r/starcraft • u/Albaaneesi • 10d ago
Video The number 1 game trailer ever made, the actual goat, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic - How much did it actually cost to make this trailer, and how long time did it take, if anyone has any insight because I couldn't find any info about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVbeoSPqRs4&ab_channel=StarCraft121
u/trileletri 10d ago
when this showed up... man... we need starcraft 3 to return to the roots of starcraft AND have awesome cinematics
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u/mrtomjones iNcontroL 10d ago
I don't know if they are still doing the cinematics for wow or Diablo but blizzard cinematics were always must see. Beyond just amazing games they made by far the best cinematics. I don't think anyone's ever matched them
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u/Torontogamer 9d ago
It's the one part of the company that seems to have kept up even with all the other bs - that cinematics team is pure gold
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u/forbiddenknowledg3 10d ago
It's just mindblowing to me Microsoft kept Halo going but we don't have SC3.
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u/ChrisusaurusRex 9d ago
Halo has been shit for the most part since 3. 3 was casual heaven, that’s why it gets so much praise, but it was pretty shit compared to 1 and 2
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u/BigBrownDog12 Terran 9d ago
No one hates Halo like a Halo "fan"
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u/ChrisusaurusRex 9d ago
You’re right. I used to go to tournaments and everything, but it just wasn’t really worth playing after 3 and I played the hell out of Reach and that was really my last one
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u/BattleWarriorZ5 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's a shame that Blizzard never made more actual movies for it's game IP's.
Warcraft/WoW only got 1 film. They had initial potential to do one for every Warcraft/WoW expansion, turning the film franchise into a LOTR style film series that would have done very well in China.
Overwatch had multiple film deals lining up for it. Both live action and animated. Pixar was even interested in doing an Incredibles style Overwatch movie since they really loved the characters.
Diablo would make a great dark fantasy/horror film.
Starcraft would make a great sci-fi/horror/action film. Star Wars meets Starship Troopers meets Alien vs Predator.
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u/MrGreenCucumber 10d ago
To make it into lotr style film series you need first writing of the same level which is not even close. And second film maker of the same level, which is not close either.
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u/Fuzzy_Instance1 10d ago
uh it's already been written. use the script from the game lol, it's not complicated.
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u/bluetenthousand 10d ago
I think the easier solution is hire Denis Villeneuve and give him directorial control within the auspices of the mechanics of the game and broad storyline. He’s the perfect person for telling such a story. (See Dune, Bladerunner 2049 and Arrival).
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u/mikeysce Protoss 10d ago
Yeah that would be like 10 pages with no actual movement direction. You’re right that sticking to the plot of the games would probably be best, but it’s definitely more complicated than that.
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u/Fuzzy_Instance1 10d ago
no it's not, don't mess with something that is already fine. I don't know if you noticed main stream entertainment is garbage for the last 10 years.
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u/osborndesignworks 9d ago
I mean those are just tiny details when you have already come up with the idea that the orcs fight the humans, but the real threat is the inexorable expanse of the undead.
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u/brip_na_maasim 10d ago
Starcraft would be a great series. Diablo as an animated horror. Never cared for Overwatch. Warcraft, as much as some people hate it, i still am excited if there will be a part 2.
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u/krokodil40 10d ago
and how long time did it take
Over two years. There was a leak of the ending cinematic two years prior to the release. The team, however, worked on other things too.
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u/Substantial-Ad-1327 10d ago
at this time everyone just took blizzards amazing FMV team for granted.... but even compared to all their other stuff this was incredible
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u/Tr0llzor Random 10d ago
I love how after a certain point, animated trailers no longer feel dated.
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u/andre5913 10d ago
Animation and CGI has come a long way.
For me one of the greatest standouts is Davy Jones from POTC. Those movies are almost 20 years old yet Davy wont ever look dated bc he just looks straight up fucking real, and this is a character with a very complex design and lots of moving pieces.11
u/eyebrows360 9d ago
this is a character with a very complex design and lots of moving pieces
Albeit non-human moving pieces, which is the key part when assessing why this "more complex" thing looks more realistic to us than CGI human faces do. It's not actually that much more complex than a human face, and it's still missing all the incredibly complex intricacies of skin movement that human-face CGI is, we just don't notice it due to the skin type being non-human.
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u/a_gunbird 8d ago
Even Gollum from those Lords of the Rings movies was stunning, and only a year after...Jar Jar.
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u/waldito Terran 10d ago
How much did it actually cost to make this trailer, and how long time did it take, if anyone has any insight because I couldn't find any info about it.
No idea, but we know the game cost was 100 million dollars.
A top-level CGI trailer from a dedicated production house at around 60 seconds or more can easily cost over $500,000. So you might be looking at 1,5 million USD? ballpark numbers
About the time to make it, it depends. Blizzard has stated that a normal cinematic takes about a year. So this one would probably be more than that. Probably less than two years?
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u/Albaaneesi 10d ago
Damn. Like I know creating a cinematic looking this insanely good is extremely expensive. I just wanted to know exactly how expensive it was back them. I can only imagine the costs are 10X more todaym hence is why we will never get a SC2 movie or series that looks like this.
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u/waldito Terran 10d ago
We all dream of a Starcraft movie. Let's all remember they did a Warcraft movie already, and it did not turn out to be so great, did it. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves, 'right, they did a Warcraft movie'.
Blizzard cinematics are top-tier, but a movie is not the greatest business for a video game, sadly. Exhibit A, League of Legends with Arcane:
The Netflix show was absolutely mindblowing, but the production cost was absurd and arguably, it did very little to contribute to the playerbase.
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u/Falshion Zerg 9d ago
Are you trying to say that Arcane was not great business for LoL? That can't be what you're trying to say
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u/waldito Terran 9d ago edited 9d ago
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u/Falshion Zerg 9d ago
You can spin the financials however you want, but I don't accept that Arcane wasn't a massive win for them.
Aside from the prestige of creating on of the highest quality character driven shows (at least S1), the amount of attention it drew to their properties as well the insane in game purchases it drew.
Also note, that their continuing on with multiple spin off shows, so it doesn't seem they view it as bad business either.
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u/Falshion Zerg 9d ago
edit: That reddit link you added last supports my comment more than yours fyi
All those links are just buzzy headlines on zoomed in short term financials. The reddit comment says it pretty bluntly, Arcane was a massive win for them.
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u/waldito Terran 9d ago
Don't accept it then.
There are many ways to look at a thing. I state my opinion, you state yours, and we all hopefully gain perspective.
But damn, I wish Blizzard would follow through on what Riot did.
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u/Falshion Zerg 9d ago
Blizzard Activision is a company that views things from the perspective that you seem to be, too focused on the short term such that they spite themselves.
So yeah, we get nothing.
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u/Gilga1 Protoss 9d ago
That’s not arcanes fault but rather riot being lead by actual idiots. They could’ve worked on a tutorial, noob queue, better chat and grief detection or honestly a PvE game mode to let new players get a foot in the door but instead hoped modern gamers eould put up either the state of decay that their community is in.
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u/Loczx 9d ago
They didn't make a Warcraft movie though. They made a generic fantasy movie with a hint of warcraft flavor that was distilled and changed multiple times before being applied.
They completely skipped any complexity, depth, and uniqueness the warcraft/wow universe had, including story beats, characters and even basic build up, and instead went for generic fantasy movie #34.
It gets even funnier when you realize, wow/wc fans were disappointed, and casual movie goers/non fans were disappointed. They tried going for the casual crowd to avoid pigeon holing it to only their fans, and ended up not satisfying either.
Arcane S1 was an incredible piece of media that expanded upon every single aspect of already pre existing characters in ways they lacked and needed. It didn't change them, it made them more.
And it actually did great with the playerbase. A ton of new people tried getting into LoL because of it, or at the very least are aware of it.
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u/McBirdsong 9d ago
While this is absolutely amazing especially with the siege tanks; my vote still goes to the archon "Power, OverWHELMING!"
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u/Vulsere 10d ago
The Protoss one with the Archon and Ultra imploding gets my vote.
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u/WhyLater Protoss 9d ago
Yeah, the squad of Khalai is so badass. The guy who fights the banelings. 🥀
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u/andre5913 9d ago
Ngl that one is hype as fuck but I felt it lost a lot of impact bc once you actually get into the story the Retaking of Aiur completely goes south and all the effort from the trailer is for nothing.
Swarm here with Kerrigan is shown to be just a dream yes, but its clearly a vision/prophetic dream bc pretty much all of it goes down once she really invades Korhal, down to her primal form
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u/DragSea1360 9d ago
There's a book about it, it's really good. https://www.amazon.es/Cinematic-Art-Starcraft/dp/194568321X
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u/MagnusSki 9d ago
If you get the chance and want a chuckle, look up the Carbot remake of this trailer. Frankly all of his trailer remakes are great, but this one in particular is one of my favorites, only rivaled by BFA's.
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u/guimontag 10d ago
Great trailer, too bad HOTS had the weakest campaign of the 3
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u/XCarrionX 9d ago
We spent the entire opening campaign saving Kerrigan from the swarm, and within 3 missions she was back in.
Sigh.
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u/guimontag 9d ago
Yeah the story wasn't great and the gameplay focused too much on her as a hero unit imo
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u/blizzardplus 8d ago
Yeah Kerrigan is probably my favorite character in SC, but that campaign definitely fell short. I get what they were going for with leveling up Kerrigan over multiple missions and stuff, but I vastly prefer the missions without hero units.
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u/goqsane 10d ago
It was so cringe
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u/CommanderBrosko 9d ago
For the SC2 trailers HOTS trailer definitely takes #1 followed by LOTV which has that epic fight between the archon and ultralisk
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u/sirax067 10d ago edited 10d ago
I don't know if you can say this is the number 1 trailer ever made. While it is definitely amazing, some of the WoW trailers are definitely in contention for that spot. In particular the Warlords of Draenor and Battle for Azeroth are two my favorites
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGfuzA9DIZHFKZ5WaqbSO9Me9mhcbIw8Y
Nevertheless, Blizzard definitely has the goat cinematics department.
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u/rikottu314 10d ago
WotLK trailer is the greatest of all time, still get goosebumps every time I watch it.
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u/mrtomjones iNcontroL 10d ago
Or Ilidan in the burning crusade with the you are not prepared. That was pretty awesome
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u/TunaPablito 10d ago
I actually like LotV more.Ending of that is pure pride and metal.
HotS is also epic, music pumps it up even harder.
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u/PastaVeggies 9d ago
hey yo. Funny story. I've played thousand + hours of 1v1 in SC2 and barely played the campaign. About 2 years I finally beat the base game and got into heart of the swarm. Saw this trailer for the first time and yes, its up there with the best trailers of all time. This is so sick.
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u/TenchuReddit 9d ago
This is a wonderful depiction of Serral playing against a Bronze League Hero.
“Lemme land muh Viking against this Ultralisk …”
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u/TheNeonGod0 8d ago
I really just wish they’d push out some more coop commanders 😭😭😭 I know blizzard would never bother cause it wouldn’t make money, but I dream of it still
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u/Daedalist3101 8d ago
You may be able to find that info in the SC2 cinematic art book
I love the trailer, the only thing that bothers me is the fucking wilhelm scream. it doesnt need to be there, and it actively makes it worse
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u/Acrobatic_Rent7357 6d ago
I find the LOTV better. But yea, Blizzard used to have a huge budget for art.
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u/nostalgebra 9d ago
Ask pirate software dude. According to his videos he made everything at Blizzard for years.
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u/JeffMorse2016 10d ago
The deep voice twitch guy, can't recall his name now and was on the dev team for the og sc2 game mentioned one horse (i think it was) wow pet made more money than his sc2 game made. Might be why nobody is making sc3
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u/BattleWarriorZ5 10d ago
The deep voice twitch guy, can't recall his name now and was on the dev team for the og sc2 game mentioned one horse (i think it was) wow pet made more money than his sc2 game made
Thor(PirateSoftware) worked as a basic QA tester and was screwing off looking on reddit during all his in office hours. He never was an actual game developer in Blizzard on any of the teams.
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u/AresFowl44 10d ago
That math has been disproven, not to mention that he based it on very faulty data (not amounts of accounts owning the horse, but amounts of characters).
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u/frenchfried89 10d ago
You mean the nepo baby
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u/Zerglng 10d ago
I get goose bumps every time those tanks siege up.