There are Wrathgate spoilers here, if you haven't completed that quest chain. Or if you're stalling completion for nefarious purposes.

I'd just been thinking about the 300 Moonkins late last week, so I was incredibly happy and surprised to see this movie go up on Warcraftmovies.com over the weekend. Karash has created a piece which I suppose was inevitable. Wrathgate 300 uses the trailer pieces from 300 to convey the story of Wrathgate.

Karash didn't simply put the soundtrack over the pre-existing Wrathgate cinema. Instead, he cobbled together a new and compelling trailer from several sources. I recognized most of them, but there were actually a few shots whose origins I can't place. Karash says he created this out of boredom, but I think it was actually an inspired use of the "300" material. Placed in the context of Bolvar's Last Stand, I think the new soundtrack created a powerful spin on the whole Wrathgate story.

I'm focused mostly on the story here. Bolvar is an obvious comparison to Leonidas. While the Kingdom of Stormwind probably didn't shun Bolvar's concern about Arthas the same way Leonidas was left on his own, the small-group-against-many theme is still very strong. I actually would have liked to see some more footage using Leonidas' voice-over, though, since it has that same sense of Pyrrhic victory that Wrathgate portrays.
Then again, I could be reading too much into this. Still, it was a pretty cool find since I already had 300 on my mind.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Machinima, WoW Moviewatch