To call the trailer for the upcoming Warcraft film epic is an understatement. Massive armies clash against one another, mounted warriors riding wolves and gryphons do battle and two leaders struggle to do what is right for their people.
But you wouldn't know any of that from this fan trailer. Robert Mermet has taken all of the trailer's original, and impressive, music and sounds and replaced them with the iconic sounds of Blizzard's 1995 classic, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.
Nearly all of the dialogue in the new video game version of the trailer comes from unit dialogue in the now two decade old game. Lines like "Zug-Zug" from the orcs and "For the king!" from the humans come from clicking on various units and giving them commands in Warcraft II. The music is taken straight from the game as well, giving the trailer an entirely different tone from the original. And some of the other sound effects, like the one's given to the gryphons? They sound just like you might expect a 1995 gryphon to sound: like a bird.
It's curious Mermet took sound effects from Warcraft II and not the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, which the film seems to be pulling most of its source material from. Perhaps pulling the sound effects from a 1994 game was simply too much work? Regardless, it's amusing to see how a property that didn't start entirely serious has transformed in the past two decades to become of the biggest gaming franchises in the world, with millions of players logging into World of Warcraft every day to play. No doubt the upcoming movie will make plenty of new fans as well.
Warcraft releases on June 10, 2016.
