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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?"
What I find interesting is that Chris Metzen, Blizzard's senior VP of creative development and writer for much of the Warcraft universe is listed as a co-producer of the movie.
Clue!
How interesting you should pick this movie. In this movie, if I recall correctly, they had three endings. Because the Clue game has many combinations of endings so they tried to include that spirit in the movie. I personally enjoyed it.
Now let's look at other movies based on RPG games like Final Fantasy or Hitman. I must confess I've not seen or played the latter but let's face it, you have a definite ending in the game and you get a definite ending in the movie. Much more tangible to translate to the movie what makes the game so good -- plot (or what you have of it).
Now let's look at games that have no definite ending or story like Dungeons and Dragons. Ever see that movie? How painful. Why? Because it could not embody what makes the game so great: the unexpected. And once it's laid on celluloid, what's done is done. We're not going to watch Dungeons and Dragons and have the dungeon master lay different traps or experiences for the player every time we watch it. And, effectively, the movie cannot embody what I see as the greatest part of D&D. It can't even leave much to the imagination. It was doomed.
I see World of Warcraft following the same path as D&D. You're not going to get the great game mechanics, instances, battlegrounds, unique experience, etc. that you find in the game and package it into a movie. It's bound to disappoint because by definition, it must embody something that cannot contain what makes the game great. You might as well lift the plot from Dune, The Count of Monte Cristo or Lord of the Rings and dump it into the Warcraft universe. This movie has the odds stacked against it. Especially if I am expecting the World of Warcraft experience from it. How do you build an ending to a movie for a game that has no ending?
My work here is dung.
If you ask me, a Diablo movie would be heaps more interesting. If done right, with good SFX, this would blow the snot out of so many other fantasy-action movies that managed to make it to the big screen lately.
The story is right there in Diablo II, all you have to do is take it and run with it, collect a party of various fighters and let it roll.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah and what is up with the DnD folks being all teetotalers now? Back in my day, we were taking LSD, smoking pot and drinking Pig's Eye beer and coffee for days up in Minnesota during the cold cold winter. We had vampire the masquerade as well as our own material, DnD 2nd Ed rules and Rift stuff usually appearing 36-48 hours in, after the 2nd or 3rd tab this usually devolved into legions of naked vampire women fucking and sucking their way across the land while our tank upgraded from being a Paladin to a debauched Juicer and I usually ended up either being a Malkavian (crazy) vampire who thought he was Santa Claus and carried a 10 foot tall flaming chainsaw that played Xmas tunes or a Glitter Boy with 6 arms and 2 Rail Guns. I went to a 3rd Ed DnD game recently with some co-workers in their early 20's and they became angry at me when I wanted to attempt to mate with the Orc with my evil chaotic evil monk instead of fighting it. The entire night, the whole 2 hours they did not fuck with the GM once, the GM read his story like a script and they talked mostly about television shows and work drama. I never went back even though they asked. Reason they were lame, methinks it was the fact that they were drinking iced green tea and water and no sugary, fatty or salty snacks. They had fucking herbed goat's cheese and those Scandinavian hard tack crackers. Yeah sure if I eat enough cheeseburgers I'll roleplay eating crackers with smelly white curd on them, but don't make me eat the props.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty