Warcraft : So much similarities to LOTR..

Why does this movie bare so much similarities to the Lord of The Rings? I mean it's like someone just copy and paste Peter Jackson LOTR and tweak a few things. Orcs, Elves, Dwarfs, Gardians, flying beast, Magic and Fel.

Maybe because that is what high fantasy is?

You probably wouldn't enjoy more than one western, gangster movie or cop movie.


"You'll have to speak up I'm wearing a towel"

Because it's based on the first Warcraft game which lifted a lot from LOTR. It wasn't until about Warcraft 3 that they moved away from that with such things as Night Elves, Tauren and Naga.

Starcraft also lifted from Starship Troopers.

Every Fantasy game every made has swiped a lot of Tolkien.
Question becomes what do you do with the Stolen Goods.

Starcraft also lifted a lot from Ridley Scott's Alien, Star Trek and even Star Wars. The Zerg are in fact like a biological version of the Borg from Star Trek somehow crossed with the Xenomorphs from the Alien movies in terms of how they operate, rather than just the bugs from Starship Troopers. In fact, the Terran's in the precursor campaign (which was the original demo prequel campaign for Starcraft 1) even called them Xenomorphs when they were doing experiments on them.

That's because Aliens lifted from Starship Troopers too.

First, Tolkien was very influential. (Er, you do know that "Peter Jackson LOTR" was based on books by J.R.R. Tolkien, right?) There are shelves and shelves of books and video games that use story elements like orcs, elves, and dwarves. It's only movies that have not done much with the fantasy genre so far.

Second, Tolkien didn't invent some of the things you list. Dwarves, flying beasts, and magic can be found in stories and legends going back many centuries.

Third, not everything in Warcraft is the same as in Tolkien. Tolkien's work doesn't really have fel or Guardians. Gandalf isn't a Guardian; he's not attached to any particular nation, and he hardly ever casts a spell. You'd never find a flying city full of magic-users in Tolkien. Tolkien's orcs (evil creations of the dark lord) have very little in common with Warcraft orcs (sometimes-noble beings from another world). And so on.

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Second, Tolkien didn't invent some of the things you list. Dwarves, flying beasts, and magic can be found in stories and legends going back many centuries.

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No, but some of the specific traits in Warcraft and other fantasy worlds - like Elves being tall and organic and wielding bows, and Dwarves wielding axes and being miners - are portrayals that began with Tolkien. In myths and legends, the specifics of non-human beings are rarely explained unless necessary for the story. Tolkien established quite a lot of fantasy archetypes.

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Tolkien's work doesn't really have fel or Guardians. Gandalf isn't a Guardian; he's not attached to any particular nation, and he hardly ever casts a spell.

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Gandalf is a sort of guardian in that he was sent to help the people of Middle Earth against Sauron.

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Tolkien's orcs (evil creations of the dark lord) have very little in common with Warcraft orcs (sometimes-noble beings from another world).

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The backstory that they were corrupted by the Legion came later; in the early games they were just an inherently destructive rabble of killers, more or less as Tolkien's are.

but stil the point was almost everybody in the fantasy genre took something from Tolkien. Who cares as long we can enjoy it? It's stil different and has its own style just some basic stuf that fantasy genre likes to use since ppl are used to it. For example if you look around in the fantasy genre almost al the elfes are based on how they looked in tolkien but who cares thats what we think about if we see them there are mostly just minor differences. in some stories they are a bit taller than humans in others they are the same height in others they are smaller. and there are more examples like this.

You kinda have the same with scifi alot is based on work from Isaac Asimov.
also with steam punk Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells has laid the ground work.

So stop complaining that it looks like something that kinda layed the foundation for a whole genre.

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No, but some of the specific traits in Warcraft and other fantasy worlds are portrayals that began with Tolkien Tolkien established quite a lot of fantasy archetypes.

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I don't dispute that; that's why "Tolkien was very influential" was my point #1. However

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like Elves being tall and organic and wielding bows,

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You'll notice that I did not list Elves with the items that are in old legends. That was on purpose, because Tolkien's version of them was a departure from their earlier portrayal. (Also, Legolas is the main famous bowman among Tolkien elves; the others use swords and even spears quite regularly. As do Warcraft elves, for that matter.)

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and Dwarves wielding axes and being miners -

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Dwarves being miners goes back at least as far as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." They were smiths long before that in German and Scandinavian folklore.

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Gandalf is a sort of guardian in that he was sent to help the people of Middle Earth against Sauron.

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Only if you squint. "The person with special powers whose job is to fight against the big evil" is such a vague concept that it's not a strong connection, IMO. The specifics are quite strongly different.

Gandalf is literally sent by higher powers from outside the worldhe's essentially an angel. His job is mostly to rally all the people of Middle-Earth to fight against Sauron. He rarely casts a spell, and some of his spellcasting ability comes from his magic ring.

The Warcraft Guardian, on the other hand, is a native-born mortal who gains his/her power from a council of mages. The Guardian's job is to use that power directly against the Burning Legion, although that may involve rallying people along the way.

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The backstory that they were corrupted by the Legion came later; in the early games they were just an inherently destructive rabble of killers, more or less as Tolkien's are.

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In the games, sure. But the OP was asking about the movie versions, which take into account later developments in the game lore. You'd never find orcs like Durotan and Draka in Tolkien.

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(Also, Legolas is the main famous bowman among Tolkien elves; the others use swords and even spears quite regularly. As do Warcraft elves, for that matter.)

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Warcraft Elves have basic swordsmen in WC3's campaign, but other than that they're restricted to ranged and magic units. The many fierce Elvish warriors in Tolkien have little parallel in Warcraft, with the melee warrior roles largely going to the humans.

The Night Elves do differ a bit in this respect, but they're a 'later Warcraft' thing.

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Dwarves being miners goes back at least as far as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." They were smiths long before that in German and Scandinavian folklore.

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Yes, but it was Tolkien that actually combined those traits, making them miners, forgers and cave-dwellers, rather than just one or another.

Perhaps more importantly, I think Tolkien was probably the first to depict Dwarves as actual warriors, rather than just making weapons for others.

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Gandalf is literally sent by higher powers from outside the worldhe's essentially an angel. His job is mostly to rally all the people of Middle-Earth to fight against Sauron. He rarely casts a spell, and some of his spellcasting ability comes from his magic ring.

The Warcraft Guardian, on the other hand, is a native-born mortal who gains his/her power from a council of mages. The Guardian's job is to use that power directly against the Burning Legion, although that may involve rallying people along the way.

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Of course they're not identical, but I think the 'guiding light' similarity is still there.

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In the games, sure. But the OP was asking about the movie versions, which take into account later developments in the game lore. You'd never find orcs like Durotan and Draka in Tolkien.

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But the original concept of the Orcs as the invading enemy of the humans is still there.

I think we're essentially in agreement. Warcraft borrows a lot from Tolkien (as do many other fantasy books and games), but it puts its own spin on a lot of what it borrows.

Okay. I think it's worth being clear that there's a divide. Warcraft 1 and 2 relied on imports from Tolkien, but from Warcraft 3 Blizzard took it upon themselves to be more original, with simple 'Elves' replaced with Night Elves and Blood Elves, Orcs becoming a good race of noble warriors, and the Undead as a separate group rather than just mixed in with the Orcs.

Tolkien did continue to be a bit of an influence; the Night Elves' animated trees are pretty obviously drawing on the Ents, and the Undead's Death Knights are sort of similar to the Nazgul.

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Warcraft 1 and 2 relied on imports from Tolkien, but from Warcraft 3 Blizzard took it upon themselves to be more original

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And Warcraft the movie (the subject of this thread) uses the Warcraft 3+ lore. The legacy of the heavy borrowing in Warcraft 1 and 2 is still with it, but with the later developments, Azeroth isn't really (IMO) any more derivative than the settings of hundreds of other fantasy novels and games.

You're referring more to story and character points there than the overall concepts of the races.

Not sure what you meancan you expand?

Also, I think it's worth reminding ourselves that the OP's claim was that Warcraft the movie was essentially a copy of LOTR the movie (and presumably the books). Do you agree with that?

It seemed to me he was saying that Warcraft had borrowed things and concepts - Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, etc. - rather than story elements. I mean, he didn't claim that Warcraft is similar by having a short person from a village set off on a quest or something like that. You've been saying that Warcraft differs from LOTR in story elements like Durotan and Draka (setting up for the character of Thrall further on), but the OP wasn't getting at specific plot points, he was talking more about the basic setup of the Warcraft world as it was in the first game or two. Which was, as I think we've agreed, fairly derivative of LOTR.

And of course Warcraft the movie isn't a direct copy of LOTR the movies or books in that there's no Warcraft equivalent to Hobbits, the Shire, or the Ring or the quest to destroy it. Again, the specific story elements are different - but that's not what I think the OP was getting at.

But if you go by that reasoning then one could argue that pretty much all high fantasy borrows things and concepts from LotR (which makes sense, by the way, because Tolkien practically invented the genre).

Yes he did, quite a feat considering he only published four fantasy books in his entire life.

He actually wrote a lot more that remained unpublished during his lifetime and some of his stories are only being published now (probably due to the success of the LotR film trilogy). The Children of Hurin was a book that he wrote that was only published in 2007 and Beren and Luthian is another one that is also only getting published this year.

Also, if by four books, you referring to The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books, that's not quite correct. He actually did publish a few other (albeit less well known) books in his lifetime.

I know he published a few others, but they weren't part of the Legendarium so I used 'fantasy books' to exclude them.

And pretty much all his actual writing was published in the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and Book of Lost Tales in the years after his death. The more recent publications are essentially reissues.

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It seemed to me he was saying that Warcraft had borrowed things and concepts - Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, etc. - rather than story elements.

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The OP's post is so short that it's hard to know for sure, but his/her exact words were "it's like someone just copy and paste Peter Jackson LOTR and tweak a few things." It sounds to me like the OP thinks the mere presence of things and concepts that also appear in LOTR makes Warcraft a carbon copy of LOTR, without taking into consideration how those things are treated. I'm not sure the OP realizes just how widespread those things and concepts (orcs, magic, flying beasts, etc.) are in fantasy literature, especially if he/she mostly knows fantasy from movies and not books or video games. And the "tweak a few things" actually makes quite a large difference tonally.

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he was talking more about the basic setup of the Warcraft world as it was in the first game or two.

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I don't see any sign that the OP knows much about the first game or two, let alone has actually played them. The OP only mentions the Warcraft world as presented in the movie, which is less derivative of Tolkien than the first two games were.

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Again, the specific story elements are different - but that's not what I think the OP was getting at.

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I think the OP was ignoring the concept of story elements altogether and simply focusing on the presence of certain fantasy species and ideas.

Cough cough
NORSE MYTHOLOGY
cough cough
Dwarven smiths
Cough cough
Fine tall elves


Long before Tolkien.

No-one is saying Tolkien invented these things, just that it was the way he depicted them (making at least a few changes from the mythology) that informed most subsequent fantasy depictions.

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