In recent years, the word "epic" has lost much of its original meaning, being tossed around willy-nilly to describe just about anything. That said, it's really the only word that accurately describes our first look at the trailer for Duncan Jones' Warcraft.
This isn't the official trailer by any means. If you want to watch, you can do so here. But we would be lying if we said we didn't watch it. We did. And it looks stunning.
The footage is all captured off screen, but this looks to be what might be an early version of the film's first trailer, complete with marketing buzzwords sprinkled throughout. It features much of the footage we've read in descriptions from Comic-Con: orcs storming the Dark Portal, Alliance soldiers swooping into battle on the backs of gryphons.
It's as high fantasy as it gets — filled with massive armies, powerful wizards and the most CGI we've seen in a film since James Cameron's Avatar. The verdict is still out on whether or not that is a good thing, but it's clear that Jones is creating one of the most faithful video game adaptations the world has ever seen. Each character looks the spitting image of their game counterpart. Blizzard's fantasy world of Azeroth – from the Alliance capitol city of Stormwind to the orc homeworld of Draenor – all appears to be perfectly recreated for the big screen.
None of it would be possible without extensive CGI. Rather than attempt to modify Warcraft to fit into our real world, Jones had fully embraced the game series and is looking to deliver to moviegoers what has captured the imagination of millions of gamers worldwide.
Legendary Pictures announced that the film's official trailer would be dropping in November. With this leak, it's unclear if Legendary will release the trailer early or simply go into lockdown until then. This isn't the first time footage from the film has leaked, either. Some of the footage that was shown at Comic-Con made its way online as well. Whatever happens, Warcraft fans are sure to be in for a treat come June 2016. If you crave more footage of the film, you can take a virtual tour of the film's version of Stormwind here.
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