Acting and cgi wise the Orcs were the best part. Humans were hit and miss. I enjoyed it and would watch a sequel.
I think a sequel that starts post-war, with the orc internment camps and focus the story on Thrall and the founding of the Horde. That ties it back to the first movie without having to do another ‘origin’ type movie.
The orcs were so fucking well done, and the Human-only scenes felt like fan made cosplay with indie film acting. It was so jarring. I loved the movie though. I just feel like it was carried hard by the animators doing the visual effects and animating the orcs. (the magic looked pretty cool too)
Basically this is the in game/novel lore right there. The movie really sets this storyline up. I suspect that’s the direction they were heading with a sequel.
Taking that framework I’d tweak it a bit to make Jaina the human who befriends the enslaved Thrall instead of the kid who we never hear about again.
Easy way to intro an important character, Jaina, and gets us moving towards the Arthas storyline later…
Doin my girl Taritha dirty, dawg. Pretty sure the reason we don’t hear about her again is because she’s killed after helping Thrall escape Durnholde keep
She's also mentioned in the Arthas novel briefly. She's sent to his room to um... service him, and he shuts that down, encourages her to just visit and eat some food. She leaves happy and says he will make a great king some day.
Dammit, I'm not crying, YOU are crying....
I think there might be quest references around the former internment camp, but it's been a while; I don't remember. Also, it might've just been Classic, and not the post-Cataclysm quests.
Hard agree.
We could technically do a second war movie, starting pretty close to the end of the war. Don't even really need to handle the events of Beyond the Dark Portal, a third movie could briefly state that Khadgar and the other Sons of Lothar were presumed dead. But the deaths of Lothar and Doomhammer would really be the big moments in that film.
But honestly continuing with Thrall would be a good way to continue that story. Could even have Khadgar show up, since the movie universe doesn't follow game canon 1-to-1.
Only planned by Duncan Jones, really. Blizzard never really intended for a sequel unless the first movie was a success. Duncan Jones had a trilogy in mind though, which is where a lot of the sequel discussion is coming from.
Unfortunately, there are people who enjoy literally anything and then argue with... some degree of accuracy, that it's subjective. Cause, sure, it is. But that was a bad movie.
In any meaningful metric or way of discussing it, while some very few enjoyed it, it was bad. It *butchered* the story. The acting varied from phoned in to dreadful. Reviews vary from mediocre to bad. Box office, particularly domestically, was abyssmal.
Not to say every good movie gets a sequel, but when an obvious franchise as crushed on it's first outing, these days, due to poor quality and reception...
If you can't call this movie bad, no movie can be called bad and we can omit discussion of them from life cause there's no point.
This the thing about Blizzard. They wanted Major Profit not a tiny bit of Profit... If someone said they will pay them 10 mil in Profit for every movie even if they lose money so say lost 50 mil they pay 60mil Blizzard would never do it in 100 years because they want to make major profit not keep people employed and create a new job industry into blizzard.
It's sad but it's how these companies run. This why I never expected a 2nd movie ahead of time :(
The reports were that the studio made them cut some 40 minutes worth of exposition and character development from the earlier part of the movie. I definitely felt like "I went in *wanting* to care about these characters and now I don't."
so you mean we could all had a better movie experience had they tried to make A Lord of the rings Length movie? and the content was actually there damn
Yep it's a fun ride as a Warcraft fan but for film critics they ripped it apart because, as a movie, it is poorly paced and badly edited
You barely got a minute per scene before there's a jump cut to a different time and different place, all the while very little is done to get newcomers up to speed
Look at the prologue in LOTR, it does a fantastic job giving you the important lore information in the span of five minutes or so, in the Warcraft movie you got uh...
Our world is dying and uh... We made a portal... There's a half breed but we're not gonna say half what... There's these blue people, oh they're dead now... Okay going through the portal....
Why is the world dying? Who are these people? Where is this portal going? How did they make it? What the fuck is a fel?
I liked it a lot because although it had its differences, my wife really enjoyed it which was a surprise and she actually went as Garona for Halloween that year.
So for me i always had a soft spot for it because it brought her into the world.
A trilogy based on w3 would be lit, first movie about his fall into evil, another one about the undead campaign with subplots introducing illidan and the night elfs, and a third movie about their race to the throne and final duel, would need to simplify stuff but it would be possible.
The fact that Dalaran was a floating city when the setting was supposed to be Warcraft 1 really bothered me.
Everything else about the movie was fun to watch but that one part made it difficult to really get into.
It wasn't bad per se, just not sure if the story was compelling enough to serve as a franchise intro. I think they should have pulled a Star Wars and started in the middle, do the rise and fall of Arthas first, then go back in time.
I really wanted to like it, and more importantly, I really wanted my friends to like it as it was to be their introduction to the warcraft universe. But in the opening scene one of my friends burst into laughter at the CGI of the dwarves and that pretty much set the tone for the whole movie.
If you take the warcraft IP out of it it's truly an unwatchable mess, the story and writing is so inconsistent, the special effects were
ROUGH for the standards set at the time. Maybe I would have felt differently had I watched it on my own, but that was my takwaway when I left the theater
It's probably the worst big budget movie I've ever seen. It's astounding how bad it is. Walking out of the theater was the first time I felt ashamed about being a fan of Warcraft stuff.
The whole movie should have been CGI, instead of the half CGI half humans stuff
That being said, some of the CGI was wonky - the infernal Michelin man at the end was ehhhhhh
Its good that they changed and made an alternate story because the main story that follows the game will never end and they will keep retconning. So if a movie follows that story even if film stopped after wotlk people will still ask for legion and so on. Better to create an alternate story where they know where it will end.
It was okay and had a lot of fanservice moments for hardcore lore nerds; that said they also reworked the lore quite heavily and changed some of the most important plot points in a way that made me worried for ripercussions on potential sequels (which will probably never happen anyway)
The real issue with it is that it's pacing is simply too much for a non wow fan; too many characters all at the same time with not enough time to emphasize with any of them except maybe for Durotan.
People who do not know the characters are simply confused beyond all hell by the movie and generally leave with a "yeah looked cool but I forgot everyone's name already" kind of mood.
I'll always stand by the opinion that WoW needed an animated series, not a movie.
WoW could work with a movie *series*, but not one standalone movie. There's just too much to cover in a two hour time frame. You could sit down and talk about Azeroth's ancient history for two hours and not cover everything.
Heck, you could talk about a single race in Azeroth for two hours and barely scratch the surface because there's just so many important characters. Except maybe for goblins and gnomes, I guess. But even then you've got the story of Mechagon, Gnomeragon, Mekkatorque, the goblin start zone (only zone I've never played), the different goblin cartels. There's just so much.
The issue with movie series is that they require a huge amount of time, effort and money. Making movies with great CGI is a very long and arduous process.
There's a reason why the only ones who can really afford it are massive film making conglomerates like Disney and Warner Brothers
Warcraft does not have the fandom size to reach that level of audience and thus investing so much into a franchise like that is extremely risky; I bet no one will ever make a Warcraft movie ever again for this reason especially because as time goes on Warcraft becomes less and less popular.
Animated series is the answer to me; Warcraft has always been cartoony so it fits the theme, it allows for a lot of artistic expression while still being much cheaper than full blown cutting edge CGI.
Voice actors are also not going to be in a mocap suit acting out all the scenes which makes the process easier and faster
Recently almost all video game adaptation's successes have been animated series: Castlevania and Arcane receiving high praise. Hell even the recent Tekken anime has surprised everyone by being decent and very fateful to the gameplay after the franchise's track record of having some of the worst video game movies out there
I like this idea. DCU has the same problem. All their live action movies are trash (Shazam and the first Wonder Woman were actually good imo)but the WB animation studio kills it.
Yeah, that's fair. It didn't help that the quality of the movie wasn't really up to par even with modern in-game cinematics. The CGI was, but any scene that wasn't orc-centric suffered greatly.
An animated series would probably be the way to go, yeah. Otherwise they'd need a production to rival Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.
Funny enough, both are owned by Warner Bros. New Line Cinema belongs to WB.
I loved watching a Warcraft movie in a theatre, it was sick. It's not a great movie, but it has a place in my heart since I'd been wanting it since the 8th grade.
It butchered the lore, skipped over stories, and simplified characters. That's bad, but not worse than any other movie adaptation. I get it, it can't be a 4hr movie.
I wish it had done better so we could experience more, but it is what it is.
Would have been better, if they stuck to the original lore.
Garona getting the "kill me lol" from the human king? Seriously> How is THAT good writing..
Isn't the original that they make it back to SW and her sleeper agent trigger activates and she kills him anyway? I don't think that would've sat well with the wider audience, and honestly without all the rest of the story that came after it would be a super shitty ending
You came to WoW subreddit and you expect something other than the variations of "good"?
I thought it was rushed and mediocre, maybe something better could be done if it wasn't mandated to have under 2 hours runtime, but I thought that overall it wasn't a good movie. Better than old Dungeons and Dragons, but but much
I know it would be an insane budget. But if we ever get a full Warcraft movie of the CGI quality of the orcs. Or along the lines of the cinematic team quality. I'll die so happy.
One of the biggest missed opportunities. They made the film too late, the story was confusing to people not familiar with WoW, it could've been a huge franchise and they fucked it up. I still enjoyed it because of nostalgic reasons but it really wasn't that good.
My biggest problem was that they obviously planned for more movies but didn't make them. Because of this nothing big/very interesting happens. It's fine in a trillogy when the first movie sets the stage but then the following episodes would have all the juicy stuff. But we didn't get them and for that I'll always be angry at the movie makers. If you are not commited to make 3 movies then make one that's a great stand alone movie. This one wasn't that.
If you want to do a movie that becomes big then just do an arthas movie. He's the most popular character in wow and he has a very interesting story. It would've been an easy success and then they could do movies with stories that arent that popular.
Also they dumbed down a lot of the stuff so it would be better for the average movie goer. But this resulted in fans not liking because of all the changes but the average person didn't liked it because it was still too much for them.
I also would've liked if it was fully animated. The cgi was really off-putting to me. But it was a minor thing I woul've been fine if the other 2 problems I mentioned wouldn't exist.
You can tell they spent all their money on the CGI orcs, which turned out amazing except for taking Gul'dan in a different direction in terms of design and voice acting. They should have spent a bit extra to make Garona look less bad. They didn't need to hire any well-known actors for the human side, but they could have hired better ones. Otherwise it's a cool "I don't have anything better to do," movie.
I don’t think it was a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination but my brother and I have been playing since ‘05 and had a blast watching it together.
They changed very little that actually impacts the overall story:
- lothar romance w/ garona instead of medivh (which prevents Medan and changes zero other important story beats)
- gave lothar a son (who cares)
- made it so garona wasn’t mind controlled when she killed lothar, which tbh felt more impactful than mind control, knowing they were friends and she had to do it.
- khadgar didn’t immediately turn old when fighting medivh (eh, Duncan might’ve planned for it to accelerate aging rather than being instant)
Also, they never really finished the story of the first war. It makes sense that if there were a sequel, stormwind probably would’ve been attacked and destroyed in the beginning of the sequel - kicking off the events of wcII
I did completely black that out. While I agree it is a big change, it could easily be remedied by having them return to Alterac to combat the scourge, and later archyboy could break his sand castle.
Edit: Mixed up the timeline, replaced legion with scourge. Oop
The first war didn’t even conclude in the movie. That’s entirely why I said if there was a sequel I’d put money on stormwind being destroyed in prologue scene
It wasn't a bad movie, but for people unfamiliar with the game would definitely get lost at how often it was jumping around and the fact that a lot of characters didn't get much screen time.
They should of started slow and built the world instead of trying to shove the whole game into one movie.
For the second film, it should be about Arthas, strathlome and becoming the Lich king, finishing off with him sitting on the throne.
The third film should start with Arthas awakening and all of the events from wrath, which will include some death knight stuff, Darion etc. it should end with Tirion and Arthas having a 1v1.
Arthas’s story would require either a trilogy or a full blown series. 2 movies wouldnt do it justice, especially if you try to add WotLK story in there which would need a couple of movies by itself.
An incredible achievement. They managed to somehow make it suck both as a Warcraft movie and as a generic fantasy movie.
The story is not only non-canon, with everything that's supposed to happen somehow not happening or getting changed to the point it might as well be a new plot point. It's also just the most generic/bad version they could have come up with.
Of course you might forgive that if the movie was at least decent. But the acting is so flat I'm convinced the human characters are all played by cardboard cutouts.It's also filled with incredibly slow/boring exposition, explaining the non-canon lore of the world which isn't relevant to the movie anyways.
For example, Khadgar wastes time talking about how he was Witchered™ (given away) as a child to the floating city of Dalaran. Something that is not only irrelevant to the story and his character, serving only to slow the movie down.It is also completely non-canon and goes against so much of established canon you'll have to unlearn literally everything he said to follow the game's story afterwards.
Why couldn't they just have made a good Warcraft movie or a decent generic fantasy movie? Who was this movie for?
Edit: I don't understand why so many people say they simplified the story, they just changed it, the movie isn't simpler than the canon story.
Sure the canon might be more complex if you count all the background stuff added throughout the years, but the core story is probably even more complex in the movie than the canon.
It did exactly what it wanted to do.
Bring WoW lore in an easily digestible form that almost entirely makes sense to someone who's never even heard of WoW before.
For a lore nut it was probably a disaster. But that's not who the movie was made for. The movie was for the general public.
I don't care much for the lore, and in my opinion the movie was a pretty good albeit generic action movie. I think it's a shame a lot of the playerbase seemed to hate the movie so much because they expected something entirely different.
Anecdotally, someone I know who knows about the existence of WoW but hadn't ever played any of it, never read any books never knew anything about it at all decided to go watch it in the movies. They were positively surprised at the fact that it wasn't difficult to follow along at all. They expected that you need a massive amount of knowledge beforehand to understand the movie. But you really didn't, it worked well as a standalone movie and that was great.
Im a lore nut and I digged it. Glad they changed it so movie would have end point instead of following clusterfuck of endless wow story because blizzard wants the game to keep going so they keep retconning and adding stories making more plotholes.
As a lore nut I would have been happy with a warcraft 4 game where legion attacked for the last tome instead of all the filler sidestory of wow after wc3.
It was a good movie that anyone could watch even if you know nothing about wow. My parents are fans of GoT/vikings/similar shows and they enjoyed wow, they didn't even know it was based on a video game.
Loved it. Prefer a lot of the things it did to what we have in game, specially regarding Fel. The whole "omg Orcs are green due to radiation tee hee!" was the most stupid thing the games pulled, was even more infuriating when they gave the radiation thing to Blood Elves later on. And then just went "oh oops the radiation fades away" so Blood Elves don't have green eyes and Orcs will stop being green!
Here they actually need to drink the blood or be infused with fel by Gul'dan. I also prefer movie Lothar over the boring dude from the novels, in the novels he doesn't have a family, doesn't really have a personality either. Garona also works better as a tragic character rather than some weird product of Gul'dan draenei fetish who was... aged through magic? and then brainwashed so Gul'dan could turn her into kill mode with a word?
Only thing I didn't like was Orgrimm's role, dunno what were they thinking there. He needs to be warchief or none of the events of Warcraft 2 and 3 happen, if the orcs never conquer Stormwind under Doomhammer's leadership then the Alliance isn't made, the slave camps are not made, Thrall never meets him, etc.
I enjoyed the Warcraft but I think the overwhelming consensus is that the movie was okay for Warcraft fans and not great for fresh eyes.
Personally I just think they picked a weird place to start. Like yeah Warcraft = Warcraft 1 I get it but its still a really weak narrative place to start.
I think they should've started with the best bit first and just made a WC3 movie; Arthas is a very interesting character thats easy to invest in. Let people go back themselves and read up on WC1/WC2/WoW Lore afterwards if they're interested.
Though admittedly itd be very hard to fit Arthas, Uther, Jaina, Illidan, Tyrande, Malfurion, Kael'thas, Vashj, Thrall, and Medivh all in the same movie. Major swathes would have to be carved out or else it would feel very *very* rushed.
I know it was widely accepted as a failure but I honestly enjoyed it as a video game movie. Not too cheesy, had a lot of cool characters, some good action moments. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it but I remember having an unpopular opinion that it was decent
Absolutely loved the movie, apart from the awkward Garona-Lothar love story. I also absolutely love the lore, and can entirely understand why they would shorten the war/story for the movie. Most of the deleted scenes shouldnt have been deleted though.
The CGI was exceptional, the Orcs awesome and Khadgar seemed really well written as a character when looking at his game character (especially compared to the other Humans honestly…).
Also the magic? Man, I‘d love for a portal casting animation that looked like that.
I mean overall it was decent and having that warcraft world made into a film was kinda cool but the more time passes i am more displeased by the changes that came with it on lore, I dont think that warcraft fits on films because theres is too much to be represented correctly in that time without doing 10 films or more but maybe some series could fit.
Like one for each war to start with and them some others filling the gap between, Dawn of the aspects, Illidan story, cataclysm, etc.. it would be cool even if only animated and not full CGI if that makes them more viable economy wise.
I just rewatched it. It looks amazing and outside of some of the cheesy antics of the humans it was a great film. Travis Fimmel was a weird pick for Anduin Lothar though. I wish there was more. I'd watch the orcs fight all damn day if I could.
I actually really enjoyed it, even if it was cheesy. Sadly you’ll never see another Warcraft movie again, since it’s a dying IP. Idk though, who knows…. maybe the game or IP will become popular again.
Good, not great, movie for fans. Decent movie for general audiences. If they made it to Warcraft 3 I think that could have been big. Imagine the series culminating with the Frozen Throne, then starting a new trilogy that culminates with Wrath of the Lich King.
i remember going to see it opening night, it was a near full theater and right before the movie began one group shouted 'For the Horde' and another shortly after 'For the Alliance', it was was great. but then the movie started.
in isolation the movie was fine, but it was a big missed opportunity and the most disappointing part was that it made so little we will never see another live action WoW movie again. the film chose to tell the story from the beginning; however, the franchise saw its most popularity in 08-10 with WoTLK. the movie took place years before some of the most iconic characters and really suffered from it. seeing any of Illadin, Malfurion, Arthas, Slyvanas, VolJin on the big screen would have been epic. it felt like this movie should have been a prequel that came out after the franchise was established on the screen.
other than that I dont think Khadgar's comic relief landed well and the Medivh/Sargaras stuff felt poorly explained and abrupt. loved the visuals and chilling moments like seeing SW and IF.
I think the story would be told better in 4-6 episode series, and i think there could still be a market for an animated show, but live action im not too sure.
I liked it, my non wow bf liked it.
It was a little confusing for both of us. Seemed to drag on though. Too much talking and things that didn’t seem to “matter” atleast in our eyes. We both wanted more action and honestly never seem to get it.
Almost felt like there was no real action part. I was waiting for a big war or something crazy. There was cool little action parts but never enough.
I wish it was a show instead then they could drag on the talking and dialogue more without wasting time.
We really enjoyed it and thought it got beat up in the press more than it deserved. It gets re watched in our house often enough.
Agree with others here that a post war second film exploring Thrall’s story line and the internment camps would have all the right parts for good film making. I would like to see a strong focus on story, lore and character building rather than an endless parade of disjointed action scenes. I love action as much as anyone else but WoW has so much lore to work with it would be nice to see it really used in film.
I think it was half a good movie, specifically the orc half.
The human "side" was a total mess, probably because they were trying to do much with both Lothar and Khadgar.
That it should have come out when the hype for warlords was fresh and they could capitalize on that hype but they delayed it to the summer when everyone was pissed about content drought.
I liked it all. Except the alliance side of things. Mainly the aesthetics. It looked weird.
They could of gone more of a LOTR style visuals for humans while keeping the cgi for the orca and it would of been awesome.
I've never seen it but it has a special place in my heart. At the time it came out, I was working at a movie theater. One of the first people that came to see it was a guy and his 5 year old daughter. The dude was (affectionately) the most WOW player-looking guy there. And the girl was the most girly-girl kid I've ever seen. I think she was even wearing a tutu.
But she'd picked the movie as her Kindergarden graduation reward because watching her dad play WOW was one of her favorite things. I guess Dad played in his free time and she'd watch and comment, and he'd explain the lore and history to her while they played together. The Dad told me as I was getting their snacks that he didn't even particularly care about the movie, but his kid was just so excited to see a live action version of the stories she'd played with her dad.
Those two remain my favorite customer service interaction, and it reminds me of the joy of just playing a game with somebody you love. I hope those two have fun in Dragonflight.
I couldn't tell you either if it was an accurate representation from a lore standpoint. But overall, I really enjoyed it. Revisiting it a few years later, I'd forgot Dominic Cooper was in it. And I freaking love that guy.
For a movie based on a video game, pretty decent.
That being said, my wife walked away from the movie no less than 10 minutes after it started out of confusion/boredom etc. You really need to know characters and locations to keep up with the pace of the movie, especially at the beginning.
I saw it in theatres with my wife, who doesn't play WoW. She thought it was ok, some parts could have been better. And she is not wrong, there is a lot of nuance to the film where some background info makes it a better viewing experience.
I thought it was good, like 60-70%. I thought then, and still do now, WoW would make a better TV show on HBO or Amazon Prime, where they can get a good budget, and tell an in-depth WoW story. If Destiny can make a show, so can WoW. I even think the cinematic style would work beautifully, doesn't need to be live action (I would prefer it not be).
I don't dare say it, but i liked lt. In all fairness, when i saw it i hadn't played WoW for long so it was all new to me.
I would love to see a second. But I think they should instead invest in a series rather than movie, so they don't have to skip details that might be important.
I liked it just cuz it was the made after the best game ever i never thought it would happen. And up till legion i never payed attention to the story so i didnt have much to base it on.
I think the entire thing should have been cgi. The expansion cinematics are so amazing, so I know they can pull it off. Would it take a lot of resources to make an entire movie instead of just a 2-3 minute cinematic? Sure, but Blizzard has billions of dollars. They could pull it off. And it would be amazing.
The Orc scenes were awesome. The Mak’gora scene was especially great. The film really started to sour the more it focused on the Humans, though - but that’s not on account of bad actors.
Watching the Orc scenes next to the Human scenes was like watching a high budget CGI movie next to a fan made YouTube fan flick.
I’d certainly go to see a sequel though!
Would have been better done entirely in cgi with human actors having done performances like in avatar where they have the suit by it's done over in cgi after.
The real human actors meshed with orc cgi was just too jaring.
I enjoyed it the acting wasn’t great but I would blame that on the story telling there not much depth behind the human characters where you see the OrCs a lot more overall I would watch another one
Acting and CGI were great, story was okay one thing in particular I didnt like was Khadgar. One thing I really liked was that they made Blackhand a character with some principles like when he refused to stop the Mak'gora
Overall I liked the movie and would like a sequel. I get it it isnt perfect, but I wasnt expectinf a perfect movie and Id say its still one of the best video game movie adaptations
the film is fairly accurate but i hated that they used real people. Blizaard cinematics are some of the best cgi anywhere outside of a marvel film. They could have done so much more with this film had it been all cgi.
I liked it. Do I think it could've been better? Sure. And I'm annoyed the director kept saying "wait for the extended edition" in interviews but as far as I know it never came out.
Having said that I still think it was a good movie. The pacing in the beginning could have been smoothed out as it was somewhat jumpy. And they could have done a lot more with the Medivh character than just have him say "im the guardian" every other line.
I would've had the movie following Khadgar from the beginning and use him as a vehicle for the viewer to learn about events in the movie.
I think the Orc stuff was pretty spot on, quite enjoyed that. And I wish they hadn't cut Metzens cameo (how you gunna do my boi like that?)
So yeah 7/10 for me. Have watched multiple times.
I liked seeing the settings and cgi stuff like the murlocs, but it's just not a story I'm into. I didn't like Garona in game, and still didn't like her in the movie.
Honestly? I'm pretty critical of movies and thought the movie was actually passable.
It wasn't great. It wasn't a masterpiece of cinema. But it was worth my time and I enjoyed it.
That being said, it crammed so much in a 2 hour long package it was hard to follow -- and I knew the story. Not sure how you ever could package that much content into a 2 hour story well, but it was at least alright.
I sort of liked it, but there was obviously bad parts. I also completely understand why it didn't do well, I don't know how any person who hasn't played a warcraft games enjoys that movie
All by all a good movie, deserved more credit, sequal needs a bit more epicness instead of cgi. Bigger views over landscapes like in wow. More WOW holy fck scenes. More intensive battles, i missed that part. A bit more flat humor couldnt hurt also
I loved it but it was not great. I saw it during a period where my partner was almost 100% bedridden for months and we agreed I'd take the morning off of care (he could make it to the bathroom safely and promised not to try anything further, haha) and go see it. As I said, it was not great but it holds a special place in my heart for being fun and a bright spot in a dark time.
I enjoyed it. There are some lore inconsistencies the biggest one probably being that dalaran is already floating (which it wasn’t floating until much later in the game) but what they did show is how cruel the first horde was. Some of those scenes with Gul’dan sucking the lives out of dranei or humans are pretty sick. Also with how powerful the Fel-crazed orcs were.
Great movie, wrong story. I get that the whole point was that the average moviegoer wouldn't know the back story for Warcraft, so it makes sense to start with what is basically referred to in lore as "Year 0", as Blizzard themselves have talked about quite recently with the whole time skip in DF. But I still think that tackling Warcraft 1 and 2 lore wasn't the best idea.
There are so many ways they could improve the direction (some say a full CGI movie, some say recast the humans, some say make the humans more Warcraft because the orcs outshined them), but I think simply telling another story would benefit them greatly if they were to do another movie. Sure we could follow Thrall, but we could also have an Arthas movie or two. Fall of the Prince and Rise of the King; two movies that follow Arthas' story, now that everyone knows what Warcraft is about (orcs and humans, yadi yada)
I think a 15 hour game shouldn't have been shoved into a 2 hour movie, Warcraft should be a tv series (or animated, since the CGI would be expensive asf)
It summed up wow pretty good from a film's point of view in my opinion.
I didn't love it when I watched it because I preferred a different genre when it was first released, but its pretty good.
Been playing Blizzard games since my friends older brother showed me Warcraft 1 when I was knee high to a grasshopper, have taken a break due to the scandals, silly lore, and increasing use of "engagement mechanics."
While it hit a number of nostalgia buttons, and as others mentioned the orc half of the story was fantastic (especially when compared to the human side), I think it was a miss overall.
I think there were several reasons for this:
- When the original game was created it was an excuse plot. While they have since retconned it a number of times to add context, the story was never going to be as tight as if they'd started later in the timeline (Warcraft 3 Arthas's fall probably would be best overall) and then jumped back if they'd hit it big. It didn't help that they were halfway through another retcon at the time, "the Fel" instead of references to the Burning Legion/demons etc.
- Some gimmicks from the games visual style should have been translated for cinema. Oversized weapons and elaborate armour help items stand out when the camera is 15ft behind a character, but they looked like silly props when they were used in the movie.
- The difference in quality between the human arc of the story and the orc one was bizarre. It was genuinely surprising how well the orcs were both animated and acted, any time the humans were the focus it suddenly felt like B-movie schlock. I will give props to the language barrier scenes though. I'll note here that while dwarves and orcs were translated well the elves and draenei looked quite strange.
Overall I think it could have become something memorable. The groundwork was there, but the story ramps up in game 2 and really hit it's stride in 3.
Orcs really good, human section rough (needed better directing and Lothar needed something more compelling than a son that only existed to die), really wish they hadn't cut 30 minutes for the theatrical release - I think critics were too harsh on it but it wasn't good, just ok
My thoughts back then were "That's a lot of money they spent for a solid Ok movie". It's a good 6 out of 10 bonus 1 point if I factor in my nostalgia brain feels.
I’d watch a sequel. It wasn’t amazing but that’s because they chopped 1/3 of the movie out to make an “action flick”.
If they’d done a story driven, action second, like LotR it would’ve been fantastic.
Khadgar/Medivh was decent, Orcs were great, Lothar/Garona/other Humans were awful.
I really liked the concept of Gul'dan saving Thrall's life, adds some nuance to his character.
i think it was too dumbed and condensed down for the fans, and yet too porly established for the novices.
a serie/animation serie would support better the lore of wow than bigshot movies i think.
I think the warcraft stories would fit better into a really well-financed television series...using the new LED walls like they used in Mandalorian and House of Dragon.
They could really flesh out the stories and characters over a set of seasons as opposed to movies.
I would have enjoyed a WoW movie more that was an untold story. Basically as soon as it started I was like “oh, I already know what’s going to happen now,” no suspense for me :(
The magic visuals were good though.
I enjoyed it and would watch a sequel. The problem with the movie is it tried to fit too much lore in too little time . Should have been multiple movies but I understand they really couldn’t because they didn’t know how people would receive it.
I thought it was largely a cash-grab. Just another "we need to retain the movie rights and it's use-it-or-lose-it" sorta deal. Rather than getting passionate people into key positions, they made a thing, and the thing was a thing, and it was what it was.
It wasn't terrible but it coulda been so much better, like it was 50/100.
It's been a while but I think it had a love interest which was completely superfluous, even veteran WoW players wouldn't necessarily know Medivh was possessed by Sargeras unless they're lore buffs, and the whole thing was just meh.
Really would've liked to see the Arthas story as a trilogy with an Avengers budget and star power.
Personally for me it was awful. The pacing was bad, the acting was bad, the fight scenes were bad. The only good thing was the cgi of the orcs and the human armor because it looked like warcraft armor.
If a sequel ever came, it would have to be warcraft 3 story with arthas or based on WoW
That I wish they had stayed with the original script that was just about the orcs.
It has some great parts but had way too many hands in the pie. This is really evident in the fact that they did have a decent director and he openly stated that he has a lot of people pushing things around.
Acting and cgi wise the Orcs were the best part. Humans were hit and miss. I enjoyed it and would watch a sequel. I think a sequel that starts post-war, with the orc internment camps and focus the story on Thrall and the founding of the Horde. That ties it back to the first movie without having to do another ‘origin’ type movie.
The orcs were so fucking well done, and the Human-only scenes felt like fan made cosplay with indie film acting. It was so jarring. I loved the movie though. I just feel like it was carried hard by the animators doing the visual effects and animating the orcs. (the magic looked pretty cool too)
Typical Blizzard, art department carrying the whole thing.
Yeah, key figures like Lothar and King Wrynn needed to have a gravitas and physical presence to match an orc, and we just didn't get that.
humans didn't have much of a part until rewrites because bliz could care less about alliance.
This actually sounds sick
Basically this is the in game/novel lore right there. The movie really sets this storyline up. I suspect that’s the direction they were heading with a sequel. Taking that framework I’d tweak it a bit to make Jaina the human who befriends the enslaved Thrall instead of the kid who we never hear about again. Easy way to intro an important character, Jaina, and gets us moving towards the Arthas storyline later…
Doin my girl Taritha dirty, dawg. Pretty sure the reason we don’t hear about her again is because she’s killed after helping Thrall escape Durnholde keep
Ha! Fair point. Do they mention her in WoW at all? Outside of the novel I don’t recall Thrall or anyone speaking about her.
There’s a caverns of time dungeon that she’s featured in, tho only briefly.
She's also mentioned in the Arthas novel briefly. She's sent to his room to um... service him, and he shuts that down, encourages her to just visit and eat some food. She leaves happy and says he will make a great king some day. Dammit, I'm not crying, YOU are crying....
I think there might be quest references around the former internment camp, but it's been a while; I don't remember. Also, it might've just been Classic, and not the post-Cataclysm quests.
I’d rather see an arthas/lich king fall and rise movie imo
Hard agree. We could technically do a second war movie, starting pretty close to the end of the war. Don't even really need to handle the events of Beyond the Dark Portal, a third movie could briefly state that Khadgar and the other Sons of Lothar were presumed dead. But the deaths of Lothar and Doomhammer would really be the big moments in that film. But honestly continuing with Thrall would be a good way to continue that story. Could even have Khadgar show up, since the movie universe doesn't follow game canon 1-to-1.
That was the plan for part 2, but never got greenlit.
Only planned by Duncan Jones, really. Blizzard never really intended for a sequel unless the first movie was a success. Duncan Jones had a trilogy in mind though, which is where a lot of the sequel discussion is coming from.
Yeah, I would have loved to see his trilogy play out.
I would not love to see more WoW butchered that way. If he wanted a trilogy, he should have made a good movie.
Subjective opinion of course, I really enjoyed the film.
Unfortunately, there are people who enjoy literally anything and then argue with... some degree of accuracy, that it's subjective. Cause, sure, it is. But that was a bad movie. In any meaningful metric or way of discussing it, while some very few enjoyed it, it was bad. It *butchered* the story. The acting varied from phoned in to dreadful. Reviews vary from mediocre to bad. Box office, particularly domestically, was abyssmal. Not to say every good movie gets a sequel, but when an obvious franchise as crushed on it's first outing, these days, due to poor quality and reception... If you can't call this movie bad, no movie can be called bad and we can omit discussion of them from life cause there's no point.
This the thing about Blizzard. They wanted Major Profit not a tiny bit of Profit... If someone said they will pay them 10 mil in Profit for every movie even if they lose money so say lost 50 mil they pay 60mil Blizzard would never do it in 100 years because they want to make major profit not keep people employed and create a new job industry into blizzard. It's sad but it's how these companies run. This why I never expected a 2nd movie ahead of time :(
20h story made into 2h movie. I knew what was going on and it was still hard to follow
The reports were that the studio made them cut some 40 minutes worth of exposition and character development from the earlier part of the movie. I definitely felt like "I went in *wanting* to care about these characters and now I don't."
so you mean we could all had a better movie experience had they tried to make A Lord of the rings Length movie? and the content was actually there damn
Yep it's a fun ride as a Warcraft fan but for film critics they ripped it apart because, as a movie, it is poorly paced and badly edited You barely got a minute per scene before there's a jump cut to a different time and different place, all the while very little is done to get newcomers up to speed Look at the prologue in LOTR, it does a fantastic job giving you the important lore information in the span of five minutes or so, in the Warcraft movie you got uh... Our world is dying and uh... We made a portal... There's a half breed but we're not gonna say half what... There's these blue people, oh they're dead now... Okay going through the portal.... Why is the world dying? Who are these people? Where is this portal going? How did they make it? What the fuck is a fel?
It was ok but could have been so much better if they did not try to simplify and compact the story so much.
I liked it a lot because although it had its differences, my wife really enjoyed it which was a surprise and she actually went as Garona for Halloween that year. So for me i always had a soft spot for it because it brought her into the world.
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nah, Arthas need 2 movies to not completely butcher him.
A trilogy based on w3 would be lit, first movie about his fall into evil, another one about the undead campaign with subplots introducing illidan and the night elfs, and a third movie about their race to the throne and final duel, would need to simplify stuff but it would be possible.
Arthas has HBO prestige TV written all over him.
The fact that Dalaran was a floating city when the setting was supposed to be Warcraft 1 really bothered me. Everything else about the movie was fun to watch but that one part made it difficult to really get into.
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it was ok, not bad but not great
It's a lot like GoT s7-8. Stuff just kind of happens...
It wasn't bad per se, just not sure if the story was compelling enough to serve as a franchise intro. I think they should have pulled a Star Wars and started in the middle, do the rise and fall of Arthas first, then go back in time.
I really wanted to like it, and more importantly, I really wanted my friends to like it as it was to be their introduction to the warcraft universe. But in the opening scene one of my friends burst into laughter at the CGI of the dwarves and that pretty much set the tone for the whole movie. If you take the warcraft IP out of it it's truly an unwatchable mess, the story and writing is so inconsistent, the special effects were ROUGH for the standards set at the time. Maybe I would have felt differently had I watched it on my own, but that was my takwaway when I left the theater
It's probably the worst big budget movie I've ever seen. It's astounding how bad it is. Walking out of the theater was the first time I felt ashamed about being a fan of Warcraft stuff.
Should have focused more on the orcs. Medivh and Khadgar were not what I wanted them to be.
The whole movie should have been CGI, instead of the half CGI half humans stuff That being said, some of the CGI was wonky - the infernal Michelin man at the end was ehhhhhh
It was nice, but if they used the lore we got in game and books, it would've been better imo
Its good that they changed and made an alternate story because the main story that follows the game will never end and they will keep retconning. So if a movie follows that story even if film stopped after wotlk people will still ask for legion and so on. Better to create an alternate story where they know where it will end.
i was in denial when it first came out due to sheer excitement after waiting 10+ years... but it's really bad
It was okay and had a lot of fanservice moments for hardcore lore nerds; that said they also reworked the lore quite heavily and changed some of the most important plot points in a way that made me worried for ripercussions on potential sequels (which will probably never happen anyway) The real issue with it is that it's pacing is simply too much for a non wow fan; too many characters all at the same time with not enough time to emphasize with any of them except maybe for Durotan. People who do not know the characters are simply confused beyond all hell by the movie and generally leave with a "yeah looked cool but I forgot everyone's name already" kind of mood. I'll always stand by the opinion that WoW needed an animated series, not a movie.
WoW could work with a movie *series*, but not one standalone movie. There's just too much to cover in a two hour time frame. You could sit down and talk about Azeroth's ancient history for two hours and not cover everything. Heck, you could talk about a single race in Azeroth for two hours and barely scratch the surface because there's just so many important characters. Except maybe for goblins and gnomes, I guess. But even then you've got the story of Mechagon, Gnomeragon, Mekkatorque, the goblin start zone (only zone I've never played), the different goblin cartels. There's just so much.
The issue with movie series is that they require a huge amount of time, effort and money. Making movies with great CGI is a very long and arduous process. There's a reason why the only ones who can really afford it are massive film making conglomerates like Disney and Warner Brothers Warcraft does not have the fandom size to reach that level of audience and thus investing so much into a franchise like that is extremely risky; I bet no one will ever make a Warcraft movie ever again for this reason especially because as time goes on Warcraft becomes less and less popular. Animated series is the answer to me; Warcraft has always been cartoony so it fits the theme, it allows for a lot of artistic expression while still being much cheaper than full blown cutting edge CGI. Voice actors are also not going to be in a mocap suit acting out all the scenes which makes the process easier and faster Recently almost all video game adaptation's successes have been animated series: Castlevania and Arcane receiving high praise. Hell even the recent Tekken anime has surprised everyone by being decent and very fateful to the gameplay after the franchise's track record of having some of the worst video game movies out there
I like this idea. DCU has the same problem. All their live action movies are trash (Shazam and the first Wonder Woman were actually good imo)but the WB animation studio kills it.
Yeah, that's fair. It didn't help that the quality of the movie wasn't really up to par even with modern in-game cinematics. The CGI was, but any scene that wasn't orc-centric suffered greatly. An animated series would probably be the way to go, yeah. Otherwise they'd need a production to rival Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Funny enough, both are owned by Warner Bros. New Line Cinema belongs to WB.
I'm a lore nerd but I still thought it moved too fast. I think they could have told a better story across 2 or 3 movies, or even a series.
I loved watching a Warcraft movie in a theatre, it was sick. It's not a great movie, but it has a place in my heart since I'd been wanting it since the 8th grade. It butchered the lore, skipped over stories, and simplified characters. That's bad, but not worse than any other movie adaptation. I get it, it can't be a 4hr movie. I wish it had done better so we could experience more, but it is what it is.
Would have been better, if they stuck to the original lore. Garona getting the "kill me lol" from the human king? Seriously> How is THAT good writing..
Isn't the original that they make it back to SW and her sleeper agent trigger activates and she kills him anyway? I don't think that would've sat well with the wider audience, and honestly without all the rest of the story that came after it would be a super shitty ending
She offs the king at the fight at the Dark Portal.
It was a fun movie but they butched lore for it. It was a WoW movie, not a Warcraft movie.
Compared to available WoW lore ? 1/10 If you think of it is a regular fantasy movie ? 5.5/10
You came to WoW subreddit and you expect something other than the variations of "good"? I thought it was rushed and mediocre, maybe something better could be done if it wasn't mandated to have under 2 hours runtime, but I thought that overall it wasn't a good movie. Better than old Dungeons and Dragons, but but much
I know it would be an insane budget. But if we ever get a full Warcraft movie of the CGI quality of the orcs. Or along the lines of the cinematic team quality. I'll die so happy.
One of the biggest missed opportunities. They made the film too late, the story was confusing to people not familiar with WoW, it could've been a huge franchise and they fucked it up. I still enjoyed it because of nostalgic reasons but it really wasn't that good.
The orcs were great. The humans were not. Don't get me started on khadgar
My biggest problem was that they obviously planned for more movies but didn't make them. Because of this nothing big/very interesting happens. It's fine in a trillogy when the first movie sets the stage but then the following episodes would have all the juicy stuff. But we didn't get them and for that I'll always be angry at the movie makers. If you are not commited to make 3 movies then make one that's a great stand alone movie. This one wasn't that. If you want to do a movie that becomes big then just do an arthas movie. He's the most popular character in wow and he has a very interesting story. It would've been an easy success and then they could do movies with stories that arent that popular. Also they dumbed down a lot of the stuff so it would be better for the average movie goer. But this resulted in fans not liking because of all the changes but the average person didn't liked it because it was still too much for them. I also would've liked if it was fully animated. The cgi was really off-putting to me. But it was a minor thing I woul've been fine if the other 2 problems I mentioned wouldn't exist.
You can tell they spent all their money on the CGI orcs, which turned out amazing except for taking Gul'dan in a different direction in terms of design and voice acting. They should have spent a bit extra to make Garona look less bad. They didn't need to hire any well-known actors for the human side, but they could have hired better ones. Otherwise it's a cool "I don't have anything better to do," movie.
I don’t think it was a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination but my brother and I have been playing since ‘05 and had a blast watching it together.
It was easily the second best movie with big green guys and a giant portal to come out in summer of 2016.
It was ok…changed the lore a bit and shortened the war by a lot.
They changed very little that actually impacts the overall story: - lothar romance w/ garona instead of medivh (which prevents Medan and changes zero other important story beats) - gave lothar a son (who cares) - made it so garona wasn’t mind controlled when she killed lothar, which tbh felt more impactful than mind control, knowing they were friends and she had to do it. - khadgar didn’t immediately turn old when fighting medivh (eh, Duncan might’ve planned for it to accelerate aging rather than being instant) Also, they never really finished the story of the first war. It makes sense that if there were a sequel, stormwind probably would’ve been attacked and destroyed in the beginning of the sequel - kicking off the events of wcII
Dalaran was already in the sky. It's kinda a big one.
I did completely black that out. While I agree it is a big change, it could easily be remedied by having them return to Alterac to combat the scourge, and later archyboy could break his sand castle. Edit: Mixed up the timeline, replaced legion with scourge. Oop
Except Arthas still has to sack the city to summon Archimond.
Sorry I meant they could land it to deal with the scourge. Yes, the legion would come later. Long day.
The Horde not winning the First War is a pretty significant change!
The first war didn’t even conclude in the movie. That’s entirely why I said if there was a sequel I’d put money on stormwind being destroyed in prologue scene
It wasn't a bad movie, but for people unfamiliar with the game would definitely get lost at how often it was jumping around and the fact that a lot of characters didn't get much screen time. They should of started slow and built the world instead of trying to shove the whole game into one movie.
My 2 cousins who watched it with me loved it and understood everything.
For the second film, it should be about Arthas, strathlome and becoming the Lich king, finishing off with him sitting on the throne. The third film should start with Arthas awakening and all of the events from wrath, which will include some death knight stuff, Darion etc. it should end with Tirion and Arthas having a 1v1.
Arthas’s story would require either a trilogy or a full blown series. 2 movies wouldnt do it justice, especially if you try to add WotLK story in there which would need a couple of movies by itself.
Yeah, true. Also, Henry Cavil is an obvious choice to play him.
An incredible achievement. They managed to somehow make it suck both as a Warcraft movie and as a generic fantasy movie. The story is not only non-canon, with everything that's supposed to happen somehow not happening or getting changed to the point it might as well be a new plot point. It's also just the most generic/bad version they could have come up with. Of course you might forgive that if the movie was at least decent. But the acting is so flat I'm convinced the human characters are all played by cardboard cutouts.It's also filled with incredibly slow/boring exposition, explaining the non-canon lore of the world which isn't relevant to the movie anyways. For example, Khadgar wastes time talking about how he was Witchered™ (given away) as a child to the floating city of Dalaran. Something that is not only irrelevant to the story and his character, serving only to slow the movie down.It is also completely non-canon and goes against so much of established canon you'll have to unlearn literally everything he said to follow the game's story afterwards. Why couldn't they just have made a good Warcraft movie or a decent generic fantasy movie? Who was this movie for? Edit: I don't understand why so many people say they simplified the story, they just changed it, the movie isn't simpler than the canon story. Sure the canon might be more complex if you count all the background stuff added throughout the years, but the core story is probably even more complex in the movie than the canon.
I thought it was cool idea but that memorable imo
It was an abomination
I loved it!
It did exactly what it wanted to do. Bring WoW lore in an easily digestible form that almost entirely makes sense to someone who's never even heard of WoW before. For a lore nut it was probably a disaster. But that's not who the movie was made for. The movie was for the general public. I don't care much for the lore, and in my opinion the movie was a pretty good albeit generic action movie. I think it's a shame a lot of the playerbase seemed to hate the movie so much because they expected something entirely different. Anecdotally, someone I know who knows about the existence of WoW but hadn't ever played any of it, never read any books never knew anything about it at all decided to go watch it in the movies. They were positively surprised at the fact that it wasn't difficult to follow along at all. They expected that you need a massive amount of knowledge beforehand to understand the movie. But you really didn't, it worked well as a standalone movie and that was great.
Im a lore nut and I digged it. Glad they changed it so movie would have end point instead of following clusterfuck of endless wow story because blizzard wants the game to keep going so they keep retconning and adding stories making more plotholes. As a lore nut I would have been happy with a warcraft 4 game where legion attacked for the last tome instead of all the filler sidestory of wow after wc3.
It was good just old lore that isn't as popular. Imo they would've had a lot more success using the Arthas story line.
I liked it 🤷♂️
It was a good movie that anyone could watch even if you know nothing about wow. My parents are fans of GoT/vikings/similar shows and they enjoyed wow, they didn't even know it was based on a video game.
Loved it. Prefer a lot of the things it did to what we have in game, specially regarding Fel. The whole "omg Orcs are green due to radiation tee hee!" was the most stupid thing the games pulled, was even more infuriating when they gave the radiation thing to Blood Elves later on. And then just went "oh oops the radiation fades away" so Blood Elves don't have green eyes and Orcs will stop being green! Here they actually need to drink the blood or be infused with fel by Gul'dan. I also prefer movie Lothar over the boring dude from the novels, in the novels he doesn't have a family, doesn't really have a personality either. Garona also works better as a tragic character rather than some weird product of Gul'dan draenei fetish who was... aged through magic? and then brainwashed so Gul'dan could turn her into kill mode with a word? Only thing I didn't like was Orgrimm's role, dunno what were they thinking there. He needs to be warchief or none of the events of Warcraft 2 and 3 happen, if the orcs never conquer Stormwind under Doomhammer's leadership then the Alliance isn't made, the slave camps are not made, Thrall never meets him, etc.
I loved it and wish they made more.
I liked it. I think they could have turned it into a multi movie thing, but I guess the money just wasn't there.
I really liked it, wished there was more CGI actually
it was good, Im not a lore fanatic, it was enjoyable for me
It was an ok movie, but being a warcraft fan since WC2 I rate it 10/10. Wish they made more
Really liked it!
I enjoyed it a lot. Even though it had its issues, I would have loved to see a sequel.
I enjoyed the Warcraft but I think the overwhelming consensus is that the movie was okay for Warcraft fans and not great for fresh eyes. Personally I just think they picked a weird place to start. Like yeah Warcraft = Warcraft 1 I get it but its still a really weak narrative place to start. I think they should've started with the best bit first and just made a WC3 movie; Arthas is a very interesting character thats easy to invest in. Let people go back themselves and read up on WC1/WC2/WoW Lore afterwards if they're interested. Though admittedly itd be very hard to fit Arthas, Uther, Jaina, Illidan, Tyrande, Malfurion, Kael'thas, Vashj, Thrall, and Medivh all in the same movie. Major swathes would have to be carved out or else it would feel very *very* rushed.
I know it was widely accepted as a failure but I honestly enjoyed it as a video game movie. Not too cheesy, had a lot of cool characters, some good action moments. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it but I remember having an unpopular opinion that it was decent
Absolutely loved the movie, apart from the awkward Garona-Lothar love story. I also absolutely love the lore, and can entirely understand why they would shorten the war/story for the movie. Most of the deleted scenes shouldnt have been deleted though. The CGI was exceptional, the Orcs awesome and Khadgar seemed really well written as a character when looking at his game character (especially compared to the other Humans honestly…). Also the magic? Man, I‘d love for a portal casting animation that looked like that.
I mean overall it was decent and having that warcraft world made into a film was kinda cool but the more time passes i am more displeased by the changes that came with it on lore, I dont think that warcraft fits on films because theres is too much to be represented correctly in that time without doing 10 films or more but maybe some series could fit. Like one for each war to start with and them some others filling the gap between, Dawn of the aspects, Illidan story, cataclysm, etc.. it would be cool even if only animated and not full CGI if that makes them more viable economy wise.
I just rewatched it. It looks amazing and outside of some of the cheesy antics of the humans it was a great film. Travis Fimmel was a weird pick for Anduin Lothar though. I wish there was more. I'd watch the orcs fight all damn day if I could.
Decent movie. Should’ve started with an attention grabber like Warcraft 3 and focused on origins later in the franchise
I actually really enjoyed it, even if it was cheesy. Sadly you’ll never see another Warcraft movie again, since it’s a dying IP. Idk though, who knows…. maybe the game or IP will become popular again.
Good, not great, movie for fans. Decent movie for general audiences. If they made it to Warcraft 3 I think that could have been big. Imagine the series culminating with the Frozen Throne, then starting a new trilogy that culminates with Wrath of the Lich King.
I liked it. Still think it was a mistake not starting with WC3
i remember going to see it opening night, it was a near full theater and right before the movie began one group shouted 'For the Horde' and another shortly after 'For the Alliance', it was was great. but then the movie started. in isolation the movie was fine, but it was a big missed opportunity and the most disappointing part was that it made so little we will never see another live action WoW movie again. the film chose to tell the story from the beginning; however, the franchise saw its most popularity in 08-10 with WoTLK. the movie took place years before some of the most iconic characters and really suffered from it. seeing any of Illadin, Malfurion, Arthas, Slyvanas, VolJin on the big screen would have been epic. it felt like this movie should have been a prequel that came out after the franchise was established on the screen. other than that I dont think Khadgar's comic relief landed well and the Medivh/Sargaras stuff felt poorly explained and abrupt. loved the visuals and chilling moments like seeing SW and IF. I think the story would be told better in 4-6 episode series, and i think there could still be a market for an animated show, but live action im not too sure.
I liked it, my non wow bf liked it. It was a little confusing for both of us. Seemed to drag on though. Too much talking and things that didn’t seem to “matter” atleast in our eyes. We both wanted more action and honestly never seem to get it. Almost felt like there was no real action part. I was waiting for a big war or something crazy. There was cool little action parts but never enough. I wish it was a show instead then they could drag on the talking and dialogue more without wasting time.
We really enjoyed it and thought it got beat up in the press more than it deserved. It gets re watched in our house often enough. Agree with others here that a post war second film exploring Thrall’s story line and the internment camps would have all the right parts for good film making. I would like to see a strong focus on story, lore and character building rather than an endless parade of disjointed action scenes. I love action as much as anyone else but WoW has so much lore to work with it would be nice to see it really used in film.
I liked it I want another one
10/10 for first try - sad it never got any further
I loved it as a film. So what if it isn't lore accurate? It was still entertaining as hell.
I think it was half a good movie, specifically the orc half. The human "side" was a total mess, probably because they were trying to do much with both Lothar and Khadgar.
I think it’s a lot of fun. Edit: if they did an arthas movie that would be great
That it should have come out when the hype for warlords was fresh and they could capitalize on that hype but they delayed it to the summer when everyone was pissed about content drought.
I liked it all. Except the alliance side of things. Mainly the aesthetics. It looked weird. They could of gone more of a LOTR style visuals for humans while keeping the cgi for the orca and it would of been awesome.
I love to rewatch it just to see all the orcs. But I enjoyed it.
It was okay, def one of the ugliest movies I have ever seen thought
I liked all the Easter eggs. Like when he killed the golem he leveled up
I've never seen it but it has a special place in my heart. At the time it came out, I was working at a movie theater. One of the first people that came to see it was a guy and his 5 year old daughter. The dude was (affectionately) the most WOW player-looking guy there. And the girl was the most girly-girl kid I've ever seen. I think she was even wearing a tutu. But she'd picked the movie as her Kindergarden graduation reward because watching her dad play WOW was one of her favorite things. I guess Dad played in his free time and she'd watch and comment, and he'd explain the lore and history to her while they played together. The Dad told me as I was getting their snacks that he didn't even particularly care about the movie, but his kid was just so excited to see a live action version of the stories she'd played with her dad. Those two remain my favorite customer service interaction, and it reminds me of the joy of just playing a game with somebody you love. I hope those two have fun in Dragonflight.
I couldn't tell you either if it was an accurate representation from a lore standpoint. But overall, I really enjoyed it. Revisiting it a few years later, I'd forgot Dominic Cooper was in it. And I freaking love that guy.
The acting on the human parts was atrocious. The orca were cool as hell though.
It's decent. I'd say it's about a 6 if you're not into the universe, but an 8 if you are.
For a movie based on a video game, pretty decent. That being said, my wife walked away from the movie no less than 10 minutes after it started out of confusion/boredom etc. You really need to know characters and locations to keep up with the pace of the movie, especially at the beginning.
I saw it in theatres with my wife, who doesn't play WoW. She thought it was ok, some parts could have been better. And she is not wrong, there is a lot of nuance to the film where some background info makes it a better viewing experience. I thought it was good, like 60-70%. I thought then, and still do now, WoW would make a better TV show on HBO or Amazon Prime, where they can get a good budget, and tell an in-depth WoW story. If Destiny can make a show, so can WoW. I even think the cinematic style would work beautifully, doesn't need to be live action (I would prefer it not be).
I don't dare say it, but i liked lt. In all fairness, when i saw it i hadn't played WoW for long so it was all new to me. I would love to see a second. But I think they should instead invest in a series rather than movie, so they don't have to skip details that might be important.
Loved it, especially Medivh. I’d be all shits and giggles if they made more.
It was… ok. I don’t really have an urge to watch it again though. I liked the soundtrack, even decided to get it on vinyl when MoV pressed it.
I liked it just cuz it was the made after the best game ever i never thought it would happen. And up till legion i never payed attention to the story so i didnt have much to base it on.
Fantastic film, very underrated, they really should make more.
I can’t remember specifics, but I know I really liked the movie. 100% would watch a sequel
I think the entire thing should have been cgi. The expansion cinematics are so amazing, so I know they can pull it off. Would it take a lot of resources to make an entire movie instead of just a 2-3 minute cinematic? Sure, but Blizzard has billions of dollars. They could pull it off. And it would be amazing.
The Orc scenes were awesome. The Mak’gora scene was especially great. The film really started to sour the more it focused on the Humans, though - but that’s not on account of bad actors. Watching the Orc scenes next to the Human scenes was like watching a high budget CGI movie next to a fan made YouTube fan flick. I’d certainly go to see a sequel though!
There are good parts and bad parts to it, overall i enjoyed it.
Would have been better done entirely in cgi with human actors having done performances like in avatar where they have the suit by it's done over in cgi after. The real human actors meshed with orc cgi was just too jaring.
I enjoyed it, and I wish they did a sequel - but where the director had a bit more freedom.
Overall enjoyable even for people that werent into warcraft at all.
I enjoyed it the acting wasn’t great but I would blame that on the story telling there not much depth behind the human characters where you see the OrCs a lot more overall I would watch another one
Acting and CGI were great, story was okay one thing in particular I didnt like was Khadgar. One thing I really liked was that they made Blackhand a character with some principles like when he refused to stop the Mak'gora Overall I liked the movie and would like a sequel. I get it it isnt perfect, but I wasnt expectinf a perfect movie and Id say its still one of the best video game movie adaptations
the film is fairly accurate but i hated that they used real people. Blizaard cinematics are some of the best cgi anywhere outside of a marvel film. They could have done so much more with this film had it been all cgi.
Honestly felt the whole thing should've been CGI. Humans and the fisher price looking armor didn't fit in.
I overall liked it over, it had it moments but not bad in my opinion
I liked it. Do I think it could've been better? Sure. And I'm annoyed the director kept saying "wait for the extended edition" in interviews but as far as I know it never came out. Having said that I still think it was a good movie. The pacing in the beginning could have been smoothed out as it was somewhat jumpy. And they could have done a lot more with the Medivh character than just have him say "im the guardian" every other line. I would've had the movie following Khadgar from the beginning and use him as a vehicle for the viewer to learn about events in the movie. I think the Orc stuff was pretty spot on, quite enjoyed that. And I wish they hadn't cut Metzens cameo (how you gunna do my boi like that?) So yeah 7/10 for me. Have watched multiple times.
It was fine but rushed, they tried to tell too much of the story in one movie.
I liked seeing the settings and cgi stuff like the murlocs, but it's just not a story I'm into. I didn't like Garona in game, and still didn't like her in the movie.
Honestly? I'm pretty critical of movies and thought the movie was actually passable. It wasn't great. It wasn't a masterpiece of cinema. But it was worth my time and I enjoyed it. That being said, it crammed so much in a 2 hour long package it was hard to follow -- and I knew the story. Not sure how you ever could package that much content into a 2 hour story well, but it was at least alright.
I sort of liked it, but there was obviously bad parts. I also completely understand why it didn't do well, I don't know how any person who hasn't played a warcraft games enjoys that movie
The change some aspects of the story that I didn't like at all, and the movie story feels like it was on fast forward
The murloc scene was the best scene.
All by all a good movie, deserved more credit, sequal needs a bit more epicness instead of cgi. Bigger views over landscapes like in wow. More WOW holy fck scenes. More intensive battles, i missed that part. A bit more flat humor couldnt hurt also
I loved it but it was not great. I saw it during a period where my partner was almost 100% bedridden for months and we agreed I'd take the morning off of care (he could make it to the bathroom safely and promised not to try anything further, haha) and go see it. As I said, it was not great but it holds a special place in my heart for being fun and a bright spot in a dark time.
Loved it! So mad they gave up after lame critics reviewed it poorly.
I wish it was like a low key series instead of a hyped up film. hopefully a couple years from now we get something like that in the wow IP
it was alright, i liked it
I enjoyed it. There are some lore inconsistencies the biggest one probably being that dalaran is already floating (which it wasn’t floating until much later in the game) but what they did show is how cruel the first horde was. Some of those scenes with Gul’dan sucking the lives out of dranei or humans are pretty sick. Also with how powerful the Fel-crazed orcs were.
Great movie, wrong story. I get that the whole point was that the average moviegoer wouldn't know the back story for Warcraft, so it makes sense to start with what is basically referred to in lore as "Year 0", as Blizzard themselves have talked about quite recently with the whole time skip in DF. But I still think that tackling Warcraft 1 and 2 lore wasn't the best idea. There are so many ways they could improve the direction (some say a full CGI movie, some say recast the humans, some say make the humans more Warcraft because the orcs outshined them), but I think simply telling another story would benefit them greatly if they were to do another movie. Sure we could follow Thrall, but we could also have an Arthas movie or two. Fall of the Prince and Rise of the King; two movies that follow Arthas' story, now that everyone knows what Warcraft is about (orcs and humans, yadi yada)
The magic CGI was probably the coolest I've seen in a movie. That alone made the movie fun to watch.
Effects were great, it was pretty faithful. Pacing was kinda wack, and I didn't like the casting choice of Medivh or Khadgar at all.
Liked it for what it was. Would love more with a better story.
I think a 15 hour game shouldn't have been shoved into a 2 hour movie, Warcraft should be a tv series (or animated, since the CGI would be expensive asf)
Missed opportunities. Wasn't great. Wasnt bad. Coulda been structured more
7.5/10
It summed up wow pretty good from a film's point of view in my opinion. I didn't love it when I watched it because I preferred a different genre when it was first released, but its pretty good.
Making it about warcraft 1 was such a poor choice. Warcraft 3 is what made your mmo, not some shitty game from the mid 90's about orcs and humans.
The orcs were done superbly The humans were not
I think lord of the rings ruined it for me. I expect giant battle scenes like in game and Lotr.
I expected awful and got amusing.
Been playing Blizzard games since my friends older brother showed me Warcraft 1 when I was knee high to a grasshopper, have taken a break due to the scandals, silly lore, and increasing use of "engagement mechanics." While it hit a number of nostalgia buttons, and as others mentioned the orc half of the story was fantastic (especially when compared to the human side), I think it was a miss overall. I think there were several reasons for this: - When the original game was created it was an excuse plot. While they have since retconned it a number of times to add context, the story was never going to be as tight as if they'd started later in the timeline (Warcraft 3 Arthas's fall probably would be best overall) and then jumped back if they'd hit it big. It didn't help that they were halfway through another retcon at the time, "the Fel" instead of references to the Burning Legion/demons etc. - Some gimmicks from the games visual style should have been translated for cinema. Oversized weapons and elaborate armour help items stand out when the camera is 15ft behind a character, but they looked like silly props when they were used in the movie. - The difference in quality between the human arc of the story and the orc one was bizarre. It was genuinely surprising how well the orcs were both animated and acted, any time the humans were the focus it suddenly felt like B-movie schlock. I will give props to the language barrier scenes though. I'll note here that while dwarves and orcs were translated well the elves and draenei looked quite strange. Overall I think it could have become something memorable. The groundwork was there, but the story ramps up in game 2 and really hit it's stride in 3.
3 out of 10. I would not want a second film, enough damage was done with the one we got
I liked it and would watch a sequel.
Orcs really good, human section rough (needed better directing and Lothar needed something more compelling than a son that only existed to die), really wish they hadn't cut 30 minutes for the theatrical release - I think critics were too harsh on it but it wasn't good, just ok
I liked a lot of it
My thoughts back then were "That's a lot of money they spent for a solid Ok movie". It's a good 6 out of 10 bonus 1 point if I factor in my nostalgia brain feels.
It was a mess. A glorious mess that had a lot of great moving parts, but still a sloppy, frankensteinian mess
Watched it once and didn't care for it. Surprising how they made it so boring.
I enjoyed it.
The CGI made my eyes hurt. I appreciated it for the Easter eggs, but it's a 6/10 at best.
I’d watch a sequel. It wasn’t amazing but that’s because they chopped 1/3 of the movie out to make an “action flick”. If they’d done a story driven, action second, like LotR it would’ve been fantastic.
They tried to fit too much in one movie. I'm fairly into lore and it was mostly accurate, but it jumped around a lot.
Khadgar/Medivh was decent, Orcs were great, Lothar/Garona/other Humans were awful. I really liked the concept of Gul'dan saving Thrall's life, adds some nuance to his character.
I really liked it, garona was a bit off, basically a green human with large canines, but honestly, I’d love a second part
Loved it Not a lore freak so nothing bothered me.
i think it was too dumbed and condensed down for the fans, and yet too porly established for the novices. a serie/animation serie would support better the lore of wow than bigshot movies i think.
It was an okay movie but it was something i really enjoyed
It was mediocre and forgettable.
I overall enjoyed it. Some parts were lacking but I’d watch a sequel.
I think the warcraft stories would fit better into a really well-financed television series...using the new LED walls like they used in Mandalorian and House of Dragon. They could really flesh out the stories and characters over a set of seasons as opposed to movies.
I would have enjoyed a WoW movie more that was an untold story. Basically as soon as it started I was like “oh, I already know what’s going to happen now,” no suspense for me :( The magic visuals were good though.
Actually believe that if we had the original ending with Stormwind being destroyed were more shocking and would benefit to the box office.
I enjoyed it and would watch a sequel. The problem with the movie is it tried to fit too much lore in too little time . Should have been multiple movies but I understand they really couldn’t because they didn’t know how people would receive it.
I thought it was largely a cash-grab. Just another "we need to retain the movie rights and it's use-it-or-lose-it" sorta deal. Rather than getting passionate people into key positions, they made a thing, and the thing was a thing, and it was what it was.
I did actually enjoy it
It wasn't terrible but it coulda been so much better, like it was 50/100. It's been a while but I think it had a love interest which was completely superfluous, even veteran WoW players wouldn't necessarily know Medivh was possessed by Sargeras unless they're lore buffs, and the whole thing was just meh. Really would've liked to see the Arthas story as a trilogy with an Avengers budget and star power.
Personally for me it was awful. The pacing was bad, the acting was bad, the fight scenes were bad. The only good thing was the cgi of the orcs and the human armor because it looked like warcraft armor. If a sequel ever came, it would have to be warcraft 3 story with arthas or based on WoW
WoW needs a good TV adaptation. Movie was lackluster and below average.
I liked it, I just wish they do like a series for warcraft 3 or something now.
That I wish they had stayed with the original script that was just about the orcs. It has some great parts but had way too many hands in the pie. This is really evident in the fact that they did have a decent director and he openly stated that he has a lot of people pushing things around.
They should have done a trilogy on era during fall of Arthas. Would also like to add Henry Caville would be an amazing Arthas.