The Warcraft trailer has been released, and it bodes poorly for the movie. See it for yourself below.

Who is the audience for this thing? Is this a general release movie or the most expensive piece of fan fiction ever created? Unless you are a Warcraft lore junkie or have been playing Blizzard games for the past two decades, you will not have the foggiest clue who any of the characters are. You’re expected to get excited about a bunch of humans and generic CGI orcs in a generic CGI fantasy setting.

Which is another big problem. There’s WAY too much CGI in this thing. And the juxtaposition of human actors and CGI orcs simply looks bizarre. You can get away with combining actors and animation in movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it only works if the animation is clearly animation. Warcraft immediately charges headlong into the Uncanny Valley and gleefully builds a homestead. Continue reading →