WoW Moviewatch: Icecrown Citadel - The Movie
by Michael Gray 
Jan 27th 2010 at 12:00PM
According to its author, Icecrown Citadel - The Movie was inspired by Invisura's Ulduar: The Movie. The comparison is fairly apt, since this kind of long cinematic view of a raid is a relatively new concept. According to Cybeloras, Ulduar: The Movie is his favorite WoW film "of all time," so he's understandably pretty excited about this project. There's enough call-backs to Ulduar' s that you don't miss Icecrown's roots.
I think this is a fun movie for anyone who enjoys the lore of Icecrown Citadel. There's plenty of information here to get your fix for story and genre, while still focusing on the experience of raiding the Lich King's homebase. Cybeloras has done a pretty good job with this project, and I'm excited to see what comes next. The first part only includes the bosses from the lower spire, and the second part will be out once the creator has enough footage.
Check it out yourself, and let us know what you think.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
exogenesis. Jan 27th 2010 12:25PM
Very good. I do very much enjoy watching these "raid movies", although as far as I'm concerned, nothing comes close to the 2009 "Naxxramas: The Movie" by Jack.
Knob Jan 27th 2010 12:37PM
Seriously? Jack is just riding on the hype created by his Naxxramas-40 movie. Now that movie was a piece of art and awesome in every way, but every movie of his after that has been horrid with horrible music selection, woeful voice-acting and a convoluted script that shouldn't exist in the first place.
As far as cinematic views of raids, I consider Blackwing Lair - the Movie by Yakooki from the old Curse to be the best followed by the Naxxramas-40 movie mentioned above.
traptinacivicsi Jan 27th 2010 12:21PM
As long as there isn't a random, corny, 'mysterious' storyline added like in the Ulduar one. Always skip past it to the start of the actual raid scenes.
The angles and the choice of technique is really nice, just leave the fanfics out pls :)
Banic Rhys Jan 27th 2010 7:43PM
That comment really didn't deserve the downrating it got. He was merely expressing his opinion and to be perfectly fair, it was a rather apt one. The story in the Ulduar movie was rather bad.
Dawts Jan 27th 2010 12:56PM
Pretty BA. Please post the next part here too. It's nice to see the alliance side of the fight.
Johan Forn Jan 27th 2010 12:25PM
Anyone have a link to the interaction scene between Saurfang and Varian/Muradin after the Deathbringer event? I can't seem to find any video of that.. :(
Matt Jan 27th 2010 12:48PM
I also would have liked to see this.
NielsdeJONG Jan 29th 2010 5:07AM
Type: "Saurfang 3.3 alliance" in youtube: it's the first video :)
Arrowsmith Jan 27th 2010 4:49PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQkl_j7lh9I&feature=related
Start at the two-minute mark and you'll at least get the audio. Best I can do for ya.
Cabbageloins Jan 27th 2010 12:26PM
Ulduar: The Movie was my favorite as well. It was so inspiring, when my guild was trying to down Yogg, I'd watch it beforehand to get pumped for the encounter. This video is good as well, but the dialog from Ulduar was so much more abundant (borrowing from HoS, HoL, etc.) that it was easier to create an immersive feeling. Also, since all of Ulduar was available to use, the diversity of scenes was better. It's not Ulduar, but it's well done.
Noah Jan 27th 2010 8:32PM
Agree with this post here. I also felt that the music in Ulduar: The Movie was timed a bit better as well, and it had more of the dramatic motion shots (in fact, the camera was almost always moving in the Ulduar movie, like a Michael Bay movie).
Sanguinarius Jan 27th 2010 12:26PM
This is very well done! The music fits the action, especially leading up to each boss.
Johnamoose Jan 27th 2010 12:27PM
This isn't really a new concept, Dark Requiem was putting out AQ 40 movies in cinematic style way back in 2006. Still though very cool movie :D can't wait for the next parts!
Zayd Jan 27th 2010 12:35PM
Anyone got a link to that old French(I think) AQ40 raid movie?
T'was ossum.
CTD Jan 27th 2010 4:44PM
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxs3u_ahn-qiraj-the-movie-final
Still my favorite movie of this kind.
Kajira Jan 27th 2010 12:39PM
The music is well chosen, and the application of the NPC sound files was good, but I think it could have been handled better if given more time.
Since I consider the Ulduar movie to be the height of skill in this kind of machinima, I can't help but compare this one to that, and found a couple of areas that the makers of this sort of film could improve.
First, and most distracting to me, is the level of dignity of the "actors/raiders". In the Ulduar movie, the serious and solemn bits were reflected in the grouping of the raiders all approaching an area in a measured walk or organized run, and here we have the standard "bored raider bouncing" behavior that annoys me even in raids. Storywise, Icecrown is "serious business", and a really effective movie would reflect that.
Secondly is just a stylistic choice of angles and footage. This was probably really challenging to get so early in ICC's release, and I think that the Ulduar film had an advantage in that the makers chose to wait to get it all done and thoroughly farmed before releasing the film. It's just not really been out long enough to get the hundreds of clips that you need to get a really beautiful set of scenes stitched together.
All in all, though, it's a good one and one I would definitely share with others.
Dryftwood Jan 27th 2010 12:42PM
you just said everything I wanted to almost to a T! Good movie with room for improvement. I worthy start and I can't wait to see more!
Cybeloras Jan 27th 2010 6:34PM
Thanks for the feedback! Part one was made entirely from footage of one lockout, which i think is my biggest mistake. Part 2 will have more quality footage from more than one week. Part one was arcane mage pov (alt) so i could record in first person without arrows flying out of the camera.
TL;DR: Part two will be better than part one.
Mister EDgAr Jan 27th 2010 12:59PM
You want to make an awesome video, show us the wrath of the Lich king, cause it's been over a year and I still can't find it!! ^^
Nixter Jan 27th 2010 1:25PM
I dunno - the Ulduar movie was very awesome, and this doesn't seem to live up to it. I hope Invisura takes a crack at this as well. The music/voice balance seemed off (could hear certain things very well). It also left out my favorite lines from Saurfang, not to mention the action after he goes down. If you're telling the story of the first wing, how could you leave that out?