Will the World of Warcraft Movie Wow Me Like the Game?

C. Robert Cargill,  Aug 09, 2007

This past weekend at BlizzCon, Blizzard's yearly celebration and convention of their video games (chiefly World of Warcraft), the very first public presentation of the any info regarding the WoW film was revealed. And still I'm not impressed. Last week you read about my trepidation regarding comic franchise Watchmen. Well, this week I bring to you my trepidation about a forthcoming World of Warcraft movie.

First of all, I've dedicated far too much of my life to the game in question. During the year I was a faithful player, I clocked in a total of three months of game time. That's an average of four hours a day, every day, for a year. And yes, I was employed at the time. So when I say I'm a recovering WoW player, I mean it. I've been cold turkey for over a year now. So I can say with certainty that I am fairly well versed in the world and its story.

The first hurdle that needs to be overcome is how to tell the story. For those unfamiliar, the world of Azeroth is a world at war as a legion of Orcs, Trolls, Minotaurs and undead, sentient zombies battle endlessly with humans, elves, dwarves and gnomes. If it sounds like Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and Dungeons & Dragons, it should. While a wonderfully addictive game, it is also incredibly derivative, which leads to the real problem: How do you make a film as good as Narnia or Lord of the Rings, rather than simply making another Dungeons & Dragons?

One of the other primary complications is that the game's most interesting, most original concept is that there are no good guys and there are no bad guys. You understand the motivations of each. So you can just as easily have an Orc or troll as a hero as you can a human. But will the budget allow that? Will studio execs? The one thing this movie has to offer, an unconventional hero, is the least likely thing we'll see. We'll see another human being fight against Orcs and trolls and zombies. Joy. Ooooh! Or maybe it could have dragons and be like Eragon. Awesome.

And $100 Million? Okay. So 300 was made for $60 Million, maybe it could be done. But it's certainly not going to be sweeping. The hi res pic they released certainly is nice, but come on. That looks like it was taken right out of the game. That doesn't look like any real kind of movie mock-up. But I kind of like where they're going. They want to make this a war movie. And that's something we've never really seen: a fantasy world in the midst of a full-blown war; a men-on-a-mission-into-enemy-territory movie, maybe?

I'm not saying this is going to be awful, but they're going to have to come up with more than promises of a "badass hero" and a pretty computer generated image to convince me otherwise.

C. Robert Cargill - - - Email Me
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Austin-based Cargill, who not only loves but owns The Cutting Edge, writes on movies and DVD five times a week.