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Warcraft movie: There might be spoilers from books and the games.


Jon's Queen Consort

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13 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Ok I know that this is a very huge favour to ask but, could someone tell me a summary about Warcraft's history up to the First war when the movie takes place? Thank you in advance! 

This is like asking us to summarize ASOIAF :lol: My ex printed the story for our kid and it ended up being a 200 hundred pages book. From wiki:

The Kingdom of Stormwind was a prosperous one. The humans who dwelled there turned the land into a paradise. The Knights of Stormwind, and the Clerics of Northshire Abbey, roamed far and wide, serving the king's people with honour and justice. The well-trained armies of the king maintained a long-lasting peace for many generations. The people of Azeroth were unbeknownst to the fact that the powerful human mage Medivh was seeking a way to destroy this kingdom and wrought terror on the lands. With the help of an other-worldy being named Gul'dan, the two managed to open a portal between their two worlds, a portal which would later became known as the Dark Portal.[46][47]

Through the portal came the Orcish Horde. The humans did not know from whence these foul creatures came, and none were prepared for the terror that they spawned. Their warriors wielded axe and spear with deadly proficiency, while others rode darkwolves as black as the moonless night. Unimagined were the destructive powers of their evil magiks, derived from the fires of the underworld. Filled with the demonic blood of Mannoroth,[48] these creatures lusted for war and would destroy anything that prevented them from reaching their goal; to conquer Azeroth.[49]

With an ingenious arsenal of weaponry and powerful magic, these two forces collided in a contest of cunning, intellect, and brute strength, with the victor claiming dominance over the whole of Azeroth.[50]

 

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That summary kind of misses out on the big thing though, which is that in the later lore the Orcs where retconned into being an honourable and shamanistic (though still warlike) race, that was tricked by demons. One of the greatest demons, Kil'jaeden, masqueraded as the Orcs ancestral spirits and told them that a neighbouring race - the draenei - where planning to attack them. So the Orcs are corrupted by the demons and commit a preemptive genocide against the draenei and basically mess up their home world to the point that all of them (even the good orcs who never drank the demon blood) had to find a new world to colonise/conquer. I think the best way to summarise the film is a fantasy planet of the apes. It's Orcs vs Humans, but with factions on both sides looking to find peace.

Unfortunately the movie's marketing has been awful. But I have a lot of faith in Duncan Jones and the rest of the cast who seem to have a lot of passion for the project. I'm not really worried for the quality of the movie, I think it can easily reach fun fantasy action flick levels with a little bit of depth beyond that. It may bomb domestically but the chinese revenue kind of guarantees financial success. Any blockbuster which airs in china usually does well and warcraft is apparently as big as star wars over there.

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17 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

It doesn't even feel that Warcrafty! I played a bit of WoW in the past and it was very cartoonish, and I  currently dabble in Hearthstone, but this just doesn't feel close to that universe at all. 

I wouldn't compare the film to Hearthstone. Hearthstone is completely different in tone, very kid friendly, lots of humour. WoW itself can be a bit jokey at times but it's still supposed to have a "serious" (albeit often poorly written) story underneath. And the first war is probably the darkest period of Warcraft's history.

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7 hours ago, JCRB's Honeypot said:

This is like asking us to summarize ASOIAF :lol: My ex printed the story for our kid and it ended up being a 200 hundred pages book. From wiki:

The Kingdom of Stormwind was a prosperous one. The humans who dwelled there turned the land into a paradise. The Knights of Stormwind, and the Clerics of Northshire Abbey, roamed far and wide, serving the king's people with honour and justice. The well-trained armies of the king maintained a long-lasting peace for many generations. The people of Azeroth were unbeknownst to the fact that the powerful human mage Medivh was seeking a way to destroy this kingdom and wrought terror on the lands. With the help of an other-worldy being named Gul'dan, the two managed to open a portal between their two worlds, a portal which would later became known as the Dark Portal.[46][47]

Through the portal came the Orcish Horde. The humans did not know from whence these foul creatures came, and none were prepared for the terror that they spawned. Their warriors wielded axe and spear with deadly proficiency, while others rode darkwolves as black as the moonless night. Unimagined were the destructive powers of their evil magiks, derived from the fires of the underworld. Filled with the demonic blood of Mannoroth,[48] these creatures lusted for war and would destroy anything that prevented them from reaching their goal; to conquer Azeroth.[49]

With an ingenious arsenal of weaponry and powerful magic, these two forces collided in a contest of cunning, intellect, and brute strength, with the victor claiming dominance over the whole of Azeroth.[50]

 

I know that is a huge favour. I have tried to read the wikia but afaik it hasn't something like that so I cannot fully understand what its going on. From what I you have read the orcs are coming to Azeroth when the movie takes place? 

That summary kind of misses out on the big thing though, which is that in the later lore the Orcs where retconned into being an honourable and shamanistic (though still warlike) race, that was tricked by demons. One of the greatest demons, Kil'jaeden, masqueraded as the Orcs ancestral spirits and told them that a neighbouring race - the draenei - where planning to attack them. So the Orcs are corrupted by the demons and commit a preemptive genocide against the draenei and basically mess up their home world to the point that all of them (even the good orcs who never drank the demon blood) had to find a new world to colonise/conquer. I think the best way to summarise the film is a fantasy planet of the apes. It's Orcs vs Humans, but with factions on both sides looking to find peace.

 

I had read that orcs are not the enemy but a Lich King is. I don't know if I understood that correctly tho.

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32 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I had read that orcs are not the enemy but a Lich King is. I don't know if I understood that correctly tho.

That's WCIII territory. IICR; the orcs eventually leave Azorath during WCIII, and it becomes mostly a Human campaign (until later extensions I haven't played, afaik). IN WCIII, the enemy are the Undead, so to speak (and not to spoilt a lot).

Spoiler

IICR, the game starts with the orcs until they decided to leave, and later we meet Arthas, the human Prince who leads the game until he becomes possessed by evilness and merges with the Lich King.

 

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1 hour ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I had read that orcs are not the enemy but a Lich King is. I don't know if I understood that correctly tho.

Don't believe these lies. Orcs are a cancer. #Daelinwasright

Seriously, to give you the briefest summary relevant to the movie (I doubt the Dreanei will be involved, too weird): orcs are deceived by demons and some charismatic leaders into forming a united state, the Horde, abandoning shamanic magic for demonic, and making war on their neighbours. This ruins their home planet and one of their leaders offers them a new world which, predictably, they decide to conquer.

Meanwhile the humans, dwarves and elves are just chilling in their kingdoms, not doing all that much. Stormwind, the one in the trailers, is the southernmost kingdom and the most isolated, though also one of the most powerful. 

The Lich King doesn't exist yet. I'm hoping this movie doesn't tank so we get to see that story on screen one day, since it's the best part of Warcraft. 

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17 minutes ago, JCRB's Honeypot said:

Also, Pandas.

And greedy New Yorker goblins, and Victorian werewolves, and intelligent zombies, and walking cows, and hippie elves, and magic elves, and Jamaican trolls, and evil frog men, and midgets, and ogres, and dragons, and demons, and Cthulu expies, and stories-tall robots, and sentient insects of various flavors, more types of boars that you can shake a stick at, etc.

Warcraft is one hell of a fantasy kitchen sink. People are angry they're sticking to Orcs vs Humans, but there's no way one movie can cover even a tenth of the universe's hilariously bloated lore.

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7 minutes ago, Jasta11 said:

And greedy New Yorker goblins, and Victorian werewolves, and intelligent zombies, and walking cows, and hippie elves, and magic elves, and Jamaican trolls, and evil frog men, and midgets, and ogres, and dragons, and demons, and Cthulu expies, and stories-tall robots, and sentient insects of various flavors, more types of boars that you can shake a stick at, etc.

Warcraft is one hell of a fantasy kitchen sink. People are angry they're sticking to Orcs vs Humans, but there's no way one movie can cover even a tenth of the universe's hilariously bloated lore.

It would end up looking like the final battle during The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe or Alice in Wonderland. I liked those, but the parts where pretty much everything jumps into battle didn't look that good on screen, tbh.

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16 hours ago, JCRB's Honeypot said:

It would end up looking like the final battle during The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe or Alice in Wonderland. I liked those, but the parts where pretty much everything jumps into battle didn't look that good on screen, tbh.

Yeah that was just a horrible battle. Warcraft is just a mishmash of a million ideas, and its all a little silly. It would have been better as an animated movie (even though its pretty much there already) which would allow a lot more visual freedom. Warcraft worked because it didn't feel like a real place, but a sort of living cartoon. 

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5 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yeah that was just a horrible battle. Warcraft is just a mishmash of a million ideas, and its all a little silly. It would have been better as an animated movie (even though its pretty much there already) which would allow a lot more visual freedom. Warcraft worked because it didn't feel like a real place, but a sort of living cartoon. 

Blizzard should have just partnered with a studio to make an animated movie with the classic Blizzard cinematics, that I'm fairly certain everyone likes.  

39 minutes ago, JCRB's Honeypot said:

Agree. I think the movie has been terribly hyped.

Oh, you mean the preview??

Oh, the snark is strong with this one.

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On 4/19/2016 at 0:31 PM, Astromech said:

Just make Warcraft 4. I'll watch that film when it premieres on a premium cable channel.

I want this most of all.  Where the hell is my War craft 4 announcement?

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2 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Blizzard should have just partnered with a studio to make an animated movie with the classic Blizzard cinematics, that I'm fairly certain everyone likes.  

Such a movie would have been prohibitively expensive and taken ages to produce. Realistic animated films are probably an even less safe bet than video game movies. 

I think if they can get the wackiness of certain marvel properties to work on the big screen, Warcraft's hodgepodge of different fantasy ideas should work, should they ever get to that point. 

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