
A movie poster can influence your first impressions of a movie. The movie poster for “Warcraft: the Beginning,” is a very in depth multi-colored poster. It shows many different characters and has drastic changes in character sizes. There are a lot of hidden secrets in the art itself the on World of Warcraft players would know about. This movie poster is directed towards a specific audience. It also shows the stereotypical good vs. evil color scheme.

Just by looking at the characters and the artwork, you can tell that this movie is geared to a very specific audience. It is geared mostly towards players and fans of the well known game series “World of Warcraft.”  Since the movie is based off of “Warcraft: Orcs & Humans,” aka “warcraft 1,” there are not many different races incorporated with the movie. The artist uses the two main races and two classes that are apparent in the game and incorporates them into the main characters and support characters to show that everyone has banded together on either world to prepare for the oncoming war. The use of this idea is key for representing that the war will be a multi-world war.

The way the artist splits the poster in half with a sword represents that it will be an action and adventure movie. The sword represents adventure because in popular movies such as “The Hobbit,” the main characters go on an adventure and their swords almost always play a key part in many of the battles. The subtle writing at the bottom of the poster, “Two Worlds. One Destiny” also supports that it will be action because it resembles that there are two different sides that want the same thing. Just like in the movie, “300,” if there are two sides that want the same thing for different reasons, they will break out into an all out war to try and obtain it. He also uses fictional characters such as orcs and mages which represents that this movie also falls under the fantasy category.

The thousands of soldiers with no distinguishable features on both sides fighting at the bottom of the poster represents there will be a number of countless deaths and major battles that will break out during the movie. there is a subtle but very distinctive shadow of a dragon which could very well mean that there will be a dragon in a future movie or time plot. The dragon is out of place since there are no dragons in the first Warcraft game. The hammer that Orgim is holding is called “Doomhammer” and it is weapon that becomes very famous later in the game timeline. Showing these few things that become prominent later in the game series shows that the artist is foreshadowing that there could possibly be another movie coming out at a later time. Also, the movie is called “Warcraft: the Beginning,” which indicates that it is the beginning of a series.  

The artists’ use of color gives the viewer the dramatic effect of good and evil with the use of the colors blue and red. This idea has been prominent in many pieces of art such as the batman vs superman movie poster and the Harry Potter 7 pt. 2 poster. The blue side of the poster shows humans and overall better looking characters which gives you a connection and makes you feel sentimental towards them. Whereas the red side shows ugly orcs and the human that doesn’t agree with the main blue character. As a human being, you are unknowingly leaning towards the side of the other humans and away from the orcs. As any WoW player should know, Garona is a half orc and there for should look less mixed and greener in skin tone. Although, the artist could have deliberately done this so viewers could create a bond with her more easily. 

The artist very clearly distinguishes the main characters from the supporting characters by just changing the sheer size of their bodies and heads. You can tell just by looking at it that the two top people will be the most vital characters to the movies. Then there are the five smaller characters which you can assume to be the supporting characters. Then there is the whole army that in this case is just background and filler.

 Movie posters can influence your view on a certain movie. By understanding what a movie poster is trying to show you, you can truly understand what the movie will be about. Whether it is the color scheme, detail of the different characters, secrets in the poster itself, or even the fore shadowing of a different time, the poster the artist created is a key piece to the way you perceive a movie.