WoW Moviewatch: Final Warcraft VI
by Moo Money 
Jul 14th 2008 at 12:00PM
Baron Soosdon asked me to hold off on showing the last of his Worldwide Invitational machinima contest entries, Final Warcraft VI, until he "remastered" it. Apparently he fine tuned some things that he previously rushed on to meet the deadline. Of course, he had a little help from his friends -- Pinkhair, Caruu, and Mister "Don't forget me!" Drewbie. For all the Final Fantasy VI fans, this machinima closely follows the cinematic ending for the Playstation version.
WARNING: Certain browsers are having crashing issues with this movie, so we moved it after the jump.
[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)
mitchellangelo86 Jul 14th 2008 12:27PM
Could you by any chance make the movie a click-on link only? The embedded version is making firefox and internet explorer crash for me for some reason, I have to run NoScript on Firefox to be able to view WoWinsider today =/
Beelzebud Jul 14th 2008 12:32PM
That video is crashing your site on FF3 in Linux and Vista. Please remove it. It hangs on "downloading image" and crashes the browser. Very annoying.
Boowat Jul 14th 2008 12:42PM
that video caused my firefox to crash three times whilst loading wowinsider.
wasnt worth it...
Moo Money Jul 14th 2008 12:54PM
Apparently something is clashing with the Vimeo widget and is causing Firefox to crash. I crashed 3x blogging my Massively.com Cinemassively machinima entry, then saw the comments here and went to comment, but crashed again! I feel your pain guys, and we're investigating.
Khass Jul 14th 2008 12:59PM
This version seems better than the original FF6 to me. Well done!
**Flail** Jul 14th 2008 1:00PM
It's worth watching, especially if you have ever played FF6. Dead on with everything.
Stop whining about it crashing and watch it
vlad Jul 14th 2008 1:54PM
i found a fix that works great. just dont watch stupid mashitima films and you wont have any issues.
Darkcrescent Jul 14th 2008 6:04PM
Wow, that was so dead on to the FF6 ps version holy crap! The Baron has out done himself.
Thiosion Jul 14th 2008 6:19PM
For those who never played Final Fantasy IV (shame on you!), or III in the US, let me give you a synopsis.
Essentially, the Steam-Punky Empire has taken over the world, and now seeks to expand their power by utilizing magic, a powerful force that nearly destroyed the world some several thousand years ago. In the same way that magic comes from places like the Sunwell and the Well of Eternity in Warcraft, in Final Fantasy it come from Espers (E.S.P.-ers), a 50s term for psychics that somehow found it's way in Japanese mythology. Go figure. Espers are god-like mythological beings, and several thousand years ago, humans tried to take the power by force. So, they sealed themselves away in an alternate dimension.
And back to the near-present. A human woman named Madonna stumbles into this dimension. While most Espers believe humans cannot be trusted, their leader, Manduin, thinks otherwise. The two fall in love and have a child. One day, a dark mist settles over the Esper world. The empire has reactivated the gateway to the Esper dimension, and starts killing Espers at random. While they are preoccupied, Manduin tells Madonna to flee with the baby, now called Terra (she grows up to be one of the two blood elves in the video). The Emperor Gestahl himself finds the dead Madonna and and the baby Terra right on the border between dimensions. The empire takes Terra, and the remains of the Espers, to the capital for study.
When Espers die, they turn into Magicite, a magical crystal-like thing. Whatever specific power they had is contained in this crystal, and can be siphoned off to something else. The Empire does precisely that. Their top three Generals, the power-mad (and cross-dressing) Kefka (the red-tinted human in the video), the honorable Leo, and the spunky Celes (one of the two Blood Elves) are offered Magicite injections. Kefka takes his straight away, and therefore goes mad from the not-yet-perfected infusion process. Leo refuses, considering the continued abuse of Espers to be wrong. Celes takes hers last, retaining her sanity, but feeling very guilty. The rest of the magicite is used to create Magitek armor (the Fel Reavers), which is sort of a robot suit that lets you Pew Pew stuff with magic (Seriously, you're in one in the opening, and you shoot lasers of one hit death at stuff). Terra, all this time, was mind-controlled by them empire. When word gets out that a frozen Esper was found in the mines of Narshe, a coal-mining town, the Empire send the Magitek-suited, mind-controlled Terra and two Empire lackeys to retrieve it. You basically go through a tutorial at this point, and learn how to kill things, like innocent guards.
So the Esper is found, and starts emitting blue light. The two Empire lackeys die, and Terra falls unconscious, to be found and awakened by a village man. He removes the mind-control, but Terra has no memory of anything except her name. Since the guards still think she's evil, you must sneak out of town. Terra, being a complete klutz, falls down a pit in the secret passage out of town. The Han Solo/Indiana Jones hybrid, Locke, the obligatory I'm-not-a-thief-I'm-a-treasure-hunter character, comes to her rescue. They make for the desert (but remarkable european-like) kingdom, Figaro, whose king Locke happens to know well.
They make their way to Figaro, and Locke and Terra meet Edgar, the king. He was the one tossing the coin (or gear) in the video, which decided whether he or his twin would be king. The game was rigged, Edgar won and became king, and his brother, Sabin, went into exile to become a Kung-Fu Mastah.
Anyway, Edgar hits on Terra, Terra bitch-slaps him, usual family fun. However, not all is fun and games! The Empire, who Figaro has forged a fake allegiance with, comes to Figaro to look for a girl who "merely stole something of value". Who is leading this search? Why, Kefka, of course. When they fail to reveal her, Kefka decides to set the castle on fire. However, this being Steam-punk land, the castle submerges itself under the sand, right after Edgar, Locke, and Terra run away on Hawkstri- I mean Chocobos. They meet some generic empire Magitek guys, and destroy them, however, during the fight, Terra uses...MAGIC! OMG! Locke and Edgar freak out, and tell her that Magic hasn't been seen naturally in a person in over something-thousand years. Note that Terra does not know her ancestry at this point.
They make their way to the town of Figaro, which for some reason is incredibly far away from Figaro Castle. There they learn of Sabin's whereabouts, and find him, but not before killing the evil Kung-Fu Mastah who killed Sabin's Kung-Fu Mastah. Yay, Sabin joins the team.
They decide to visit the "returners", an anti-empire group. There they meet Banon, the leader of said group, and agree to help him. They ride a raft on the river away from the hideout, and everyone gets separated. SIDEQUEST TIME!
Terra, Banon, and Edgar make their way to Narshe, to defend the frozen Esper now being actively seeked by the Empire.
Sabin gets washed up a long ways away, heads south. He meets Shadow, a Ninja for hire (undead rogue slashing ghosts) and Cyan, the knight of Dona Castle, recently destroyed by the Empire along with his wife and kids. This was done by Kefka, who took charge of the siege when Leo was called away. Leo planned to accept their surrender, but Kefka decided to poison the river that fed Dona. Pretty much everyone died, 'cept Cyan. They head south, through the forest, and find the ghost train. This was where you say Shadow killing ghosts in the movie. There's a very touching seen where Cyan watches his dead wife and son board the train, but they inevitable move south, onto the Veldt. There they meet Gau, a child abandoned on said Veldt, who currently speaks pidgin-english, but shows them a way home.
Locke goes to South Figaro to check on Edgar's kingdom, it is under martial law by them Empire. He finds Celes trapped in the basement of the town hall for desertion, and frees her. He then proceeds to Narshe.
Everyone meets up and defends the Esper, which then returns the favor by Pew Pewing Terra, turning her into an Esper herself. She flies off for an unknown reason, unable to control her powers. The gang eventually tracks her down to the Slums of Zozo, where an Esper explains she must rest, and regain control of her powers. Meanwhile, the group must enter the heart of the Empire and free the Espers from the Imperial Magitek Research Facility. So, the snag a ride on a Zeppelin, and fly over there. They free the Espers, and meet Cid, the head of the Esper draining, and a sort of father to Celes. He realizes the wrongs of what he's done, and goes over to the good side. Meanwhile, Kefka sows the seeds of doubt by implying Celes is an imperial spy. They escape the facility, and return to Zozo.
The Esper informs them that Terra is ready, and that they must go to the entrance to the Esper World and allow the remaining Espers to enter this world and stop the empire. This goes a bit too far, and the Espers utterly devastate the enter continent. The entire Empire begs for forgiveness, and there's a long negotiating session. Eventually, you pursue the destructive Espers north, and find a village that seems to be hiding a great secret. Everyone acts strangely around you, and you see a couple children using what appears to be magic. You sleep in a local tavern, only to wake up and discover the local mansion is on FIRE, and the town geezer's grand-daughter is inside. You free her, and town reveals everything. They are descendants from the human-Esper war of long ago, and inherited the magical power of Espers in human form.
You enter a local mountain, and climb to the top to see three golden statues of goddesses. They represent chaos, and to prevent their power from destroying the world, they turned themselves into statues. Kefka reveals his plan to awaken the statues. Meanwhile, back in town, General Leo and the Espers make up. The Espers, it turns out, were unable to stop themselves, like Terra. And Leo apologizes for the abuse of Espers by the Empire. However, Kefka kinda ruins this by blowing them all apart. Leo tracks him down, and is about to kill him, when Gestahl appears and tells him to join Kefka. Kefka reveals this to be an illusion, and comes out of nowhere and stabs Leo in the back. Literally.
So everything has gone to hell, but at least now we know the Empire's plan. So everyone flies up into the sky and confronts Kefka on the floating continent he has risen. They destroy Kefka's pet monster, and Kefka is about to awaken the statues when Gestahl intervenes. He says that, you know, evil is great and all, but awakening the statues would kill THEM too. Kefka proceeds to kill him as well.
So, the statues are awakened, and everyone dies. Not really, but Celes wakes up several years later, in a terrible world that Kefka has shaped to his whims. Eventually, she gathers the team back up again, and they assault Kefka, now a god. Obviously, being the protagonists, they win, and the world is back to normal.
Warbutcher Jul 14th 2008 6:36PM
wow
Carpe Noctem Jul 14th 2008 8:26PM
Wow, surely the Baron can make something beautiful out of the Warcraft we love and play. Great work as usual
BaronSoosdon Jul 14th 2008 7:36PM
Thank you Sir!
That was one excellent episode of "Know Your Lore: Final Fantasy VI".
/bow
/applaud
Khass Jul 14th 2008 7:39PM
I got a 250% crit by the wall of text.
Yet read it all. Thanks a ton for this!
Jere Jul 15th 2008 4:23AM
Is there an effective way to download this for my own pc for enjoyment?
BaronSoosdon Jul 15th 2008 6:20AM
Yes there is: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=82401
Lots of download links on that page.
DirtyPriest Jul 20th 2008 8:58AM
Wow wow wow! That was amazing in every little way! I'm so downloading this. And because I'm a FFVI fan this is something extra special for me too. Recreating the characters in WoW was really cool. :D And I didn't know Jeremy Soule did some FF songs. Wow my head just asploded.