I've watched it at least 5 times.
Now my initial thought was...awesome. I'm sooo ready for this expansion! Let's do it. I am going to roll a panda monk at the very beginning of the expansion, and do nothing but fight over quest objectives for the next few days. I was exhilarated. Pumped up. Fist pumping even?
Loved the music, thought the CG was smooth, was relieved the panda didn't look like Jack Black, and was in awe at the last shot that featured cherry blossoms floating over a glimpse of Pandaria.
After having "a moment", I finally decided to see what other's had to say.
And a lot of it was either confusion, or discontent.
Many of the complaints can be summed up by Klepsacovic @ Troll Racials
"In the past, the cinematics gave some sense of the enemy to fight. In the original we had the factions and the Burning Legion. Burning Crusade gave us Illidan and introduced the new races, without either stealing the spotlight entirely. Wrath of the Lich King gave us Arthas showing off his power while his father's words echoed in his head, perhaps giving us insight into the madness and evil within. Cataclysm had Deathwing blow up the world.
And now... who is the enemy? The panda?"
He points out pretty much the problem.
But let's be real. Mists of Pandaria is looking to be a far different expansion then WotLK, or Cataclysm for that matter. For one, the biggest difference is that there is no "main evil." Somehow, the Horde and Alliance, their war, and the effect of that war on Pandaria is supposed to be the evil. So what are they supposed to show in the opening cinematic.
Well, Cataclysm showed Deathwing breaking free and blowing up the world. Basically what happened before the Cataclysm. In essence, that is what the MoP cinematic is doing. The Horde and Alliance, while at war with each other, crash land on the island that ends up being Pandaria. I know this. I listened to Metzen announce it at Blizzcon 2011.
So this is what they decided to show.
Two ships fighting. Obviously Horde and Alliance, if you couldn't tell from the flags. They crash land on this island. They then begin to fight, basically trashing some really nice pandaren architecture.
A pandaren monk must've heard them because he decides to intervene.
He then basically starts owning the Horde and the Alliance at once in combat. I found it to be a pretty cool fight scene. But it does basically make us seem pathetically weak.
It also points out my biggest problem with the cinematic.
It basically shows us, Horde and Alliance, teaming up, to fight off a bigger, badder (stronger) foe. Extremely misleading. It's not even that the Pandaren seems like the evil bad guy in the cinematic (which isn't entirely true. He's more like the opposing force). It's the fact that we joined up against him.
A lot of times, people get angry because they take what they see as a grain of salt, instead of looking at the bigger picture. But even when you look at the cinematic alongside the bigger picture, you still can't help but scratch your head.
Now, in the cinematic's defense, it did showcase the new race and the new class, in it's own way. I don't really find a problem with them showcasing the pandaren, and only showing orcs and humans. Honestly, those two basically represent the Horde and Alliance, and we will be seeing to vastly different styles of leadership coming from an orc leader and a human leader.
So what should of Blizzard done?
I was kind of hoping for a Vanilla/Burning Crusade cinematic. Something a bit more montage instead of linear storyline.
With a type of story so vastly different from the last two, it just doesn't seem like the smart idea going a similar route. Both the Arthas/Lich King cinematic, raising Sindragosa, and Cataclysm's Deathwing blows up everything, were able to achieve the whole, "rawr me big bad evil coming to get you." These were great set-ups for an evil we were all planning to ban together to destroy.
But what does the cinematic for MoP offer us? It doesn't prepare us to go to war against the Alliance or Horde. It doesn't have us eager to explore the secrets of Pandaria. It doesn't hint at Garrosh's future, doesn't show the destruction of Theramore. It just shows us that hey, Pandas are cool. Monks are even cooler (and are going to be getting nerfed alllloottttt). Have at it.
PS....I still liked it. <.< September 25!
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