Whisked Titan Eggs: the Movie

So, I watched the Warcraft Movie.  Basically the First War the Film told rather weirdly.

What did I think of it?  There were some places that were cool, and then there were others where...you really  have to know the genre to understand what's going on, and why when they did this movie, the fucked it all up.


What's the good part?

Well, Durotan.  And Drakka.

Being the noble orc that Thrall always had invisioned him.  Only...this version is closer to Warlords of Draenor than the actual normal timeline version.  Why?  Because Durotan and Drakka both have brown skin, rather than green skin.

In the real timeline, and even in my story timeline, Durotan and Drakka both were green skin, much like most of the orcs of Draenor.  Because they had been exposed to Fel energy and magic as it poisoned Draenor.  There were so very few orcs left that were still brown skinned.  So, yeah, the first five minutes, they fucked it up.

The reason why there were still brown skinned orcs was due to Greatmother Geyah creating a quarantine location in Nagarand for those who were suffering from a plague called the Red Pox.  It's like what Small Pox does to us.  It's quite deadly.  So, there were these very sickly orcs, one of them being Garrosh Hellscream, Grom Hellscream's son, who suffered from the red pox.  They couldn't participate in the war, so they weren't as exposed to the Fel Energy as others were.  And so, their skin never turned green.

The reason why Durotan's skin turned green was because he was exposed to the Fel Energy.  It was never really said he drank the blood of Mannoroth, but he was exposed to it, and so was his mate Drakka.  Since they both were warriors who fought for the Horde. They would be exposed to it over time and their skin turned green.

In this movie, there's a mixture between green skinned orcs and brown skinned orcs in the Horde.  When in reality, everyone who was fighting in the Horde should all be green skinned, either due to drinking Mannoroth's blood or being exposed to Fel Energy over the course of their battles with the Draenei.

So, yeah, they got the greened skinned thing wrong.  Hell, Orgrim Doomhammer is supposed to be green skinned too.  Is he?  NOPE!  He is wielding his Doomhammer though.  When Durotan said "Ogrim" I was like: "Oh, there's Ogrim Doomhammer! Cool."

I will remind you that they at least colored one orc right, that being Grom Hellscream.  Except Grom doesn't say a single word in this whole fucking movie!  I would think the father of the main Lex Luthor to my Superman villain in my stories would have a few lines here and there.  I recognized him with his topknot and rockstar hair.  He showed up as a cameo four times in the whole movie, said not a single damned word.


I think he roared at least once.

Let's pick out what else they got wrong.

Ah, Medivh.

And Khadgar.

And Anduin Lothar.

And Garrona Halforcen.

And King Llane's death.  Yeah, he dies in this thing.  I did say spoilers.

And Lothar's battle with Blackhand.  Which never happened at all in any of the source material.

And Blackhand himself.

And the Dark Portal's construction.

Basically, this movie is pretty much faithful to what Blizzard has done to Warcraft.  Major retcons and changes that make no sense, not even to a story aspect.  Behold, everything I have ever complained about Warcraft and lately the Warcraft Chronicles and it's in this movie. 

Oh god, there's so much to bitch about.  I mean they just got it all wrong! 

I'll start with the last little bit on the list.  The Dark Portal.  Or rather, half of it.

Okay, very quick, in the original timeline, and also in my stories, the Dark Portal was a joint project between a Sargeras-possessed Medivh and the Twilight Hammers, namely their leader, the warlock Gul'dan.  Medivh wanted to bring the orcs through to Azeroth to have them conquer it in the name of the Burning Legion.  And Gul'dan along with the Twilight Hammer, built the portal in the Hellfire Peninsula, and Medivh built the portal in the Black Morass, which becomes the Blasted Lands after the swamp gets ruined.

In this movie, Gul'dan completed one part of the portal, in Hellfire.  But the other half isn't finished.  Gul'dan uses captured Draenei to drain them of their life force and ignites the portal, which opens up to a pool in the Black Morass.  And that's how a small garrison of the Horde of Draenor comes through.  With Gul'dan only and Blackhand, and Durotan, and Drakka, and a few others.  And yeah.  They plan on building the portal on the other side.

When in reality, Medivh built the other side of the portal himself.

Also, the Black Portal can't be open to Stormwind.  Apparently, the movie says it could in order to have a Deus ex Machina to save a bunch of humans who were captured by the Horde to power it with their life force.

No.  The Black Portal is designed as a doorway through the Twisting Nether between Draenor and Azeroth.  It can't be opened to Stormwind no more than a regular door can suddenly open up to a different part of the house it isn't connected to.  It only goes to the places it's designed to go to.  That's why there's two doors, one on the side of Azeroth, built by Medivh, and the other on the side of Draenor built by Gul'dan.  Azeroth's side goes to Draenor, or alternate Draenor, and their side goes to Azeroth.  That's how the damned thing works.

Even in Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh Hellscream had to build a portal on Draenor's side just to open it and send his Iron Horde through to Azeroth.  These guys don't know how portals works.

So, that's fuck up number two and a half.

Uh...they replaced the Blood of Mannoroth with just Fel Energy itself, and Gul'dan uses that to empower Blackhand.  When in the actual canon, Blackhand and many other Orcs drank the Blood of Mannoroth in order to feel the power of the demon's might in them as a part of the Blood Pact they had with the demons.

And Blackhand had already drank the blood before the First War happened.  Many of the orcs from Draenor drank the blood when they rose up against the Draenei and slaughtered them in mass.

Not because Gul'dan needed their life force to feed the Portal, but because they were tricked into going to war with the Draenei (whom they traded with here and there), under the orders of Kil'Jaeden, who wanted to kill the traitors to the Man'ari Eradar...you know, the Draenei who followed Prophet Velen and didn't want to become servants of the Burning Legion.

So, third thing they fucked up in the movie.

They fucked up Khadgar.

Okay, Khadgar in the original lore, was a spy for the Kirin Tor, and they told him to become apprentice to Medivh as a way for him to spy on Medivh for the Kirin Tor.  He was not a Dalaran drop out.

Also, they didn't make him fall under Medivh's aging spell that made him get older when Khadgar and Anduin Lothar went against Medivh after they found out he was possessed by Sargeras.

So, that's five things now they fucked up?

Let's just get to Medivh.

Medivh isn't the host for Sargeras in this movie.  He's just addicted to Fel Energy.  And it twisted him, and that's it.  And he wanted to save everyone by using Fel Energy and bringing Gul'dan and the Horde here?

What?  How does that save people?!  Even Medivh's motives is stupid in this thing.  In the original lore, Medivh was possessed by Sargeras, and when he awoke from his coma, he began his little plan to bring the Horde over and fuck over Azeroth.  That's why he brought the Horde over and built the Dark Portal.  Because he wanted to fuck over Azeroth.  Because Sargeras wanted to make Azeroth ready to bring on the Burning Legion.

Apparently not in this movie!

Medivh's death is just as bad.  He builds a clay golem which looks like an Inferno when he brings it to life with Fel Energy.  And how Khadgar and Anduin kill him is simple, they lead him to the pool of arcane energy and then drop the golem onto him.  No Medivh casting his spell to age Khadgar, and no chopping Medivh's head off.  And as Medivh lay dying, he casts his spell to open the Dark Portal to Stormwind...and I already bitched about how stupid that was.

And Khadgar drains Medivh of his Fel Magic and then turns Fel into the power of the Holy Light?  And...what?  Okay, they fucked up how the Holy Light works.

Neltharion knows how the Holy Light works better than these guys in this movie!

Fuck up number six and a half.

So, that brings me to the topic of Fel Energy and how it's handled.  Or rather, someone forgot to tell these guys that Fel Energy isn't the only corruptive substance in Warcraft lore.  You know what else corrupts people?  Arcane Energy!

Both Arcane Energy and Fel Energy are treated like narcotics, drugs in Warcraft.  They change people, they do things to people, horrible things to people when abused.  However both Fel Energy an Arcane Energy have been wielded by those who are evil and those who are good, and those who are gray.

Warlocks who  summon demons to defend their city and innocents from being taken by the enemy is an example of good people using Fel Energy.

Garrosh Hellscream building the Mana Nuclear Bomb out of the Focusing Iris and detonating it to destroy Theramore Isle as well as half of Neltharion's Dragonflight is an example of someone using Arcane Energy for evil.

Both sources of magic can be harnessed for good and for evil.  Fel and Arcane are neither good nor evil themselves.  So, this movie decides to really skip over that nastiness about gray areas and say good people use arcane energies, bad people use fel energy.  That simple.

When in Warcraft, it isn't that simple. Both energies can be wielded by light and dark, and both energies can corrupt when said people abuse it too much.

But in this movie, only Fel Energy corrupts the user.  *facepalm*

That was number 7 of the fuck ups.

Garrona Halforcen and her apparent crush on Anduin Lothar?  Again, what?!

Okay, so in this movie, for some strange reason, Garrona Halforcen is half orc and half human.  When in the actual lore, she's half orc an half Draenei.  Did anybody on the writing staff read a warcraft wiki? 

And she has a crush on Anduin Lothar, when in the lore, she was in love with Medivh.  That's where Med'an came in.  Med'an is half human, and part orc and part draenei.  And he's a Gary Stu.  But see my other journals on that.

Why is Garrona in love with Lothar?

Also, let's get to what Garrona does in the movie compared to what she does in the lore, which is the assassination of King Llane Wrynn.  Yes, in the lore, Garrona joins the Alliance as a confidant, but the reason why she does this is because she is under the control of Cho'Gal of the Twilight Hammers.  She gets Llane to trust her and then, under the orders of Cho'Gal's magic, she grabs her daggers and stabs Llane in front of his kid Varian Wrynn.  This feeds into Varian's hatred for the orcs which turns him into the racist bastard he becomes later on.

In this movie?  Garrona is told to kill Llane by Llane himself.  Why?  So she could create peace?  Llane tells her to kill him because Blackhand was coming to kill Llane himself.  So, he had this idea that if Garrona stole Blackhand's kill, she could be admitted back into the Horde and try to persuade them to make peace?  Well, I mean, it did have a point when Blackhand challenges Anduin Lothar to Mak'gora, aka the duel of honor.

Which never happened in the fucking lore.  Blackhand was killed by Ogrim Doomhammer, not Anduin Lothar.  That's how Doomhammer became the new Warchief after Blackhand.

Also, Doomhammer wasn't a part of the Frostwolf Clan, he was a part of the Thunderlord Clan.  And he was one of the last remaining shamans among the Orcs.  It's why Thrall learned how to shoot lightning from Doomhammer's hammer.  Because that's what Doomhammer did too.

8 and 9 fuck ups.

Apparently Adoli, the first Guardian is in this thing.  Except instead of being a male High Elf, Adoli in this movie is a female human played by Glen Close.  And she leads Khadgar on a journey to find her and tells him how to defeat Medivh. 

So, that's all the fuck ups I've found so far.   I'm sure there's more.

But those are the major ones.

Look, I realize that trying to condense down a lore that took a few books, a game, and a few comics to tell into a two hour movie, there will be some things changed and cut.  But here's the issue, what you changed is what makes this movie not a good representation of the story itself.  There were more players in the war than Gul'dan, Durotan, Llane, Anduin Lothar, and Ogrim Doomhammer. 

Also, where is Ogrim Doomhammer's armor? 

They had Blackhand kill Anduin Lothar's son Calen Lothar so they could create this hatred between Anduin and Blackhand, which would make the Mak'gora more meaningful to the story of Anduin getting revenge for Blackhand skewering his son?  Because Anduin cut Blackhand's arm off?

Blech.

One thing I have to say is this movie is pretty.  And it did something interesting with Durotan by having him seeing the Fel Energy Gul'dan was using as poison and coming to Llane to warn him of what will happen.  Durotan wanted to come to Azeroth because the Fel magic was killing his own world.  Which is very true.  That happened in the lore.  It's why the orcs came to Azeroth, and also to sate their Blood Rage caused by the demon blood.  They needed something to fight since their enemy was dead on their world.

Durotan, being the sensible one as we've noted in Warlords of Draenor, he makes a pact with Llane, saying he promises to prevent his own clan from taking humans to use them for fuel for the portal, and do his best to protect Alliance soldiers, in return, Llane will draw out the Horde, keep them busy long enough for Durotan to kill him.

Too bad it didn't work, and Durotan was challenged by Gul'dan to the duel of honor in which Gul'dan looked like he was kicking ass but then started to cheat with Fel magic to draw Durtan's life force out and killed him.  Which pissed off the other orcs because Mak'gora is supposed to be a fight of strength rather than a fight of super powers and one bad assed normal.  You're not supposed to use weapons of any type or any sort of magic to aid you in the fight, just your fists.

Gul'dan was a cheating bastard, and the orcs got a bit pissed off.  BUT then he showed them how he can control them by frying them with Fel Fire, so they have no choice but to do what he says.  Which is again wrong, Gul'dan wasn't the leader, nor was he very visible, holding strict control over the Horde, that was Blackhand.  Gul'dan was a master manipulator, using his wits an his cunning to make Blackhand do what he said.

He also wasn't the type to get into a fist fight with Durotan.

But at least the only character I felt was true to the lore was Durotan.  So, I'm guessing this movie had some Chris Metzen fingers in it.  And knowing how Chris Metzen has no problem in fucking up the lore just to make Thrall look like Green Jesus...the changes in this movie now make a hell of a lot of sense, don't it?

Do I recommend this movie?  Yeah, go see it at least once in the theaters.  I saw it on 5 dollar Tuesday.  It's pretty on the screen.  Do I suggest seeing it again?  Probably not until it comes out on Blu-Ray or DVD. 

So, there you go.

And yes, given there's three Wars in Warcraft, there's gonna be two more movies in this.  The next is the Second War.  And guess who played a part in the Second War?