
‘Warcraft’ sets records in Chinese market while stumbling in the U.S - doener
http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-helps-ease-hollywoods-wounds-1465765019?mod=e2tweu
======
studentrob
I watched it and liked it. I'm an American living in Asia, and haven't played
video games in 15 years. I thought I would hate this movie but I actually
liked the mind games of a few parts, particularly near the end where one
character tells another to "bring peace" to the two races. No spoiler there,
but if you saw it you know what part I mean =). Anyway, to each his own. I'd
recommend seeing it even if you're not into gaming.

I also liked the new Alice movie..

~~~
chillacy
I went in with very low expectations (at the time it had a 22% RT score), so I
kind of liked the movie too, since it wasn't that bad. Might even see the
sequel, since warcraft starts slow but sets up some nice drama for the future.

~~~
goldenkey
It's absolutely ridiculous for the movie to have a 22% score. I'm not even
into fantasy/role-playing or the warcraft series, and I thought it was done
way better than Star Wars as a movie about conflicting sides and war. Really
was an epic and finely done movie, I'd give it a 10/10\. There was very little
"cheese" factor which is what you kind of cringe about when you think of
fantasy movies. They really did the movie in a mature, adult way, with no
cheese factor, and I respect Blizzard for that.

I think Blizzard isn't used to the movie scene so didn't pay off the critics
like most movie studios probably do -- so they got blackmailed. Terrible how
that works..

~~~
aphextron
>the critics like most movie studios probably do -- so they got blackmailed.
Terrible how that works..

I'd say it had more to do with Duncan Jones making a fun movie for the fans,
rather than some edgy gritty crap for the critics to sniff their own farts to.

------
lsiebert
The number of Western Films allowed in China is limited, and they all tend to
do well. It's a soft power Beijing has learned to wield deftly that has led to
some marked changes in the film industry.

~~~
r0b1n_yzl
I’m from China. What you said is partly true. But the reason why the success
of Warcraft in China is that this film is produced by Legendary Pictures owned
by Wanda, the one that owns the largest number of cinemas in China. And Wanda
is very good at marketing.

~~~
Eliezer
Maybe the plot was sort of wuxia-ish? I haven't seen the movie so could be
_compleeeetely_ off base here, I was just trying to imagine what about the
trailer I saw could map onto something that worked surprisingly well in China.

~~~
chillacy
Warcraft made more money in China than the most recent Star Wars movie. The
reason I've read is that Star Wars came out back before China had big cinema
attendance, while Warcraft (1994) came out when China was modernizing. It's a
big cultural hit.

Edit: check out this video of chinese audiences cheering for the Blizzard
logo: [https://youtu.be/l67mA7ah9qE?t=51s](https://youtu.be/l67mA7ah9qE?t=51s)

------
schuke
Young people in China has a special bond with the Warcraft franchise, which is
absent almost everywhere else in the world.

Consoles were banned in China for two decades--basically a whole generation
had limited access to games except on PC. In addition to this, there was the
censorship that excluded many other foreign games, further condensing audience
population on games like Warcraft.

For Chinese young people born in the 80s and 90s, Warcraft is something like
Star Wars, it's one of the things that gets to represent their childhood
memory and teenage years.

The Red Alert series, also hugely popular for the same generation of people,
despite being banned, would probably have enjoyed similar success in China.

~~~
rdsnsca
Warcraft the game IS censored in China, Blizzard had to change all the
skeletons into ghouls before being allowed to sell the game there.

------
NuSkooler
Interesting. Just got back from watching this tonight and thought it was
great. I think people watching this will certainly need to have a
understanding of the lore, names, and landscapes presented to really enjoy the
movie, however.

~~~
andyjdavis
> I think people watching this will certainly need to have a understanding of
> the lore, names, and landscapes presented to really enjoy the movie,
> however.

That is an interesting remark. Usually film adaptions go the other way and
frustrate those familiar with the books/games/whatever by spending a bunch of
time explaining the setting, presumably on the assumption that most of the
audience is coming in knowing nothing.

------
epynonymous
terrible movie, same old plot, bad guy, good guy, bad guy loses to good guy. i
played warcraft and warcraft2, but not a lot of wow so perhaps i'm missing
something.

i would say in china, the fascination was more about the hype, most people
probably never played any of the blizzard games that went to see the movie

~~~
qihqi
Warning: kinda of spoiler

At least there are some good guys among the bad and a bad guy among the good;
so it adds some drama.

Tell me what action/fantasy/sci-fi movie is not good guy vs. bad guy ? More
specifically, bad guys have an evil plan to do something destructive, and good
guys somehow ruins it. Star War, X men, all the superheros ones, 007, and I
can keep name more (at least that is the theme of the individual movies, if
not the theme of the whole sequence).

The critique Warcraft received most is about the lack of character
development; lack of a clear lead actor/actress. In some sense, it is not
necessarily a bad thing because it breaks the old "one dude with protagonist
aura that never dies" Holywood pattern.

~~~
Jtsummers
An old and maybe not terribly popular one is _Enemy Mine_. There are bad guys,
but they're humans, and they only play a role near the end. But they aren't
primary to the story. It's mostly a story of two people thrown together in a
shitty situation and learning to get along despite their initial hatred for
each other.

There are lots of scifi movies where the story only barely, rather than
primarily, deals with the idea of good guys versus bad guys, if it puts them
together directly at all. Moon, The Martian, Gravity are recent ones.
Interstellar, in its way.

Less true of fantasy which pulls its stories from the idea of grand epics with
noble warriors fighting monsters and villains.

Action movies without an idea of good guy and bad guy is a challenge. Maybe
I'll think of one while I lie in bed tonight but off the top of my head there
aren't any occurring to me.

------
namaemuta
Just from watching the trailer I got the impression of this being another
'Dungeons and Dragons' disappointment (if you haven't watched that movie, you
totally should. It's beyond of being horrible).

It's a pity if you have watched the CGI animations in Blizzard games. I think
that was what most of the people were waiting but they decided to use real
humans (which small bodies don't match at all with the overbuild bodies in
CGI) with a terrible acting instead.

~~~
ralusek
The movie was surprisingly good.

------
kahnpro
It was a cool movie. But the direction and acting were both pretty terrible.
You could tell that the humans were standing in front of green screens. It
really failed at immersion.

------
spdionis
A factor is probably that Dota was originally a warcraft map, and it was/still
is most popular in China, almost at the level of starcraft in Korea.

~~~
skoczymroczny
Not even Dota, but Warcraft 3 is still alive pretty much only in China.

------
mjevans
Scripts enabled required article, not bothering to read.

Similarly, Hollywood in general has shown me every other time that I've given
'film adaptation of X' in my life that the original form was better. Were I
interested in the story of WoW I suppose the best form to experience it in
would be in the actual game (I've heard players of that game admit that parts
of it are better left un-played and that they are this fine with the now more
rapid ascent to newer content in the game).

~~~
mikeash
It's a common refrain that films based on other stuff are always worse, but I
think it's sampling bias. When a movie is based on a mediocre source, people
often just don't realize that the movie isn't original. The fact that a movie
is "based on" is more likely to be known if the source is good, and reversion
to the mean means that these are likely to have movies that aren't as good.

For one example, Forrest Gump is based on a pretty crappy book. It's mildly
entertaining but it's pretty wacky and definitely not the amazing classic that
the movie was. For another one that turns up a lot, The Godfather is said to
be a lot better than the book, although I haven't read it myself. One more,
Pirates of the Caribbean, while not exactly deep and meaningful, is a pretty
fun movie based on a pretty mediocre _amusement park ride_.

I will admit that I can't come up with any good movies based on a video game.

Another source of trouble, I think, is that a movie based on something well
known can survive on name recognition, so it doesn't _have_ to be good. A
Warcraft movie could be good in theory, but they probably haven't bothered.

~~~
xahrepap
Prince of Persia Sands of Time. I liked that movie quite a bit. :) Only video
game based movie I've seen and liked. Granted, it's only related by name from
what I understand.

------
conradfr
At least there was a good trailer ;)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m59oTieJFF4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m59oTieJFF4)

