WoW Moviewatch: Ulduar: Defiance
by Michael Gray 
Sep 3rd 2009 at 12:00PM
Slaytanic pointed out to us yesterday that Atraira has released the first installment of the new movie titled Ulduar: Defiance. The video is an interesting, cinematic look at the boss fights in Ulduar. Atraira, of course, is the machinimator who created the WoW video for Lonely Island's Boombox. We were pretty excited about the trailer, so it was awesome to see the movie make a release.
The basic idea behind Ulduar: Defiance seems to be that a Paladin is plagued by dreams about the home of the Titans. Gathering up 24 of her closest friends and allies, she then proceeds to kick some butt in Ulduar. The music and camera work for the fight scenes are all very well done, and I found myself incredibly motivated by listening to Atraira's soundtrack.
What really stood out about this video, however, was actually the opening dream portion. Atraira did an amazing job of filming a Scourge attack on Lordaeron. It was a brilliant, creative opening sequence. After such a strong start, the various boss-kill scenes weren't quite as impressive. Don't get me wrong -- it was still fun and I'll be watching it again. But, wow, Atraira really knocked that opening dream sequence out of the park.
Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, WoW Moviewatch
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Soulnova Sep 3rd 2009 12:20PM
Very awesome video!
golffuul Sep 3rd 2009 12:55PM
Amazing video...great opening sequence. Love that they don't overdo the fights and yet keep the boss emotes in the foreground of the audio. That and it makes you want to watch the other 2 videos to see what her dreams are about.
Good stuff.
Skittles Sep 3rd 2009 1:20PM
Absolutely astounding, I loved the music that went with, my two favorite scenes were where the stormpeaks intro was coming into play and the razorscale fight....
overall the movie was great! razorscale fight still blew me away though.
arilasWL Sep 3rd 2009 12:39PM
Needs more Wafflesforface imo. Grats to one of the raddest maintankadin mods!
Asaki Sep 3rd 2009 12:45PM
Wow, that's a really awesome intro!
Tri Sep 3rd 2009 12:45PM
.. awesome..
Can't wait for the rest :)
Andrew R. Sep 3rd 2009 12:54PM
Please post more episodes as they come out. That was great.
Batleth Sep 3rd 2009 12:58PM
That really was amazing. That soundtrack is freakin' awesome. Any idea who it is/what its called??
CTD Sep 3rd 2009 2:24PM
As far as I could tell, it was almost exclusively out of Immediate Music's library:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_Music
Angus Sep 3rd 2009 1:12PM
Sidenote: This is Invisusira. Maintankadin's favorite insane person. I'm always impressed with the videos.
The kitten rescue series is why my main is a tankadin.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CB8DF505E0CF5AAA&search_query=kitten+rescue
Capacitus and both mini bosses when it was hard showed what a skilled tankadin could do.
And yes, that was Thunderfury.
combosation Sep 3rd 2009 1:34PM
It's amazing. Once I watched this I realized how HUGE of an amount of pure liquid fun would be added to this game with a few ground-shaking camera effects and a little better music. : )
New highest priority for patches!
Lemons Sep 3rd 2009 1:26PM
I wish when a boss collapses after it dies or does a big pound attack (fusion punch) that the game would shake like it does it this video. It just makes it seem so much more realistic and intense.
Keyra Sep 3rd 2009 7:06PM
My first boss kill was just so...anticlimactic. He's going down! He's...he's down. What, that was it??? <loot><loot>...great, something I can't use and it's BoP.
Next.
Drow Sep 3rd 2009 2:24PM
I am impressed! He is right though some of the boss kills just feel kind of....empty. Half blizzards fault for making boss kills kind of boring looking. I guess we can't all have them die like KJ in Sunwell...but still!
What I like the most, is that they are doing hard modes! And it's easy to tell. Well the only one I saw was FL, XT was "maybe", as it showed them attacking the heart. Maybe if he includes the phrase XT does when the heart dies ("I'm ready to play!") or shows some void zones that's be nice. Even if they wiped during the attempts, seeing Mimirons fire or Siff down and generals add spawing would be really awesome. Hoping to see some Algalon in the vid too!
Slaytanic Sep 3rd 2009 3:49PM
"Hoping to see some Algalon in the vid too!"
Almost positive of that. If you listen to the sound bytes from the original trailer, you can hear then referring to "planetary re-origination", and then Algalon's voice, and well as them standing in his room.
RedGuard Sep 3rd 2009 2:48PM
Probably one of the best machinimas I've seen in a while, had an awesome epic feeling and great soundtrack. Can't wait for the next one.
Mark Sep 4th 2009 12:42PM
absolutely fantastic. This is the one I am sending to my "whats so fun about Wow?" friends.
Franlkin Sep 3rd 2009 3:11PM
I really dislike a lot of machinas. But this one is GREAT. It doesn't have an annoying melodramatic story -- just enough to move it along -- and the directors mostly let the gameplay mechanics tell the story for them rather than forcing fake looking encounters. Top notch!!!
Murdax Sep 3rd 2009 3:43PM
in my opinion it seems alot like burning crusade the movie and WoW the movie which those guys from the EU created.
kmfolino Sep 3rd 2009 3:55PM
The paladin, Invisusira and the guild Direct Defiance can be found on my home server, Smolderthorn.