Hacker Cinema
Warcraft
2016 · Film · 123 min
Directed by Duncan Jones
The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people, and their home.
5 positive13 negative3 mixed13 neutralfrom 34 commenters
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38 comments on Hacker News
The quality is quite high, but an observation is the direction they're taking these models correlates heavily to the usage demand of China vs the West. Specifically, they're immensely focused on t2v for action / high effect shots. There's one human reference shot in the entire release page, and that one doesn't focus on dialog at all.
For filmmakers I've talked to in the US, one of the biggest demands they have is v2v where they can carry over an actor's performance and insert it into whatever world they want. The movie market in China is somewhat different though - it's heavily oriented towards high action / high special effect movies. Consider this list of hollywood movies that have flopped in the US, but did great in China:
Warcraft (China: $225m box office, US: $47m)
Resident Evil (China: $159m, US: $27m)
xXx: Return of Xander Cage (China: $164m, US: $44m)
Pacific Rim: Uprising (China: $99m, US: $59m)
One read of this is that action movies / visual spectacles translate more universally than dialog-based movies. Another read is culturally China prefers that type of content in general. I suspect that for Bytedance, their focus is on action / special effects because thats where they see the demand.
Blizzard could make a WoW movie better than any movie studio. Their cinematics are legendary, which makes you wonder why they farmed out the Warcraft movie.
I think it was less Warcraft's under-performance in domestic theaters that did that (because it still had huge audiences in Asia; Hollywood accounting is weird, of course, but it was still a profitable movie despite it getting the "flop" branding in the US) and more Mute's flop on Netflix that left a black mark. (Netflix's accounting seems even weirder than Hollywood's, especially given how opaque it is, and also seems to have an outsized impact on the rest of Hollywood for how opaque it is.)
Blizzard has been the walking dead for a very long time now. They could very well be the Xerox of the video game industry. At that point of merger, they were big dogs in esports, and had the best rts, arpg, and mmo games out but they haven't done anything up to that level since then and have been completely incapable of capitalizing on their position, letting all of their advantages slip away.
They failed to capitalize on custom wc3 maps, so dota allstars spawns the moba genre with LoL, Dota2, smite, and countless others, tower defense games and other maps all spin off to make their own games. They make SC2's custom map functionality worse which cripples any chance for capturing further innovation.
They completely torpedo e sports with the release of SC2 which many consider just inferior to SC:BW, completely ignore WoW arena, or any kind of innovation at all with WoW, only releasing uninspired expansions to further milk addicts. Now players have gotten bored enough to jump ship to FFxiv and they are losing their cash cow. Lets not forget the entirely forgettable Warcraft movie too.
Even Overwatch was supposed to kill cs:go but it is basically treading water now, especially since the sequel was delayed and Jeff Kaplan has left. The pro league is a joke compared to the big names. HOTS was abruptly abandoned. Hearthstone was basically their only great success (but I assume is stagnating like everything else now), without it they basically have nothing which is why they have turned to remakes recently (and have failed spectacularly with wc3r and had to outsource d2r in response). They basically have nothing substantial until d4 or Overwatch 2, both of which were delayed until 2023 at the earliest. Now with all the workplace culture scandals they are hemorrhaging talent on top of everything and have effectively lost their position as one of the most desirable studios to work for in the industry.
I don't think Blizzard knows how to make good games anymore, that part died long ago.
Check out the Chinese box office for American blockbuster movies. China is a huge source of revenue and there's even movies where most of the revenue came from China https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Warcraft#tab=international
Dead is a relative term in this context. The momentum is long gone, and the trend is downhill because the genre got rehashed to death.
I want Blizzard to do well. They proved in the past they were able to make quality games for a fair price. At this point, I don't believe they will. Not anymore.
Diablo 3 at release was disappointing. Titan was cancelled. Warcraft and Diablo fanbase sorely desire not new content for their current games but a new, innovative game (the Diablo Mobile game is not that, nor are the WoW bandaid). My observation is that people want Diablo 4, World of Warcraft 2, Warcraft 4. They're not getting anything remotely like that.
Consider the Warcraft movie. It was only good enough for the die-hard fans.
Poignant example is the World of Warcraft movie; it bombed in the US, but it was super popular in China.
This is also why Netflix will probably not die; for me personally, 90% of their original content is a bit shit, however I am also very aware that a lot of people enjoy that 90% I don't, e.g. my parents. And then there's the huge international market, each country, each region has its own preferences.
What I'm saying is there will be people that enjoy some content and keep their subscription for that show. Netflix doesn't need to optimize for one demographic.
>I never built any empathy for any of the characters.
I have a guess that's why the Warcraft movie did so well in China. The characters are so thin, and life is cheap in that film.
I have been a fan of Warcraft since I played Warcraft 2: Through the Dark Portal I think.
I played WoW for years starting with US open beta (I'm from the EU) But the movie was just childish and simple. I'm starting to think that I moved on from simple plots to some more interesting things. Like Asimov instead of Star Wars...
> I thought the movie was crap.
I'm a fan of the Warcraft lore (though not where WoW took it). I found it pretty awful too. It seemed to lack a story - "stuff" just seemed to happen. It was like a 6-year old telling a story: there was no coherence or continuity. I've liked tons of movies that have done poorly with critics but a common theme across all of them is that they had a storyline.
To put this in perspective, I enjoyed Doom (2005) which is renowned for being one of the worst game movies around.
At the end of the day I think therein lies the difficulty. The entire point of a movie based on a video game in my opinion would be to allow fans to explore the world further in another medium. It's to enhance immersion, not replace it. A great video game movie probably wouldn't be very good for someone who hasn't played the game.
I think a good example of this is the Warcraft movie. Pretty terrible reception overall. But as a Warcraft fan I really enjoyed it and would love another.
Another interesting thing about the Warcraft movie is how well it did in China compared to the US ($24m opening weekend in the US vs. $156m first five days in China).
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/02/warcraft-film-china-blockbuster-hollywood-investment
Can anyone tell me why the Warcraft movie was so awful? I felt like, out of all of them, that one would at least be pretty good, but it felt worse than a Warcraft 3 cutscene.
I recently spent a lazy Sunday morning watching the Doom movie. It was a lot better than it had any right to be, in my book - I haven't played Doom 3, but by the standards of action-sci/fi-horror movies starring The Rock, it was excellent.
I also thought the WarCraft movie was very good, but there I did grow up playing the hell out of WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, and reading and re-reading the manual with the backstory covered by the movie (not to mention the lovely concept art). Bit of a shame that it didn't do quite well enough to continue the story.
The 2016 Warcraft movie doesn't count? It got a 77% audience score, and a 27% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, grossed almost half a billion, and is the highest grossing video game movie of all time[1].
I watched it out of a sheer morbid curiosity, and haven't played any Warcraft title newer than II: Tides of Darkness. I thought the movie was crap.
But maybe I and critics just aren't the audience for these movies. Seems most people who saw it liked it. Doesn't that make it at least "Good"?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games
It'll never happen, but a sequel to the WarCraft movie would be nice. Might be nostalgia for playing so many hours of War.exe, and rereading the manual over and over again as a kid, but I thought it wasn't half bad. I'll take it over another Transformers movie...
> His 3D is done with a light touch - nothing ever appears in front of the screen plane.
The first time I saw the Warcraft trailer in front of a 3D movie I got extremely irritated when some stupid Orc stood up in front of the screen and I instinctively tried to lean over to see around him.
It seems like it's a neat effect but, like many things, it should be used only when it adds significant effect or impact (imho never).
China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume. The best Chinese movies last year were mermaid and monster hunt...I saw both (bored on an air china flight), they were both absolutely awful.
There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly, this ended with increasing control of the gov over the film industry, and even the Taiwanese and Honk Kong films that we once enjoyed have disappeared to an industry that is now largely catering to the mainland market.
The future of the chinese film industry is more Warcraft and less "eat, drink man woman" (a Taiwan film) or "farewell my concubine" (I think the latter one was banned in the mainland), there is nothing there for us.
Good TV shows don't need big budgets. A show like House of Cards does without special effects or CGI, whilst still being a highly popular show.
Another factor is that Netflix is a multinational; if a (cheap?) show doesn't work in one country, it might work very well in another one. (see the Warcraft movie as a movie example; did okayish in the west, was a huge hit in China).
There is no fallacy. Everyone's here who is intrigued by this question but dissapointed with the rather simple and unresolving reply in this blog post, should watch Moon directed by Duncan Jones (David Bowie's son who recently directed Warcraft.) Questions like these don't have simple answers. I'm rather dissapointed with the hand wave of emotion the post author ascribes to. But it is bringing the topic up, so I am happy for that.
> CiPHPerCoder listed four things he enjoys doing over his weekends. I would love to have a conversation about those things with him because it also adds to the variety of conversations I get to have.
Sorry, would have responded sooner but HN's rate-limits kicked in.
> If you don't like watching movies or playing video games, then it's very difficult to have a fun conversation about those things.
I do enjoy those activities, but I accepted a lot of responsibility (especially with making secure PHP code-- a feat some infosec folks claim is inherently impossible) and intend to finish what I started. That means missing out on a lot of great movies (Warcraft, Zootopia) and video games (OverWatch) that my friends are all able to enjoy.
Ultimately, I believe the work I'm doing today will make a difference tomorrow. Whether I'll be able to capture any of that value for myself remains to be seen.
It's absolutely ridiculous for the movie to have a 22% score. I'm not even into fantasy/role-playing or the warcraft series, and I thought it was done way better than Star Wars as a movie about conflicting sides and war. Really was an epic and finely done movie, I'd give it a 10/10. There was very little "cheese" factor which is what you kind of cringe about when you think of fantasy movies. They really did the movie in a mature, adult way, with no cheese factor, and I respect Blizzard for that.
I think Blizzard isn't used to the movie scene so didn't pay off the critics like most movie studios probably do -- so they got blackmailed. Terrible how that works..
> Might even see the sequel, since warcraft starts slow but sets up some nice drama for the future.
For sure. They're set up to be a great fantasy series
The movie is based on the books. There are a ton of Warcraft books - I haven't read them but after seeing the movie I might.
22% on RT is ridiculous. I bet that goes up a lot over time. This story of good/evil people, where each group has good and evil people within it, along with good and evil magic is as good as star wars in my opinion, just in 2016-level graphics instead. It's another lesson that races, religion, etc. don't define whether people are good or not.
I went in with very low expectations (at the time it had a 22% RT score), so I kind of liked the movie too, since it wasn't that bad. Might even see the sequel, since warcraft starts slow but sets up some nice drama for the future.
Warcraft made more money in China than the most recent Star Wars movie. The reason I've read is that Star Wars came out back before China had big cinema attendance, while Warcraft (1994) came out when China was modernizing. It's a big cultural hit.
Edit: check out this video of chinese audiences cheering for the Blizzard logo: https://youtu.be/l67mA7ah9qE?t=51s
Warning: kinda of spoiler
At least there are some good guys among the bad and a bad guy among the good; so it adds some drama.
Tell me what action/fantasy/sci-fi movie is not good guy vs. bad guy ? More specifically, bad guys have an evil plan to do something destructive, and good guys somehow ruins it. Star War, X men, all the superheros ones, 007, and I can keep name more (at least that is the theme of the individual movies, if not the theme of the whole sequence).
The critique Warcraft received most is about the lack of character development; lack of a clear lead actor/actress. In some sense, it is not necessarily a bad thing because it breaks the old "one dude with protagonist aura that never dies" Holywood pattern.
WoW takes place way later than the movie. The story shown in the movie is during the events of the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans real time strategy game (from 1994).
That was the worry before even the movie came out. The movie is based off warcraft1, which was literally "orcs came to attack humans" and nothing more. It wasn't until warcraft 3 that they actually tried to describe the motives, but still you can't really change much of what was already made. However, if they manage to make a trilogy, they could utilize the arthras turns to lich king story in warcraft 3, which is much deeper.
terrible movie, same old plot, bad guy, good guy, bad guy loses to good guy. i played warcraft and warcraft2, but not a lot of wow so perhaps i'm missing something.
i would say in china, the fascination was more about the hype, most people probably never played any of the blizzard games that went to see the movie
Even their trailers look crappy.
The Marvel Universe is wearing out, too. Avoid "Captain America - Civil War". The writers are running out of ideas. It's a heel-face turn, always a bad sign.
Now what? Movies from video games? "Warcraft" and "Angry Birds" are in theaters now. Disney did Kipling's Jungle Book, which is a CG demo reel for animal animation. We're almost to the other side of the uncanny valley. But it takes thousands of animators to drive the tools.
I don't really buy that. The last Mission Impossible got a 93% on RT. Civil War got a 90%. Genre movies that aren't trying to be more than simple entertainment tend to do well on RT if they're good.
It's more like Warcraft is being punished for being "a Battlefield Earth for the 21st century" according to the article.
They gave one of my favorite movies, The Thirteenth Floor, a score of 29% while it's rated decently in other places and is a pretty good film, definitely not garbage...
I'm having a feeling some reviewers just don't know what to do with certain movies that do not fit a particular mold, and then keep trying to compare them to other movies when it's not appropriate, and Warcraft is also most likely being punished out of the gate for being Warcraft.
Reviews from people so far seem to be pretty good.
It's worth noting that Warcraft is doing quite well in overseas markets, which suggests that there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with the film. I suspect US performance will be better than the critics indicate.
I think this just shows the curse in full effect. What's needed is a movie based on a video game that's truly good even if you don't understand the source material.
A movie based on a book doesn't require you to read the book first. I see a lot of reviews saying there's tons of inside winks and nods. There should be a few for the serious fans but the point of a broad, big summer movie should be that everyone can get into it even if you've never heard of Warcraft.
I've been playing World of Warcraft for about 6 years now. I know what's happening and who the major players are, but I'm not a lore geek by any means. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie this weekend.
My partner, on the other hand, made it up to level 8 on a new character - with the Recruit-A-Friend XP bonus - before giving up. They just couldn't get into the game and went back to playing LOTRO. They like fantasy films; they know there's orcs and dragons but couldn't tell Sargeras from Deathwing. I'm curious to see how our feelings on the movie differ.
Apparently Warcraft is one of the movies where Critical and Audience perception strongly differs. (and it will likely get sequels regardless, as China's intake is absurd)
I may have to resurrect my Critical score vs Audience score visualizations.
I liked it. But you really have to be a Warcraft fan for that. For anyone else it's just a bland generic fantasy movie.
The upcoming Warcraft[0] movie has potential to do just that.
[0] - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803096/