One of the mainstays at BlizzCon is the machinima contest – talented artists submit their movie ahead of the convention in hopes of winning fame and prizes. This year's BlizzCon is no different, and we're sure to see some great videos during the largest gathering of WoW players outside of Azeroth. Over the next few days let's take a look back at some of the winners and runner ups of last year's movie competition.

We'll begin with the winner in last year's comedy category, The Rumpus Machine by Oblivious Films.

The short film is about a Gnomish box that can do whatever it wants, thanks to some handy quantum manipulation. (Note: This movie and its acknowledgement by Blizzard proves WoW has a Heisenberg compensator built into the game. Be afraid. Be very afraid.) The box can summon dancing Blood Elves, teleport the group to Old Ironforge, and even make some Braaaains.

The movie runs a little long for my tastes, but I'm sure some of you are okay with that. It has a certain Adult Swim feel to it; not terribly "lol" funny, but more humor that makes you chuckle and has a few moments of intelligent absurdity.

The voice acting is good for the most part. The main Gnome character is done wonderfully, and the Dwarf fills his role. I wasn't very fond of the Human, however. He seemed bland and lacked inflection compared to the others. Regular people don't talk in a flat voice most of the time.

Of course the real positive with the voice acting comes in a special appearance by Deckard Cain of Diablo fame, voiced by the original actor. That adds a lot to the film, and the dialog and plot involving him works wonders for the movie. I can see why it was selected as the winner in the comedy category for this reasons alone.

Tags: blizzcon, blizzcon-machinima, blizzcon-movie, blizzcon-movies, deckard-cain, dwarf, gnome, human, obvious-films, the-rumpus-machine

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch