Michael Bay Presents: World of Explosionscraft!

Posted 2008/11/17 at 3:39 AM by SBMrClean

Warner BrothersthinktellingMonopolyfeelsaboutyourSBMrClean is a part time business jerk, part time writer in the video game industry. He plays horde-side on Draenor, and collects his other thoughts on videogames and storytelling at his personal website here.

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Comment by 230437This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by 234303The whole, Michael Bay Presents was a bit of a dirty tactic :D Talk about a good attention getterComment by SorronnFrankly it would be very hard to make a decent WoW movie that anyone other than WoW players can relate to. The lore of WoW is much more complicated and extensive than the lore of LOTR.
Comment by 118720This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by TyrsenusWhere did you get this image from? It looks like Nordrassil, but not quite like it did at the end of W3. Is it new?

Edit: nvm, found source. And it's Teldrassil.Comment by 149406Hey, they're making a pac-man movie too.Comment by 249041This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by Blackboy0What would be cool is if they made a TV show... They get a couple Seasons out, and then, after the last Season they make a movie on whatever is going on.

I think that they should start the TV show off with the very beginning, starting with the Titans and then moving on from there. You know the Books in WoW, the Titans and the Creation, and everything? Follow that, but make it more... spiffy :PComment by LoKHorIt's going to be a Warcraft movie, not a World of Warcraft movie: a story set in the Warcraft universe. No one knows just how related to the World of Warcraft it will be. We all know the lore -- each of us to a different degree -- so there will be elements that we recognise in the movie when it is finally released. But just how related to any of the four games is anyone's guess.

However, just remember that whatever story they tell, it will not be a game made into a movie; it will be a cinematic that takes place in a universe that began in a computer game series. Expanding out into this medium is a good move. I love games and I love movies; and I can't wait to see what Blizzard pull off with this.

WTB more information!Comment by warfistI think it would make far more sense to make a silver-screen version of the Warcraft III storylines. I'd rather see something like that made into a series of three movies or something, rather than an attempt to make some no name characters show up to try and defeat the big evils threatening all of Azeroth like a lot of the players in WoW are already doing, lol. Basically, do the awesome buildup to what the world of Azeroth becomes at the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Make sense, right?Comment by 166472This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by 234303What would be cool is if they made a TV show... They get a couple Seasons out, and then, after the last Season they make a movie on whatever is going on.

I think that they should start the TV show off with the very beginning, starting with the Titans and then moving on from there. You know the Books in WoW, the Titans and the Creation, and everything? Follow that, but make it more... spiffy :PComment by 138307i think a movie made using the cinematics that blizzard is capable of would be EXTREMELY extraordinary. Simply make a movie of storyline, lore, original charachters, villains, and heroes. it would be EPIC.Comment by daxiongmao87First let me just start off by adding that rumors have been circulating for some time that the story within the Warcraft movie is going to follow the journey of Varian Wrynn the once lost-now found King of Stormwind. Of course this is a rumor regardless of how many people back it. However, I can say that it is probably one of the better stories to tell through a movie. You can assume if that's true that it will follow Varian's journey as he is raised from a child to be a King then once he's a king he is kidnapped by the famed Defias gang comes into contact with Naga, loses his memories in a fall, washes ashore, gets taken captive by a slave cartel, is put to the test in the Arena, grows famous for his art in such and then begins his journey to find out who he is and later to reclaim the throne. Sounds pretty epic if you ignore the fact that a lot of the ideas have been taken from stories already told such as Gladiator among others.

That's beside the point. I got away from it I will admit.

The point I was going to make it that you can worry about such things when you are dealing with something set in stone being "ported" to a different medium of media. But this is so wide, you obviously can't just tell one story, because it's not about one story. It's an entire world thriving around thousands of characters. However, the thought process becomes less messy when you realize that Warcraft was Warcraft before it was World of Warcraft. You also have to take into account that players are playing through a story, but the main story is actually played by NPC characters such as Wrynn, Thrall, etc.

It's really not as hard to make a good videogame-film as people make it out to be. Most of these films fail because they simple aren't stylized the write way or written well enough. In order to relate toe veryone you only have to make them feel nostalgic. You don't have to show a actor killing thousands of enemies to "level up" in fact incorporating such things is just silly and so is thinking you have to to reach a certain audience.

The only thing people need is to recognize the movie is part of Warcraft without having to read the cover to figure it out. Which if they follow the Wrynn storyline it will. You will see locations, races, classes, etc - that will really make it a Warcraft movie. It touches on a lot of popular content such as the Ring of Blood in the outlands, Dunemaul, Stormwind, Defias Brotherhood.

So even if this is not what they plan on doing as far as choosing the story...it really doesn't matter as long as the story they tell is engulfed in a recognizable backdrop and is done in a way that is drowned in professionalism and the viewers can tell that it was taken seriously.

Sorry that was so long winded.

My basic point is that if you make a film about grinding, achievments, socializing with your guild, talking about chuck norris in trade chat, etc. Then you're going to have a terrible film.

Dropping one liners, putting the characters in areas that are familiar to the viewers, surrounding them with characters, classes and races that they can look at and whisper to their friends, "Oh %^&*, that's a Warlock!" in the theatre then you have a movie that fans of the game are going to respect. You certainly don't approach making a film as if you're developing WoW2.Comment by 149406WarCraft III has by far the most epic plot of any WC game, but relies on WCII for some of it, which in turn relies on WC1. So I say start from the beginning...only make the Horde less mindlessly "evil", per se (or have a prologue explaining the corruption by the Burning Legion), and make a more engaging plot than green-skinned guys fighting humans.Comment by dalcore26I think it will be something like Tales of the Past III (the third in the series). If you haven't seen this movie I really recommend that you watch it. You can find it on Warcraftmovies.com.Comment by ChandriallaI wanna see Ron Perlman as Thrall.

Bonus points if he says, "Warcraft.Warcraft never changes."Comment by 230437This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by 206732I guess if the movie spends more time on one faction or the other the question will finally be answered:

Is blizzard favoring the alliance? Is the horde the red-headed step child of Warcraft? Tolerated but never really welcomed with open arms and given equal consideration?

;-)

In case you can't tell that was written tongue firmly in cheek.Comment by Xyphion2 1/2 hours of Gnome Punting action.

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