Filmmaker Reacts: World of Warcraft – The War Within

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25 thoughts on “Filmmaker Reacts: World of Warcraft – The War Within”

  3. This cinematic really hit me in the heartstrings, love seeing you break it down. If you want to watch more WoW cinematics that are similar, you should check out the Saurfang trilogy of cinematics from Battle for Azeroth. You'd like those as well.

    As for Anduin context, Anduin has had a pretty stressful and troubled life, but especially recent and relevant to his state in this one, he was kidnapped from his home, held captive, and then "dominated" which is essentially a kind of mind control of sorts? In the last expansion, the big bad essentially mind controlled him to act as his puppet. Because Anduin was a priest and genuinely good person, he was able to enter a place that was protected and only those who were pure of heart could enter. So the big bad captured him, dominated him, and forced him to enter this place to kill someone. An event that Anduin was a kind of passive observer in his own body for. A complete loss of autonomy. After that, Anduin remained dominated and forced to fight his friends and try to bring about the end of the world, essentially. That flashback with "My son…" in the cinematic was from the moment that Anduin was finally able to resist and break free from the domination, seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asgw5kdCGA4.

    But yea, Anduin has some EXTREME PTSD from the like year he spent having lost his autonomy and forced to fight for the bad guys.

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  4. The events that led Anduin to his self-imposed exile in this cinematic, happened during the Shadowlands expansion. Where the main villain (The Jailer), used Anduin against his will, as a weapon against Anduin's friends (the Horde and the Alliance).

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  5. World of Warcraft is the 2004 MMO version/evolution of the original story from Warcraft 1 – 3 (est 1994; Isometric RTS); All originally designed for the PC. AFAIK there have been no ports to console. But now that MSoft has completed it's purchase of parent company Activision/Blizzard/King; there are rumors of potential to port to XBOX.

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  6. SPOILER WARNING

    You should definitely watch the cinematics from Battle for Azeroth onward. There are several that would provide a lot of context to this video. The first context that could be given is the line "You're here to tell me we don't get to hide" which is a reference to a cinematic in which Thrall (the orc in this War Within video) was "hiding" by choosing to live in a remote place completely separated from his people, and his former advisor (when he was the warchief of the Horde) named Saurfang came to tell him that and get him to come take care of issues that his people were now facing. Saurfang also ended up having a very good friendship with Anduin throughout the BFA storyline and Anduin was there at Saurfang's death (he challenged Sylvanas to a mak'gora which is a duel to the death). So the line at the start of this War Within cinematic is sort of painful but also very in character for him and shows that the writers did not forget about little details in the previous storylines which I sometimes feel like happens.

    Speaking of Saurfang's duel with Sylvanas, even though Saurfang lost that duel he still managed to win in that he angered Sylvanas enough that she dropped her facade and revealed to the entire Horde that were watching that she actually thinks they're nothing and basically treats them like tools. This results in her fleeing and therefore giving up the title of Warchief because she'd likely have a revolt on her hands after that anyway. But this ends up putting into motion the events of Shadowlands (the following expansion) because after she leaves Orgrimmar and the Horde behind, she goes to challenge Bolvar Fordragon who had taken the place of Arthas as the Lich King after Arthas was defeated, and uses the power of the very being that orchestrated the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne being on Azeroth for Arthas to find in the first place against him.

    This is all seen in the Shadowlands reveal trailer, just FYI. She manages to take the Helm of Domination from him and using it, creates an opening to the "afterlife" or realm of death called the Shadowlands. And that's where all the crazy shit that traumatized Anduin starts. He went through a lot, not only was he controlled and made to do horrible things in much the same way that Arthas was, but he also basically had to coexist with Arthas' soul because when Anduin's father's sword (Varian's sword Shalamayne) was used to create a mourneblade similar to Frostmourne, it was created using Arthas' soul. It was revealed during Shadowlands that whenever Arthas killed someone with Frostmourne, it created a split in that person's soul — part of their soul remained within the blade and part of it would travel on into the Shadowlands. This of course means that King Terenas was among those because Arthas used Frostmourne to kill his father. So when Arthas was finally struck down, and Frostmourne was shattered, the partial souls were basically freed and Arthas saw the soul/spirit of his father Terenas who often said "my son" in his lines to Arthas and once again did at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. (Other souls that were split by Frostmourne include Sylvanas and Uther — this splitting of their souls created a change in character for each of them during the events of Warcraft 3 and Shadowlands respectively. Sylvanas lost the noble and kind part of herself and what was left was the hateful and violent version that we see in events such as the burning of the tree Teldrassil. Uther lost the part of himself that valued honor and forgiveness and the teachings of the Light, becoming a spiteful and angry person in the Shadowlands expansion.) But yeah, the story behind the brief transition where we see Anduin struggling with something that looks like a soul and the words "My son" is that Anduin was coexisting with Arthas' soul and that came with a variety of unwanted visions and feelings and sensations such as the spirit of King Terenas.

    Basically, Anduin got real messed up and it was Sylvanas' fault. But in actuality, it was Arthas' fault. But also in actuality it was the big bad guy who orchestrated everything and is revealed in the Shadowlands expansion.

    Where you should start = search "Battle for Azeroth: Varok Saurfang's Mak'gora" here on YouTube which has the relevant Anduin/Saurfang/Sylvanas/Thrall interactions, and then from there follow the sequence of Shadowlands cinematics starting with the Shadowlands trailer. Similar to the other expansions, Shadowlands also has its own series of painted animatics-on-steroids as well, the series is called Afterlives. Definitely watch the Uther one if nothing else.

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  7. If you want to know what happened when Anduin's father puts his hand on his shoulder, watch this cutscene (no render video, only IG grafik). Anduin was corrupted and thus a kind of anti-paladin. He lost his connection to the light and was shrouded in hatred and darkness. There are many parallels with the story of Arthas Menethil who was also a paladin and was corrupted into a death knight and later became the Lich King (more or less the king of all undead). The sword Anduin holds in his hand contains the soul of Arthas. This sword has taken possession of him. As he is in a kind of underworld or afterlife at this time, his deceased father can speak to him and help him to free himself.
    Placing his hand on his shoulder followed by the words "my son" has a special meaning. When the Lich King Arthas Menethil was defeated, his father (whom he killed himself, by the way) also places his hand on his shoulder and introduces his words with "my son". I've added the links to both cut scenes as comments.

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  9. First time seeing the channel. Love the way you point out detail and grit, emotions and reactions. Going deep, i like it! Keep it up dude! Im gonna watch: Filmmaker Reacts: World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic, Next

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  10. Gotta ask even though this went up 2 weeks ago so the answer is probably yes lol. Did you watch any other cinematics yet? If you haven’t start with the world of Warcraft launch trailer and work your way through. They are some of the best cinematic in gaming history and the cinematic and sound teams do not get enough credit for their work. You’ll also get a crash course in WoW history! 😀🥰

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  16. It is worth noting that this isn't even mocapped. This is all animation work.

    King Anduin Wrynn, the human in the cinematic has fallen on hard times, a result of a hard upbringing with an absent father, that even when present wasn't the most understanding of fathers, which didn't change until shortly before his father was killed when the Burning Legion, an army of space demons were sent to invade their planet. They eventually managed to defeat that army, only for the leader of that army to stab the sword you see at the end of this cinematic into the planet. This caused the planet to metaphorically bleed – leading to the discovery of a mineral known as Azerite. Azerite is super powerful, and essentially forces a resource World War 4 over it. Compare it to the discovery of nuclear fission in real life. At the end of this war, he was captured by what are essentially harbingers of Death itself, where he's tortured and eventually "dominated" – likened to sexual assault in its severity in canon and he is used as a vessel to do evil acts. At the peak of it all, he manages to snap free, but all of this has managed to scar his soul, him living with PTSD.

    During Fourth War (WW4, essentially), Thrall, the orc, goes through a bit of a similar path – except no domination magic here. Anduin calls back to this when he tells Thrall that "You're here to tell me we don't get to hide, is that it?" – This is a callback to Varok Saurfang telling Thrall that very same thing: "You and I, we don't get to hide".

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  18. In response to 14:48
    This is the part where it's so crazy, they said this wasn't done with mocap or face scans, they did have the performance on video of the voice actor that voiced Anduin that they used as reference. But other than that, this is full CGI… in-fuckin-sane.

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  22. Wow's cinematics have generally been really good, though this one is incredible for what they've done in the past.
    Everyone else has probably already given all the lore needed for the background here. Suffice to say Anduin was forced to do terrible things in the Shadowlands expansion and really messed him up mentally. He was completely absent through the entire Dragonflight expansion, leading him to where he is now for the next expansion. Him And Thrall/ Go'el has been a part of his life since he was a child as a bit of a peace offering between the horde and the alliance. I'd say he could be considered one of the people in his life to be the closest to him. It was generally shown through a mixture of game quests, cut- scenes and in game cinematics after dungeons and raids.

    I don't know if I have "a favorite" but I'll always have a soft spot for the very first one. I also remember enjoying Pandaria one and Dragonflight was great too!

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  23. While I thought the voice acting was well done, and the visuals were what would expect from Blizzard. The scene itself is painfully predictable and has been done a thousand times. Almost any other conversation between them would have been better.

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  25. I'd highly suggest if you want the full story of Anduin's pain, to take a look at all the cinematics for Shadowlands, starting with the Expansion trailer. I absolutely love Anduin's story. The king has been through a lot, but… this pain in this cinematic, comes from how much he feels he hurt those he loves/his kingdom from being the pawn of the Jailer. The pain he feels, breaks my heart, but no one ever blamed Anduin for what he was forced to do.

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