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Warcraft Rise of the Lich King Movie Coming in 2011
News of a World of Warcraft film have been quiet, but there has been some movement in that camp including a plot direction and title!
GeekTyrant says:
They have established a release date of 2011, but that’s not all folks. Originally holding a one word title, “Warcraft,” the guys over at Legendary Pictures and Blizzard Entertainment have changed the name to: Warcraft : Rise of the Lich King.
The reason why the title change is important is because it draws the connection to the novels written by Christie Golden which refer to the Warcraft III games and the general lore of Azeroth. These rely heavily on the presence of Arthas, who is a very prominent character in the world of Warcraft. People usually peg Arthas as the Darth Vader type in-game, but the books offer much more of an in-depth glimpse into the life of his undiscovered persona.
Originally it was said that a World of Warcraft movie was not going to be cannon with the games, but be a completely original story.
The epic story laid out in Warcraft 3 is magnificent, and I am happy to hear they will be moving forward with a canon based story. The events laid out in Warcraft3 and its expansion the Frozen Throne lead up to the insanely popular MMO game, which would make sense that they would flesh out that story instead of starting with something unrelated in the same world.
Now I am itching to play again.
**Spoilers farther down, about the book**
No, no, no, no, no, no, hell effing NO!
Okay, my first instinct is to call shinanigans on this one. Rodney, it’s not that I don’t trust your sources, it’s just that this is my gut reaction.
Secondly, the Lich King has had too much focus recently. Warcraft 3, of course, revolves around this guy. The expansion has revolved around this guy and they are soon going to release patch 3.3 which will contain (I assume) the expansion’s last raid with Arthas as the final boss of the raid. The story of his downfall has been told over and over, and we’re about to kick his ass anyway.
Also, there has been Christie Golden’s book which I personally disliked because Arthas wouldn’t shut the hell up about his dead horse while it told the same story I already played in WC3 and learn about extensivle in the expansion. The book turned Arthas into a whiny pussy.
I know Arthas is cool, but I’m sick of him. The next expansion, Cataclysm, has been announced where a gargantuan dragon literally rips the world of Azeroth a new asshole. Can we focus on that now please?
But this story is about his RISE, not his downfall.
I would suspect that the film would climax with Arthus becoming the conflicted Lich King.
To clarify: When Arthas becomes the Lich King, Arthas is gone. Dead. Nothing Left. At all. Period. Thus = Arthas’ Downfall = Rise of the Lich King.
This story is common knowledge to the majority of WoW players, and we (players) are about to defeat him anyway. His story is coming to a close for now, to make way for Deathwing blowing up the world. No one believes that Arthas will completly die (and we know that the story of his evil, corrupting sword Frostmorne will continue), but WoW is moving on to a new villian right now.
That is to say, the story of how Arthas/Lich King comes to power is the one constantly retold.
He says “now we are one”, not “now we are only Ner’zhul”.
You can argue that his humanity is gone, but Arthas is definitely there.
Arthas + Ner’zhul = Lich King
Vegeta! What does the scouter say about schuizy’s nerd rage??!!?
It’s….ITS OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!
@ Victor: Point taken. But the “good” parts of Arthas are gone, leaving no hope for redemption. I mean, he destroyed his heart. There’s not much left after that.
@ Ty: Yup.
I don’t play WarCraft, I don’t know the story. It sounds interesting and I would probably go watch this movie. I don’t think they are making this for just Warcraft fans, but probably want to reach a broad range of people who are unfamiliar with this story. It’s old to you, But it’s new to me and many others.
IMHO, why make a Warcraft movie for the fans, but then tell a story that most fans already know?
Warcraft Lore has so much history and content that I generally don’t bother keeping it all straight. Arthas’ story, on the other hand, is so integral to the world that Blizzard makes sure that the players know what happened.
I understand that the story of Arthas and the Lich King may be new to you, but then you’re not really the target audience. Why not pick a less familiar story and give the WoW players something fresh as well?
Just because Arthas’s story works so well. And it works so well because we’ve actually been there, we played with him through the stages of his life. And everyone wants to know what happens next, or at least have a good quality CGI of what already happened.
Still, I agree that they should have focused on a less familiar story like Ner’zhul’s, rather than Arthas’s.
If warcraft comes on summer 2011 i think it might bomb at the box office.I mean there are alot of comic book movies coming in 2011.spiderman 4,thor,captain america,green lantern,transformers 3…
That makes no sense whatsoever.
You realize world of warcraft isn’t a comic right?
But it is a comic, and a manga, and a novel series as well as a video game RTS and MMO.
It is all those things.
oh god more fanboy talk from shculzy…hey look dude you are not the only person in the world that plays the game and knows the lore…and same with all of u “speculating” what the movie is gonna be about…yadda yadda yadda just appreciate it for what it is…
My interests are Games (in this case, specifically WoW) and Movies. When these interests intersect, I am very passionate about it and will make my opinion known. I am doing so in what I thought was a relatively polite, non-inflammatory manner.
I don’t want to accept it for what it is if it’s the third iteration of the same story about a character who, by the time the movie will be released, is old news.
It’s unfair of you to ask a fanboy to settle for something sub par when he believes that it could be done much better.
They should get Uwe Boll to direct.
Normally, I hate video game movies, but seeing as World of Warcraft already sucks as a video game, I don’t think a movie would really help or hurt the already shitty series.
There are something like 11 million people in the world who disagree.
I don’t like World of WarCraft, but I do love WarCraft and WarCraft 2 (Never played 3, so I can’t comment), and I love the lore and stories of the series, so I’m all behind a movie.