Slashdot Mirror
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?"
require WoW players to stop playing WoW?
Can they even do that?
For the real WoW experience, buy it on DVD and watch it a few hundred times.
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
But this is Sam Raimi. It could be so bad that it might actually be good. Especially if Bruce Campbell plays both protagonist and Lich King.
The press release doesn't mention a "World of Warcraft" movie, just a "Warcraft" movie. Perhaps this will be geared towards the more linear storyline of the RTS games?
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
The movie will be 16 hours long and will chronicle the journey of Frank the warrior on his epic quest to gather seventeen moose heads from the moose spawning area. He makes it to level 12, setting the viewer up for the sequel, where he can finally buy new armour and eat the soft banana bread he was previously not battle hardened enough to eat.
It's been a long time.
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.
It's just titled Warcraft. Remember those RTS games and books? I'll pretend it's based on those instead of WoW.
Though a character named 'Leroy Jenkins' would be hilarious.
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)
"How does one kill that which has no life?"
P.
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.
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?
I may be wrong on this, but the press release only says "the Warcraft© universe", not "World of Warcraft". This means that the movie could, indeed, have a definite ending, as the first three games did. Previous rumors seem to support the idea that the movie will be based somewhere between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, as does the whole "Warcraft© universe" thing that was stated.
/IANADOWUH - I Am Not A Director Or Warcraft Universe Historian
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_!
This just gave me an idea for a screen saver. It shows your wow character farming gold. Sometimes, a few horde [alliance] guys jump out and kill your character, and you get to watch it make a spirit run back. Sometimes, some other farmer will train a bunch of mobs onto you. Sometimes you'll miss 32 hits in a row (Warriors only) while poisoned. Sometimes, you will also get guild chat talking about faked moon landings, religion, their current middle school experiences, how much weed/beer they just smoked/drank, and you'll get a pre-pubescent guild leader shouting at everyone over vent. I will charge $60 a year to run it on your computer. It will be everything the real WoW experience gives, except cheaper!
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
But this is Sam Raimi. It could be so bad that it might actually be good. Especially if Bruce Campbell plays both protagonist and Lich King.
Oh man, they could easily do that if they do the story of how the Lich King came to be and it would be awesome.
[In the snow of Northrend, Arthas, his mind already becoming corrupted, is confronted by a sinister doppelganger of himself]
Arthas: What demonic trickery is this?! What are you?
Bad Arthas: [mocking child-like voice] I'm baad Arthas. And you're good Arthas! You're a goodie little two shoes! [Bad Arthas dances back and forth, teasing Arthas and singing] Little-goodie-two-shoes. Little-goodie-two-shoes.
Arthas: Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the sword. [decapitates Bad Arthas with a single swipe of Frostmourne].
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
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
1. Rags to Riches
2. Overcoming the Monster
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth
Basically, it's 7 *categories* of plot, identified by Shakespeare. I don't have examples for any of them, but some of them are self-evident from their names, I think.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Man vs. Man - PvP
Man vs. Society - RP
Man vs. Himself - I have a paper due tomorrow, but my guild is raiding Ulduar
Man vs. Nature - PvE
Man vs. The Supernatural - God says that j.o. to my dancing naked night elf bank alt is a PERVERSION!!
Man vs. Technology - Patch Tuesday
Man vs... err... bugger all. Can't remember. - Alzheimers
Yeah, that about covers it.
More music, fewer hits