The Thunder King trailer



The The Thunder King trailer is the official trailer for World of Warcraft Patch 5.2: The Thunder King. The trailer shows the history of Lei Shen's rule over ancient Pandaria and is narrated by Lorewalker Cho. The trailer recited an older legend told in Lessons from History and then added a couple verses onto there to call people to arms.

Background
The poems main verses are exactly eight syllables per line and a iambic octameter. Dave Kosak chose a iambic because every other syllable is stressed. "When from her sacred vale did spring -- built by slaves their hearts in chains" -- all the important words are accented, every other syllable. Kosak worked hard on that, to get three line rhymes, to get eight syllables per line. They had a version of the poem that was three stanzas of four lines each, but the music that we did had four musical phrases, followed by the transitional sequence. Kosak wanted the poem to match the music, so they went back to the drawing board and he had to re-write the poem and try to get everyone on the quest team to help feed him rhymes. Finally they came up with four three line stanzas that fits into the music. So if you listen to the trails music, you can see there's a change in between each stanza helping to build an epic experience.

During the creating process they also worked very closely with the voice actor Jim Cummings. They had him read every version of the poem, three different versions, and the three line stanza became Kosaks favorite. The last two lines were read by Jim Cummings about ten times. They kept going "No darker. No try darker, let's see how it sounds! Go really dark!" and then Cummings nailed it. According to Kosak "He kept -- no matter how dark he got he could still get deeper and darker, and that last "The Thunder King comes," he really brought that home."

Locations

 * Vale of Eternal Blossoms
 * Kun-Lai Summit
 * Serpent's Spine
 * Isle of Thunder
 * Throne of Thunder

Transcript
Pandaria, her hills of gold

In dark and mournful times of old

Did once a hopeless horror hold

When from her sacred veil did spring

With storm and flash, a monstrous thing

His name Lei Shen, the Thunder King

His thunder boomed across the land

And none who dared and fought could stand

Against the iron tyrant’s hand

A palace grand, a walled domain

Such mighty works born of his reign

Built by slaves, their hearts in chains

But seasons change and tyrants die

His fury spent in times gone by

The thunder slept beneath Kun-Lai

By Zandalari hands he has been taken

By Zandalari voice he has awakened

Gather heroes, sound the drums

The Thunder King comes

The Thunder King comes