This movie was long in the making. I think back in the 2000s I remember talks of a Warcraft movie being made, but that never came to fruition. Then Avatar came out and I was fearful of the future of a Warcraft movie. You see, movie critics operate under the impression that movies exist in a vacuum populated ONLY by other movies. This means that, if they ever get around to it, a film about Wicked the musical is bound to be compared to Frozen till no end (especially if it is made with CG instead of live action). Likewise, I feared that a Warcraft movie – set in a world so extravagant that it couldn’t be done without extensive use of CGI – would be compared to Avatar. Well maybe Duncan Jones realized this, because seven years passed between the release of Cameron’s Avatar and the Warcraft movie. More than enough time for the Avatar hype to die down (hopefully). But instead of Avatar, we have another shameless CGI-fest to which this movie shall be compared, one that came out late enough for it to still be in everyone’s minds: Peter Jackson’s bastardization of The Hobbit.

So here we go, what the fans have been waiting for: Warcraft on the big screen!

The film retells the classic story of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, the very first installment of the Warcraft series. This was back in the 90s, long before Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos introduced us to Thrall, Arthas, and the Night Elves, and before World of Warcraft brought the game series to the mainstream. The original story is pretty basic; humans are the good-guys, orcs come in and destroy everything, humans have to defend their kingdom. Pretty basic, obviously.

As with everything made these days, there’s always some kind of revisionism. Thankfully, Jones doesn’t go overboard with it the way that everyone else in Hollywood seems to be doing it. It could have been very easy to make some kind of political statement in this movie about “refugees” that paints humans in the bad light against innocent, brown-skinned aliens. However, what we get is a story that is surprisingly faithful to the source material. Aside from the Frostwolf Clan, most of the Horde is in agreement with Gul’dan’s aspirations of dominating Azeroth. There are surprisingly few “bad” humans, aside from Medivh, who is more or less a tragic hero in the grand scheme of things.

Everything that needs to happen in this story more or less happens. The Horde invades Azeroth, Medivh is discovered to be possessed by demons and is killed, Llane Wrynn is slain by Garona. But the story ends before the siege of Stormwind, obviously so that it can end on a “triumphant” note. There is quite a bit happening, though I don’t believe that it drags the movie down at all.

What I loved the most were the little easter eggs. And there were many! Murlocs, a reference to the gnolls, the Orcish language, Goldshire, the Stormwind theme playing when we first see the city, WoW-style Draenei, Blackrock Mountain, polymorph, Grom Hellscream (a team of digital animators were actually paid to animate Grom into the crowds of orcs, even though he has no dialogue), even a rather shocking transformation scene where we see (what I think might be) a preview of what Sargeras may look like. And I don’t care what they call her in the credits: Glenn Close is Aegwynn! Also I’m pretty sure in one scene, one of the footmen is voiced by the same voice actor who voiced the Footman unit from Warcraft III.

All in all, it was a decent movie. There were funny moments, there were sad moments, there were dramatic moments, there were awesome moments (no wonder Anduin Lothar is a hero of the Alliance, if he defeated Blackhand bare-footed!), it followed the story rather closely, it sets up for sequential films.

So why did I feel as though there needed to be more?

I certainly didn’t hate the movie. I just wished there had been more to it. They took us to Azeroth and brought it to life, but never let it sit long enough. It was like eating a three-course dinner and stopping at the appetizer. I wanted more! I wanted to spend more time in Azeroth than we were given. I want a director’s cut of this movie that has more to it, much more.

Okay, now my concerns for the future of this movie. So far the film has more than returned its budget, but that might not be enough to convince Legendary Films to permit a sequel. Film-critics have been ruthless on it, and the internet film-critics – the weeabos who have been playing Super Smash Bros. and Legend of Zelda all their lives, have most likely never played an RTS game or non-JRPG, and hate all movie-adaptations of video-games – seem to be echoing the sentiment of their professional counterparts. While we did see the same with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the financial returns on Warcraft are not of the same volume as with BvS to possibly warrant a continuation of that film.

But let’s assume that Legendary Films sees how much money Warcraft brought in and decides to gamble that Duncan Jones and co. can strike gold or better with the next try. My biggest concern is that they will change the story of Warcraft 2. Here we might actually get to see some of the “more” that I wanted to see. Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness expanded the Warcraft universe in a way that was nothing but helpful. Imagine all the new characters we’d meet: King Terenas, Turalyon, Uther, Alleria, Kurdran, Zul’jin, Ner’zhul, Cho’gall, even the Dragon Aspects Alexstrasza and Deathwing! We’d see the Elven Kingdom of Quel’thalas, Lordaeron in its prime, massive naval and aerial battles. It could be amazing!

But there is an issue when it comes to Gul’dan. In this movie, he’s been built up as the big bad. He is responsible for corrupting Draenor, leading the Orcish Horde to Azeroth and declaring war on the humans, using Fel magic to further his own power and wantonly sacrifice any life (even those of his own people) to achieve that end, defies the Orcish traditions, and kills Durotan in Mak’Gorah (i know orcs are tough, but i never expected Gul’dan to go one-on-one with anyone. i mean, when have you ever seen a warlock and a warrior have a melee fist-fight?). From a cinematic perspective, it would be satisfying to see him finally meet his end in the second movie, especially to a hero like Sir Lothar. However, if they follow the story (and want to set up important things that happen in Warcraft III), Gul’dan is more or less “written off” when he leaves the Horde to go seek the Eye of Sargeras and is torn apart on the sunken island by crazed demons. If that doesn’t happen, we might have a satisfying final duel, where both Lothar and Gul’dan kill each other in battle, but there would still need to be some way for Illidan to gain his demonic powers, as well as the introduction of the Eye of Sargeras for what he does in Frozen Throne (you can’t introduce Illidan and just not use him!)

PS – of all the easter eggs in this movie, i’m upset that there wasn’t anything about the Goldshire inn. if you’re going to show the Goldshire inn, you might as well do it justice. have a half-naked gnome dancing on a table in the background: male or female, doesn’t matter.