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Warcraft (2016)

Started by monolith, July 08, 2015, 01:02:25 PM

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monolith

Oh and every single Warcraft game has had a certain charm to it with lots of nice little funny touches. But the trailer seemed completely humourless.

Head Gardener


Mister Six

Here's the plot, from what I can figure out:

White humans from Humansville are being attacked by green orcs from Orcworld, who're being pushed out by brownish orcs from Orcworld, and maybe some kind of Sauron.

Main White Human makes friends with Main Green Orc, and possibly also bangs Green Human Who Looks Like An Orc But Isn't CGIed (Possibly Because Main White Human's Actor Would Have To Make Out With A Tennis Ball And That Would Be Weird For Everyone On Set).

MWH and MGO have to convince their respective sides that they need to team up to defeat the brownish orcs and the Sauron. MGO also has a daughter who he cares for and has to push into the reeds - almost certainly this happens in flashback and then she grows up to be GHWLLAOBICGI(PBMWHAWHTMOWATBATWBEFEOS).

The humans are all "argh but the orcs" and the orcs are all "argh but we're just super into war" and it's basically Israel and Palestine, but then the brown-ish orcs (um. ISIS?) turn up and everyone teams up and they beat up the Sauron and then everyone's safe. MWH and GHWLLAOBICGI(PBMWHAWHTMOWATBATWBEFEOS) get married and MGO is all "Oh no, this Festivus is going to be awkward!" and everyone laughs. Freeze frame. Credits.

There is no sequel.

Head Gardener

the trailer also reminded me of the Ogre in Time Bandits


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The fact that the orcs aren't all evil does at least make it seem a little more interesting than racist old Tolkien, or Avatar and its twatty noble savages. Other than that, nah.

greenman

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on November 07, 2015, 01:57:28 PM
The fact that the orcs aren't all evil does at least make it seem a little more interesting than racist old Tolkien, or Avatar and its twatty noble savages. Other than that, nah.

It makes it seem exactly like Avatar.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Well in Avatar the blue people are all good. In this it seems some of the orcs are goodies and some of them are baddies, which is a little bit more interesting.

A little bit.

Glebe

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on November 07, 2015, 01:57:28 PMThe fact that the orcs aren't all evil does at least make it seem a little more interesting than racist old Tolkien, or Avatar and its twatty noble savages. Other than that, nah.

Tolkien's orcs weren't evil, they were just a bit 'swarthy'.

Glebe

*bump*

New trailer.

I dunno, it looks pretty and everything, but there's a lot of clichés in there. Could be entertaining, but is prolly going be a load of bollocks. Sorry, Bowie's son.

monolith

Blizzard spent nearly a decade making sure they did the ground work to make it more than just a cheap cash in. If it does turn out shit it will be annoying.

I'm assuming they are roughly going for the same story as the games with a bit of ret conning in there (Orcs were pure evil in the first game which doesn't seem to be the case here).

Have probably said before in this thread (can't be arsed to check) but I hope it is at least a financial success as the stories for the 2nd and particularly the 3rd game are far more interesting than the first so even if this one turns out to be a bit shit I'm hoping for at least a couple of sequels as the characters and story get a lot more interesting (before turning terrible pretty soon after the games get to the World of Warcraft timeline).

I don't think I'm going to read any reviews, they are bound to be shit, going to just go in blind and try to enjoy seeing a world on the silver screen that I've enjoyed playing in since the mid 90s when I was 10. Expectations were high before the first trailer due to the time Blizzard spent getting the right people involved but they couldn't be any lower after all of the trailers so even if it's mediocre I'll be pleased, but more than anything I just want it to make money so that we can get the sequels with the better stories.

Apparently nearly 100 million people have subscribed to World of Warcraft at some point and the RTS games have sold millions too, so already there's a pretty decent sized core audience you'd think and there aren't any other Hobbit/LOTR type fantasy films around at the moment and they all cleaned up at the box office so I'm hoping there's a fair chance of it making a few hundred million which should be enough to warrant a sequel.


monolith

http://thedigitaltheater.com/index.php/warcraft-2016/

If you check the lossless quality trailer for trailer D (the lossless format for the original trailer is now unavailable) then the visuals look much better than what we've seen on youtube, possibly Avatar level.

Plus Duncan Jones has been implying on twitter that he is less than impressed with the marketing for the film and has been retweeting fan made posters and tag lines that make the film look far more appealing for both those familiar and unfamiliar with the film.

If he is unhappy with the marketing then that gives me hope that there is a better film underneath what we've been shown so far and that it might not be as generic and quite frankly, boring as has been implied by what has been shown so far. They keep repeating the same quotes "To save our people!" "They are beasts, they must be destroyed!" "Are you sure about that?!" "For orcs...." yadda yadda yadda in every new trailer.

There must be more to the film than that and if Duncan Jones is happy with the film but is unhappy with the marketing then that gives me a little bit more hope than I had than when the trailer first dropped.

And again, the visuals look much better in the lossless quality of that trailer, and if it does look as good as Avatar which was basically a pretty average film underneath some amazing visuals in a world that had no history, then I think Warcraft stands to do pretty well at the box office when it has an IP with 20 years behind it and an MMO that has had over 100 million subscribers in total over the years.

I hope they use a fair bit of the story that they have under their belts in this film, there is so much history and lore in the Warcraft world and so many interesting characters and story to tell that it would be criminal if all that was done away with in place of a basic plot that is there just to support the amazing visuals as opposed to using the character and story as the main draw and the visuals as the support.

monolith

On the other hand, Super Mario Brothers. You'd think that had enough fans to get by just on fandom alone...

This is going to bomb, isn't it?

SavageHedgehog

Maybe, but I would say that the Mario film came out before "gamer" culture really developed, and that at the time the predominant attitude towards games was that they were a kids thing that could be a curiosity or a guilty pleasure for adults at most. I don't the Mario games, nor any games, had the kind of fanbase which could develop real Box Office muscle then.

Butchers Blind

As someone who's not into the whole gaming culture so know nothing about the game 'Warcraft', the trailers come across as pretty dull and generic.  Like a watered down LotR or GoT.  Surely as a non-gamer im the one the studio marketing bods have to win over in order for this film to succeed and so far hasn't done that.  It cant get by just on fan base.

phantom_power

It looked pretty dull to me. The only thing providing any interest is that Duncan Jones is directing

greenman

Quote from: Butchers Blind on April 21, 2016, 10:30:39 AM
As someone who's not into the whole gaming culture so know nothing about the game 'Warcraft', the trailers come across as pretty dull and generic.  Like a watered down LotR or GoT.  Surely as a non-gamer im the one the studio marketing bods have to win over in order for this film to succeed and so far hasn't done that.  It cant get by just on fan base.

Its basically Tolkien and D&D third hand by way of Games Workshop.

monolith

Quote from: phantom_power on April 21, 2016, 11:42:51 AM
It looked pretty dull to me. The only thing providing any interest is that Duncan Jones is directing
Mentioned it further upthread but Duncan Jones isn't pleased with the marketing either which gives the film a bit more hope.

Glebe

So I saw this tonight... I actually quite enjoyed a good chuck of it, it's a fairly earnest and spirited piece of broad high fantasy for the most part, a real hodge podge of Lord of the Rings/Dungeons & Dragons/Game of Thrones tropes. I haven't seen a fantasy adventure game brought to life on screen quite so successfully before, at least in visual terms... some really sumptuous settings and magical happenings going on, and plenty of gnarly orcs on display. Some of the effects work is pretty amazing, particularly the CG facial animation.

Unfortunately, it kind of loses it's way about 3/4 of the way in, and the rest of the film is a bit of a rushed mess. I like that they made the orcs three-dimensional characters,
Spoiler alert
so what a shame they kill off the likeable main orc guy around that point, who was kind of carrying a good portion of the movie
[close]
. Also, while it thankfully doesn't hang around, it could have spent a bit more time introducing the characters, some of whom
Spoiler alert
are later offed rather unceremoniously and/or whose motives are little bit unconvincing
[close]
.

So yeah, a good bit of it felt like a high-quality guilty pleasure, sort of like the best game cut-scene you could possibly imagine, but it just doesn't convince ultimately. Ah well.

monolith

I thought I remembered making a thread about this but couldn't find it when searching so posted in another thread but I also enjoyed it, whilst recognising similar problems to yourself.

I am baffled by the amount of hatred and poor reviews it has generated though, it's not going to be threatening anything come awards season but there's no way it's down there with the likes of Battlefield Earth as some reviewers have suggested.

If it "wins" any Razzies then that will be a disgrace and harsh on Duncan Jones who has clearly made a lot of effort and this doesn't just seem like a cheap cash in.

In fact it looks like it's going to cost them a lot of money if forecasts are correct.

Glebe

Indeed, seems a number of critics have really gone a bit overboard and thrown the baby out with the bathwater... I haven't seen Battlefield Earth, but giving that films reputation, it sounds like a bit of an exaggeration to compare it with that. Maybe a better comparison would be Flash Gordon compared to The Lord of the Rings' Star Wars original trilogy... or Scarface compared to LOTR's Godfather trilogy or summit, okay that's enough of that.

Oh yeah, my brother has done extra work on Vikings, and so has actually worked alongside Travis Fimmel!

monolith

Is he a cunt? I think I'll find it easier to defend the film if he's not a cunt.

Glebe

Quote from: monolith on June 04, 2016, 04:19:13 PMIs he a cunt? I think I'll find it easier to defend the film if he's not a cunt.

I think he might be a bit cocky (unsurprisingly), but otherwise I think he might be an alright bloke, apparently.

BRen

I think the thing about this film is it's basically been made with a target audience of 'Warcraft fanboy' in mind. I've been a fan of the franchise for well over ten years and I loved it, because I was looking out for all the little things that appear in WoW and such, and seeing Ironforge/Karazhan/Stormwind and all of these other places and characters actually brought to life is pretty amazing. But for the general population who couldn't care less then there's probably not as much in it for them, as the story does sort of lose it's way 3/4 of the way in as has been mentioned and it probably just reminds most of LotR though I guess a non-fan could enjoy it but just be rather confused. I think it's a very niche film in that respect, though I hope it does well enough for sequel/s as there's so much lore and such for them now to pick up the ball and run with.

Head Gardener

I'm going tomorrow night, my son couldn't be persuaded to join me "it looks crap" so claims an 11 year old

Glebe

Following on from Deadpool's success in Japan, this has earned the second biggest opening in China. Funny how Hollywood can make an expensive blockbuster these days and have it flip domestically, only to be rescued in the Far East.

monolith

If you fancy a laugh head on to the IMDB forum for Warcraft. It's full of threads started by posters who haven't seen the film, have no interest in seeing the film, are not fans of the film, are not fans of any other rival franchise, yet are desperate to see the film flop. Multiple threads devoted to explaining Hollywood accounting and that even if it's a success in the far East it still might not make it's money back so "hahaha fuck you fan boys, this film sucks and is a flop".

To dedicate so much time and energy in to hating something that you aren't a fan of and affects you in no way is mind boggling, makes for entertaining reading though.

I'd sort of understand if it was a backlash against lots of enthusiasm and people saying it's the best fantasy film ever but the consensus from people who liked it seems to be that it was enjoyable but has a it's fair share of problems. Haven't seen anyone who genuinely thought it was a 10/10 film so the time and effort spent trashing the film by people who aren't getting paid to is bizarre.

TLDR: The internet has lots of weirdos.

BritishHobo

IMDb message boards are a weird place. If you're not carrying a heavy agenda for one side or the other then it's not even worth sticking your head up. Just topic after topic after topic of people saying a film is the best/worst thing ever made, and anyone who disagrees is a fucking idiot who should kill themselves. I was a regular there for about three years and I'm not sure I saw a single constructive conversation.

Glebe

Quote from: Glebe on June 08, 2016, 07:04:58 PMand have it flip domestically

Er, that should be flop, of course. I'm not suggesting any blockbusters have been performing acrobatics of late.

Anyway... yeah, I don't quite get how harsh critics have been on it (although some, including Mark Kermode, enjoyed it for what it was), although granted it has it's flaws and does go disappointingly flat in the last stretch.

monolith

The Kermode review was a non hyperbolic and balanced review and I agreed with most of his points.

It's definitely not perfect but as a fan of the Warcraft franchise I was happy and hope there will be a sequel, it's done good numbers outside the US and is predicted to make over 200 mil in China alone so I'm a bit more hopeful of a sequel now, would be nice for it to make at least a 100 mil in the US though, my worry is that if it doesn't do well domestically then they will stuff it full of panda's and other things aimed toward pleasing the Chinese market (like the entire expansion they did).

Although in truth I'll just be happy if there's a sequel, when I read the first reviews a couple of weeks ago my heart sank and I didn't think there was a hope in hell of a sequel but there's at least a chance now. The story gets much more interesting now in the lore, particularly if they decide to introduce Arthas, Thrall and most of the lore from Warcraft 3 in the next one.

I know that basically skips Warcraft 2 but it would be a big gamble to just take the lore from Warcraft 2 as the plot would be very similar to the first film whereas introducing the Warcraft 3 lore would make things interesting.

I'll stop rambling now as I look like a hapless fanboy.

And I agree with the poster above regarding the IMDB message boards, it's best just to stay away...