I don’t know why people say this. The existence of steampunk technology alone is enough to differentiate it. ETA: I mean to say there are more differences than that, but that alone is sufficient.
Besides, more franchises than Warcraft draw from Tolkien. Stuff with elves, orcs, dwarves, and the like are certainly Tolkien-inspired, but calling them ripoffs or implying they’re so requires a bit more evidence.
No, Warhammer is just Middle-Earth-but-not-enough-to-pay-royalties. Warcraft is Warhammer-but-not-enough-to-pay-royalties.
And I think the Focus on the Family-types have completely exhausted their store of outrage for hot female witches in skimpy clothes, by this point. It’s not like it’s a rare trope.
I just knew what that would be. 
In essence the male Blood Elves in game are very very steriotypically homosexual.
Metrosexual, sure. Not sure about homosexual.
:dubious: How do you figure?
No, they’re flaming.
Bravo, Broom, bravo.
Now, I don’t play WoW, just the RTSes, but ‘gay’ is totally not how the Bloods read.
What they are is druggies. Explicitly.
I don’t understand why they’re insisting on live action. Blizzard’s in-house cinematic department is damn near legendary by now. I can understand bringing in a director to do the movie part since they’ve never had a feature-length cinematic, but their full CG cutscenes and trailers are so good I really do think it would have been wiser to go with an animated movie, especially with all the crazy stuff that goes on in the Warcraft universe which would probably eat up a live action budget pretty fast, yet be trivial to do if you stick with computers. And even between Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 they can’t exactly be tied up doing much right now, they usually have… what, 6-7 scenes total per game?
What’s the difference between “live action” and “animated” nowadays, anyway? OK, so they’ll be using real actors for the people, but they’re still going to use computers for all the effects, either way.
…except instead of drugs, they’re addicted to demonic energies. Also, they’re fascists.
I wish they could/would make the film CGI similar to WoW’s intro cinematics, but I have doubts as to whether it’s even possible to assemble enough animators to accomplish that within a reasonable time frame and still turn a profit.
Part of it is the characters, while it’s true that hardcore fans will complain about the head of someone’s axe being one-and-two-thirds of a degree off getting the characters looking right is a big priority either way. Hell, they complained like mad when they replaced some of the voice actors from WCIII (to be fair, Arthas’ new human voice is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever heard, YMMV). It’s a lot easier when you already have animators that know the art style backwards and forwards than when you have to keep trying to cast people that both look and sound the part, which I’ll admit happens in every movie, but the point is why bother with the trouble when you already have people at your beck and call that can completely take away the need for that hassle and have done so multiple times already.
I don’t really care, if done well I’ll enjoy it whatever direction they choose to go, I’m just saying I think it would have been a lot better to go with their experienced and talented team rather than choose this alternative.
I dunno, Blizzard’s cinematics were certainly great several years ago, but even the WotLK stuff looks a bit dated to me now. I can watch amateur youtube CG stuff that looks better. I’m guessing it’s because the in-game engine is old and designed to support low system specs (and therefore increase subscriptions) – the Wrathgate cut scene was rendered at what, 800x640 (12x10 at best)? Watching it fullscreen on my 1920x1200, while the concept was pretty cool, felt a bit underwhelming. Though I’m sure if they put their CG team to task on a high-res cinematic, it would turn out pretty damn cool.
Eh. Either way, I’m sure Mr. Raimi will turn out some high quality stuff, as he has always does!
I’ve never seen the Wrathgate movie before, but looking at it briefly, it’s created via in-game models and locations. I don’t think they’ll be using that for a feature-length movie; if they were to go CGI, this level of quality would be more appropriate. And that’s 3 years old. It doesn’t get much prettier than that.
I wasn’t talking about the in-game stuff, while impressive in terms of staging you’re correct. I was referring to things like the opening cinematics and the ones at key points in the old campaigns, for the benefit of people who don’t own WoW I’ll include a link below, from rougly newest to oldest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR2MEuC5TvQ – This (the WotLK one) is probably the most Cinematic of the intro ones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CafflnJxJAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srkeqFc2P14
WCIII (selected ones, my favorites):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGtbWA_FGMc&feature=related – Arthas killing his father
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmv6n125cLU&feature=related – Arthas merging with Nehr’zul/the Lich King
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z1v38SopWU&feature=related – Archimonde wtfpwning Dalaran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OQQr2MSU4&feature=fvw – Illidan and the rising of the Naga, the opening monologue gives me chills to this day (but that’s a script thing, was just sayin’)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi1foWvvuas&feature=related – the beautiful human opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f96hKqkY_Y – The intro (keep in mind this was 2002 or so and you can see the noticeable quality drop from the WoW ones)
There are some good ones from WCII and SC as well (the ending of the Orc campaign from Tides of Darkness in particular), but I think you get the point.
ETA: Just saw this:
Here’s Wrathgate, impressive, certainly, in terms of staging, but you can see what he means by lower quality.
Why? WoW is the Uwe Boll of MMOs. 
Yeah, I watched through it more fully just now. Definitely impressive and compelling, but the graphics are not at all sufficient for a theatrical release.
I never played (was already in EQ addiction recovery for a couple years when it was released :p) but I have a lot of friends who have been playing from launch and they talk about it a lot, so I feel like I know the game somewhat. I’d be pretty excited to see a movie. Always wanted an EQ movie.