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Sam Raimi To Direct World of Warcraft Movie
Decado writes "Blizzard has just announced that Sam Raimi is to direct the new World of Warcraft movie. 'Raimi, acclaimed director of the blockbuster Spider-Man series, will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film. Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment will produce alongside Raimi's Stars Road Entertaiment.' While it's still early in the process, does this offer hope that someone might finally make a good movie based on a game IP?"
Clue!
Well, at least it had Tim Curry, Madeline Khan and Christopher Llyod in it... how bad could it be?
So bad it's good!
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I can't even name one good film based from a game.
Resident Evil was pretty good and it actually one of the few video game movies that actually didn't just make random shit up for its own plot.
Beyond that I'm hard pressed to think of any movies based on games that were any good... There was the first Mortal Kombat movie, but it was about as good as a Van Dam movie.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Good luck seeing any movies in the next...ever. I'm not even trying to be cynical. It's a simple fact that everything is a rehash of something else. A good portion of the original Star Trek episodes were takes of various Shakespeare plays. The original Battlestar Galactica was mostly re-tellings of various movie plot lines. I took a lit class in college years ago and the prof said something that's stuck with me since - there are only 7 original plot lines to a narrative/story, everything else just changes setting and mixes up the characters a bit. Now, take that with a grain of salt, as I have no links to support that claim.
I've been playing WoW for 3-4 years now, and I'm curious as to what unique experiences you're looking for. Getting ganked during the Stranglethorn fishing contest? Spending 40 hours fishing pools in Northrend trying to get the sea turtle mount? Watching some bot-based toon running in circles for some Chinese gold farmer? Spending 30 minutes challenging the door boss to get in to an instance?
While there aren't ends for the players, there are story lines that run through the game. Theoretically, they could easily pick something from the Lich King, the whole Scourge vs. everybody fight thing, but I suspect that pessimism here is warranted. I don't enjoy the game itself, per se. I like having something to do while chatting with guildies. That, and the achievement system integrates nicely with my OCD.
So we're judging quality by how much money is gained through effective marketing now? That's lovely. By your logic, Star Wars Episode 1 was _amazing_!
I think they can pull it off with WoW, because while the *game* moves on, various subplots don't. They could totally make a movie about Onyxia or C'thun getting pwnzored, because they can choose from any subplot they darn well please. They could even do the origin of Deathwing and the creation of the demon soul, events which have never taken place in WoW the game but are an important part of the lore.
The thing with DnD is not just that it, as a game, has no definite ending. It just doesn't have the same lore structure to back it up. DnD (from an outsider's perspective, at least) lacks NPCs with names who run around doing important stuff. WoW doesn't lack any of that because of its RTS storylines, which since day 1 have guided the path of stories that WoW has told.
Onyxia was killed, C'thun lies dead, Kiljaden was defeated, and now the Lich King has the Alliance and Horde knocking on his front door crying for blood. Stories in WoW end, even if the game itself doesn't.