Blizzcon 2013: Part 7 - WoW Movie

Warcraft Movie

·         Duncan Jones has played the Warcraft games, World of Warcraft, and even Lost Vikings. He originally played Ultima Online.

·         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.

·         There is concept art for Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge, Stormwind

·         The story is Orcs vs Humans. Lothar and Durotan.

·         The style of this war movie will be similar to Gladiator, gritty.

·         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.

·         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.

·         The movie will be PG13, but the PG13 rating is shifting. You can get away with a lot more now and still be PG13.

I saw Moon and I enjoyed it.  I’ve been a David Bowie fan for a long time.  I guess I’m okay with him directing a WoW movie…

I’m not sure how I feel about the “well rounded story” information, but okay.  I feel like the games have a very Horde-oriented feel and while the Alliance may have some key interactions, they get sold short in a lot of aspects of the story.  Hopefully this just means that they want to flesh out the Horde/Orc storyline and not make them seem like some zerg legion of death (even though they kind of are at this point).

I look forward to what they call gritty.  I hope that this is a very gritty and very ugly film.  I know it will have a PG 13 rating, but I don’t want that to take away from the fact that this is a WAR.  This is very literally the cornerstone of the world that we live (or play) in every day.  This needs to feel like war, it needs to feel kind of dark.  I hope that they are able to pull this off, because after being let down by Dungeons and Dragons more than a decade ago, I need another nerd movie.  If this movie is good they are even entertaining the thought of doing more.  Lay the groundwork for a solid romp through the world.  Move forward from Orcs and Humans into the Legion showing up and all the way to creation of the Lich King and turn of Arthas.  I think it would make for a great cinematic experience.

Based on location and lore of the time, I am very exciting.  I’ve been a huge fan of the Warcraft universe for years.  When siting TLoR movies as inspiration I hope that they mean more of a “hot to make a fantasy world” and not “how to walk forever and carry the fucking story nowhere”.  Here is to hoping….  I am a little concerned about forcing female roles.  While I understand the importance of a female role, if there is not one available, please don’t create one.  There are plenty of very powerful ladies that we will be able to meet if the movies progress forward.

I can’t wait for the preview.  I look forward to hearing updates about it as it takes off.  Hopefully we will see the film out in 2015.  I hope it does well and spawns 2 – 3 more movie and allows my son to enjoy them all once he is old enough.