WoW Moviewatch: The Thaenor Chronicles, Chapter Two
by Moo Money 
Apr 16th 2008 at 12:00PM
This time around, Stormscape finishes up the loose ends from Chapter One, and creates new plotlines with which to move forward in the saga of the Thaenor brothers. He also employs voice actors, which was a major complaint from the first movie. However, since YouTube nerfed Director's accounts, he had to upload his 20+ minutes opus, The Thaenor Chronicles: Chapter Two, in three separate parts. If you liked the first part shown here, we highly suggest that you check out the high quality Filefront download.
[Via Warcraftmovies.com]
If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.
Previously on Moviewatch ...
Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Raoulduke Apr 16th 2008 12:32PM
i tried to watch the first chapter, but i couldnt get past the word "assosiation" misspelling in the "opening credits".
Shadd Apr 16th 2008 1:25PM
Haha..my favorite part is when the guard turns to the other guard and says
"What the fuck?"
Badger Apr 16th 2008 12:54PM
Much, much, much improved over Chapter 1.
Mad props to Stormscape.
Badger Apr 16th 2008 2:51PM
I just realized how badly I needed to explain myself ...
The visual quality of the film has vastly improved over that of its predecessor.
However, I have not had an opportunity to evaluate the sound quality, as the network administrators here at my workplace are fascists and don't like anything involving 'multimedia' unless it's used to sell things.
alrdye Apr 18th 2008 5:39PM
This is a good film. It's got some noobish issues but over all, really enjoyable. I could really get into this series. I would like to see the captions up just a bit longer however. Over all good stuff, I wants more plz.
Xonate Apr 16th 2008 1:19PM
The voice acting was certainly better, but this one made less sense than the first.
First, the critiques.
-People randomly flying around? I can understand if you want a certain character to have some sort of ultra-powerful abilities, but making it seem normal for people in Azeroth to jump hundreds of feet and pull off other crazy stunts is just stretching it.
-Also, since when would a paladin of the light challenge someone to a duel to the death because it's the "only legal way." This is the Alliance.. not the Horde. Nothing wrong with the Horde liking 1v1 combat to the death to settle issues, but it's just very out of place and too cliche.
-The guard's vulgarity at the beginning and basically any other time the word f*** was used or almost used managed to took away from the seriousness of the video and made it seem really silly.
-While they were in Un'goro, the main character and the druid (I don't know the names... apologies) were together, and they claimed that two of the others were off going at it. Then, two others came and said they found the Silithid hive. That would be 6 people, even though the group was made of 5. Maybe I just missed something.
-Speaking of that, the random sex thing was kind of retarded. The scene in STV was humorous and fit in much better, but the other one was just silly and should have been left out.
-So... the guy's dreams killed him? Something else did? Really need to somehow explain what was going on.
-I'm assuming that this wasn't the end, but there was no "To be continued" or anything, so I really don't know. Again, maybe I'm missing something. If this was supposed to be the end, worst ending ever.
And the compliments:
-Excellent scenery. Seeing some of the stuff back on Kalimdor and the Eastern kingdoms is really nice after being in Outland all the time. I'd have to say this was probably the best part.
-Good special effects. Though as I mentioned earlier, things like the ridiculous fight scene between the mage and paladin were... ridiculous... the effects were very well done.
-The plot is interesting, though very much unexplained. I like the Silithid and the AQ stuff, and if there is more, I would really like to see some more of that. It makes it feel like there is an actual purpose to all of this.
-Much, much, much better voice acting. There were a few moments where something sounded like the actor was eating the microphone while speaking, but they were few and far between.
All in all, I'd give it a B-. It certainly is an improvement over the last one, but the complete lack of explanation is just too confusing and annoying. If there's a Chapter 3, I think some of the plot and events need to be explained so we're not all left wondering what the heck just happened.
mneill Apr 16th 2008 3:08PM
After the 1 min and 10 sec of intro stuff i got bored and went to check out some Hello Kitty Online stuff.
An intro that long is like an artist signing work larger then the work its self.
TotalBiscuit Apr 16th 2008 6:09PM
Great yeah, thanks for that contribution. If you can't even be bothered to watch the movie, then why even comment? Negativity is fine when it's backed up by fact. Doing it for the sake of it is just stupid.
Monkey5 Apr 16th 2008 3:36PM
I enjoyed it. I did like the voice acting, and some of the locations were really beautiful.
Only things that confused me a bit were the superpowers they seemed to possess, with the flying and the Inuyasha jumping. It definitely can work in a movie, maybe set it up differently so we understand why they have these powers? That might add feasibility to it instead of being slightly distracting.
Also, I think using some shadows would have helped it with depth, but that's just a minor aesthetic thing.
Overall, I'm looking forward to more of your work. Machinima is by no means an easy task.
anonymous Apr 16th 2008 3:40PM
I thought the duel should have more spectators than 4 people in an otherwise empty Cathedral Square since that pally dude is suppose to be a big shot no? Especially since the duel started past dawn. I agree the random sex thing kinda made me go 0.o Otherwise it was a good show.
ThorinII Apr 16th 2008 3:45PM
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
TotalBiscuit Apr 16th 2008 5:35PM
Hi, I'm TotalBiscuit. You may remember me from such flamewars as 'That's not how you teach people Machinima' and 'I want to rip my ears off because of your sorry excuse for voiceacting'. Today I'll be reviewing, Thaenor II.. objectively. I have absolutely no interest in drawing comparisons to the previous iteration. All works should be judged on their own merits.
Visually, this is a good looking video. The cuts and shots are generally well done. I'm willing to ignore the complete lack of shadows that the characters have, because the animation is done relatively well and it looks good. Yeah I know, 'looks good' isn't exactly objective is it? Seems like the author used just the right kind of filters and judged his settings very well. There's a lot to be said for that. I also liked the cell-shaded style used on the models. You will notice that the models have a noticeable black-outline. In this case, that looks good, very clean and stylish. The lip-syncing is a mixed bag and the effort to do so through independently moving the character's mouth is interesting, and has potential, but doesn't actually fit properly half the time. The classic chain-emoting technique worked better in this case, when it was used.
However, the effects-laden anime-influenced fight sequences do not do the movie any justice. They are not particularly well animated, and while there are some genuinely decent moments that elicit a 'wow, that was kinda cool' response, the rest just looks sloppy. This is supposedly, a drama, so anime-style high-action fight scenes a'la Dragonball Z are not required, and are something that few people do well. I can do without seeing paladins in 100s of pounds of plate armor bouncing off of walls like they were made of rubber. And for the love of God, why is he jumping everywhere? WoW is high fantasy in the classic sense, and does not need an unhealthy dose of Goku-flying action. That in itself, causes problems suspending one's disbelief. Nobody in WoW can do this, it has no basis in WoW it's hard to force yourself to believe otherwise.
On the subject of suspending disbelief, let's talk about night-elf sex. "They're off doing something... you know what" and then panning to a shot of a night-elves ass? Are you kidding me? This is little more than a purile attempt to be taken seriously as an 'adult, mature machima'. You can add the ridiculously out of character 'what the fuck?' remark to that list. The love interest theme is also forced particularly with the clumsy dialogue and open-eyed kissing scene towards the end. I had to baulk at it, really, I understand why you'd want to put it in there, but it just didn't work at all, probably because it's just so banal and arbitrary. I'm using that word a lot today it seems, I suppose that's because the author seems to think all of this stuff is necessary for a 'good drama'. It's not.
The frequent changes of dialogue between what I must assume is elvish and human does not add anything to the movie, rather serves as a cover-up for some questionable voice-acting. If that was the intent, then it worked to a point, but more of that in a minute, but really, what is the purpose? It's adding a layer of faux-complexity that really brings nothing to the scene. There's no possible reason for the characters to switch back and forth like that, why bother with it? When in doubt, 'KISS', Keep It Simple Stupid.
Let's talk about the sound. The voice-acting is serviceable at best, and runs the gamut from solid, to downright terrible. I realize it's difficult to find good voice-actors, but well, thems the breaks. When it comes to drama, you need to be able to convey both emotion and story-telling. With the exception of the main-character, no-one does that particularly well. It's unfortunate, because it means the movie is rather grating at times and difficult to watch. The length probably doesn't help in that regard either. While I applaud the effort to create a lengthier, story-driven movie, the voice-acting is a hurdle. In terms of sound-design, while the sound effects are generally very well used (and thank god there are some machinimators still using sound effectively) the music is cliche in extremis and often inappropriate. Huge sweeping epic battle-music is not required all the time and subtetly is apparently not a factor in this movie at all when it comes to that kind of thing. Zimmer, the Halo theme, every thing you can possibly think of from the Immediate Music playbook, and even Firefly for the obligatory inappropriate flashback comedy moment? Very much over-used and that's some risky stuff when doing a drama machinima. Taking the drama seriously is important, and the music hinders that in this case. The quick cuts from one theme to the next with no cross-fading doesn't help. At times I think the music is just there before the author thinks that every scene needs music. It doesn't, and when it does, it doesn't have to be so blatant and jarring. A minor point also, if you're going to borrow music from other artists, try doing your research before hand and finding out who actually wrote it, rather than simply listening off OSTs. Yes, we know you downloaded it illegally, but at least put some effort into finding out who's intellectual property it is that you're borrowing? You never know, you might find some lesser known work that would remove some of that overly cliche feeling from the production.
Now I know this is often ignored when it comes to machinima, but a good story really is the foundation of any drama. I'll be honest, I've watched this twice, and I still have absolutely no idea what's going on. There are elements of what appears to be a cohesive story, but it jumps around so much that I have no idea what to think, even after watching the first movie. It's like the author tried to shove in way too many things into a 20 minute movie. There are so many themes and cross-wires going on, that it just ends up being a mish-mash of different plot threads, with very little actual resolution. There are a lot of questions, but very few answers, and sometimes, I don't even know what the question was in the first place. Random silithid? Magic swords? Emerald conspiracy? Evil paladin? NIGHT-ELF ASS! Ok yeah, I'm.. really not sure where you're going with this.
To conclude? A visually pleasing movie that shows a heck of a lot of growing pains. I have no doubt that if the author grows up a little bit artistically, and stops trying to cram a whole lot of different things into one movie, then he's going to produce something good in future. As a drama though? I can't honestly say that it was genuinely 'good'. It was a good effort, and it's not even a case of ambition being greater than ability. He knows how to use model-viewer, and his visual style is solid, I like it, and that's saying a lot for me, because I believe you should never use model-viewer unless absolutely necessary. That outlined style is pretty, and great to look at, with just the right amount of filters used in the various different scenes. But it's a pretty face with nothing upstairs, like a beautiful, but ultimately confused and ditzy blonde with no grounding in reality. The motto I'd apply to this series as it continues is this 'do less, achieve more'. Stick to one or two themes, and concentrate on making them as good as possible. Simplify the fighting, remove some of the arbitrary pseudo-intellectual elements and work on the script-writing. The series may yet achieve greatness, just not today.
Xonate Apr 16th 2008 6:11PM
I pretty much agree with everything you said TB. Very good visuals. Other parts... especially the plot and theme... were just weak.
Psychosis Apr 20th 2008 3:01PM
I agree with most of the comments Mr. Biscuit outlined in his bloody long post, while i liked some of the anime type fight, it shouldn't be so heavily inmbersed in the one battle that it loses all aspect of realism. The only machinima i believe has pulled it up to a great deal of success was "Tales of the Past Three" as they had the two superpowers and epic fate of the world battle which made it work.
Also i agree with the storyline as it had so many different stories and none of them seemed to matter in the artists head just a few "awesome sword and prophet skeram" things and a bit "oooh Emerald conspiricy *Dramatic music*" thrown together to atempt to make a storyline.
I believe that the modelviewer techniques were well designed and well intergrated into movie but, as TB (loosley) said: modelviewer only when neccesary.
Also... killing off the main character without having any of your story tangents awnsered is a really bad move in storytelling.
I would like to mention that some of the more "explicit" scenes weren't really neccesary and you could of left that to the audience's imagination.
I would suggest that if you make another movie you should spend alot more time on the story and go into more depth about the who, what, when and why
Stormscape Apr 16th 2008 5:55PM
Skirting past Moo's obsession with what she's been calling the "sabotage incident" , I should say thank you for featuring TC2 anyway.
@TB. I agree with just about everything you said. The only thing I have to say is, your assumption that my music is pirated is petty and unessesary. I've purchased ALL of my music legally from amazon.com or in person at the store.
Thanks for the awesome review BTW. ;D
TotalBiscuit Apr 16th 2008 5:57PM
My mistake in that case, consider it retracted.
Monkey5 Apr 16th 2008 6:13PM
I just want to add something about the nature of copyright. Even though you purchased the music for your personal use, that does not count as the legal license to use it in your own video.
Many machinima artists do not care about such things, I'm placing no judgement on your or their use of it either - I just wanted to let you know so that in case you were under the impression that buying a CD gives you the license to use copyrighted material in another form and distribute it, it doesn't.
TotalBiscuit Apr 16th 2008 6:38PM
I don't think he's under that impression to be honest. I honestly wouldn't care either. From a moral standpoint, you're not selling it, you're not pretending that it belongs to you, so all you're really doing is providing free exposure for the artist in question. Copyright was created as a shield against the harmful theft of your work, not as a weapon to beat creative individuals around the head with. The RIAA and others seem to have forgotten that of late.
mortalbound Apr 17th 2008 9:47AM
*Sniff*
That was... *sniff* Beautiful... I'm... I'm gonna cry now...
TotalBiscuit Apr 17th 2008 10:04AM
Wimp.