For the Horde! For the Alliance! For the fans! A veritable Burning Legion of Blizzard fans flooded into Anaheim this morning for the first day of BlizzCon, the annual convention to celebrate Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, and more. (You’re “and more,” The Lost Vikings.) But the most exciting moment, by far, was the reveal of the trailer for director Duncan Jones’ forthcoming Warcraft movie.
The visually stunning trailer offered a fast-paced, action-packed look at the all-out war between humans and orcs. As expected, the film is hewing close to the original Warcraft game’s storyline, telling the tale of the orc Horde leaving their dying homeworld of Draenor to settle new lands in the faraway land of Azeroth. However, once the orcs invade and begin attacking human settlements, our fleshy pink brethren respond in kind with all their military might. Naturally, massive bloodshed ensues, and the trailer gave us a peek at some of the brutal-looking battles to come.
But it wasn’t all fisticuffs and swordplay; there were brooding voiceovers warning of the ensuing war from the likes of  the human warrior Anduin Lotha (Travis Fimmel), the human King Llane (Dominic Cooper), the conflicted orc chieftain Durotar (Toby Kebbell), and more familiar faces like Garona Halforcen (Paula Patton). And familiar weapons. Namely the Doomhammer, wielded by the aptly named Orgrim Doomhammer (Rob Kazinsky), the meanest mamma jamma this side of the Dark Portal. Oh, and there’s some dizzying scenes of our heroes tooling around the friendly skies on a mighty gryphon. Especially Lothar, who seems to be leaping shoeless from a castle onto a gryphon’s back. And was that the floating city of Dalaran I saw? Does that mean we can expect to see some night elves in his film too? I know it’s focusing on humans and orcs, but man alive would I love to see some of the other races from Warcraft lore.
The Universal and Legendary film marks the first time that Blizzard’s venerable fantasy franchise has been adapted for a feature film, and it’s looking better and better with each new glimpse at the finished product. I never thought I would say, “Holy shit, those orcs looks photorealistic,” but hey, there’s a first time for everything. Except grapefruit. I regret there ever being a first time for grapefruit. What a terrible flavor. But I digress. We’ll be talking to the cast of Warcraft later today to try and suss out more details about the fantasy epic. Otherwise, you’ll be waiting until June 10, 2016 to see how the battle for the future of Azeroth shakes out.
What did you think of the Warcraft trailer? Did you spot any ultra cool Easter Eggs that we may have missed? Share your thoughts in the comments below, then be sure to stay tuned for a complete breakdown on today’s Nerdist News.
Want even more BlizzCon goodness? Nerdist is there all weekend long, so click here for our complete coverage.
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Images: Universal/Legendary/Blizzard
Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. You can follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).
