will move some box office bucks.
Click to expand...

No way. Illidan is in an underground prison on another continent and Arthas is, like, 7 years old.

Plus, Jones said he wanted to end his trilogy with the Orcs finally settling down in a new place.
 
E

Extra Sauce

Member
Anoregon said:
Well it's too late for that, the movie is out and it is what it is. Best we can hope for now is that a potential sequel doesn't have the same problems (which include editing it down too much.)
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Obviously I was talking about a potential sequel too since I was quoting you. ;)
 
M

Milly Osworth

Member
I just watched the movie with my gf.

We said WOW a lot. As in "Wow, this is so bad." How did they screw up a movie about such a cool universe THIS badly? Nothing was good about the movie, the story is weak, the characters are weak, the scenes are weak and the ending was terrible. The complete lack of humour bothered me too, they took Warcraft way too serious. Ugh, what a piece of crap.

They should have made the movie about Arthas or Illidan anyway, not some story about 50 different orcs that I as a Warcraft fan even get confused by. I can't even imagine how someone that's not a Warcraft fan must have felt like during this movie.

Oh and where was the iconic Warcraft music during this movie?!
 
H

HowZatOZ

Banned
zaldrizes said:
I just watched the movie with my gf.

We said WOW a lot. As in "Wow, this is so bad." How did they screw up a movie about such a cool universe THIS badly? Nothing was good about the movie, the story is weak, the characters are weak, the scenes are weak and the ending was terrible. The complete lack of humour bothered me too, they took Warcraft way too serious. Ugh, what a piece of crap.

They should have made the movie about Arthas or Illidan anyway, not some story about 50 different orcs that I as a Warcraft fan even get confused by. I can't even imagine how someone that's not a Warcraft fan must have felt like during this movie.

Oh and where was the iconic Warcraft music during this movie?!
Click to expand...
Why did you expect humor? It's a fantasy action, not a comedy. Having forced humour would have made it feel terrible in my opinion, instead what we have is a great movie that brings to life the world that I spent countless hours exploring in. Can't argue with that.
 
M

Milly Osworth

Member
HowZatOZ said:
Why did you expect humor? It's a fantasy action, not a comedy. Having forced humour would have made it feel terrible in my opinion, instead what we have is a great movie that brings to life the world that I spent countless hours exploring in. Can't argue with that.
Click to expand...

A great movie? Wow, did we really watch the same thing?
 
F

Finaj

Member
zaldrizes said:
I just watched the movie with my gf.

We said WOW a lot. As in "Wow, this is so bad." How did they screw up a movie about such a cool universe THIS badly? Nothing was good about the movie, the story is weak, the characters are weak, the scenes are weak and the ending was terrible. The complete lack of humour bothered me too, they took Warcraft way too serious. Ugh, what a piece of crap.

They should have made the movie about Arthas or Illidan anyway, not some story about 50 different orcs that I as a Warcraft fan even get confused by. I can't even imagine how someone that's not a Warcraft fan must have felt like during this movie.

Oh and where was the iconic Warcraft music during this movie?!
Click to expand...

Ilidan and Arthas were never going to happen at the start. The amount of exposition required to start off with their storylines would be astronomical. Besides, the core of Warcraft has always been the Humans and Orcs.
 
Ennosuke

Ennosuke

Member
zaldrizes said:
I just watched the movie with my gf.

We said WOW a lot. As in "Wow, this is so bad." How did they screw up a movie about such a cool universe THIS badly? Nothing was good about the movie, the story is weak, the characters are weak, the scenes are weak and the ending was terrible. The complete lack of humour bothered me too, they took Warcraft way too serious. Ugh, what a piece of crap.

They should have made the movie about Arthas or Illidan anyway, not some story about 50 different orcs that I as a Warcraft fan even get confused by. I can't even imagine how someone that's not a Warcraft fan must have felt like during this movie.

Oh and where was the iconic Warcraft music during this movie?!
Click to expand...

Weak characters? Durotan and Guldan alone are great characters. Humor? It had the same amount of humor as the games have, not much, but some. I prefer a dark story over a comedy slapstick action movie. I think the story itself is pretty interesting, the problem was that they cut too many scenes out. So yes this is something we need to point out.

I like Arthas and Illidan. I grew up with Warcraft 3. But Warcraft is about Humans and Orcs. A good point to start here.
 
J

Jokab

Member
HowZatOZ said:
Why did you expect humor? It's a fantasy action, not a comedy. Having forced humour would have made it feel terrible in my opinion, instead what we have is a great movie that brings to life the world that I spent countless hours exploring in. Can't argue with that.
Click to expand...
Thing is they attempted to do the comic relief with Lothar, but he was just never funny. Every single joke fell flat, there was very little laughter in the theatre.

Ennosuke said:
Weak characters? Durotan and Guldan alone are great characters. Humor? It had the same amount of humor as the games have, not much, but some. I prefer a dark story over a comedy slapstick action movie. I think the story itself is pretty interesting, the problem was that they cut too many scenes out. So yes this is something we need to point out.

I like Arthas and Illidan. I grew up with Warcraft 3. But Warcraft is about Humans and Orcs. A good point to start here.
Click to expand...
Honestly I thought Durotan was a really weak character, as explained here:

SilentRob said:
Let's disuss Durotan's storyline and character arc, because I think it's one of the most frustrating aspects of this movie:

He's established as a willful servant of Gul'dan, just like everyone else. Gul'Dan is just as evil at the beginning of the movie as he is at the end of it, so it should be pretty obvious to everyone that he isn't a very honourable orc, you know, with all the lifesucking and stuff. Then, after invading an innocent world - by means of genocide of the Draenei - he suddenly starts to realize: "Hey! Wait a second! Maybe Gul'dan is kinda evil? Huh!". There's no real reason for this. He sees Blackhand rounding up humans and seems to be bothered by it (why? You KNEW this would happen, it was the entire purpose of the invasion and you already did it with the Draenei) and actually has to thank Gul'Dan for saving his son's life. As far as he knows Gul'dan did a pretty cool thing with the reanimation and, other than that, did EXACTLY what he promised to do.

Still, Durotan suddenly decides that he has to be a main character in this movie and rebel against Gul'Dan only because the scripts tells him to, not because he went through a meaningful character arc. They try to excuse this by him saying "Hey, notice how this lands dies? Maybe it's Gul'Dan!" to which I say "Well, bullshit!" because there is no way in hell they didn't recognize this happening with Draenor. I mean, the second Gul'Dan rose to power an entire planet died (at least that's implied? The whole Draenor plotline is painfully underdeveloped in the movie) and he just kinda shrugged it off, but the second they about 20 square meters of land turns bad, he gets suspicious and immediatly tries to rebel? Eh.

So Durotan decides to rebel by working with the humans. This alliance is what the entire marketing built toward and what this movie was supposed to show me. He meets with the humans...and immediatly gets ambushed and thrown into jail, with his whole clan getting slaughtered. That's supposed to be really shocking but since we have not even once seen the "clan" they keep talking about beforehand and gave us absolutely no information on what "clan" means in this context, how big it is or how Durotan really leads it (they told us but not once have they shown us, something this movie loves to do) I didn't care about the Frostwolves at all.

Anyway, Durotan get's thrown into jail, gets freed by Orgrim (who, again, decides that Gul'dan really IS evil after seeing him do exactly what he did before and what he promised to do - he also HAD to have known what would happen to Durotans clan when he betrayed him) and then they finally decide to start the rebellion.

Durotan fights Gul'Dan and...gets fucking destroyed. Orgrim uses that chance to talk to about Gul'Dans lack of honour and why he isn't a fit leader of the clan, three orcs kinda agree with him, get killed...and everyone else just shrugs it off and start fighting the humans, while Orgrim just continues to stand there for the entirety of the battle.

Durotan did NOTHING of consequence in this movie. He failed at everything he tried to do and was a willful participant in Gul'Dans blatantly evil schemes until he wasn't...not because there was a big event or because of character development, but simply because the script said so. He is the character the movie spends the most time with and he is completely and utterly worthless. Nothing would have changed if you would just delete him from the movie completely (well, his clan would still be alive, so there's that).

His only purpose was to be the father of Thrall, which happened before the movie and, again, has absolutely no consequence in this movie at all, since it's just set-up for a sequel. I was utterly dumbfounded when Durotan just kinda died without consequence at the end because it's such a non-existant character arc.

And still, he will probably be heralded as a hero in the sequels, just because that's what his character was supposed to be according to the plot outline, even though nothing in the actualy movie supports this view. If we just look at what he actually did he should be immediatly forgotten and shunned because he first participated in Gul'Dan's plans, then decided his plans were bad waaaay too late and then immediatly failed to stop them.
Click to expand...
 
K

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Jokab said:
Thing is they attempted to do the comic relief with Lothar, but he was just never funny. Every single joke fell flat, there was very little laughter in the theatre.


Honestly I thought Durotan was a really weak character, as explained here:
Click to expand...

I don't think Lothar was comic relief. He was a commander bonding with his army. He builds human bonds with people. That's what makes him a leader. None of his comments are out of character. He isn't grim and brooding. He's the kind of dude you have a beer and a good time with.

Durotan was never a willing servant of Gul'dan. He went with him in order to save his clan. They had been at war with the Draenei so he regarded them as enemies even though he didn't like the whole sacrifice thing. But deemed it necessary for him and his to escape the dying world they were on. When he realised that Gul'dan was the one killing Dreanor and would now continue to kill the world they landed on he realised he was only postponing the inevitable and needed to take a stand.
 
A

AmaterasuOni

Banned
HowZatOZ said:
Why did you expect humor? It's a fantasy action, not a comedy. Having forced humour would have made it feel terrible in my opinion, instead what we have is a great movie that brings to life the world that I spent countless hours exploring in. Can't argue with that.
Click to expand...

What the hell? Warcraft games are FULL of humor. It is part of the Warcraft universe.

Warcraft's editing was a joke though. It made me giggle.
 
G

Generic Power Ranger

Member
I thought the movie had humor. So did the rest of the cinema. It's not a joke every 10 seconds or anything, but an appropriate amount for the somewhat dark fantasy movie.
 
Perfo

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I've seen it yesterday and really enjoyed it. It's probably (it doesn't say much, I know) the best videogame movie I've seen. I expected way less, based on the boring trailers, but came out satisfied. I really liked the visual design of the Orcs and classic locations. I hope we get sequels!
 
Y

Yager

Banned
Visually it's fantastic, but that's it. None of the characters did nothing for me, I didn't care about the fate of the world, and the acting is kinda shit with humans; CGI characters are way better. It's kinda obvious that a lot of stuff got cut, and I hope that an extended cut is released...but at the same time, after watching it once, I have no desire to revisit it. All of the characters are terrible, the "emotional" scenes fail to transmit anything; hell, the best character is an Orc whose character arc is bad.

But I guess magic powers are kinda cool.
 
C

Chucker

Member
Some harsh opinions in here. I grew up playing WC1/2/3, spent years of my life foolishly in WoW.

Had low expectations for this movie because of the abysmal 17% on RT. Got invited to a press screener last night in DC and brought a friend who had NO experience playing any of the games.

It was fine, I had a good time. He had a GREAT time. I marked out at stuff that people playing the video game would know, like the Gryphon flying into the right spot in Stormwind, or the
siege of Westfall
, or the
murloc in the river behind the Goldshire Inn
.

I was surprised to see
Pre-Bubble Dalaran and heavy mention of the Kirin Tor
as I assumed it would have been dumbed down to "mages"

Yes, the humans needed more fleshing out, and the Orcs had a lot more screen time, but this is Blizzard and they have the hardest of hardons for Horde characters.

My friend, with no knowledge of any of the games said
"Medivh is going to turn heel, isn't he.
so that was telegraphed a bit far out.

Long story short, after spending so much time in these worlds, it was nice to see them realized on the big screen. It's best to think of this as an origin story for the entire world, take that with all of the good and bad, and you'll have a good enough time watching it.
 
E

Expendable.

Member
So, I let my writer decide if his review skewed more positive or negative. He went with positive and doing so we bumped up the RT score from 18% to 20%.

[Review] Warcraft



The mortal sin of any movie adaptation based on an intellectual property with a sufficient amount of weirdness or oddity is to be ashamed of its origins. Often times a film will, out of fear of alienating a wider audience, choose to blunt or soften some of the more esoteric aspects of its story. An attempt to reach out to a broader cross-section of the potential audience, all this usually accomplishes is angering fans and baffling and boring strangers.

For all the negative things that could be said about Warcraft, the newest film from director Duncan Jones, the one thing that it unabashedly has in its favor it is commitment to being wholly true to itself. A grand, goofy, colorful epic with an almost impenetrably convoluted mythology, Warcraft never breaks its stone-faced earnest investment in its own story and world. In an era of committee-crafted mass entertainment that does its best to serve all possible masters at once, this straight-faced parade of ostentatious production design and unapologetically cheesy and labyrinthine plot should be given its due share of applause.
Click to expand...

Full review.
 
N

neoemonk

Member
So happy to see positive fan reception after the initial critical reviews came out.

Growing up, Terminator 2 was the first movie I ever remember that critics shat on, and I went and saw it and was blown away. Kind of funny to think about because T2 is very highly rated in retrospect. Back in 1991 the only source of critical reception I had was in the newspaper and our local critics were hating on it. It was a good lesson as a kid.

I'm not saying that Warcraft will go down in history the same way as Terminator 2, but I'm glad to see a lot of people seem to really enjoy it.
 
F

Finaj

Member
I haven't seen it yet, but apparently this scene isn't in the film, and that makes me sad:

CisT4lMUgAAPq3G.jpg
 
S

starchild excalibur

Member
Some of the reviews for it have been pretty funny to read, but it seems like even if it doesn't do amazingly in the States it'll probably do well enough internationally to possibly warrant a sequel.

Would rather see Jones work on original stories though.
 
F

Finaj

Member
starchild excalibur said:
Some of the reviews for it have been pretty funny to read, but it seems like even if it doesn't do amazingly in the States it'll probably do well enough internationally to possibly warrant a sequel.

Would rather see Jones work on original stories though.
Click to expand...

He still is. Duncan Jones is filming Mute (takes place in the same universe as Moon) this year with Paul Rudd starring.
 
I

ilikesanta

Member
I just opened Fandango on my phone, looking for times for a different movie, and it had a big picture for WOW with a banner on it saying "Don't Get Sold Out!"

Gave me a good chuckle.
 
CharminUltra

CharminUltra

Member
Ignoring the reviews, this movie is like a perfect storm of things I personally dislike. Duncan Jones (he's never made a movie I like)? Check. Warcraft lore (silly garbage)? Check. Awkward mix of live action and CGI (based on the trailers at least)? Check. So I think it's better if I steer clear of it.

That said, if the fans like it, that's really all that matters.
 
F

frontovik

Banned
I'm curious to see it just to determine how bad it is & because I used to be a Warcraft fan during the WCIII/vanilla WoW days.
 
davepoobond

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
ilikesanta said:
I just opened Fandango on my phone, looking for times for a different movie, and it had a big picture for WOW with a banner on it saying "Don't Get Sold Out!"

Gave me a good chuckle.
Click to expand...

the time me and my friends are going at got sold out. some people procrastinated and cant go anymore

i was surprised, personally.
 
scoobs

scoobs

Member
Just finished... my TLDR review: If you like Warcraft you are going to really enjoy yourself. Is it perfect? No. But very entertaining.
 
Z

Zackat

Member
Finaj said:
I think Duncan Jones deserves to have another go at it. I mean, the DC community is giving Zack Snyder his third try now.
Click to expand...

jett said:
This movie was terrible and makes me question Ducan's talents as a filmmaker.
Click to expand...
I want him to have another chance with a, hopefully, bigger budget so he can make the movie he wants to make. Time will tell, but it is seeming likely?
 
D

Dead

well not really...yet
Budget doesn't seem like the issue with this. The CG in the latest footage looks pretty outstanding.
 
F

Finaj

Member
Houndi101 said:
Tell that to the 40 minutes they couldn't afford to include. (To my knowledge this is what happened)
Click to expand...

Ran out of budget apparently. $160 million is actually pretty cheap for a movie of this scale (for comparison, the Hobbit films had a budget of 200-250 million).

However, there is a lot of finished footage we've seen in tv spots/trailers that weren't in the film, apparently.
 
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