Saturday, July 11, 2015

Warcraft Movie: Beyond Orcs and Humans?

Today at Comic Con they unveiled some of the footage of the practically-finished Warcraft movie. The film won't come out for just under a year (going big, they can really only do a summer blockbuster or a holiday release, and Star Wars is going to own this winter,) but they revealed some of the movie to the few lucky folks at Comic Con. Hopefully we'll get to see some actual footage online soon (probably not until Blizzcon,) but there have been a few accounts from the crowds (and some quickly-shut-down smartphone videos.)

What intrigued me is that one article describing the footage mentioned that Gul'dan is seen sucking the souls out of "awkward purple humanoids." That sounds a whole lot like Draenei (and while they're typically more blue than purple, it's pretty close.) The Draenei are, of course, a huge part of the lore surrounding the formation of the Horde, though they were not introduced until WCIII: the Frozen Throne - and it wasn't until Burning Crusade that they established/retconned the Draenei to be the uncorrupted Eredar - Akama and his folks during the Kael'thas/Illidan campaign in WCIII were depicted as what we'd call Lost Ones post-BC.

The original Warcraft game focused entirely on Orcs and Humans (there might have been an Ogre somewhere in there,) but of course the lore has expanded dramatically in the twenty years since then, meaning that the filmmakers have plenty of other races to work with. Along with the Draenei (and as a huge Draenei fan I can't tell you how cool it is to hear that they might have an appearance in the movie, however fleeting) it sounds like we'll at least see some of the High Elves. I'd expect the Dwarves, and possibly Gnomes, Goblins, and even Trolls to potentially make an appearance.

From the sounds of it, the settings look quite CGI-ish, which is a shame (though I do remember them talking about having built real sets for Stormwind Keep and one of the squares in the city.) This might be unavoidable, given that half the cast is Gollum-style CGI-people.

In terms of plot, there's not a whole lot beyond Orcs realizing their world is dying and some of them saying "hey, this Gul'dan guy might have the right idea!" Draka does mention she's pregnant - so I guess you can count Thrall as being in the movie, albeit in fetus-form.

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