Warcraft (2016)

[monolith]

So I don't know if anyone is as ridiculously excited as me about this, but the trailer is out on Saturday. May well turn out as most computer game to film experiments do (shite), but Blizzard seem to have at least put a lot of effort in to getting this right and hiring people who could potentially do at least a passable job.

I haven't played the MMO for a while but I've been a fan of the series since Warcraft 2 and I'm pretty much struggling not to cream all over my office just thinking about the trailer. Fuck knows how I'll be watching the film.

[Hollow]

Meh.

Films based on games always fail.

[madhair60]

I used to know a chap who would run home during lunch breaks to play World of Warcraft.  Seems like it's for big nerds in the main.

[monolith]

I used to know a chap who would run home during lunch breaks to play World of Warcraft.  Seems like it's for big nerds in the main.

Was it the creaming all over my office that gave me away?

[monolith]

Meh.

Films based on games always fail.

Has to change some time though, right? There's no logical reason why they should always fail, they just happen to have been done badly in the past. Warcraft has a rich and interesting world (hence the unparalleled success of the MMO) so this could be the one that breaks the mould.

[great_badir]

Whilst I'm a bit tired of the whole hobbits and goblins thing, the fact that Duncan Jones is involved could make it good.  I do wonder if it's too much of a huge leap too soon in terms of scale for him, though...

[Hollow]

Zowie Bowie you say?

Moon is one of my favourites, Source Code not so much.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Has to change some time though, right? There's no logical reason why they should always fail, they just happen to have been done badly in the past.

I agree with you in principal, but I'm none too optimistic about this film's chances (although admittedly, that's because I have no interest in the game). The worst thing would be if it flops and drags Jones' career down with it.

[madhair60]

"Stu, would you like to go and see the film of Warcraft"

"Fuck no"

^ predicted future conversation

[monolith]

Who is Stu?

[Phil_A]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhFMIRuHAL4

Fucking hell, it's hard to see how anyone not already invested in the games could care about any of this. It just looks so utterly rote and bland.

"For orcs, there is no other life but war!" Oh fuck off.

[Old Nehamkin]

I don't really care about this, but I hope it does well enough for Jones to be given free reign to finally make that artsy Moon follow-up set in future Berlin that he was talking about a few years back.

[Paaaaul]

I don't really care about this, but I hope it does well enough for Jones to be given free reign to finally make that artsy Moon follow-up set in future Berlin that he was talking about a few years back.

Is that the film he wrote with Iggy Pop's son?

[Jerzy Bondov]

I don't really care about this, but I hope it does well enough for Jones to be given free reign to finally make that artsy Moon follow-up set in future Berlin that he was talking about a few years back.

He's definitely making that - Mute. With Paul Rudd, Sam Rockwell and Alexander Skarsgard.

[BritishHobo]

I used to know a chap who would run home during lunch breaks to play World of Warcraft.  Seems like it's for big nerds in the main.

I was at a mate's for New Years once, and he disappeared ten minutes before midnight. Found him upstairs on the PC and rang in the New Year watching him wander aimlessly around on WoW. One of my more depressing New Years.

[Glebe]

Colourful, but looks a bit blah. Still, at least the orcs aren't 'evil' characters.

[WesterlyWinds]

Where are the Tauren? Fucking shit mate

[Onken]

What a load of shite. Seeing people excited for this is like peering through the window of Games Workshop and laughing at them.

[hedgehog90]

Trailer looks like saggy balls. What's with the hulky guys' teeth?
Unless they can dislocate their jaws, they serve no good purpose except for looking sexy among their own.
Am I supposed to be turned on by them?
I'm confused. Fuck this shit and fuck you. I hate this fantasy D&D LotR GoT fucking BULLLLLSHIT!

[greenman]

What a load of shite. Seeing people excited for this is like peering through the window of Games Workshop and laughing at them.

Bar the orcs having some depth it makes Games Workshops version of Middle Earth look highly tasteful by comparison going from memory of my misspent teen years.

They would have been much better going for a StarCraft film I would say, at least then your not following on from your main influence in Tolkien, no decent Alien films made since the 80's or early 90's and indeed no Games Workshop film of 40K.

[Urinal Cake]

Looks average but I guess the plot and characters might be clever enough to subvert the Tolkien tropes. You know like Shrek.

[monolith]

Acting and script looked fucking woeful from that trailer.

Thought the visuals looked fantastic though, slightly unfinished CGI but apparently that's common with a trailer and it's still in post production.

Have been a fan of the games since the mid 90s so it's nice to see a silver screen adaptation but I've lost any hope of it being a genuinely decent film, best case scenario will be two hours of decent looking visuals in a world I like with a shit film underneath (so Avatar basically).

[Custard]

It looks like a load of Xbox cutscenes thrown together, like people do on YouTube now and again

Big lumbering horrible CGI'ed to fuck pebbledash.

Looks like a massively expensive flop, and the fallout should be interesting. I just hope Zowie Bowie recovers

[monolith]

It looks like a load of Xbox cutscenes thrown together, like people do on YouTube now and again

Big lumbering horrible CGI'ed to fuck pebbledash.

Looks like a massively expensive flop, and the fallout should be interesting. I just hope Zowie Bowie recovers

Not sure it will be a flop, financially at least. WOW has had around 10 million subscribers for the best part of a decade, that's over 10 million people (14 million at one time) who happily pay £8.99 a month for content. I'd expect the majority of them to buy at least one ticket which gets you close to the budget, then you have your generic fantasy loving folk who will like the look of the orcs and fantasy shit, and if it ends up being a PG then a few kids would be attracted too.

If The Hobbit can make a billion at the box office then I'd be surprised if this didn't at least turn in a profit.

Critically it's going to get mauled, but then so have the Transformer's films which are also two hours of CGI with shit films underneath.

[Custard]

Yeah, you're probably right. But it does have a whiff of the John Carter about it (I liked John Carter), in that it looks very expensive yet the casual film-goer might not really get what it's about or what it's going for, and might not bother to find out

The trailer looks aimed solely at fans of the game and 10 year old boys, which probably won't help. Something a little bit more understated and clearer on the actual story would help. I know virtually nothing about World Of Warcraft, and I still don't after seeing the trailer. It looks like an even messier, uglier Avatar, at first glance, and I can see this first trailer turning a lot of people off

Will be very interesting to see how it does, anyway!

[monolith]

Yeah, you're probably right. But it does have a whiff of the John Carter about it (I liked John Carter), in that it looks very expensive yet the casual film-goer might not really get what it's about or what it's going for, and might not bother to find out

The trailer looks aimed solely at fans of the game and 10 year old boys, which probably won't help. Something a little bit more understated and clearer on the actual story would help. I know virtually nothing about World Of Warcraft, and I still don't after seeing the trailer. It looks like an even messier, uglier Avatar, at first glance, and I can see this first trailer turning a lot of people off

Will be very interesting to see how it does, anyway!

Yeah don't get me wrong, I'm fucking devastated by that trailer, really thought that with the time they spent finding a director and the years they spent on the screenplay that there was a chance of this breaking the shit game to film crossover curse but whatever hope I had has been eradicated and my expectations are now at an all time low.

But I would still be surprised if it didn't turn in a profit. John Carter didn't have a billion dollar franchise behind it.

However even as a big fan of the games it's very hard for me to defend that trailer and the only positive I can find is that I like the look of the world (of Warcraft AHAHAHAHAH see what I did there) and the orcs. I watched it with the sound off and found it a bit less painful.

[popcorn]

My fee to watch this film is £100.

[Mister Six]

Some of the designs are nice, but there's not a lot here that doesn't look hugely derivative. All the humans and orcs look like cleaner, nicer versions of their Lord of the Rings counterparts; people ride eagles and wolves like in The Hobbit; all the speech is portentous... but Lord of the Rings had so much else in it - giant spiders, ring wraiths, fiery dungeon monsters, big tentacle things. This just seems to be green blokes and humans teaming up against slightly off-green blokes. Is that it? Are they trying to sell us a diminished and watered-down version of something we've already seen before?

(Also, people who know about game lore - why's one of the orcs just a woman with green makeup and uncomfortable fake teeth? Is she a half-orc?)

[The Roofdog]

5 years Duncan Jones has spent making this. What a waste of chops.

[monolith]

Some of the designs are nice, but there's not a lot here that doesn't look hugely derivative. All the humans and orcs look like cleaner, nicer versions of their Lord of the Rings counterparts; people ride eagles and wolves like in The Hobbit; all the speech is portentous... but Lord of the Rings had so much else in it - giant spiders, ring wraiths, fiery dungeon monsters, big tentacle things. This just seems to be green blokes and humans teaming up against slightly off-green blokes. Is that it? Are they trying to sell us a diminished and watered-down version of something we've already seen before?

(Also, people who know about game lore - why's one of the orcs just a woman with green makeup and uncomfortable fake teeth? Is she a half-orc?)

There is an incredibly rich and detailed world they have to draw inspiration from, the mmo has been successful due to it being an interesting world as opposed to any amazing gameplay.

It actually has all of the things you mention from LOTR (or equivalents) and more, but none of these things seemed to be in the trailer which is a worry. The original WOW cinematic gives you some idea of what they could have used if they wanted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYK_Gqyf48Y

And that's before 5 expansions where in each there are new continents, planets, creatures, dragons, demons etc. There are over a dozen playable races as well as a plethora of non playable races but it only seems to be orcs and humans in the film.

Perhaps they are banking on this being a success and hoping to introduce all of these at a later date. I hope it is a success because it's a wonderful world that is rich in lore and history and even if this film turns out to be shit there is enough potential with the source material to make decent movies in the future. It's popular for a reason and has gripped me for 20 years now.

I'm wondering if maybe they would have been better off going completely computer animated instead of live action, the cinematic above is ten years old and they have come a long way since then and with the same team behind the cinematics getting behind a feature length film it would have looked fantastic.

5 years Duncan Jones has spent making this. What a waste of chops.

It does look like a shite trailer but to be fair, it's only 2 minutes of the film. I'm sure there have been films with rubbish trailers that have turned out okay (I don't think this will but it's not completely beyond the realms of possibility).

I'm not defending the trailer but I will be saddened if it is a total failure as I would love to see a decent film set in the Warcraft universe and if it's a moderate success then there's a least a chance of that in the future.

Ah what am I saying, if it's shit but is a success they'll just churn out generic ball sack after generic ball sack won't they.