But instead I'm talking about the movie. Which I suppose they're really serious about making since they did a presentation at BlizzCon 2013. Here's the highlights, courtesy of MMO Champion:
Not in this article but I read elsewhere, Chris Metzen sees this as an opportunity to "tune" the history in this movie. Yeah, I know, Blizzard and their retcons. Anyway, thoughts from what I see in this list:•Duncan Jones has played the Warcraft games, World of Warcraft, and even Lost Vikings. He originally played Ultima Online.
•The Special Effects supervisor plays World of Warcraft and is level 90.
•Marketing hasn't started yet, so there isn't a ton to reveal yet.
•Jones liked the script, but it was very Alliance centric. He thought it would be better to make it about both sides and the original Warcraft.
•Jones turned down other films because he was really passionate about working on Warcraft.
•While working on Golden Compass, the special effects supervisor got up at 2 in the morning to do runs with his guild.
•Real actors will be used for the Orcs.
•Avatar meets Game of Thrones as far as complexity of visual effects with live action, advanced special effects, and motion capture on set.
•There is a lot of Warcraft lore, so they had to pick a certain amount of the lore for this movie.
•The team has to figure out which characters to shine the spotlight on.
•There is concept art for Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge, Stormwind
•Making environments for the game has a lot of restrictions, but in the movie you can expand on the environment with less restriction and make it more grand / cinematic.
•Many locations in the film will be on built sets, like the Lion's Pride Inn.
•The most famous character in World of Warcraft is the actual world itself.
•Wardrobe and Costume design is being done by someone that has worked on Avatar.
•The team is looking at details as small as the bark on the trees in Elwynn Forest.
•People who don't know the world and people who are hardcore players will both enjoy the film.
•The story is Orcs vs Humans. Lothar and Durotan.
•Durotan represents the highest ideal of the Orcs. He believes in his people and his future.
•Both want to do the right thing for their people.
•The games weren't the best way to tell this story originally, so the movie will be a great opportunity to tell the story in an even more epic way.
•Someone has to win and someone has to lose, but everyone loses at least a little bit.
•The style of this war movie will be similar to Gladiator, gritty.
•WoW doesn't have scabbards, so where swords will go has to be worked out.
•There are no plans for an art book for the movie, but it is a possibility.
•Lots of the cast has been picked out.
•The first movie has to be done right, then they can think about doing more.
•The majority of the movie takes place in the Eastern Kingdoms.
•The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.
•We will see a preview sometime next year, maybe at Blizzcon.
•Metzen would like to do a TV series one day. When they originally decided to do a movie, Game of Thrones didn't exist on TV yet, so most similar stories were told in movies. If everything goes well, maybe a studio will want to do a TV show.
•The Lord of the Rings movies inspired Jones to want to do this movie. He wants to match or beat them at making an awesome movie.
•Someone is working on the Orcish language for the movie.
•The movie will be PG13, but the PG13 rating is shifting. Batman movies are PG13.
"The games weren't the best way to tell this story originally, so the movie will be a great opportunity to tell the story in an even more epic way." Blizzard why must you hate what I love so? I have heard that Blizzard doesn't like their original games for some reason. This lends credence to that idea. Basically, fuck you existing canon! So business as usual.
"Jones liked the script, but it was very Alliance centric. He thought it would be better to make it about both sides and the original Warcraft." Well there was no Alliance in the First War anyway. But maybe the script Jones liked wasn't about that and so they did a total rewrite. Also insert "Blizzard hates the Alliance, LOK'TAR OGAR" jokes here.
"The story is Orcs vs Humans. Lothar and Durotan." Lothar is logical enough, but my understanding of the lore is that Durotan wasn't even fighting in the First War, instead he and the Frostwolves were (somehow) making their way to Alterac Valley in exile from the Horde. So...uh...how is he a main character in a movie about the First War? Are we going to end up with Warchief Durotan and fuck you first and second games (probably a large chunk of the third, as well), or will it be two parallel plotlines that have little to do with each other (Lothar fighting the Orcs, Durotan going into exile) which I'm sure would work out well and not be a mess. From the snippet it sounds like the former more than the latter. And I know Blizzard's retcons are the punchlines of many a joke, but come the fuck on already just admit you're doing a reboot and be done with it.
So yeah, I can't wait to see what happens. Should be lots of fun all around. Can't wait to see the new and creative ways they manage to whitegreenwash the Horde in this.
