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Moving ahead if you decide to do the other 3 expansions. You ne ed to find some of the in game store because a majority of information is done with the pre mission conversation and the end of mission cutscene. This would help your experience alot
The guy that died" (41:14) in the cinematic, the identification tag read: "M. Koiter", for Michel Koiter (3 May 1984 - 18 March 2004), a Blizzard artist who died from heart failure at the age of 19.
I recognised the dog tag, but forgot what name was on there with the collectors edition item. Still knew where it was after all these years and it has the name James Raynor on it. The USB itself contained the original Starcraft and the Broodwar expansion.
the relevance to the story has nothing to do with the name however, just has to do with the fact that this "nameless" soldier, was from the Mar-Sara company, where it all started, the revolution the first game, etc. and to Jimmy raynor the revolution leader who cares about the people, recognising and respecting the fact that his soldiers are men he cares about, as they respect the burden they chose to bear, no matter the outcome emboldening the fire of his resolve to end this matter once and for all.
You didn't expect Tychus to be a comic relief character, well tere is a mission featuring him piloting a giant battle mech with his radio on transmit only... "Holy... the dominion's engeneer really thought of everything ... ... ... *fluuuush*" "HooOOOooh, little skull button... How did I not notice you earlier ? *nuclear launch detected*"
"Well, now that that's done with, I'm gonna take me a little break. Good thing I brought me some liquid refreshments... *sound of a beer can being cracked open*"
He is comic relief in general; even in more serious scenes (like him discussing Kerrigan with Matt) he is cracking jokes. But what I like about their character is that he isn't just the but of every joke, and rather a clever individual who is just less serious in his expressions.
Somehow I feel “might as well watch the entire game movie”. While the in-game scenes are not cinematic, it does go through the story and characters, so you can appreciate the cutscenes even more.
Unfortunately, a lot of the story is also told during gameplay, so some context gets lost. Though thats far too long for this format. Some interesting tidbits: - Tychus is actually sealed inside his marine armor, which doesn't happen normally if ever to someone who actually uses marine power armor. And they discover there's an explosive in there, should he betray someone(they never find out who, until its revealed in that final cinematic) he could be blown up at any time,. So Tychus can't back out, even if he wants to. - The custscene of kerrigan getting left on the planet is actually a mission you play in Starcraft 1. So its less of a dream as the cinematic describes and more of a flashback. Though obivously raynor woudln't be seeing what we saw. These scene also completely replicates the original mission's dialogue. That cutscene shows the cinematic of you "winning" that mission. As she's left to die. This is also when the Zerg take her and transform her into the Queen of Blades. This is also the moment referenced in the news cinematic of mengsk dealing with reporters. As he used a beacon to lure the zerg to that planet to kill off the previous regime. - Dominion are the red armored enemies. And your soldiers in the campaign are all colored Blue, which is part of the significance of Raynor finding the dead blue marine. One of his soldiers, who gave their life for the cause.
One thing that is lost by not having context of who the characters are from the first game, too, is the fight between Kerrigan and Zeratul. Zeratul uses warp blades, a tech specifically used by the protoss of Shakuras, where injuries caused by warp blades CANNOT be regenerated by the zerg. Kerrigan regenerates from having her wing cut off by a warp blade. She is a new evolution of zerg... the Shakuran protoss lost their only edge over their ancient enemy...
@@sintanan469 Im not 100% certain on this but I dont think this is the case. I think If im not mistaken it was less about the weapon and more having to do with the DT energies they channeled into the Cerebrates, it was more the ability to disrupt and destroy the mind though a mental connection, this is how they were able to get a glimps into what the Overmind was planing was though the severed connection between the Cerebrates and the Overmind. The look on Kerrigan's face I think was looking more at the angle of which her wing was cut and how close it actually came to taking her head.
the funny thing in the SC1 mission. if allowed I could have won it. i figured they would mass assault me so had tons of bunkers and tanks in seige mode. it was still holdign when the mission ends
quick rundown: - The 'bug aliens' are the Zerg. In the first game, they captured Kerrigan and turned her into the Queen of Blades because she is a MASSIVELY powerful psychic. - However, they only had the chance to catch her because Arcturus Mengsk betrayed her, which resulted in Raynor ditching him and making a band of rebels. - Kerrigan, as The Queen of Blades, killed billions of humans in a vicious war that she instigated for the most part. - Mengsk has hidden that he's been a pragmatic and cruel despot behind shiny lies for the entirety of his reign; his own son, the crown prince that we meet, had actually been hidden by his mother, only for Mengsk to basically kidnap his own son and force him into being the crown prince, when all Valerian wanted to do was go be an archeologist. - Tychus is from James Raynor's backstory; when Raynor had been a teenager, he'd been a homeless criminal, robbing trains and other such activities to make ends meet. His best friend was Tychus Findley. One day, the job the two had taken turned out to be a setup, and Tychus was caught, and he willingly took the blame for both of them, and James got his chance to move on, at Tychus' request before getting arrested. Afterwards, James became the legitimate Marshal of the colony of Mar Sara, something he could feel genuinely proud of. - Matt Horner (the admiral that keeps calling Tychus 'Convict') doesn't trust Tychus because he remembers all the stories James has told him about what he and Tychus used to get up to together. - Mengsk let Tychus out of prison, but the suit he was put into is set to kill him if he disobeys any orders from Arcturus Mengsk. He was given a mission - kill Kerrigan after Raynor strips away her Zerg-ness with the artifact they're hunting for. At the last scene, Tychus tells Raynor that he "made a deal with the devil" as a code phrase to let Raynor know what the situation was. He knew this would give Raynor the head's-up he needed to choose to either let Tychus kill Kerrigan, or to kill Tychus himself and save the man from a lifetime as Mengsk's attack dog, as he knew Mengsk would never let him free just because he'd done what he was told. - Zeratul is a Protoss, and in exile due to some events from the first game, wherein he had to mercy kill the leader of his home nation because she was being forcibly puppeted by a zerg orgnaism that was eating her alive. However, the other Protoss hadn't known about the parasite, and so blamed Zeratul for killing her. He has been a good, steadfast friend to James Raynor since they met, and has long been an advocate for peace and peaceable relations even between the different species if possible.
A really interesting angle I always thought of when it came to wings of liberty was the way a lot of it felt like a western. All the characters have southern accents, the music is all guitar-y and twangy, and I thought it was a great observation to say it was like Star Wars in that it's all futuristic but also old looking, and it creates an interesting aesthetic. I think you will have a great time watching the story unfold over Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void.
Just a little pointer with the one terran marine in blue armor, Koiter. You noticed that wasnt Tychus, but neatly enough that wasnt a Dominion marine either. That was, in fact, a marine under the banner of Raynor's Raiders, straight up one of the people under Jim's command. The Dominion's forces have a red coloring, whereas as the Raiders always have a blue to them
I think there's an interesting point to be made with that cinematic, that by the end of the day, they're all terrans. People who would have been fighting each other another day, united under a banner to save humanity. Fighting and dying side by side.
Got a reality check when you said "I remember that's an old game", it's being so many years since I bought dvd of it, time flies 😢 I remember watching you reacting to opening cinematics, Glad you decided to dive deeper, can't wait for the next parts.
The two cutscenes with the black guy who turns red and goes invisible are alternates. Tosh (the black guy) is set up to be hard to trust and very shady. He's a "Spectre", which is like a psychic soldier who was forced to go through some horrible training and stuff to become essentially government assassins, but the defining thing about the Spectres as they make clear is that they kinda all went insane and have psychopathic tendencies. That's why he has all this voodoo stuff. The Spectres were deemed too unstable and the government just threw them all in maximum security prison so they couldn't be a threat, with Tosh being one of a few to escape. Nova (the blonde girl) is very direct and honest. She's a "Ghost", which is the standard psychic soldier like Kerrigan was. She is also a *currently* serving assassin/spec ops for the government. So then the choice: Tosh approaches you to prison break all the inmates of the government's max security prison, so he can get the other Spectres out. Nova approaches you saying that most of the prisoners are legit baddies and not just political prisoners, points out the Spectres are all psychopathic murderers, and points out that letting everyone in the maximum security prison free would probably have some adverse effects on public safety. So she proposes that you work together. If you denied Tosh he'd become a dangerous enemy anyways, so she'll work with you to kill him on the promise she then leaves you alone for a while. Basically, "enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend". The prison break scene is if you side with Tosh, him being assassinated is you siding with Nova. Important note: siding with Tosh is canon. You can walk around your ship and talk with people between missions, and Tosh has a good number of and some of the best conversations. It becomes pretty clear that he's far more jaded than he is untrustworthy and is an all around bro. Then he's confirmed the canon choice in Heart of the Swarm, because he's noted as trying to save Jim during that game. This is one of two times in the campaign where you can chose to side with either side of a preexisting conflict. The other one didn't seem to have a cutscene here, but that one isn't really that important to the story anyways.
Honestly, I'm not sure why they included two of those cinematics from "choice" missions but cut out the whole Dr. Hansen plotline/choice mission cinematics from this.
@@falsnamae3511 that interesting, i didnt have tosh before doing her missions and was left with different impression. probably will replay campaign in opposite order someday
@@falsnamae3511 Even when you put it that way, the comparison between her and Kerrigan is almost a little more unfair for Kerrigan. As technically she had her mind altered when she murdered all those people, it wasn't her original self anymore (Even before the whole bit of it being Amon's influence, she behaved like a different person entirely after becoming the Queen of Blades)
@@falsnamae3511 Where are you getting that info? I'm fairly sure it's not in game, the most that is in game is Tosh's offhanded comment about somehing is off about Hanson (he did *not* factually accuse her, only voiced a suspecion).
@@falsnamae3511 I haven't played WoL in a long time, but I did play it a lot. I am confident that there was no mention of Dr. Hansen being at fault for anything that happened to her people. They were attacked, because that's what Zerg do. They tried to settle down somewhere, the Zerg virus happened - and Dr. Hansen was utterly clueless as to what that was. After escaping from there some people were still infected and she tried to cure them. The only potential deception was her being quiet about being infected herself - which may not even be true, she may have exposed herself to the virus after the chat with Selendis. And throughout the entire game she says nothing that would incriminate her - I delayed finishing her quest right up until Char, just to hear what she had to say about the other missions.
That final scene between Tychus and Jim will always stick as very intense for several factors to me. While Tychus did betray him, he intentionally gave Raynor just about enough time for him to react. "I made a deal with the devil, Jimmy. She dies, I go free". Such a short sentence and told Raynor absolutetly eveything he needed to know and do something, and that something was not just saving Kerrigan, but also freeing his lifelong friend from being in a cage. Starcraft II had some master framing and storytelling, man. It ain't nothing revolutionary, but it's so well done. Starcraft always had some grade A storytelling with some stellar (hehe) cast of characters.
the whole way through tychus was always on raynors side, sure he was a bit conflicted at times but in the end he always pulled through. He intentionally faked being drunk to act as a foil and punching bag for the crew so that they would put their faith in jimmity.
Starcraft is one of my all time favorite games, the story is just so rich, and spans over both the first game and its expansion, and all three parts of the second game, couple of points, the video with the press conference the audio the woman plays on her recorder, is actually from the first game before Mengsk became Emperor. Second, the music that plays in the background in the cantine on the ship, actually really sounds like the music from Firefly (my fav tv show btw ☺️). The redhead girl in the picture (Kerrigan), and the one we saw in the cinematic where they left her behind, was Mengsks right hand that he betrayed, and she was then turned into the queen of blades by the Zerg. That said, i still love how attentive you are, catching details and understanding the story most would not without actually playing the game. As always, absolutely looooooove your videoes, so looking forward to more starcraft ❤️
Hello trouble! Thank you for the information. I've learnt a lot in the last 12 hours of this video being out. This is part 1 of this video series so expect the others. I did say to you in the past that I'd cover these, just took me a while. Thank you so much for returning and thank you for hanging out with me.
@@kaizammit trouble huh 😜 and yes i remember you saying you would revisit SC2, and i’ve been waiting eagerly for it ☺️ it is a great story, and you really should watch the videos that also have the cutscenes to get the full story, but of course those are like two and a half hours each so yeah. Also, not exactly back, since i never really left, but i did tell you i only speak up when i have something to say 😉
I cannot stress enough how much it means to me that you're checking out the first chapter of this amazing story. I can only recommend the other two expansions' stories as well, they are masterfully written and build on each other so much!
Cannot wait for Legacy of the void. Some beautiful character dynamics shown using camera angle to contradict the known order. I'm also anticipating your progress through the halo franchise too. Reach and ODST have some beautiful cinema in them.
@@kaizammit the ODST in game cinematics follow a somewhat odd pairing of 2 seperate timelines slowly converging. One of the 2 has near to no dialogue, so it stands only on ambiance and visual display. And as is with much of halo, using helmet acting to mimic facial acting. Good stuff, though ODST flys under many peoples radar, mostly due to the fame of it's soundtrack.
Or Fenix, for that matter. The starcraft supporting cast generally get more leeway for stronger mono-esque personalities, which lead to such great clashes of words.
I'm pleased to see that the core of the story was still communicated and appreciated. There are a lot of details and context in played missions that you miss with just watching cutscenes. I.e. the dead blue marine (in the story itself, it is also a tribute out of universe) is "just" one of Raynor's crew. Raynor's faction are outfitted in blue armor while dominion is red, and this detail is kept through the cutscenes. Its a detail that identifies "who" at an immediate instinctive level for anyone who played through the past several hours of the story. There are a lot of major narrative details that can go right over your head without the actual gameplay, but Blizzard did a remarkable job communicating a compelling story even without this context.
When you get to Legacy of the Void make sure you Watch the reclamation, it wasn't added in game so it gets missed in compilations, but it is one of my favorite cutscenes for that expansion. It would be placed before the opening cinematic in the order to watch, but after the prologue cutscenes.
Glad you enjoyed it. The story is a little trickier to follow just on the cinematics alone, as they are really designed to dovetail with the story delivered during gameplay, but it still manages to somewhat stick the landing. Definitely keen to watch you do the same with Heart of the Swarm and then Legacy of the Void. Blizzard back then was really at their peak, and the cinematics were pretty much unparalleled.
14-ish years later, and that first trailer still blows me away. So much anticipation after the 12-year wait from Broodwar summed up into a single line: "hell, its about time". "Reclaimation" from Legacy of the Void is my personal favourite, and "Vengeance" from Heart of the Swarm is fantastic, but "The Deal" will always have a place in my heart.
What's most fun about Valerian, is that he isn't a villain. He just talks like one, because he always tried to please and imitate his father, until he realized he has to be better than him.
I must say, Zammit never do a boring pause with a long prolong explanation, he just explain it right now on a go - great mind don't need much time - love it!
I have followed and played Starcraft for well over 20 years, its just great to see its epicness appreciated by so many. I do highly recommend watching the entire series throughout, the story is fun and energetic, however, when you are done with the Starcraft universe cinematics, there are pleeenty more Star Wars cinematics to plow through, and of course the Warframe cinematic.. oh god.. :) Love your vids!
I cant even summarize the amount of happiness that I get from watching people even after all these years seeing my favourite game, checking it out for the first time and maybe even falling in love with it Its amazing what blizzard delivered to us back then and I think the thing that shows this the most is even after +10 years, we can watch you see these cutscenes/cinematics for the first time without even having any idea about the story of the game and you can clearly tell who's who- whats going on, how it all develops during the game And I can promise this feeling only gets better when you actually boot it up (wings of liberty is free by the way ^^) and beat it for yourself Because then, especially the final cutscenes will be that much more epic and rewarding I can't wait to see you reacting to HoTS since I mainly play zerg in the game so I might be ever so slightly biased towards that campaign And I must not forget to mention that you actually taught me a lot within these reaction videos, and I got to appreciate filmmaking or notice little details that I had no Idea were there, even tho I felt their effects on how I would come to interpret their meanings :3
Watching this for the first time - I never played the second game - and there’s a lovely touch in here at 24:19. The choral “aah”s that come in there are singing The Naval Hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” - specifically what feels like the 3rd and 4th lines of the 6-line verse, which has lyrics like “And bid its angry tumult cease, and give, for wild confusion, peace,” followed by a musically unresolved “Amen.” Appropriate when dealing with a space navy of sorts, and poignant for Jim Raynor’s observation that the positive result of the fight “isn’t for the likes of us.”
Starcraft 2 & it's 2 expansions are in my top 3 games of all time. The world building, the characters, the music. This is the blizzard I love and is a game very close to my heart as it got me through a bad time and acted as an escape. Its also one of the very few media things to bring a tear to my eyes. The others the ending of blackadder goes forth, certain parts of Mass Effect 3 and How to train your Dragon 2 and 3 Also I got to work on it as a beta tester, which was a joy. There is actually a lot more cinematics for wings but they are for the branching missions. The dog tag for the dead marine is for Michel Koiter (3 May 1984 - 18 March 2004), a Blizzard artist who died from heart failure at the age of 19. To young a age. I really hope you watch the the heart of the swarm and legacy of the void cinematics as they improve in quality for each game. Also they have a couple of famous voices in them. See if you recognize who plays Kerrigan.
As a long time fan of the StarCraft series, and now as a filmmaker, this video has been a treat for me to see someone with an outside perspective give such insightful thoughts.
Absolutely love that you're reacting to all of the in-game cinematics/cutscenes too! Always love hearing the impact small details can have, which your average person playing the game (like me) isn't fully aware of! Looking forward to seeing more!
@@kaizammit I liked this just as much as the more in-depth ones. Little things like the noire feel of the lighting near the beginning and the angle of the shots add some flavor to the watch-along.
Great part about the In engine cinematics is that they were LOCALIZED. For instance at 29:48 the grenade would have the message in the laguage you are playing the game in and I think that's great job there
The Confederacy home planet was Tarsonis (where Kerrigan was left behind) and wore white armour (as Warfield does, before turning to the Dominion). The Dominion home planet is Korhal and they wear red armour (as some of the marines that come with Valerian's forces). Raynor's home planet is Mar Sara (where he is drinking in the first clip) and his raiders wear blue armour (as Tychus and M. Koiter). Raynor himself wore green armour in the first game, but has his black armour in the second game. This is both to stand out from the rest of the army and to just look badass. The first game follows Raynor joining up with Mengsk to overthrow the confederacy, but Mengsk has no interest in sharing the leadership, so leaves Kerrigan on the surface to get rid of both her and Raynor. It then goes through Kerrigan's transformation and rise to power, and her destroying the Protoss homeworld of Aiur.
The cinematics with Tosh and Nova killing Tosh is part of a branch of the campaign. You either join up with Tosh or Nova and either cinematic is the reward. Also the dead marine armour in blue just symbolises the troops Raynor fights with, the Mar Sara revolutionaries, while the red are the Confederate troops of Mengsk and thus junior/prince Valerians troops. Oh, and the suit of armour that Tychus is in, it is his actual prison, a cell with a death switch in it.
Always felt like the cinematic with zeratul vs kerrigan when he goes invisible into black smoke is the coolest fucking thing ever. Always how I imagined stealth looking in games like World of Warcraft vanish.
To answer a couple questions. Raynor used to be a Marshal for the Confederacy, which was the ruling government power. Mengsk used to be what Raynor is in SC2, just a rebel with an army, the main difference is he wanted to rule the sector of space that these humans preside in (earth and the Kopruru (sp?) sector are a ways away from eachother) using media and information to "win" over the people. Anyway Mengsk saves Raynor when Raynor's original planet got attacked by the zerg and then the Protoss shortly after. He then joins Mengsks rag tag group (Sons of Korhal I think they were called) and runs missions, getting close to Kerrigan and what not until we see what happens at New Gettysburg. He ends up leaving with one of the Battlecruisers and crew of people who want nothing to do with Mengsk after he used and abandoned Kerrigan (the planet as well) when he got her to activate a Psi-Emitter that attracts zerg. Matt Horner (spiffy guy who is always giving Raynor shit until he is a leader again) is like the "1st mate" of the ship and does all the logistical stuff Raynor doesn't want to deal with. He respects Raynor very much and wants nothing but the best for him in the end. Kind of like Raynor's "good" conscience that won't leave him alone. Before Raynor was a Marshal he used to run in a gang called the Heaven's Devils, Tychus was one of the big players in the gang with him. I think he ended up selling Tychus out because Tychus did something he didn't agree with. The Xel'naga artifact is something you spend the game collecting parts of in order to "Kill" the Queen of Blades/Save Kerrigan from the zerg.
Actually Tychus was the one who sold himself out to save the rest of the crew. It is why he has no beef with Raynor until the very end, he would rather have kept fighting the good fight alongside Raynor but when the devil says pull the trigger he has no choice.
This was just a treat to watch and I really hope you watch Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void sometime soon. Love hearing your thoughts about the cinematics too. Also I think it'd be great to see you play through the campaigns since starcraft is free and you get the first campaign- Wings of Liberty -for free with it.
I imagine it's really confusing to see the alternate cutscenes based on campaign choices, since they contradict eachother. Still a shame they didn't do more with Tosh, I love him.
Its really great to see someone else drawn into the franchise - well, the story, anywho - and great reaction as always, I do love hearing someone who actually knows something talking about the cinematography! Since we're in Sci Fi, I'd request the Mass Effect cinematics - both trailers and cutscenes. Trilogy mostly, since the 4th part had a lot of development issues with the cinematography suffering from it :/
So as some quick backing/lore. In the first game, mankind has essentially developed and expanded out. In the process, we've got some humans, special soldiers with psychic abilities in addition to plain regular soldiers. Jim was a sheriff of a small town assisting in the first game and got caught up in the fight against the Zerg. In the process, Kerrigan (who is a special, psychic ability soldier) 'died' only to be 'revived' as the Queen of Blades due to her psychic abilities. You go through the second game as Jim, essentially starting to gather a crew and eventually end up with the artifact in a deal to try and save her near the end, thus 'purifying' her and turning her human again. Some scenes seem disjointed because you miss sections of in-game stuff, like Tosh who was the voodoo assassin who you temporarily aligned with and had to choose either his mission or Nova's, and if you choose Nova's, you get the scene you saw of Tosh threatening you and Nova assassinating him for you. As a backer on the whole friendly alien, it's a race called the Protoss, an advanced race older than mankind, who are almost entirely psychic and have a sort of connection to one another. Zeratul was a big part of the first game and helped to essentially align Protoss and Humans (sometimes, sometimes not) against the Zerg.
To add to this, the original lore of SC1 had humanity develop rudimentary psychic powers on Earth thanks to designer drugs. As part of a way to handle overpopulation and to create stability after a world-spanning unifying war, the unified Earth government bundled up everyone that was a convinct, a major drug addict, a psychic, and everyone else deemed "unworthy" or a "threat to stability" and ship them to the Koprulu Sector on three massive cold sleep starships. The original plan of the Earth government was to send these unwanted off to be useful in establishing a new human colony among the stars and by the time humanity had the faster-than-light technology to become a true stellar civilization then they can reclaim the new wayward colony for a jumpstart on controlling the galaxy. This lore was altered slightly between SC1 and SC2 as sensibilities changed because to turns out having a story about your ruling government discarding unwanted people was a taboo subject at the time of SC2's release due to world news and politics.
9:11 - Yep, the Mutalisks are Zerg units that correspond quite well with Tyranid Gargoyles or Harpies (gargoyles for function, harpies for aesthetics)*
A note about Jim Raynor that you wanted but didn't happen is the flask. His story didn't end so it never needed to happen. The second and third games' set of cinematics show he changes even more (for better or for worse) despite it not being about him anymore and acts as his final growing moments. You've seen both of them and know how he begins and how he ends. He never has a 'say no to the flask' moment but he does have a moment of turning that acts like it which is nice.
I remember being so blown away when i saw the first cinematic. I also recall learning that it was too complex for Blizzard's in-house renderer to handle so they had to switch to the same renderer that Pixar used.
As a long time follower of the Starcraft Universe I am so glad to see this on your channel, hard to find people in youtube that take the time to try understanding and immersing as you do, new subscriber and hope to see the incoming videos, also love the League of Legends ones too. 🥰
I try not to go into gameplay due to it not really interesting me. I am invested when playing a game of course but with these, I just enjoy the cinematics and the task of piecing it all together from biscuit crumbs that I've picked up from watching. It's a great way to keep my brain creative even though it's only watching.
There is a lot bits and pieces going on during gameplay that explains the story and also there are few crossroads in sidestory caracters like the Spectre guy Tosh which you can chose during gameplay.
Tosh, the guy with dreadlocks and the butterfly knife, has two cutscenes. Depending on the choice you make in the story, you either get the one where he and Matt argue over freedom vs revenge or the one where Nova stabs him.
Speaking of Westerns, Jim Raynor carries one bullet in his magnum for one enemy like one of Clint Eastwood characters in Sergio Leone movies. And can't have a Western without a bar fight, right 😂
Char (the planet on the last 3 cinematics) is a lava planet with not a lot of water and some people say that it doesn't make any sense that it rains there, but there is also a theory out there saying that the rain is from all the dead soldiers (blood).
I am pretty sure someone on the dev team was a fan of the TV show Firefly. Because that music for the barfight cutscene was from a barfight scene in Firefly.
Kerrigan is shocked after her wing got cut off more likely from the fact that Zeratul could have taken her head off, but didn't. As he said in the earlier cutscene with Jim, they need her.
In that scene, Zeratul didn't know that either and was legitimately trying to kill her. He just came up short of the mark. He doesn't find out about the specifics of the prophecy until the mission after the one that cutscene opens.
@@Draeckon Is that how it went? I've not played the wings of liberty campaign in 14 years so I kinda forgot. Doesn't really change my point about Kerrigan being stunned about how close to dying she came though. Zeratul had her dead to rights. Six inches lower and she would have been six feet under.
In SC1 you played the Terran part of that skirmish in New Gettysburgh, stalling both Protoss and Zerg until they finally overran your outpost with Kerrigan left behind.
@@kaizammit There's something magical about watching reactions to your favorite storytelling. Thank you for doing these videos, it's very satisfying, especailly since you have the background to appreciate these scenes.
Tychos was a prisoner the whole time. The manual of the first game explains that for prisoner draftees their suit is their prison. Including the option to execute them as needed.
Gread reaction video! Looking up to Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void (and Nova Covert Ops, mayba? many people forget about that one and it's good as well)
so the cutsene where they talk about braking people out of prision and you meet tosh is a choice path whare you work with tosh the next one you work with nova who claims specters ( elite sheath sniper teams ) are mentily ill cause of the drug enhancements that they have taken
( 23:00 ) The arguement between Tosh, Jim, and Matt: "youll see that future, but it aint going to be from the likes of us..." as he turns back to tosh. In Jim's statement, he reflects that those who take power will more than likely require the ambitions of a leader who'se mind isnt clouded by vengeance. Despite their motivations, both revenge and change require the elimination of Emperor Mengsk.
The amazing part is that no matter how much time it passes it's always fun to rewatch There is a bit of nuance left as there is lore integrated into the gameplay but people were hyped about those scenes and in part is what inspired the Warcraft movie. If it hadn't flop, it may have become the Blizzard Cinematic Universe, advancing gaming movies a full decade before its time
Now you need to do the other two episodes. Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. you could watch a Starcraft 1 recap video on your own time, so that you know the history of what happened. Since SC1 used very little cinematics, and they were of like 1998 quality. But there is a lot of context that helps you understand the how and the why most of this is going on.
I know and because you did, I popped in on the list. I've been wanting to make it for a long time. Part 2 coming sooner rather than later. Thank you for being here fella!! KZ
Just a quick bit of story because I know you were questioning it for awhile, granted I'm only about 25 minutes in so maybe you learned it all by the end, but in short Mengsk used to be a rebel himself, he overthrew the old government and set up his Dominion. He doesn't rule over all humans, there are other nations, but The Dominion is the biggest. He didn't do this for freedom or anything like that, in one of the in-game cutscenes, there's an old recording of him that says "I will rule this sector, or see it burn to ashes around me." Along the way, he'd betray several people, including Kerrigan, the red-haired soldier who is captured by the Zerg and turned into the Queen of Blades. Jim Raynor loved her, and leaves his forces shortly after, forming his own rebellion against Mengsk's rule, Raynor's Raiders. Wings of Liberty follows Jim and his soldiers as they fight against the Dominion, and the resurgent Zerg invasion under the Queen of Blades. It ends with Mengsk's rule being de-stabilized and working with Mengsk's son and a majority of the Dominion military to use an alien device to try and 'cleanse' Kerrigan of the Zerg taint after landing on the Zerg homeworld of Char, breaking the Zerg swarm in the process, as their all a psychic hivemind and Kerrigan was the center of it.
Mengsk, the villain was from Starcraft 1.Mengsk led a group called the Sons of Korhal and recruited a bunch of smaller factions like Jim Raynor under one banner and was pivotal in the betrayal of Kerrigan. After they routed out the Zerg, Protoss, and other Terran factions in the sector, Mengsk took control of the sector, forming the Dominion. As for 29:30 ish, his suit is his jail cell.
Cant wait for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. Starcraft is one of my all time favorite franchise and its always great to see people discover it. Also as a few other mentioned the last 2 cinematics with Tosh (the prison break and the one he gets killed) are the 2 endings to his questline, the latter expansions dont rly have those but in heart of the swarm there are some slight changes depending on the order you do certain questlines in.
Oh right, interesting. Thanks for letting me know. Heart of the swarm will be coming soon, I have broken down the 3 main cinematics which you can find on the channel. KZ
One thing that gripped me when Starcraft 2 wings of Liberty came out was the first time. when they showed the intro before the game came out. they had it without voice over. it was just the background ambiance and the music, which was very powerful in my opinion. I still see that version as being the superior intro, don't get me wrong the voice over was good but when they announced Starcraft 2 was coming back in the day... that is what gripped me far more, because music tends to give it a stronger introduction than with having a voice over. The original intro introduced as a teaser was 14 years ago... Here's a link ua-cam.com/video/rnSlg-I03oQ/v-deo.html&ab_channel=BlizzardEntertainment I found the original I'm curious to know what you think between the two.. you'll see what I mean. in any case you're doing a great job and I love what you're doing keep up the great work.
I recommend a ton checking the original game and its expansion cinematics, they are older, but they are top tier with the resources they had in those years. Specially the broodwar intro cinematic. Another nice one is "Battle on the amerigo".
if you look up starcraft moives its a set of compilations that take all off the cinimatics the between mission interactions and some ingame cinimatics to give you the full story it would of give you a better introduction to some of the carictors like the Vodo guy (sorry pulling blank on his name
🟧If you have a suggestion or a piece of content with an amazing story, please let me know, I would love to see it!
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Moving ahead if you decide to do the other 3 expansions. You ne ed to find some of the in game store because a majority of information is done with the pre mission conversation and the end of mission cutscene. This would help your experience alot
Now you HAVE to watch the original starcraft cinematics!
Watch astartes
The guy that died" (41:14) in the cinematic, the identification tag read: "M. Koiter", for Michel Koiter (3 May 1984 - 18 March 2004), a Blizzard artist who died from heart failure at the age of 19.
I believe the collectors edition of the game came with a replica M. Koiter dog tag that was also a small external drive.
I recognised the dog tag, but forgot what name was on there with the collectors edition item. Still knew where it was after all these years and it has the name James Raynor on it. The USB itself contained the original Starcraft and the Broodwar expansion.
the relevance to the story has nothing to do with the name however, just has to do with the fact that this "nameless" soldier, was from the Mar-Sara company, where it all started, the revolution the first game, etc. and to Jimmy raynor the revolution leader who cares about the people, recognising and respecting the fact that his soldiers are men he cares about, as they respect the burden they chose to bear, no matter the outcome emboldening the fire of his resolve to end this matter once and for all.
@@ScapinGames Also why his Shoulderpads are blue, not red
@@GnarfSlein It's because blue = raynors rag tag team, red = dominion
You didn't expect Tychus to be a comic relief character, well tere is a mission featuring him piloting a giant battle mech with his radio on transmit only...
"Holy... the dominion's engeneer really thought of everything ... ... ... *fluuuush*"
"HooOOOooh, little skull button... How did I not notice you earlier ? *nuclear launch detected*"
The best character. Change my mind 😂
"Well, now that that's done with, I'm gonna take me a little break. Good thing I brought me some liquid refreshments... *sound of a beer can being cracked open*"
the first line he called the dominion eggheads, not engineer
@@ИгорьБартанов Infestor has entered chat
He is comic relief in general; even in more serious scenes (like him discussing Kerrigan with Matt) he is cracking jokes. But what I like about their character is that he isn't just the but of every joke, and rather a clever individual who is just less serious in his expressions.
Definitely would recommend checking out the other cinematics from the expansions to continue the story
I'll be on to The Heart of The Swarm very soon. Stick with the channel so you don't miss it.
@@kaizammitdamn, this channel somehow disappeared from my notifications, guess I'll have some catching up to do - sorry bout that :)
Welcome back!
Somehow I feel “might as well watch the entire game movie”.
While the in-game scenes are not cinematic, it does go through the story and characters, so you can appreciate the cutscenes even more.
@@kaizammitHeart of the Storm is great, but Legacy of the Void in-engine cinematics are on whole other level compared to first two games.
Unfortunately, a lot of the story is also told during gameplay, so some context gets lost. Though thats far too long for this format.
Some interesting tidbits:
- Tychus is actually sealed inside his marine armor, which doesn't happen normally if ever to someone who actually uses marine power armor. And they discover there's an explosive in there, should he betray someone(they never find out who, until its revealed in that final cinematic) he could be blown up at any time,. So Tychus can't back out, even if he wants to.
- The custscene of kerrigan getting left on the planet is actually a mission you play in Starcraft 1. So its less of a dream as the cinematic describes and more of a flashback. Though obivously raynor woudln't be seeing what we saw. These scene also completely replicates the original mission's dialogue. That cutscene shows the cinematic of you "winning" that mission. As she's left to die. This is also when the Zerg take her and transform her into the Queen of Blades. This is also the moment referenced in the news cinematic of mengsk dealing with reporters. As he used a beacon to lure the zerg to that planet to kill off the previous regime.
- Dominion are the red armored enemies. And your soldiers in the campaign are all colored Blue, which is part of the significance of Raynor finding the dead blue marine. One of his soldiers, who gave their life for the cause.
No explosive in Tychus's armor, what it was wired to do was shutdown his organs.
One thing that is lost by not having context of who the characters are from the first game, too, is the fight between Kerrigan and Zeratul.
Zeratul uses warp blades, a tech specifically used by the protoss of Shakuras, where injuries caused by warp blades CANNOT be regenerated by the zerg. Kerrigan regenerates from having her wing cut off by a warp blade.
She is a new evolution of zerg... the Shakuran protoss lost their only edge over their ancient enemy...
@@sintanan469 Im not 100% certain on this but I dont think this is the case. I think If im not mistaken it was less about the weapon and more having to do with the DT energies they channeled into the Cerebrates, it was more the ability to disrupt and destroy the mind though a mental connection, this is how they were able to get a glimps into what the Overmind was planing was though the severed connection between the Cerebrates and the Overmind. The look on Kerrigan's face I think was looking more at the angle of which her wing was cut and how close it actually came to taking her head.
blue marine is reference for M Koiter, blizzard employee
the funny thing in the SC1 mission. if allowed I could have won it. i figured they would mass assault me so had tons of bunkers and tanks in seige mode. it was still holdign when the mission ends
quick rundown:
- The 'bug aliens' are the Zerg. In the first game, they captured Kerrigan and turned her into the Queen of Blades because she is a MASSIVELY powerful psychic.
- However, they only had the chance to catch her because Arcturus Mengsk betrayed her, which resulted in Raynor ditching him and making a band of rebels.
- Kerrigan, as The Queen of Blades, killed billions of humans in a vicious war that she instigated for the most part.
- Mengsk has hidden that he's been a pragmatic and cruel despot behind shiny lies for the entirety of his reign; his own son, the crown prince that we meet, had actually been hidden by his mother, only for Mengsk to basically kidnap his own son and force him into being the crown prince, when all Valerian wanted to do was go be an archeologist.
- Tychus is from James Raynor's backstory; when Raynor had been a teenager, he'd been a homeless criminal, robbing trains and other such activities to make ends meet. His best friend was Tychus Findley. One day, the job the two had taken turned out to be a setup, and Tychus was caught, and he willingly took the blame for both of them, and James got his chance to move on, at Tychus' request before getting arrested. Afterwards, James became the legitimate Marshal of the colony of Mar Sara, something he could feel genuinely proud of.
- Matt Horner (the admiral that keeps calling Tychus 'Convict') doesn't trust Tychus because he remembers all the stories James has told him about what he and Tychus used to get up to together.
- Mengsk let Tychus out of prison, but the suit he was put into is set to kill him if he disobeys any orders from Arcturus Mengsk. He was given a mission - kill Kerrigan after Raynor strips away her Zerg-ness with the artifact they're hunting for.
At the last scene, Tychus tells Raynor that he "made a deal with the devil" as a code phrase to let Raynor know what the situation was. He knew this would give Raynor the head's-up he needed to choose to either let Tychus kill Kerrigan, or to kill Tychus himself and save the man from a lifetime as Mengsk's attack dog, as he knew Mengsk would never let him free just because he'd done what he was told.
- Zeratul is a Protoss, and in exile due to some events from the first game, wherein he had to mercy kill the leader of his home nation because she was being forcibly puppeted by a zerg orgnaism that was eating her alive. However, the other Protoss hadn't known about the parasite, and so blamed Zeratul for killing her. He has been a good, steadfast friend to James Raynor since they met, and has long been an advocate for peace and peaceable relations even between the different species if possible.
A really interesting angle I always thought of when it came to wings of liberty was the way a lot of it felt like a western. All the characters have southern accents, the music is all guitar-y and twangy, and I thought it was a great observation to say it was like Star Wars in that it's all futuristic but also old looking, and it creates an interesting aesthetic. I think you will have a great time watching the story unfold over Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void.
Me too! Being that it has that band of brothers feel, you're able to connect to the characters easier and quickly.
The lore of the original Starcraft is very similar to the lore of Firefly, that's why they are some of the few space westerns.
@@spittzzvi I love you
Man if you didnt seen it already, go watch Firefly,.... Western in kosmos,...
Just a little pointer with the one terran marine in blue armor, Koiter.
You noticed that wasnt Tychus, but neatly enough that wasnt a Dominion marine either.
That was, in fact, a marine under the banner of Raynor's Raiders, straight up one of the people under Jim's command. The Dominion's forces have a red coloring, whereas as the Raiders always have a blue to them
I think there's an interesting point to be made with that cinematic, that by the end of the day, they're all terrans. People who would have been fighting each other another day, united under a banner to save humanity. Fighting and dying side by side.
More than that, him being from Mar Sara means he likely was with us from Day 1 (at least concerning what we play in the game)
Got a reality check when you said "I remember that's an old game", it's being so many years since I bought dvd of it, time flies 😢 I remember watching you reacting to opening cinematics, Glad you decided to dive deeper, can't wait for the next parts.
It scares me too when I talk about old games which to me, felt like they were released yesterday.
The two cutscenes with the black guy who turns red and goes invisible are alternates.
Tosh (the black guy) is set up to be hard to trust and very shady. He's a "Spectre", which is like a psychic soldier who was forced to go through some horrible training and stuff to become essentially government assassins, but the defining thing about the Spectres as they make clear is that they kinda all went insane and have psychopathic tendencies. That's why he has all this voodoo stuff. The Spectres were deemed too unstable and the government just threw them all in maximum security prison so they couldn't be a threat, with Tosh being one of a few to escape.
Nova (the blonde girl) is very direct and honest. She's a "Ghost", which is the standard psychic soldier like Kerrigan was. She is also a *currently* serving assassin/spec ops for the government.
So then the choice:
Tosh approaches you to prison break all the inmates of the government's max security prison, so he can get the other Spectres out. Nova approaches you saying that most of the prisoners are legit baddies and not just political prisoners, points out the Spectres are all psychopathic murderers, and points out that letting everyone in the maximum security prison free would probably have some adverse effects on public safety. So she proposes that you work together. If you denied Tosh he'd become a dangerous enemy anyways, so she'll work with you to kill him on the promise she then leaves you alone for a while. Basically, "enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend".
The prison break scene is if you side with Tosh, him being assassinated is you siding with Nova.
Important note: siding with Tosh is canon. You can walk around your ship and talk with people between missions, and Tosh has a good number of and some of the best conversations. It becomes pretty clear that he's far more jaded than he is untrustworthy and is an all around bro. Then he's confirmed the canon choice in Heart of the Swarm, because he's noted as trying to save Jim during that game.
This is one of two times in the campaign where you can chose to side with either side of a preexisting conflict. The other one didn't seem to have a cutscene here, but that one isn't really that important to the story anyways.
Honestly, I'm not sure why they included two of those cinematics from "choice" missions but cut out the whole Dr. Hansen plotline/choice mission cinematics from this.
@@falsnamae3511 that interesting, i didnt have tosh before doing her missions and was left with different impression. probably will replay campaign in opposite order someday
@@falsnamae3511 Even when you put it that way, the comparison between her and Kerrigan is almost a little more unfair for Kerrigan. As technically she had her mind altered when she murdered all those people, it wasn't her original self anymore (Even before the whole bit of it being Amon's influence, she behaved like a different person entirely after becoming the Queen of Blades)
@@falsnamae3511 Where are you getting that info? I'm fairly sure it's not in game, the most that is in game is Tosh's offhanded comment about somehing is off about Hanson (he did *not* factually accuse her, only voiced a suspecion).
@@falsnamae3511 I haven't played WoL in a long time, but I did play it a lot. I am confident that there was no mention of Dr. Hansen being at fault for anything that happened to her people. They were attacked, because that's what Zerg do. They tried to settle down somewhere, the Zerg virus happened - and Dr. Hansen was utterly clueless as to what that was. After escaping from there some people were still infected and she tried to cure them. The only potential deception was her being quiet about being infected herself - which may not even be true, she may have exposed herself to the virus after the chat with Selendis.
And throughout the entire game she says nothing that would incriminate her - I delayed finishing her quest right up until Char, just to hear what she had to say about the other missions.
That final scene between Tychus and Jim will always stick as very intense for several factors to me. While Tychus did betray him, he intentionally gave Raynor just about enough time for him to react. "I made a deal with the devil, Jimmy. She dies, I go free". Such a short sentence and told Raynor absolutetly eveything he needed to know and do something, and that something was not just saving Kerrigan, but also freeing his lifelong friend from being in a cage.
Starcraft II had some master framing and storytelling, man. It ain't nothing revolutionary, but it's so well done. Starcraft always had some grade A storytelling with some stellar (hehe) cast of characters.
and also the fact, that the bullet his used to kill his friend is the one he kept to kill Mengsk
And the action is like passing the torch for later HoTS patch, Kerrigan killed Mengsk instead of Jim
Raynor knew that Mensk wasn't the kind that keep deals.
the whole way through tychus was always on raynors side, sure he was a bit conflicted at times but in the end he always pulled through. He intentionally faked being drunk to act as a foil and punching bag for the crew so that they would put their faith in jimmity.
What's more, tychus had an assault rifle, he could've just emptied his whole magazine on them, but he just did one shot.
Starcraft is one of my all time favorite games, the story is just so rich, and spans over both the first game and its expansion, and all three parts of the second game, couple of points, the video with the press conference the audio the woman plays on her recorder, is actually from the first game before Mengsk became Emperor.
Second, the music that plays in the background in the cantine on the ship, actually really sounds like the music from Firefly (my fav tv show btw ☺️).
The redhead girl in the picture (Kerrigan), and the one we saw in the cinematic where they left her behind, was Mengsks right hand that he betrayed, and she was then turned into the queen of blades by the Zerg.
That said, i still love how attentive you are, catching details and understanding the story most would not without actually playing the game.
As always, absolutely looooooove your videoes, so looking forward to more starcraft ❤️
Hello trouble! Thank you for the information. I've learnt a lot in the last 12 hours of this video being out.
This is part 1 of this video series so expect the others. I did say to you in the past that I'd cover these, just took me a while. Thank you so much for returning and thank you for hanging out with me.
@@kaizammit trouble huh 😜 and yes i remember you saying you would revisit SC2, and i’ve been waiting eagerly for it ☺️ it is a great story, and you really should watch the videos that also have the cutscenes to get the full story, but of course those are like two and a half hours each so yeah.
Also, not exactly back, since i never really left, but i did tell you i only speak up when i have something to say 😉
Same.. waitied 10years for 2, expansion.. but i stopped for the last couple of years..
I cannot stress enough how much it means to me that you're checking out the first chapter of this amazing story. I can only recommend the other two expansions' stories as well, they are masterfully written and build on each other so much!
Michel Koiter (born 3 May 1984) was a Blizzard artist who died 18 March 2004 from heart failure at the age of nineteen
that is what the dogtag was
Cannot wait for Legacy of the void. Some beautiful character dynamics shown using camera angle to contradict the known order.
I'm also anticipating your progress through the halo franchise too. Reach and ODST have some beautiful cinema in them.
Reach is on the list, ODST hasn't been requested except the live action commercials. Reach, halo Wars 1 and a halo special coming very soon.
@@kaizammit the ODST in game cinematics follow a somewhat odd pairing of 2 seperate timelines slowly converging. One of the 2 has near to no dialogue, so it stands only on ambiance and visual display.
And as is with much of halo, using helmet acting to mimic facial acting. Good stuff, though ODST flys under many peoples radar, mostly due to the fame of it's soundtrack.
I know, I cant wait for him to meet Alarak
Or Fenix, for that matter. The starcraft supporting cast generally get more leeway for stronger mono-esque personalities, which lead to such great clashes of words.
@onaltovao5291meh, idk... legacy to me was the weakest entry of them all, at least story wise. multiplayer was great.
I'm pleased to see that the core of the story was still communicated and appreciated. There are a lot of details and context in played missions that you miss with just watching cutscenes. I.e. the dead blue marine (in the story itself, it is also a tribute out of universe) is "just" one of Raynor's crew. Raynor's faction are outfitted in blue armor while dominion is red, and this detail is kept through the cutscenes. Its a detail that identifies "who" at an immediate instinctive level for anyone who played through the past several hours of the story. There are a lot of major narrative details that can go right over your head without the actual gameplay, but Blizzard did a remarkable job communicating a compelling story even without this context.
When you get to Legacy of the Void make sure you Watch the reclamation, it wasn't added in game so it gets missed in compilations, but it is one of my favorite cutscenes for that expansion. It would be placed before the opening cinematic in the order to watch, but after the prologue cutscenes.
Glad you enjoyed it. The story is a little trickier to follow just on the cinematics alone, as they are really designed to dovetail with the story delivered during gameplay, but it still manages to somewhat stick the landing.
Definitely keen to watch you do the same with Heart of the Swarm and then Legacy of the Void. Blizzard back then was really at their peak, and the cinematics were pretty much unparalleled.
14-ish years later, and that first trailer still blows me away. So much anticipation after the 12-year wait from Broodwar summed up into a single line: "hell, its about time". "Reclaimation" from Legacy of the Void is my personal favourite, and "Vengeance" from Heart of the Swarm is fantastic, but "The Deal" will always have a place in my heart.
What's most fun about Valerian, is that he isn't a villain.
He just talks like one, because he always tried to please and imitate his father, until he realized he has to be better than him.
its' amazing how this ws done so many years ago and they have all the smoke, as well as intricate machine parts working together.. simply amazing work
Man, the live reveal of SC2 hit hard. 'Hell, its about time' is how every felt about the gap after Brood War.
I must say, Zammit never do a boring pause with a long prolong explanation, he just explain it right now on a go - great mind don't need much time - love it!
I have followed and played Starcraft for well over 20 years, its just great to see its epicness appreciated by so many. I do highly recommend watching the entire series throughout, the story is fun and energetic, however, when you are done with the Starcraft universe cinematics, there are pleeenty more Star Wars cinematics to plow through, and of course the Warframe cinematic.. oh god.. :) Love your vids!
I've got a few Star Wars videos on the channel and Warframe is coming. Thank you so much for watching. KZ
Thanks for acknowledging Legacy of Kain. Truly great games!
best line ever in agame mission wen you split up and some got left behind!:
you: good luck!
one who got left behind: i dont need luck, i have bullets!
I cant even summarize the amount of happiness that I get from watching people even after all these years seeing my favourite game, checking it out for the first time and maybe even falling in love with it
Its amazing what blizzard delivered to us back then and I think the thing that shows this the most is even after +10 years, we can watch you see these cutscenes/cinematics for the first time without even having any idea about the story of the game and you can clearly tell who's who- whats going on, how it all develops during the game
And I can promise this feeling only gets better when you actually boot it up (wings of liberty is free by the way ^^) and beat it for yourself
Because then, especially the final cutscenes will be that much more epic and rewarding
I can't wait to see you reacting to HoTS since I mainly play zerg in the game so I might be ever so slightly biased towards that campaign
And I must not forget to mention that you actually taught me a lot within these reaction videos, and I got to appreciate filmmaking or notice little details that I had no Idea were there, even tho I felt their effects on how I would come to interpret their meanings :3
22:05 Being hurt, in darkness, proclaims his faith in hope, proceeds to climb towards the light. There's so much symbolism in this.
He mentioned Legacy of Kain...... i like that.
Watching this for the first time - I never played the second game - and there’s a lovely touch in here at 24:19. The choral “aah”s that come in there are singing The Naval Hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” - specifically what feels like the 3rd and 4th lines of the 6-line verse, which has lyrics like “And bid its angry tumult cease, and give, for wild confusion, peace,” followed by a musically unresolved “Amen.” Appropriate when dealing with a space navy of sorts, and poignant for Jim Raynor’s observation that the positive result of the fight “isn’t for the likes of us.”
Starcraft 2 & it's 2 expansions are in my top 3 games of all time. The world building, the characters, the music. This is the blizzard I love and is a game very close to my heart as it got me through a bad time and acted as an escape. Its also one of the very few media things to bring a tear to my eyes. The others the ending of blackadder goes forth, certain parts of Mass Effect 3 and How to train your Dragon 2 and 3
Also I got to work on it as a beta tester, which was a joy. There is actually a lot more cinematics for wings but they are for the branching missions.
The dog tag for the dead marine is for Michel Koiter (3 May 1984 - 18 March 2004), a Blizzard artist who died from heart failure at the age of 19. To young a age.
I really hope you watch the the heart of the swarm and legacy of the void cinematics as they improve in quality for each game. Also they have a couple of famous voices in them. See if you recognize who plays Kerrigan.
As a long time fan of the StarCraft series, and now as a filmmaker, this video has been a treat for me to see someone with an outside perspective give such insightful thoughts.
Absolutely love that you're reacting to all of the in-game cinematics/cutscenes too! Always love hearing the impact small details can have, which your average person playing the game (like me) isn't fully aware of! Looking forward to seeing more!
really looking forward to your reaction to the rest of the starcraft 2 series cutscenes
Oh nice! I enjoy your breakdowns of the little details
Less breakdowns in these videos but I do try to explain things as I'm on the ride. Thank you for being here fella.
@@kaizammit I liked this just as much as the more in-depth ones. Little things like the noire feel of the lighting near the beginning and the angle of the shots add some flavor to the watch-along.
Great part about the In engine cinematics is that they were LOCALIZED. For instance at 29:48 the grenade would have the message in the laguage you are playing the game in
and I think that's great job there
The Confederacy home planet was Tarsonis (where Kerrigan was left behind) and wore white armour (as Warfield does, before turning to the Dominion).
The Dominion home planet is Korhal and they wear red armour (as some of the marines that come with Valerian's forces).
Raynor's home planet is Mar Sara (where he is drinking in the first clip) and his raiders wear blue armour (as Tychus and M. Koiter).
Raynor himself wore green armour in the first game, but has his black armour in the second game. This is both to stand out from the rest of the army and to just look badass.
The first game follows Raynor joining up with Mengsk to overthrow the confederacy, but Mengsk has no interest in sharing the leadership, so leaves Kerrigan on the surface to get rid of both her and Raynor. It then goes through Kerrigan's transformation and rise to power, and her destroying the Protoss homeworld of Aiur.
Thank you for you comintery it makes me value this media more!
Always happy to see a new upload. Lets see why i love these cutscenes 🎉🎉
The cinematics with Tosh and Nova killing Tosh is part of a branch of the campaign. You either join up with Tosh or Nova and either cinematic is the reward.
Also the dead marine armour in blue just symbolises the troops Raynor fights with, the Mar Sara revolutionaries, while the red are the Confederate troops of Mengsk and thus junior/prince Valerians troops.
Oh, and the suit of armour that Tychus is in, it is his actual prison, a cell with a death switch in it.
Ahhh... Wings of Liberty - The best RTS campaign ever made. The perfected mix of story and gameplay.
Ohh he reacted to SC2 cutscenes, lets gooo, got my popcorn!
Always felt like the cinematic with zeratul vs kerrigan when he goes invisible into black smoke is the coolest fucking thing ever. Always how I imagined stealth looking in games like World of Warcraft vanish.
To answer a couple questions. Raynor used to be a Marshal for the Confederacy, which was the ruling government power. Mengsk used to be what Raynor is in SC2, just a rebel with an army, the main difference is he wanted to rule the sector of space that these humans preside in (earth and the Kopruru (sp?) sector are a ways away from eachother) using media and information to "win" over the people. Anyway Mengsk saves Raynor when Raynor's original planet got attacked by the zerg and then the Protoss shortly after. He then joins Mengsks rag tag group (Sons of Korhal I think they were called) and runs missions, getting close to Kerrigan and what not until we see what happens at New Gettysburg.
He ends up leaving with one of the Battlecruisers and crew of people who want nothing to do with Mengsk after he used and abandoned Kerrigan (the planet as well) when he got her to activate a Psi-Emitter that attracts zerg. Matt Horner (spiffy guy who is always giving Raynor shit until he is a leader again) is like the "1st mate" of the ship and does all the logistical stuff Raynor doesn't want to deal with. He respects Raynor very much and wants nothing but the best for him in the end. Kind of like Raynor's "good" conscience that won't leave him alone.
Before Raynor was a Marshal he used to run in a gang called the Heaven's Devils, Tychus was one of the big players in the gang with him. I think he ended up selling Tychus out because Tychus did something he didn't agree with.
The Xel'naga artifact is something you spend the game collecting parts of in order to "Kill" the Queen of Blades/Save Kerrigan from the zerg.
Actually Tychus was the one who sold himself out to save the rest of the crew. It is why he has no beef with Raynor until the very end, he would rather have kept fighting the good fight alongside Raynor but when the devil says pull the trigger he has no choice.
This is why i wanted you to react to the Armoring of a Space Marine cinematic :D
This was just a treat to watch and I really hope you watch Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void sometime soon. Love hearing your thoughts about the cinematics too.
Also I think it'd be great to see you play through the campaigns since starcraft is free and you get the first campaign- Wings of Liberty -for free with it.
I imagine it's really confusing to see the alternate cutscenes based on campaign choices, since they contradict eachother. Still a shame they didn't do more with Tosh, I love him.
Its really great to see someone else drawn into the franchise - well, the story, anywho - and great reaction as always, I do love hearing someone who actually knows something talking about the cinematography!
Since we're in Sci Fi, I'd request the Mass Effect cinematics - both trailers and cutscenes. Trilogy mostly, since the 4th part had a lot of development issues with the cinematography suffering from it :/
some of my Favorite cutscenes of all time..
So as some quick backing/lore.
In the first game, mankind has essentially developed and expanded out. In the process, we've got some humans, special soldiers with psychic abilities in addition to plain regular soldiers. Jim was a sheriff of a small town assisting in the first game and got caught up in the fight against the Zerg. In the process, Kerrigan (who is a special, psychic ability soldier) 'died' only to be 'revived' as the Queen of Blades due to her psychic abilities. You go through the second game as Jim, essentially starting to gather a crew and eventually end up with the artifact in a deal to try and save her near the end, thus 'purifying' her and turning her human again.
Some scenes seem disjointed because you miss sections of in-game stuff, like Tosh who was the voodoo assassin who you temporarily aligned with and had to choose either his mission or Nova's, and if you choose Nova's, you get the scene you saw of Tosh threatening you and Nova assassinating him for you.
As a backer on the whole friendly alien, it's a race called the Protoss, an advanced race older than mankind, who are almost entirely psychic and have a sort of connection to one another. Zeratul was a big part of the first game and helped to essentially align Protoss and Humans (sometimes, sometimes not) against the Zerg.
To add to this, the original lore of SC1 had humanity develop rudimentary psychic powers on Earth thanks to designer drugs. As part of a way to handle overpopulation and to create stability after a world-spanning unifying war, the unified Earth government bundled up everyone that was a convinct, a major drug addict, a psychic, and everyone else deemed "unworthy" or a "threat to stability" and ship them to the Koprulu Sector on three massive cold sleep starships.
The original plan of the Earth government was to send these unwanted off to be useful in establishing a new human colony among the stars and by the time humanity had the faster-than-light technology to become a true stellar civilization then they can reclaim the new wayward colony for a jumpstart on controlling the galaxy.
This lore was altered slightly between SC1 and SC2 as sensibilities changed because to turns out having a story about your ruling government discarding unwanted people was a taboo subject at the time of SC2's release due to world news and politics.
9:11 - Yep, the Mutalisks are Zerg units that correspond quite well with Tyranid Gargoyles or Harpies (gargoyles for function, harpies for aesthetics)*
I never noticed, he is prisoner 626. Lilo and Stitch reference for experiment 626.
Love this series especially with the game and stories i grew up on :D
pumped for the heart of the swarm vid in the future
A note about Jim Raynor that you wanted but didn't happen is the flask. His story didn't end so it never needed to happen. The second and third games' set of cinematics show he changes even more (for better or for worse) despite it not being about him anymore and acts as his final growing moments. You've seen both of them and know how he begins and how he ends. He never has a 'say no to the flask' moment but he does have a moment of turning that acts like it which is nice.
I remember being so blown away when i saw the first cinematic. I also recall learning that it was too complex for Blizzard's in-house renderer to handle so they had to switch to the same renderer that Pixar used.
As a long time follower of the Starcraft Universe I am so glad to see this on your channel, hard to find people in youtube that take the time to try understanding and immersing as you do, new subscriber and hope to see the incoming videos, also love the League of Legends ones too. 🥰
'We all got our choices to make' that single quote always hits me very hard
Who miss so much important story bits without reading up on starcraft one and playing the actual missions
You should do this also for Legacy of the Void. I would really like to see your reactions on the characters showing up there, and the story.
For the next 2 parts, i recommend including some of the gameplay bits. They include vital story bits that help provide context.
I try not to go into gameplay due to it not really interesting me. I am invested when playing a game of course but with these, I just enjoy the cinematics and the task of piecing it all together from biscuit crumbs that I've picked up from watching. It's a great way to keep my brain creative even though it's only watching.
There is a lot bits and pieces going on during gameplay that explains the story and also there are few crossroads in sidestory caracters like the Spectre guy Tosh which you can chose during gameplay.
Tosh, the guy with dreadlocks and the butterfly knife, has two cutscenes. Depending on the choice you make in the story, you either get the one where he and Matt argue over freedom vs revenge or the one where Nova stabs him.
Thank you, this reaction was fantastic. I love starcraft story
24:32, kind of surprising to hear "Eternal Father Strong to Save" make an appearance.
My life for Aiur -cant wait to see the reaction
Speaking of Westerns, Jim Raynor carries one bullet in his magnum for one enemy like one of Clint Eastwood characters in Sergio Leone movies. And can't have a Western without a bar fight, right 😂
Glad you liked. We'll be here for the next ones.
Char (the planet on the last 3 cinematics) is a lava planet with not a lot of water and some people say that it doesn't make any sense that it rains there, but there is also a theory out there saying that the rain is from all the dead soldiers (blood).
I am pretty sure someone on the dev team was a fan of the TV show Firefly. Because that music for the barfight cutscene was from a barfight scene in Firefly.
17:25 to 18:17 Anyone else noticed "Free bird" knockoff playing in the back ground? 😆
Kerrigan is shocked after her wing got cut off more likely from the fact that Zeratul could have taken her head off, but didn't.
As he said in the earlier cutscene with Jim, they need her.
In that scene, Zeratul didn't know that either and was legitimately trying to kill her. He just came up short of the mark. He doesn't find out about the specifics of the prophecy until the mission after the one that cutscene opens.
@@Draeckon Is that how it went? I've not played the wings of liberty campaign in 14 years so I kinda forgot.
Doesn't really change my point about Kerrigan being stunned about how close to dying she came though.
Zeratul had her dead to rights. Six inches lower and she would have been six feet under.
Moooooore! I need to see you react to the rest of game!
In SC1 you played the Terran part of that skirmish in New Gettysburgh, stalling both Protoss and Zerg until they finally overran your outpost with Kerrigan left behind.
RIP M. Koiter. Nearly 20 years you guys. Damn.
24:27 He is Tosh, Mengsk has experiment on him and his brothers for a long time . He became a Specter
A ton of story details is also shown during the missions in "radio communications" without cinematics but dialogue between "unit pictures".
when u havce all the hours in gteh game and all teh story from teh mission this feels like the ending to the greatest movie ever
Love it. You definitely should do the full movie for the 2nd and third installment of starcraft 2. Heart of the swarm and legacy of the void.
Both are coming, this is part one of three. Thank you for watching it with me.
@@kaizammit There's something magical about watching reactions to your favorite storytelling. Thank you for doing these videos, it's very satisfying, especailly since you have the background to appreciate these scenes.
Tychos was a prisoner the whole time. The manual of the first game explains that for prisoner draftees their suit is their prison. Including the option to execute them as needed.
Gread reaction video! Looking up to Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void (and Nova Covert Ops, mayba? many people forget about that one and it's good as well)
so the cutsene where they talk about braking people out of prision and you meet tosh is a choice path whare you work with tosh the next one you work with nova who claims specters ( elite sheath sniper teams ) are mentily ill cause of the drug enhancements that they have taken
and the doctor lady says that's a lie if you keep her on the ship untill that point
Yeah they aren't any crazier than your average person.@mihai000000
That Legacy of Kain reference was on the spot.
You have great taste my friend.
I always loved starcraft from the original game and to the lates dlc. My fav space opera
( 23:00 ) The arguement between Tosh, Jim, and Matt: "youll see that future, but it aint going to be from the likes of us..." as he turns back to tosh. In Jim's statement, he reflects that those who take power will more than likely require the ambitions of a leader who'se mind isnt clouded by vengeance. Despite their motivations, both revenge and change require the elimination of Emperor Mengsk.
The amazing part is that no matter how much time it passes it's always fun to rewatch
There is a bit of nuance left as there is lore integrated into the gameplay but people were hyped about those scenes and in part is what inspired the Warcraft movie.
If it hadn't flop, it may have become the Blizzard Cinematic Universe, advancing gaming movies a full decade before its time
FYI the legacy of the void has tonnes of cinematics and it's the best as far as the story goes, plus the epilogue is great.
we got another one guys a lover of blizzard cinematics
Oh man, lookin forward to the rest of the Starcraft 2 cinematics!
Made me want to replay the whole thing now...
You knew this would happen the moment you clicked on the video. ✌🏻
Now you need to do the other two episodes. Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. you could watch a Starcraft 1 recap video on your own time, so that you know the history of what happened. Since SC1 used very little cinematics, and they were of like 1998 quality. But there is a lot of context that helps you understand the how and the why most of this is going on.
I remember recomending reacting to this some time ago, thanks for doing it and for the cool videos! :D
I know and because you did, I popped in on the list. I've been wanting to make it for a long time. Part 2 coming sooner rather than later. Thank you for being here fella!! KZ
Just a quick bit of story because I know you were questioning it for awhile, granted I'm only about 25 minutes in so maybe you learned it all by the end, but in short
Mengsk used to be a rebel himself, he overthrew the old government and set up his Dominion. He doesn't rule over all humans, there are other nations, but The Dominion is the biggest. He didn't do this for freedom or anything like that, in one of the in-game cutscenes, there's an old recording of him that says "I will rule this sector, or see it burn to ashes around me." Along the way, he'd betray several people, including Kerrigan, the red-haired soldier who is captured by the Zerg and turned into the Queen of Blades.
Jim Raynor loved her, and leaves his forces shortly after, forming his own rebellion against Mengsk's rule, Raynor's Raiders. Wings of Liberty follows Jim and his soldiers as they fight against the Dominion, and the resurgent Zerg invasion under the Queen of Blades. It ends with Mengsk's rule being de-stabilized and working with Mengsk's son and a majority of the Dominion military to use an alien device to try and 'cleanse' Kerrigan of the Zerg taint after landing on the Zerg homeworld of Char, breaking the Zerg swarm in the process, as their all a psychic hivemind and Kerrigan was the center of it.
I love StarCraft!
Mengsk, the villain was from Starcraft 1.Mengsk led a group called the Sons of Korhal and recruited a bunch of smaller factions like Jim Raynor under one banner and was pivotal in the betrayal of Kerrigan. After they routed out the Zerg, Protoss, and other Terran factions in the sector, Mengsk took control of the sector, forming the Dominion.
As for 29:30 ish, his suit is his jail cell.
Cant wait for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. Starcraft is one of my all time favorite franchise and its always great to see people discover it.
Also as a few other mentioned the last 2 cinematics with Tosh (the prison break and the one he gets killed) are the 2 endings to his questline, the latter expansions dont rly have those but in heart of the swarm there are some slight changes depending on the order you do certain questlines in.
Oh right, interesting. Thanks for letting me know. Heart of the swarm will be coming soon, I have broken down the 3 main cinematics which you can find on the channel. KZ
One thing that gripped me when Starcraft 2 wings of Liberty came out was the first time. when they showed the intro before the game came out. they had it without voice over. it was just the background ambiance and the music, which was very powerful in my opinion. I still see that version as being the superior intro, don't get me wrong the voice over was good but when they announced Starcraft 2 was coming back in the day... that is what gripped me far more, because music tends to give it a stronger introduction than with having a voice over.
The original intro introduced as a teaser was 14 years ago... Here's a link
ua-cam.com/video/rnSlg-I03oQ/v-deo.html&ab_channel=BlizzardEntertainment
I found the original I'm curious to know what you think between the two.. you'll see what I mean. in any case you're doing a great job and I love what you're doing keep up the great work.
Thanks. I'll be waiting for hart of the sworm.
I recommend a ton checking the original game and its expansion cinematics, they are older, but they are top tier with the resources they had in those years. Specially the broodwar intro cinematic. Another nice one is "Battle on the amerigo".
if you look up starcraft moives its a set of compilations that take all off the cinimatics the between mission interactions and some ingame cinimatics to give you the full story it would of give you a better introduction to some of the carictors like the Vodo guy (sorry pulling blank on his name
You should do the brood war cinematics! Its gritty but also sometimes comedic.