I know that corporations and celebs these days don’t like critique. Skins seem to be a lot thinner. Any critique gets dismissed as trolling, and they set their fan base on to those comments that they don’t like. It’s a form of bullying. Say something I don’t like and I’ll unleash my fan base on you.

With that in mind let’s upset WotC and the millions and millions of fans that have watched the trailer for the next MtG set War of the Spark that was released at the weekend.

Before I have my say go have a watch of the trailer.

The reaction by fans was mental to this. Apparently people had tears, goose bumps, orgasms (ok I’m making that bit up but I bet some-one has claimed it), felt emotionally drained and many other over reactions.

Me, being a cynical old person who is hard to please simple said “meh”.

I have to give WotC credit where credit is due. Compared to the usual trailer/teaser they put out. WotC have really pushed the boat out on this one. And they should be applauded for that.

I’m not a fan of cover versions of songs. Very rarely do they work for me. I can name a couple of covers that improve on the original. As I write this post the only one that really springs to mind is the man in black himself Johnny Cash with the Nine Inch Nails cover Hurt.

A lot of the time a cover manages to remove the heart and soul of the song, add nothing, and make me rage. Sheryl Crows cover of Sweet Child ‘O Mine is one such example. As are some of the blue grass covers of the same song.

Which brings me to the cover of Linkin Parks In the End used in this trailer. OMG it’s awful. The saving grace part of the cover for me is that the singer seems to have some depth to their voice, and imparts some feeling. But I’m not a fan of the slowing the pace of the song down.

It’s obvious the director of this trailer thought it added an emotional depth. But in reality it doesn’t and is trying to use a lazy trope to try and manipulate an emotional reaction. Which to be fair, from the reaction of the majority it worked.

For me the animation and this is a problem with the majority of animation these days is that character animation doesn’t look natural, particularly Liliana. It’s something about modern techniques using 3D models that they are not able to capture facial emotions properly, and the stilted movement, I’ve been watching the new Ultraman cartoon on Netflix and it has the same issues. The rendering and the realistic look of this trailer. Can’t fault it. Looks pretty. But somewhere down the line this form of animation whilst looking amazing lost something.

The structure of the trailer story wise. Another over used cliche. Start at the end, rewind a bit and play through at normal speed. It begs the question what came first the song cover or the story structure. Which was made to fit the other? Would it have had more impact with a shock ending instead of giving it away at the start?

Overall I felt that this trailer was nothing more than a glorified video game cut scene. It wouldn’t look out of place in a video game. All credit to WotC they have upped their game. But…

What did you think?