'Warcraft' Movie Trailer 2 Is Here: We Already Believed The Spectacle, Where Are The Characters?

Trailer 2 for Warcraft has arrived, and while it offers loads of new footage, it still feels like spectacularly miscalculated marketing for a movie that desperately needs to convince the world it’s more than a tech demo.

Characters matter because they are the attachment points for the audience. If we are to believe a mess of CG is actually a heart-wrenching, epic narrative, it’s because we’ve been drawn into the world by identifiable and well-drawn characters.

But instead of character both of the Warcraft trailers have focused on plot, as if the brewing war between orcs and humans is something that needs endlessly explicated with unfortunate lines like “war is coming” and several variations on “we fight together or we die together.” It’s not that complicated a plot, marketing department, so why do you keep explaining it to us?

Director Duncan Jones’ previous two movies, Moon and Source Code, were both high concept sci-fi movies that never lost sight of character, so it seems likely that what’s missing from this new Warcraft trailer 2 may actually be in the movie. Watching charitably, you can catch bits of character in wry looks, smirks and even a tossed spear, indications that Warcraft does indeed evolve its character relations over the course of the movie. It’s just too bad this new trailer doesn’t draw more focus to it.

Oh, you probably actually want to watch the trailer, right? Sorry.

One especially obnoxious new step in movie marketing is the release of character posters. They’re those banal, same-samey poses, introducing us to the name and look of every single member of the ensemble. Though they’re typically terrible posters, the logic is clear: in an age of special effects extravaganzas, we need characters to attach ourselves.

Character posters for Warcraft have already arrived (though it’s baffling that there are no names on them). It’s just too bad the character poster lesson wasn’t applied a little more to Warcraft trailer 2.

Though each new trailer for Warcraft makes it look more and more like a dispiriting special effects slog, the talent involved still leaves room for optimism as that June 10 release date draws nearer.