Why they shouldn't make the Warcraft movie
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 31st 2008 at 3:30PM
Our good friend Kevin Kelly (who writes for Joystiq) has apparently turned traitor -- over at the Spout blog, he's written up four reasons why they shouldn't bother making a Warcraft movie at all. His arguments go from shaky to solid -- he first claims that movies made from videogames just don't work anyway, In response, I'd submit to you Doom, and -- oh wait. Never mind. His second reason is that they just wouldn't make enough money, even if every Warcraft player bought a ticket, but I don't know if I'd worry about that: Transformers made money, and that movie was a high-budget pile of junk.His last two points are probably more solid, though -- he says that unlike Lord of the Rings, which the Warcraft movie is often compared to, most people (even players of the games who skip cutscenes) would walk in having no idea what the story was about, which means the story would have to be dumbed down or just be a confusing mess. And finally, we can't really argue with the last point: since that first piece of concept art, we haven't heard a peep out of Legendary or Blizzard about what's happening, so maybe the flick's not getting made anyway.
And by the end of the piece, we've got to agree with Kevin: even if a big-budget worldwide movie release didn't get made, we'd much rather have a high-quality DVD of Blizzard's cinematics anyway (or maybe even a feature-length put together by the same department -- they do awesome work). The odds are against a live-action Warcraft movie already, it seems -- maybe it would be a better idea for Blizzard to just release something themselves.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Bat Oct 31st 2008 3:38PM
"games made from videogame"???
zappo Oct 31st 2008 3:43PM
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/moltencore/
kirkfrey Oct 31st 2008 3:54PM
I don't think many people had any idea what Lord of the Rings was about. If they did it was
"Something about a ring, and a dark lord, and something about the end of the world."
smcn Oct 31st 2008 4:00PM
Lord of the Rings? I heard they made a book out of that!
Karos Oct 31st 2008 3:41PM
I've always loved Blizzard's cinematics, I wouldn't mind if they made a movie with their cinematic team.
Heilig Oct 31st 2008 3:51PM
Bingo. They have complete control over their cinematics, and they are always incredible. They should just go away from live action and realism and push toward over the top comic book CGI. People will pay to go see it. They don't need to know the story, they just have to say "Woah."
rick gregory Oct 31st 2008 3:59PM
Making a feature length movie is nothing like making a cinematic that lasts a couple of minutes. I like the cinematics, but they don't deal with plot, character development, dialog etc. Simply because they can make short eyecatching cinematics in no way implies they have the skills to make a movie.
Raaj Oct 31st 2008 4:03PM
Rick, different people would be involved with that either way. Having the cinematic team create the movie, however, would have been a step in the right direction. I'll probably see the movie anyway, but I'd be much more inclined to see it if it were done entirely with animation rather than live action. Live action and high fantasy just don't leave a good taste in my mouth for some reason.
Karos Oct 31st 2008 4:06PM
What? Of course they have that capability there is no difference from the short cinematics to a full movie, all that will be needed is the same people you would need for a regular movie. A director, a script, etc.
Trem Oct 31st 2008 5:01PM
Live action warcraft movie.... meh.
CGI warcraft movie like Advent's Children or Appleseed... yes please.
Mizzle Oct 31st 2008 3:42PM
I do have to agree with that part about the story. Considering that a good majority of PLAYERS know so little about the lore behind warcraft*, I have a hard time believing that a 2-3 hour movie would be understandable to a layman without dumbing down the story.
*it absolutely infuriated me when, after the King came back to SW in 3.0, several people in trade were calling him a "deadbeat dad" because they had no idea where he had been.
Jason Oct 31st 2008 4:02PM
Just think how The Forsaken players feel whenever someone comments on Sylvanus being a hottie, when she's obviously room temperature, at best. Sheesh.
To your point tho, how many movies can you say actually tell a deep story? The best you usually get is one that tells the story through imagery and implication. Too much exposition is the death of an engaging film & that's what it would take to get to the foundation of a Warcraft story across to the masses.
Mizzle Oct 31st 2008 4:11PM
Realistically, they'd have to go the way of Starwars and LotR and make more than one movie to fit the whole story in and do it justice. I think anything less would either be disappointing or too overwhelming.
Lemons Oct 31st 2008 3:45PM
I'm tired of all these people announcing movies before they've even got one second of it on film.
"Oh yeah we're totally gunna make the movie, we promise!"
...4 years of anticipation later...
"Yeah, about that movie, we just couldn't get around to making it, instead we made Duce Bigalow 3, enjoy!"
This has happened with the Halo movie, the Mechwarrior movie, and wasn't there supposed to be an Earthworm Jim movie??? idk, it's just dumb...make the freakin movies if you say you're gunna make em! And take less than 5 years to do it!
JonnyC Oct 31st 2008 3:47PM
I must say I disagree.
I believe that the movie could actually work very well. They just have to make sure that they introduce the world/characters/lore well enough for even people that have never heard of WoW to be able to adept quick. This can be done easily (imagine the beginning of LotR, the narrator explains the story). They have to of course also have enough "deep-lore" included to satisfy players and viewers that know a lot about the world.
You can't say that movies based on video games suck. It has nothing to do with the movie being based on a game it has to do with the movie just plain sucking. Doom, Bloodrayne, Hitman... those movies were just BAD. They could have been good movies if done correctly. If you think about it games are similar to comic books and there have been some great comic book movies lately. Why? Because they are made properly.
As long as Legendary approaches this project with the right mindset they could pull off a very successful piece of work. I have faith in Blizzard and without any proper material to see for myself yet I have to stay excited for a WoW movie.
CactusHam Oct 31st 2008 3:47PM
He makes some... meh... points. I don't think they'd have to dumb the story down to much, they'd just need solid character development so that people who aren't already aware of who people like Thrall are know how important he is.
Last we all heard I believe they said they were working on a story that took place between WC3: Frozen Throne and the original WoW, which, while it would fill in some gaps that us players and loremasters would love, could potentially work to their disadvantage as I think a story set in there would end up being trickier to tell to an audience who didn't come in already knowing all the shit that just went down in the previous 7 episodes/wc3 campaigns.
I always thought WC3 would just make a great movie itself (and already be set up for 2 sequels!) and I think its inherently a story that you don't already need to know the characters to get into. I mean, none of us knew who Arthas was when we first loaded WC3 and now he's a lot of people's favorite wacraft character. I think its a story that they could get away with re-telling in the film medium. I could go on at greater lengths about this (ive been thinking about a warcraft movie for a loooong time) but i'll stop, thats my two cents =p
God I hope they are still working on it. And I hope they give me a job.
"he first claims that games made from videogames just don't work anyway" you probably mean "MOVIES" made out of games... sorry to be nitpicky
Also /applaude at Transformers sucking. One of the worst movies... possibly ever.
Tumleren Oct 31st 2008 3:49PM
How is it an argument against the movie, that no information has been released? There's only 3 arguments on that list, but..
He doesn't know if it will be a good movie, why should it be a reason not to make it, that it MIGHT be bad? It might be good. That's as good an argument -for- the movie.
I can't really imagine a Warcraft movie not making money. All of my friends know 1 or more Warcraft games, and most of them are going to watch this movie when it's released.
I kinda agree with no. 3, though. It might be a bit less of an awesome experience for real lore-enthusiasts if they have to "dumb it down", which they basically have to (fit all those books into 2 hours..? yea, right), but then again, only people who are really interested in the lore would probably notice things like these anyway - They'll probably watch the movie anyway, so Blizzard probably isn't that worried about them. They care more for making the film viewable by everybody.
I'm looking forward to it
Tinwhisker Oct 31st 2008 3:51PM
I have no doubt that IF the Warcraft movie does get made it will be good. Blizzard has a track record of putting out great products that are both accessible to the 'lore impaired' and have plenty of nuance for the 'lore junkie'.
The big question here is if... I can very well see Blizzard spending 10 years on it, getting 90% through the production process, working on final editing and then scrapping it because it's not up to standards and could taint their product line with 'mediocrity'. Undoubtedly no part of it would ever see the light of day; not even production stills or a cast list.
timmy! Oct 31st 2008 3:52PM
"Transformers made money, and that movie was a high-budget pile of junk."
Blasphemy!
Bloodlustnow Oct 31st 2008 4:06PM
"Transformers made money, and that movie was a high-budget pile of junk."
I remember going to the theater and seeing this movie back in 1985 or so. Not sure if it made money or not, but I personally enjoyed every minute of it.