title: Apple Lisa

text: An optional external 5 MB or, later, a 10 MB Apple ProFile hard drive (originally designed and produced for the Apple III by a third party), was available. With the introduction of the Lisa 2/10, an optional 10 MB compact internal proprietary hard disk manufactured by Apple, known as the "Widget", was also offered. As with the Twiggy, the Widget developed a reputation for reliability problems. The ProFile, by contrast, was typically long-lived. The Widget was incompatible with earlier Lisa models.


title: Apple Lisa

text: In an effort to increase the reliability of the machine, Apple included, starting with Lisa 1, several mechanisms involved with disk storage that were innovative and not present on at least the early releases of the Macintosh, nor on the IBM PC. For example, block sparing was implemented, which would set aside bad blocks, even on floppy disks. Another feature was the redundant storage of critical operating system information, for recovery in case of corruption.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The first hardware revision, the Lisa 2, was released in January 1984 and was priced between and . It was much less expensive than the original model and dropped the Twiggy floppy drives in favor of a single 400K Sony microfloppy. The Lisa 2 has as little as 512 KB of RAM. The Lisa 2/5 consists of a Lisa 2 bundled with an external 5- or 10-megabyte hard drive. In 1984, at the same time the Macintosh was officially announced, Apple offered free upgrades to the Lisa 2/5 to all Lisa 1 owners, by swapping the pair of Twiggy drives for a single 3.5-inch drive, and updating the boot ROM and I/O ROM. In addition, the Lisa 2's new front faceplate accommodates the reconfigured floppy disk drive, and it includes the new inlaid Apple logo and the first Snow White design language elements. The Lisa 2/10 has a 10MB internal hard drive (but no external parallel port) and a standard configuration of of RAM.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Developing early Macintosh software required a Lisa 2. There were relatively few third-party hardware offerings for the Lisa, as compared to the earlier Apple II. AST offered a memory board, which – when combined with the standard Apple 512 KB memory board – expands the Lisa to a total of of memory, the maximum amount that the MMU can address.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Late in the product life of the Lisa, there were third-party hard disk drives, SCSI controllers, and double-sided 3.5-inch floppy-disk upgrades. Unlike the original Macintosh, the Lisa has expansion slots. The Lisa 2 motherboard has a very basic backplane with virtually no electronic components, but plenty of edge connector sockets and slots. There are two RAM slots, one CPU upgrade slot, and one I/O slot, all in parallel placement to each other. At the other end, there are three "Lisa" slots in parallel.


title: Apple Lisa

text: In January 1985, following the Macintosh, the Lisa 2/10 (with integrated 10 MB hard drive) was rebranded as Macintosh XL. It was given a hardware and software kit, enabling it to reboot into Macintosh mode and positioning it as Apple's high-end Macintosh. The price was lowered yet again (to $4,000) and sales tripled, but CEO John Sculley said that Apple would have lost money increasing production to meet the new demand. Apple discontinued the Macintosh XL, leaving an eight-month void in Apple's high-end product line until the Macintosh Plus was introduced in 1986. The report that many Lisa machines were never sold and were disposed of by Apple is particularly interesting in light of Sculley's decision concerning the increased demand.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The Lisa operating system features protected memory, enabled by a crude hardware circuit compared to the Sun-1 workstation (c. 1982), which features a full memory management unit. Motorola did not have an MMU (memory-management unit) for the 68000 ready in time, so third parties such as Apple had to come up with their own solutions. Despite the sluggishness of Apple's solution, which was also the result of a cost-cutting compromise, the Lisa system differed from the Macintosh system which would not gain protected memory until Mac OS X, released eighteen years later. (Motorola's initial MMU also was disliked for its high cost and slow performance.) Based, in part, on elements from the Apple III SOS operating system released three years earlier, the Lisa's disk operating system also organizes its files in hierarchical directories, as do UNIX workstations of the time which were the main competition to Lisa in terms of price and hardware. Filesystem directories correspond to GUI folders, as with previous Xerox PARC computers from which the Lisa borrowed heavily. Unlike the first Macintosh, whose operating system could not utilize a hard disk in its first versions, the Lisa system was designed around a hard disk being present.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Conceptually, the Lisa resembles the Xerox Star in the sense that it was envisioned as an office computing system. It also resembles Microsoft Office from a software standpoint, in that its software is designed to be an integrated "office suite". The Lisa's office software suite shipped long before the existence of Microsoft Office, although some of the constituent components differ (e.g. Lisa shipped with no presentation package and Office shipped without a project management package). Consequently, Lisa has two main user modes: the Lisa Office System and the Workshop. The Lisa Office System is the GUI environment for end users. The Workshop is a program development environment and is almost entirely text-based, though it uses a GUI text editor. The Lisa Office System was eventually renamed "7/7", in reference to the seven supplied application programs: LisaWrite, LisaCalc, LisaDraw, LisaGraph, LisaProject, LisaList, and LisaTerminal.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Apple's warranty said that this software works precisely as stated, and Apple refunded an unspecified number of users, in full, for their systems. These operating system frailties, and costly recalls, combined with the very high price point, led to the failure of the Lisa in the marketplace. NASA purchased Lisa machines, mainly to use the LisaProject program.


title: Apple Lisa

text: In 2018, the Computer History Museum announced it would be releasing the source code for Lisa OS, following a check by Apple to ensure this would not impact other intellectual property. For copyright reasons, this release did not include the American Heritage dictionary.


title: Apple Lisa

text: With Lisa, Apple presented users with what is generally, but imprecisely, known as a document-oriented paradigm. This is contrasted with program-centric design. The user focuses more on the task to be accomplished than on the tool used to accomplish it. Apple presents tasks, with Lisa, in the form of stationery. Rather than opening LisaWrite, for instance, to begin to do word processing, users initially "tear off stationery", visually, that represents the task of word processing. Either that, or they open an existing LisaWrite document that resembles that stationery. By contrast, the Macintosh and most other GUI systems focus primarily on the program that is used to accomplish a task — directing users to that first.


title: Apple Lisa

text: One benefit of task-based computing is that users have less of a need to memorize which program is associated with a particular task. That problem is compounded by the contemporary practice of naming programs with very nonintuitive names such as Chrome and Safari. A drawback of task-oriented design, when presented in document-oriented form, is that the naturalness of the process can be lacking. The most frequently cited example with Lisa is the use of LisaTerminal, in which a person tears off "terminal stationery" — a broken metaphor. However, task-based design does not necessarily require characterizing everything as a document, or as stationery specifically.


title: Apple Lisa

text: More recently, menus and tabs have been used, rather sparingly, to present more task-based workflows. A "power user" could have somewhat laboriously customized the Apple menu in many versions of Mac OS (prior to Mac OS X) to contain folders that are task-oriented. Tab systems are typically add-ons for contemporary operating systems and can be organized in a task-based manner — such as having a "web browsing" tab that contains various web browser programs. Task-oriented presentation is very helpful for systems that have many programs and a variety of users, such as a language-learning computer lab that caters to those learning a variety of languages. It is also helpful for computer users who have not yet memorized what program name, however unintuitive, is associated with a task. Some Linux desktop systems combine some unintuitive program names (e.g. Amarok) with task-based organization (menus that organize programs by task) — in the desire to make utilizing Linux desktop systems less of a challenge for those switching from the dominant desktop platforms.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The desire for emotional marketing reinforcement appears to be a strong factor in the choice, by most companies, to promote the program-centric paradigm. Otherwise, there would be little incentive to give programs obscure unintuitive names and/or to add company names to the program name (e.g. Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc.). Combining unintuitive names with company names is especially popular today (e.g. Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox). This is the opposite goal of the Lisa paradigm where the brand name and the program name are intentionally made more invisible to the user.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Within a few months of the Lisa's introduction in the US, fully translated versions of the software and documentation were commercially available for the British, French, West German, Italian, and Spanish markets, followed by several Scandinavian versions shortly thereafter. The user interface for the OS, all seven applications, LisaGuide, and the Lisa diagnostics (in ROM) can be fully translated, without any programming required, using resource files and a translation kit. The keyboard can identify its native language layout, and the entire user experience will be in that language, including any hardware diagnostic messages.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Although several non-English keyboard layouts are available, the Dvorak keyboard layout was never ported to the Lisa, though such porting had been available for the Apple III, IIe, and IIc, and was later done for the Macintosh. Keyboard-mapping on the Lisa is complex and requires building a new OS. All kernels contain images for all layouts, so due to serious memory constraints, keyboard layouts are stored as differences from a set of standard layouts; thus only a few bytes are needed to accommodate most additional layouts. An exception is the Dvorak layout that moves just about every key and thus requires hundreds of extra bytes of precious kernel storage regardless of whether it is needed.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Each localized version (built on a globalized core) requires grammatical, linguistic, and cultural adaptations throughout the user interface, including formats for dates, numbers, times, currencies, sorting, even for word and phrase order in alerts and dialog boxes. A kit was provided, and the translation work was done by native-speaking Apple marketing staff in each country. This localization effort resulted in about as many Lisa unit sales outside the US as inside the US over the product's lifespan, while setting new standards for future localized software products, and for global project coordination.


title: Apple Lisa

text: In April 1984, following the release of the Macintosh, Apple introduced MacWorks, a software emulation environment which allows the Lisa to run Macintosh System software and applications. MacWorks helped make the Lisa more attractive to potential customers, although it did not enable the Macintosh emulation to access the hard disk until September. Initial versions of the Mac OS could not support a hard disk on the Macintosh machines. In January 1985, re-branded MacWorks XL, it became the primary system application designed to turn the Lisa into the Macintosh XL.


title: Apple Lisa

text: A significant impediment to third-party software on the Lisa was the fact that, when first launched, the Lisa Office System could not be used to write programs for itself. A separate development OS, called Lisa Workshop, was required. During this development process, engineers would alternate between the two OSes at startup, writing and compiling code on one OS and testing it on the other. Later, the same Lisa Workshop was used to develop software for the Macintosh. After a few years, a Macintosh-native development system was developed. For most of its lifetime, the Lisa never went beyond the original seven applications that Apple had deemed enough to "do everything", although UniPress Software did offer UNIX System III for $495.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The company known as the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) offered Microsoft XENIX (version 3), a UNIX-like command-line operating system, for the Lisa 2 — and the Multiplan spreadsheet (version 2.1) that ran on it.


title: Apple Lisa

text: "BYTE" wrote in February 1983 after previewing the Lisa that it was "the most important development in computers in the last five years, easily outpacing [the IBM PC]". It acknowledged that the price was high, and concluded "Apple ... is not unaware that most people would be incredibly interested in a similar but less expensive machine. We'll see what happens".


title: Apple Lisa

text: The Apple Lisa was a commercial failure for Apple, the largest since the failure of the Apple III of 1980. Apple sold approximately 10,000 Lisa machines at a price of , generating total sales of against a development cost of more than .


title: Apple Lisa

text: The high price put the Lisa at the bottom of the price realm of technical workstations, but without much of a technical application library. Some features that some much more expensive competing systems included were such things as hardware graphics coprocessors (which increased perceived system power by improving GUI snappiness) and higher-resolution portrait displays. Lisa's implementation of the requisite graphical interface paradigm was novel but many of the time associated UI snappiness with power, even if that was so simplistic as to miss the mark, in terms of overall productivity. The mouse, for example, was dismissed by many critics of the time as being a toy, and mouse-driven machines as being unserious. Of course, the mouse would go on to displace the pure-CLI design for the vast majority of users. The largest Lisa customer was NASA, which used LisaProject for project management. Lisa was not slowed purely by having a CPU (the lowest clock offered by Motorola), sophisticated parity RAM, a slow hard disk interface (for the ProFile), and the lack of a graphics coprocessor (which would have increased cost). It also had its software mainly coded in Pascal, was designed to multitask, and had advanced features like the clipboard for pasting data between programs. This sophistication came at the price of snappiness although it added to productivity. The OS even had "soft power", remembering what was open and where desktop items were positioned. Many such features are taken for granted today but were not available on typical consumer systems.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The massive brand power of IBM at that time was the largest factor in the PC's eventual dominance. Computing critics complained about the relatively primitive hardware ("off-the-shelf components") of the PC but admitted that it would be a success simply due to IBM's mindshare. By the time Lisa was available in the market, the less-expensive and less-powerful IBM PC had already become entrenched. The x86 platform's backward compatibility with the CP/M operating system was helpful for the PC, given that many existing business software applications were originally written for CP/M. Apple had attempted to compete with the PC, via the Apple II platform. DOS was very primitive when compared with the Lisa OS, but the CLI was familiar territory for most users of the time. It would be years before Microsoft would offer an integrated office suite.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The 1984 release of the Macintosh further eroded the Lisa's marketability, as the public perceived that Apple was abandoning it in favor of the Macintosh. Any marketing of the Macintosh clashed with promotion of the Lisa, since Apple had not made the platforms compatible. Macintosh was superficially faster (mainly in terms of UI responsiveness) than Lisa but much more primitive in other key aspects, such as the lack of protected memory (which led to the famous bomb and completely frozen machines for so many years), very small amount of non-upgradable RAM, no ability to use a hard disk (which led to heavy criticism about frequent disk-swapping), no sophisticated file system, a smaller display (with lower resolution), lack of numeric keypad, lack of a built-in screensaver, inability to multitask, lack of parity RAM, lack of expansion slots, lack of a calculator with a paper tape and RPN, more primitive office software, and more. The Macintosh beat the Lisa in terms of having sound support (Lisa had only a beep), having square pixels (which reduced perceived resolution but removed the problem of display artifacts), having a nearly CPU, having more resources placed into marketing (leading to a large increase in the system's price tag), and being coded primarily in assembly. Some features, like protected memory, remained absent from the Macintosh platform for eighteen years, when Mac OS X was released for the desktop. The Lisa was also designed to readily support multiple operating systems, making booting between them intuitive and convenient — something that has taken a very long time to achieve since Lisa, at least as a standard desktop OS feature.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The Lisa 2 and its Mac ROM-enabled sibling the Macintosh XL are the final two releases in the Lisa line, which was discontinued in April 1985. The Macintosh XL is a hardware and software conversion kit to effectively reboot Lisa into Macintosh mode. In 1986, Apple offered all Lisa and XL owners the opportunity to return their computer, with an additional payment of , in exchange for a Macintosh Plus and Hard Disk 20. Reportedly, 2,700 working but unsold Lisa computers were buried in a landfill.


title: Apple Lisa

text: The Macintosh project, led by Steve Jobs, borrowed heavily from Lisa's GUI paradigm and directly took many of its staff, to create Apple's flagship platform of the next several decades. The column-based interface, for instance, utilized by Mac OS X, had originally been developed for Lisa. It had been discarded in favor of the icon view.


title: Apple Lisa

text: Apple's culture of object-oriented programming on Lisa contributed to the 1988 conception of Pink, the first attempt to rearchitect the operating system of Macintosh.


title: The Big Bang Theory (season 12)

text: The twelfth and final season of the American television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" premiered on CBS on September 24, 2018. The season returned to its regular Thursday timeslot on September 27, 2018, and concluded on May 16, 2019.


title: The Big Bang Theory (season 12)

text: In March 2017, CBS renewed the series for two more seasons, bringing its total to twelve, and running through the 2018–19 television season. On August 22, 2018, CBS and Warner Bros. Television officially announced that the twelfth season would be the series' last. This stemmed from Jim Parsons' decision to leave the series at the end of season twelve if the show were to have been renewed for a thirteenth season. The series concluded with an hour-long finale consisting of two back-to-back episodes on May 16, 2019.


title: The Big Bang Theory (season 12)

text: A retrospective, "Unraveling the Mystery: A Big Bang Farewell", hosted by Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco, aired at 9:30 P.M. ET/PT, the night of the finale, following the season two finale of "Young Sheldon", and the series finale of "The Big Bang Theory". The special was also included on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the season.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Hoodwinked! is a 2005 computer-animated musical comedy mystery film. It retells the folktale "Little Red Riding Hood" as a police procedural, using backstories to show multiple characters' points of view. It was produced independently by Blue Yonder Films with Kanbar Entertainment, directed and written by Cory Edwards along with Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech, and produced by Katie Hooten, Maurice Kanbar, David K. Lovegren, Sue Bea Montgomery, and Preston Stutzman. The film features the voices of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Anthony Anderson, David Ogden Stiers, Xzibit, Chazz Palminteri, and Andy Dick.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" was among the earliest computer-animated films to be completely independently funded. Working apart from a major studio allowed the filmmakers greater creative control, but also restrained them economically. Due to the film's low budget, its animation was produced in the Philippines, with a less realistic design inspired by stop motion films. The Weinstein Company did not sign on as the film's distributor until near the end of production, and while the company had several roles recast with higher-profile actors, it otherwise made few changes to the film. Structurally, the film was inspired by non-linear crime dramas, such as "Rashomon" and "Pulp Fiction". It was released shortly after the first two installments in the successful "Shrek" series, which accentuated the fairy tale parody genre of which "Hoodwinked!" is a part. "Hoodwinked!", however, intentionally deviated from the "Shrek" series in its style of humor and in certain plot elements. This was in part based on Cory Edwards' concerns over exposing children to the high level of cynicism often found in the genre.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The film was released by The Weinstein Company in Los Angeles, California, on December 16, 2005, for a one-week engagement before expanding nationwide on January 13, 2006. Critical reception to the film was varied; although its script and voice performances were praised by many reviews, its animation quality was heavily criticized. The film was a commercial success, earning over thirteen times its less-than-$8 million budget. Because of this, it is regarded as the most profitable animated film ever made. A sequel, "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil", directed by Mike Disa. It was created by an entirely different team, even though the original draft of the screenplay was written by the Edwards brothers and Leech. It was released in 2011 to negative reviews and financial failure.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Little Red Riding Hood arrives at her grandmother's house, where the Big Bad Wolf has disguised himself as Red's Granny. The Wolf attacks Red. Granny, who has been tied up, jumps out of a closet just as ax-wielding woodsman Kirk bursts through the window. The police arrive, and Detective Nicky Flippers questions everyone about the incident.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Little Red, actually named Red Puckett, explains she was delivering goodies for her grandmother's business when she discovered a threat from the Goody Bandit, who has been stealing recipes. Red had set out to take the Puckett family recipes to Granny's mountaintop home. She fell out of bunny Boingo's cable car and encountered the Wolf, who asked her suspicious questions. Red then met the old singing goat Japeth, who accompanied her to Granny's house where she found the Wolf waiting in ambush.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The Wolf reveals that he is an investigative reporter on the trail of the Goody Bandit, and had reason to believe Red and Granny were the culprits. The Wolf and his hyperactive squirrel assistant Twitchy confronted Red in hope of solving the Goody Bandit mystery. When they failed to detain Red, they made haste for Granny's house, arriving ahead of Red using a shortcut known to Boingo. They found Granny already tied up in the closet. The Wolf disguised himself as Granny, planning to trick Red into revealing the truth about the Goody Bandit.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Kirk explains his appearance at Granny's house was pure happenstance; he is an aspiring actor trying out for the part of a woodsman in a commercial. After his schnitzel truck was robbed by the Goody Bandit, he was consoled by Boingo and then received a callback for the commercial. He spent the rest of the day getting into character by chopping trees, until at sunset a tree collapsed and pushed him through the window of Granny's home.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The investigation turns to Granny, who is secretly an extreme sports enthusiast. Earlier that day she had competed in a ski race, with Boingo watching as a fan. Granny had been attacked by the opposing team before winning the race. She learned that the Goody Bandit hired the team to eliminate her. She says that while parachuting back home, she got tangled in the parachute strings, which snagged on her ceiling fan and threw her into the closet.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Feeling betrayed by Granny's secrecy, Red wanders off alone. Flippers deduces that Boingo had been present in all four stories and must be the Goody Bandit. Red notices Boingo sneaking in and stealing the Puckett family recipes. She follows him to his cable car station hideout where she confronts him but is overpowered and captured. The police pursue Boingo in the wrong direction. Granny, the Wolf, and Kirk locate Boingo as he is explaining his evil scheme to Red: he plans to add addictive "Boingonium" to the recipes then bulldoze the forest for a Boingo-themed corporate empire.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The Wolf and Kirk distract Boingo as Granny sneaks into Boingo's lair, but they are all found out. Boingo sends a bound and gagged Red down the mountain in a cable car loaded with explosives. Granny goes after Red, with Boingo and his henchmen in pursuit. Red frees herself and escapes with Granny, while the police, who have been redirected by Twitchy, wait at the bottom of the mountain to arrest Boingo and his henchmen.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Kirk finds success in a yodeling troupe, while Red, Granny, the Wolf, and Twitchy are enlisted by Flippers to join the Happily Ever After Agency crime-solving organization.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" was one of the first independent computer-animated films to be produced without the aid of a distributor. Although the film's budget is listed as $30 million on Box Office Mojo, several sources have rejected this figure, reporting that the film was produced for no more than $15 million. Director Cory Edwards explained in a 2009 interview that the film's actual budget was under $8 million. Any of these figures would be significantly lower than is typical for a computer-animated film's budget. At the time of "Hoodwinked!"s production, the costs of computer-animation software had only recently decreased to a price that was accessible to more than just major studios, and leading up to the film's release, producer David Lovegren said, "Six or seven years ago, the idea of doing "Hoodwinked!" as an independent [animated] feature would have been impossible".


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The filmmakers only made the film independently by necessity, and Cory Edwards has said, "It's not a model to be followed. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, seat-of-your-pants kind of thing that just barely came off." However, he added that the process was worth going through to get the film made, and encouraged aspiring filmmakers to be willing to follow it.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: After a number of years spent producing commercials and music videos in Tulsa, brothers Cory and Todd Edwards founded their own production company, Blue Yonder Films. Joined by their friends producers Brad Knull, Robert Yanovitch and Preston Stutzman, who also led marketing for the company. The group released their first feature film, "Chillicothe", at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Emboldened by this success, the company then moved to Los Angeles in the hopes of producing a sophomore film. Blue Yonder evolved as Knull and Yanovitch left to pursue other interests, and new opportunities for the remaining three partners proved elusive at first.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: An associate producer on "Chillicothe", Sue Bea Montgomery, sought out studios that might want to work with the trio; she was met with indifference and determined that Blue Yonder Films would have to further establish itself on the independent scene before anyone would take interest. Montgomery then set up a meeting between the filmmakers and Maurice Kanbar, a successful entrepreneur who had made a minor investment in "Chillicothe".


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The Edwards brothers pitched a number of ideas for live-action films to Kanbar and proposed a development deal that would have entailed Kanbar paying the group and covering their rent in exchange for a significant portion of the rights to any scripts that Blue Yonder Films ever sold. Kanbar, however, was interested in a more direct approach, preferring to focus efforts on getting a single film produced. He had always admired animation, and after seeing a direct-to-DVD computer-animated short film that Cory had made called "Wobots", suggested the possibility of producing an animated feature with Blue Yonder Films, one that would tell a familiar narrative with a twist. Kanbar gave the group a month to come up with a story idea.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Although Kanbar expressed interest in producing a retelling of "Cinderella" or "Pinocchio", the Edwards brothers insisted on avoiding stories that had already been defined by Disney. Several ideas were considered by the brothers. Cory suggested "Little Red Riding Hood", describing it as a story "so simple that you can go a lot of different directions with it",


title: Hoodwinked!

text: and within a few days, inspiration came to Todd through non-linear crime dramas, such as "Rashomon", "Pulp Fiction", "Run Lola Run" and "Memento". Todd's proposal to retell "Little Red Riding Hood" as a police investigation, exploring the narrative through multiple points of view, was embraced by Kanbar, who agreed to fully finance the film before seeing a finished script.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Kanbar's initial plan was to release the film directly to DVD. In 2002, Kanbar and Montgomery joined together in founding Kanbar Entertainment and Kanbar Animation, independent production studios that teamed with Blue Yonder Films for the production of "Hoodwinked!"


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Cory served as the film's main director, as he had more experience with animation, comedy, and children's entertainment, while Todd served as co-director. Montgomery and Stutzman were joined by Disney animation veteran David Lovegren as producers on the film, and Cory's and Todd's sister Katie Hooten joined as an associate producer. Tony Leech, who had worked with the Edwards brothers on "Chillicothe", was initially hired as an editor, but gained story input as well. He eventually proved to be so valuable to the production that he was given a role as co-director.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The filmmakers found independently producing the film to have both benefits and challenges. Although they were given a great amount of creative control by their executive producer Maurice Kanbar, their small budget kept them from making potentially beneficial changes to the story once production was underway. Todd Edwards related that "Money doesn't just buy you more talent and more machinery, it also buys you flexibility on a story level. At Disney, if they don't like the third act, they just throw the whole thing out and re-animate the whole thing, even if it's finished ... We had no such luxury, and so in a way, you're watching our first version of the movie."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Knowing ahead of time their inability to alter the film's script once animating had begun, an effort was made by the filmmakers to finalize the script as much as possible before the start of production, which is not a common practice for studio-produced animated films.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Turning away from the well-known archetypes of the "Little Red Riding Hood" characters, the filmmakers continued to look towards non-linear crime dramas for inspiration instead. Producer Preston Stutzman explained that "The whole film is about surprises and secret lives". Not wanting Red to be "boring" or "too innocent", she was patterned on James Dean and given the desire of leaving home to find her way in the world. Todd Edwards had the idea of basing the Wolf on Chevy Chase's character in "Fletch", feeling that it would be fun to apply the character's dry, deadpan style of humor to an animated wolf, while Cory Edwards created the hyperactive character of Twitchy to serve as the Wolf's foil. Going against types, Red's Granny was written as a thrill-seeking action hero, while the strong Woodsman was written as being childishly incompetent.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The police officers were written to come across as everyday guys and Cory Edwards has explained that the decision to make three of them pigs was not politically motivated.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Nicky Flippers was not a part of the story as it was initially conceived and prior to his creation, the investigation was going to be led by Chief Grizzly. After producer Sue Bea Montgomery and her husband pointed out similarities between their film and the 1950s film/TV series "The Thin Man", the Edwards brothers and Leech decided to introduce the character and his dog into the film as an homage to Nick Charles.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Cory Edwards chose to approach the film predominantly as an action/comedy, instead of as a typical animated film, and wrote the script to appeal to audiences of any age like many of the films produced by Pixar or Disney. "Bugs Bunny", "Road Runner", "Rocky and Bullwinkle", "The Muppets", "The Simpsons" and "The Incredibles" have all been cited as inspirations for the film. An attempt was made to distance the film from "Shrek" and other similar themed films that had been recently released, by excluding magic, wizards, and fairies from the film. Cory Edwards also strived for a different style of humor than "Shrek", choosing to make his film more family friendly and less of a satire.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Working out of Todd and Preston’s apartment, Cory and Todd Edwards initially wrote the script while Cory sketched most of the film's storyboards, and Todd wrote the songs. Leech simultaneously scanned the boards and edited the story reel on his Mac computer. The first (temp) voice cast was the three of them. Producer Sue Bea Montgomery showed test screenings of the story reel to children in her neighborhood, and gained input from their reactions. The filmmakers had been considering removing Japeth the goat, but chose not to when he proved one of the most popular characters at these screenings. The children also particularly liked Twitchy, which led to the expansion of the character's role.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: In an effort to save costs, the film's cast was originally going to be composed mostly of friends and family members of the filmmakers. Cory and Todd brought in their cousin Tye Edwards to play Dolph and turned to their friend Joshua J. Greene to play Jimmy Lizard. Japeth was written specifically for Benjy Gaither, the son of gospel music singers Bill and Gloria Gaither. He had been a friend of the Edwards brothers since childhood and Cory's short film "Wobots" had been produced through his animation studio Live Bait Productions. Cory's wife Vicki was given the role of a skunk reporter, and while some consideration was initially given to having an adult play the child woodpecker Quill, the role was instead given to producer David K. Lovegren's daughter Kathryn. The Edwards brothers, Leech, and producer Preston Stutzman all took on roles as well. Wanting to do one of the voices in his movie and having watched a lot of squirrels, Cory took on the role of Twitchy, and Pro Tools was used to speed up the recording of his dialogue by 50 percent. Todd played the local Sandwich Man, Leech played both Det. Bill Stork and Glen, and Stutzman played Timmy.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: As the producers gained greater confidence in the film, however, larger name actors were brought in. Patrick Warburton was the first celebrity actor to join the film and did so purely out of a love for the script. Though Cory Edwards had originally envisioned the Wolf as sounding like a mixture between a young Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, he praised Warburton's performance, saying that he "made the Wolf his own character." Warburton, who had past experience in voice acting from "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" and "The Emperor's New Groove", found funny Edwards' idea to voice the Wolf as an investigative reporter who fancied himself like Chevy Chase's "Fletch" character, so he decided to voice the Wolf dryly and inquisitively. Andy Dick also joined the cast early on, to voice Boingo. He used improvisation and approached the role differently from how it had been written, interpreting the character as victimized and unstable. The filmmakers were enthusiastic over Dick's angle on the character, and Todd Edwards said, "What we had written was kind of stock, to be honest, but Andy Dick, well, where he was supposed to laugh, he'd be crying. Where he was supposed to yell, he'd be laughing. He just mixed it up!" Prolific voice performers Tara Strong, David Ogden Stiers and Tom Kenny were cast in multiple roles. Strong was cast as Red and Zorra, Stiers was cast as Kirk, the Woodsman and Nicky Flippers, and Kenny was cast as Tommy and Woolworth the Sheep. Emmy-winning actress Sally Struthers was brought in to play Granny Puckett and Joel McCrary was cast as Chief Grizzly.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The film's animation was created on Maya software, and in an effort to save costs, was produced in Manila, Philippines. Producers Sue Bea Montgomery and David K. Lovegren founded the animation studio Digital Eye Candy for the purpose of the film's production and stationed it in a 5,000-square-foot rented house. Cory Edwards traveled to this studio a total of fifteen times over the course of the film's three-year production and has explained that although the house was located in an expensive part of Manila, the rent was no more than that of his two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. When Cory was not able to be on site, Todd took over directing duties. "Along with Tony, we were kind of a 'three-headed monster,'" Cory explains. "We all knew what movie we were making, and I trusted those guys to make creative calls when I couldn't be there." Lovegren had attempted to start an independent animation studio in the Philippines before in 2001, but the studio, called ImagineAsia, was closed after it failed to attract business. Digital Eye Candy hired approximately twenty animators that had previously been employed by ImagineAsia, and at one point the studio reached fifty employees.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The film's animators had little experience with computer-animation and feature-length films, and had to be trained by the producers over the course of the film's production. Since none of the animators were specialists, they were not divided into specific teams, but instead each worked on all areas of the animating process. The filmmakers found this to be a poor method though, because it kept the individual skills of the animators from being optimized. Due to their independent backgrounds, the animators were accustomed to working at fast paces, and despite their small numbers, each phase of production was able to be completed within a short period of time. Still, schedule and budget restraints led the filmmakers to enlist Prana Studios in Mumbai, India to perform lighting and compositing.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The filmmakers found that the most difficult aspect of producing the film independently was their inability to fix all of the mistakes made in the film's animation. Todd Edwards explained that "it becomes an equation: 'I have 10 things that I would like to change in this shot. I have the time and the budget to do three. Pick those three and then let's move on.' And that was hard to do". Another obstacle during the film's production, according to Cory Edwards, was putting fur on the animal characters. It took the filmmakers three and a half years to crack the code to do so perfectly, forcing themselves to redesign and reanimate several aspects.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Knowing that they could not match the quality of other computer-animated films, the film was instead designed to imitate the look of stop motion. Cory Edwards cited Rankin-Bass as an inspiration and explained, "If we approach our look like that—photographed miniatures in stop motion—and if that nostalgia resonates with our audience as far as that look, then we're not going to shoot ourselves in the foot trying to put every freckle and hair on photoreal creatures." Edwards contrasted the technically innovative, but critically panned 1986 film "Howard the Duck" with the simple, but beloved puppet character Kermit the Frog to illustrate to his crew the importance of well-written, likeable characters over technical quality.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Distancing the film from what producer Preston Stutzman called the "candy-coated, brightly colored pastel world[s]" of other CG animated films, an attempt was made to bring an organic look to the film, and “dirt” was rubbed into the colors. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was cited as an inspiration for the filmmakers to try to bend the characters' shapes into extremes, and many other choices unconventional to computer-animated films were also made. For example, one of the Woodsman's eyes was made bigger than the other, and Red was given only four fingers, so as to make her look more like a doll. Producer Katie Hooten explained that "CG in the past has been pushing the envelope to make things look more realistic, but "Hoodwinked" takes things back to where CG looks a lot more like a cartoon."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The film's score was composed by John Mark Painter, who along with his wife Fleming McWilliams, constituted the rock duo Fleming and John in the 1990s. The Edwards brothers were fans of the group and first met Painter while Cory was performing in an animated film on which Painter served as the composer. The score was inspired by music from the 1960s and the soundtracks to "Planet of the Apes", "Dark Shadows", and "The Untouchables" have been cited as influences, as well as the works of Henry Mancini. It was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, where Kristin Wilkinson served as the orchestrator and conductor.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: In an effort to appeal to older audience members, Todd Edwards chose to replace parts of Painter's score with original rock music. From this came the song "Little Boat", written and sung by Daniel Rogers, who had composed Edwards' first film "Chillicothe". "Runaway" was written by Joshua J. Greene, a friend of the Edwards brothers', who also provided the voice of Jimmy Lizard in the film. "The Real G", sung by Cory Edwards and "Bounce", sung by Todd Collins were both written by Painter and Cory Edwards. "Blow Your House Down" was performed by the Filipino band Pupil and written by their lead singer Ely Buendia.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Cory Edwards was willing to include the Foo Fighters' song "All My Life". The Foo Fighters decided against it due to having a new album coming out and having no enthusiasm about using their old hit, afraid it was getting overused. No Foo Fighters song was included on the soundtrack.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Todd Edwards wrote nine original songs for the film and sung four of them: "Critters Have Feelings", "Tree Critter", "Eva Deanna", and "Glow". "Eva Deanna" was written about a day that he and his wife spent at the zoo with their niece, the daughter of associate producer Katie Hooten. "Glow" was written about the Edwards siblings' grandmother, Vera, who had died a few years earlier. "Great Big World" was sung by Anne Hathaway and replaced another song called "Woods Go-Round", which Edwards considered too childish and described as being "in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons." This change required the scene to be re-animated and re-cut. "Be Prepared" was sung by Benjy Gaither and developed out of a practicality; the filmmakers wanted to introduce Japeth while the character is rocking back and forth on his horns, as though the horns are a rocking chair. However, they realized that this would make the horns too big to fit in a minecart later on in the film. As a solution, they came up with the gag of having the character switch his horns several times, and this led to the song's concept. McWilliams joined Jim Belushi to sing "The Schnitzel Song" and Painter asked his longtime friend Ben Folds to sing "Red is Blue", a selection strongly advocated for by Edwards. Folds was working on a new album at the time, but a year after the proposal, found the opportunity to record the song and compose a piano arrangement for it as well. "Top of the Woods" was sung by Andy Dick and was originally composed to be slow-paced. The recording of Dick's performance was sped up though at the suggestion of Ralf Palmer, a prolific animator and friend of producer Sue Bea Montgomery.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" was shown to potential distributors throughout various stages of its production. Though a distribution offer was made by DreamWorks, it was turned down as the filmmakers did not feel that it was a good deal. As the film neared the end of production, it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Harvey and Bob Weinstein were also at the festival at the time, screening Robert Rodriguez's film "Sin City", which they were distributing through their then newly formed studio, The Weinstein Company. They decided to pick "Hoodwinked!" up for distribution after it was brought to their attention by Rodriguez's wife, whose attorney also happened to work for Blue Yonder Films. Although Cory Edwards did not meet Rodriguez, he acknowledged him as instrumental to get the film made.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The Weinsteins had recently left the Walt Disney Company and according to Cory Edwards, they "loved the idea of picking up an animated film and giving Disney a run for their money". The involvement of the Weinstein Company encouraged Kanbar enough to enlist Skywalker Sound. The film was nearly complete by the time that the Weinsteins became involved, and Edwards has stated that nothing was done by them to ruin "the original vision of the movie." However, a few edit suggestions were made to quicken the film's pace which Edwards felt were good ideas, as he considered the first twenty minutes to be dragging.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The Weinstein Company also heavily recast the film with bigger-name actors in the hopes of attracting a larger audience. Anne Hathaway replaced Tara Strong in the lead role of Red; Jim Belushi replaced David Ogden Stiers in the role of Kirk, the Woodsman; Anthony Anderson replaced Tony Leech in the role of Det. Bill Stork; Glenn Close replaced Sally Struthers in the role of Granny Puckett; Xzibit replaced Joel McCrary in the role of Chief Grizzly and Chazz Palminteri replaced Tom Kenny in the role of Woolworth the Sheep. Opining that the final steps in character design were really fleshed out when the actors were hired, Hooten felt that Hathaway put some edge that was missing on Red, making her more sarcastic, sassy and quick. Anderson accepted the role of Bill Stork given his past experience as voice actor and his previous collaborations with the Weinsteins in "Scary Movie 3" and "My Baby's Daddy", wanting to do something that his children and godchildren could watch and enjoy. Palminteri was called to be offered the part of Woolworth the Sheep, which he accepted as found the script hilarious. Despite these recastings, Tara Strong retained the much smaller role of Zorra, David Ogden Stiers retained the role of Nicky Flippers, Tom Kenny retained the role of Tommy and Tony Leech retained the role of Glen. Many high-profile country singers were considered to replace Benjy Gaither in the role of Japeth, but none of them were available and Gaither retained the role. The Weinsteins also wanted to replace Joshua J. Greene in the role of Jimmy Lizard with a more famous actor such as Albert Brooks, but the role was ultimately not recast. Edwards appreciated the reason for the recastings and attributed a large part of the film's financial success to them. He expressed disappointment about the amount of recasting, however, saying, "At a certain point it became Recast-o-Rama, everybody got recast-happy. My feeling is, you get two or three names on that poster, you're fine. Our Hoodwinked poster has like a paragraph of names on it. After a certain point, I don't think you need more than two, three celebrities—give it to the voice actors. It sweetens the pot". Since the film's animation had already been mostly completed by the time the recastings were made, the new actors had to deliver their lines exactly as the old actors had done, giving them no opportunity to improvise. Edwards expressed disappointment with the fact that the original actors would not get any credit for their improvisations in the film, which were copied by the replacement actors.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The soundtrack was released in December 2005. Owing to legal disputes, the CD was pulled off of the market a month after its release and was not available again until November 2009. It was re-released on iTunes in January 2010.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" received a one-week, limited release in Los Angeles on December 16, 2005 to qualify for Oscar consideration. A nationwide U.S. release was scheduled for Christmas Day, 2005, but it was moved to January 13, 2006 to avoid competition with other films released during the holiday season.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" was released on DVD on May 2, 2006 and on Blu-ray and DVD on February 15, 2011. The film was the best-selling DVD in its initial week of release, selling over 700,000 copies and making over $13.5 million. A 22-minute behind-the-scenes video podcast is available for free on iTunes.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: In its opening four-day weekend, "Hoodwinked!" grossed $16,879,402 in 2,394 theaters in the United States, ranking  2 at the box office and averaging $7,050 per venue. It fell $50,000 short of "Glory Road", which took the box office's number-one spot that week. The film maintained its number-two spot in the box office for its second weekend, dropping 16.1 percent, and placed in the top ten for a total of five weeks. At the end of its theatrical run it had grossed a total of $110,013,167 worldwide—$51,386,611 in the United States and $58,626,556 in other territories.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 46%, based on 125 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "This fractured fairytale doesn't have the wit or animation quality to compete with the likes of the "Shrek" franchise." On Metacritic, it received a score of 45 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, and claimed that many of the film's ideas for altering its familiar storyline "sound better on paper than they turn out in execution." Finding it tedious to view the film's story told multiple times, he wrote that the film "slips into boredom." Bruce Westbrook of the "Houston Chronicle" also gave the film two-and-a-half stars, and although he praised its "snappy dialogue and fresh characterizations", he considered the film's plot underdeveloped and characters lacking in motivation. Peter Rainer writing for "The Christian Science Monitor" gave the film a C+ and called it "a moderately enjoyable escapade that isn't quite clever enough for adults and not quite imaginative enough for children." He was not overly critical of the film, but felt that it was a disappointment in comparison to the high standards for computer-animated films set by Pixar. Jami Bernard of the "New York Daily News" suggested that timelessness is a necessary component of an animated classic, and faulted the film for its attempt to be hip and current. While Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" praised the film's vocal performances, he wrote, ""Hoodwinked" never builds to a level of sustained comic mania ... One aches to think what the great "Looney Tunes" directors could have done with this material."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Several critics, however, were more enthusiastic about the film. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave "Hoodwinked!" an A- and praised the zaniness of its humor. Calling the filmmakers heroes, he compared them to Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh due to their potential for bringing independent filmmaking to prominence in animation. Although Nancy Churnin of the "Dallas Morning News" considered the film inferior to those of Pixar and DreamWorks, she still gave it a B and wrote, "it's got an upstart charm, a clever premise, appealing characters voiced by a terrific cast and a script that should make you laugh out loud more than once." In his review for the "Chicago Tribune", Michael Wilmington praised the film's voice cast, music, and script, and wrote, "it packs more verbal wit and surprise than the usual cartoon." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" gave it three-and-a-half stars out of five calling it "high-energy, imaginative entertainment".


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Japeth was praised amongst both positive and negative reviews. Gleiberman and Churnin both felt that the character was one of the best parts of the film, and Westbrook and Wilmington both described him as "a hoot". In a mostly positive review for the "Orlando Sentinel", Roger Moore called the character hilarious,


title: Hoodwinked!

text: while in a mostly negative review for "Variety", Justin Chang wrote that the character "steals the show every minute he's onscreen."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: One of the main criticisms of the film was the poor quality of its animation. Berardinelli called it some of the worst CGI animation in memory. He felt that the characters looked plastic, considered the backgrounds dull, and wrote, "On more than one occasion, I thought I was watching something made for TV. When compared to today's visual standards for animated films, Hoodwinked is far below the curve." Burr considered the film's surfaces poorly rendered and compared them to "Teletubbieland reupholstered with Naugahyde." Westbrook felt that the animation worked well for the animal characters, but wrote, "the humans have a glassy sheen and brittle hardness, much like work done in the early days of CG ... That art has come too far to embrace a throwback like Hoodwinked as lovably quaint. It's simply dated." Stephen Hunter of "The Washington Post" compared the characters to rubber toys, and wrote, "their faces are without nuance or vividness ... In movement, especially, do they lack grace and conviction. It seems like the recent breakthroughs in computerized magic have bypassed the poor Edwards fellows, as it looks stuck somewhere in the 1970s, or maybe even earlier."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Many reviews negatively compared the film to the "Shrek" series. Liam Lacey of "The Globe and Mail" considered the film to be "a sort of discount Shrek", while Burr called it ""Shrek" with added drek." Westbrook wrote that "Echoing such a popular predecessor as Shrek is not a good thing—especially when the echo is so faint." Berardinelli felt that the fairy tale references were not as smartly done as in the first Shrek film, while Bernard felt that "Hoodwinked!" took fairy tale revisionism too far. He felt that the humor in "Shrek" worked due to the fairy tale characters remaining in character throughout the film, and wrote, "It's pointless to scold them for behaving the way fairy tales intended, and that's far funnier than turning them into breakdancing anachronisms." Bill Muller of "The Arizona Republic" considered Red's kung fu abilities to be overly similar to Princess Fiona's ""Matrix" agility." Gleiberman also noted the similarities between the film and "Shrek", but he was positive in the comparison, feeling that its independent production gave the filmmakers "the freedom to follow their flakiest corkscrew whims." While Wilmington did not find "Hoodwinked!" as impressive or beguiling as "Shrek", he wrote that "when it's cooking, it does make you laugh."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Retrospectively, several critics noted that the film was considerably better than the 2007 computer-animated fairy tale parody film "Happily N'Ever After". Although Burr had given "Hoodwinked!" a negative review, he likened the film to "Citizen Kane" in comparison to "Happily N'Ever After". Wilmington also considered "Hoodwinked!" the superior of the two films, and Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" felt that the film was far wittier than "Happily N'Ever After". While Christy Lemire of Associated Press likened "Hoodwinked!" to a poor man's "Shrek", she went on to call "Happily N'Ever After" a poor man's "Hoodwinked!"


title: Hoodwinked!

text: In 2018, Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" called "Hoodwinked!" one of the top independent films for families. Acknowledging the crudeness of the animation, he nonetheless praised the writing as "bold and funny" and wrote that the direction "displays admirable comic timing." Brody considered the character personalities distinct from those in other animated comedies. He also commended the vocal performances for having a "zippy, brash energy that doesn't feel condescending". "Hoodwinked!" has also been praised by Tony Bancroft, who co-directed "Mulan".


title: Hoodwinked!

text: "Hoodwinked!" received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Animated Film at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, but lost to "Corpse Bride". "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film as number ten on "The Must List" for its January 27, 2006 issue, calling it a "genre-busting indie animated gem."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: In February 2006, author Timothy Sexton wrote an article titled "Hoodwinked: A Postmodern Examination of the Dangers of Runaway Capitalism" for "Associated Content", in which he posited that "Hoodwinked!" was one of the first postmodern animated films and that the film also carried political undertones. He argued that the relative nature of truth was shown by revealing deviations from the original fairy tale as the film explored the story from each of the central characters' points of view. Calling "Hoodwinked!" "the most subversive movie released nationwide since "Fahrenheit 9/11"", Sexton went on to interpret the film as a critique on the free enterprise system. He drew comparisons between the film's villain and the typical American business owner, going so far as to say that the character was "clearly based on people like Bill Gates and Sam Walton". In Sexton's view, the film exposed the flaws of capitalism, showing that if left unregulated, business owners will establish monopolies and eliminate competition.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The film's director and co-writer Cory Edwards was surprised by Sexton's interpretation and denied that the film intentionally carried any political messages. He explained that he and the other filmmakers were simply drawing from the evil schemes common of "James Bond" films, "Bugs Bunny" cartoons, and "The A-Team", and wrote "If Mr. Sexton sees my movie as a sermon against mega-corporations monopolizing America, that's fine. But our villain is just as easily the face of every dictator in history, or every schoolyard bully who is compensating for low self-esteem, or any Mafia boss who dominates by either absorbing or wiping out his competition. Hey, if you look at an abstract painting and see the devil in a red splotch, that's your prerogative ... I guess a movie's message is only partially supplied by the filmmaker."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: In May 2007 "Time" magazine ran an article by James Poniewozik titled "Is "Shrek" Bad for Kids?" which considered the negative effects on children of being raised with fairy tale satires, instead of the original stories. Poniewozik mentioned "Hoodwinked!" writing, "I thought "Hoodwinked!" and most of the "Shrek" series were hilarious ... But even if you ultimately reject their messages, old-school fairy tales are part of our cultural vocabulary. There's something a little sad about kids growing up in a culture where their fairy tales come pre-satirized, the skepticism, critique and revision having been done for them by the mama birds of Hollywood." Cory Edwards wrote into the magazine, expressing his similar sentiments and writing, "As the writer-director of "Hoodwinked", it may surprise you that I couldn't agree more with James Poniewozik's article. Even as I was making the film, I asked myself the same question: Are we parodying something that kids should have the chance to experience first, 'un-parodied?' We went to great lengths to distance our film from "Shrek"s humor (and no, I don't think "Shrek" considers kids). I would hope that "Hoodwinked" and its sequels will be seen as trying to do something genuine with its characters, rather than look for the next joke at the expense of innocence. We ALL need the real folklore of fairytales, whether we admit it or not."


title: Hoodwinked!

text: A sequel, "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil", was released on April 29, 2011. It was first announced in January 2006 and in February, Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech explained that although they would be writing the screenplay, they would not return to direct. Cory Edwards later elaborated on this decision, explaining that he had a negative experience working with some of the first film's "key players" and felt that he had been poorly treated by them. He also cited concerns over being confined to animation, and stated that he felt it would be a lateral move to direct a sequel to his first film as his second film. In March 2007, Edwards announced that Mike Disa had been hired to direct the sequel and expressed enthusiasm over his involvement, saying that he "has a real passion for the film and a devotion to maintaining the "Hoodwinked" world. He wants to do the sequel justice and he really gets what we're trying to do." Although much of the first film's cast returned for the sequel, Anne Hathaway was replaced by Hayden Panettiere in the role of Red and Jim Belushi was replaced by Martin Short in the role of Kirk the Woodsman.


title: Hoodwinked!

text: Kanbar Entertainment initially intended to finance production of the sequel independently as it had done with the first film, but entered into a co-financing agreement proposed by The Weinstein Company. The film was initially scheduled to be released on January 15, 2010, but in December 2009, The Weinstein Company postponed the film's release date indefinitely. In April 2010, Kanbar Entertainment brought a lawsuit against The Weinstein Company. In addition to claiming that the postponement of the film's release date breached an agreement between the two companies, the lawsuit accused the Weinstein Company of not contributing to monthly production accounts after February 2009, neglecting to consult Kanbar Entertainment of a release strategy, and not responding to proposed changes to the film, even though Kanbar Entertainment held "final authority on production decisions".


title: Hoodwinked!

text: The film was a financial failure, earning $23.1 million worldwide; less than its budget. Critical reception to the film was almost universally negative, with a Rotten score of 11% across 61 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 20/100 on Metacritic. Cory Edwards expressed disappointment with the finished film, indicating that it was heavily altered from the original script and saying that it was "deflating to give this thing away and watch others run with it in ways I would not."


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to "", after "", the third game set in the "Warcraft" fictional universe, and the first to be rendered in three dimensions. An expansion pack, "", was released in July 2003. "Warcraft III" is set several years after the events of "Warcraft II", and tells the story of the Burning Legion's attempt to conquer the fictional world of Azeroth with the help of an army of the Undead, led by fallen paladin Arthas Menethil. It chronicles the combined efforts of the Human Alliance, Orcish Horde, and Night Elves to stop them before they can corrupt the World Tree.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: In the game, as in many real-time strategy (RTS) games, players collect "resources", train individual units and heroes, and build bases in order to achieve various goals (in single-player mode), or to defeat the enemy player. Four playable "factions" can be chosen from: Humans, Orcs, (both of which appeared in the previous games) and two new factions: the Night Elves and the Undead. "Warcraft III"s single-player campaign is laid out similarly to that of "StarCraft", and is told through the races in a progressive manner. Players can also play matches against the computer, or against others—using local area networking (LAN) or Blizzard's Battle.net gaming platform.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: After "", the last in the "Warcraft II" saga, was released in 1996, Blizzard began development of a point-and-click adventure game called "", which was supposed to continue the story. "Lord of the Clans" was canceled in favor of "Warcraft III" in 1998, which was presented to the public at the European Computer Trade Show in September 1999. The game's design and gameplay was significantly altered during development, with the final game sharing little similarities with the originally presented version (see similarities to "StarCraft").


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game received acclaim from critics, who praised the game's presentation and multiplayer features. It is considered an influential example of RTS video games. "Warcraft III" was a commercial success, shipping 4.4 million copies to retail stores, selling over a million within a month. In 2020, Blizzard released a remastered version of both "Warcraft III" and its expansion, "The Frozen Throne", called "."


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: "Warcraft III" takes place on a map of varying size, such as large plains and fields, with terrain features like rivers, mountains, seas, or cliffs. The map is initially hidden from view and only becomes visible through exploration. Areas no longer in sight range of an allied unit or building are covered with the fog of war, meaning that while the terrain remains visible, changes such as enemy troop movements and building construction are not. During a game, players must establish settlements to gain resources, defend against others, and train units to explore the map and fight computer controlled foes. There are three main resources that are managed in "Warcraft III": gold, lumber, and food. The first two are required to construct units and buildings, while food restricts the maximum number of units that can be possessed at the same time. Additionally, a new "upkeep" system means that producing units over certain amounts will decrease the amount of gold one can earn, compelling players to focus on playing with a limited number of units to avoid penalties.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game displays units and buildings as well as the environment from a classical top-down perspective with a slight angle that can only be zoomed and rotated slightly. The game features a fixed interface in the bottom of the screen that displays a mini-map, the information about the currently selected unit or group of units and possible actions for this unit or building. If multiple units are selected, the game automatically groups them by type, allowing all units of the same type to be given special commands (like using their skills). A small top bar displays the current time of day as well as the currently owned resources and the current upkeep level. The top left corner displays a portrait of the player's hero(es) for quick access. If worker units have no jobs to do, their icons are displayed in the bottom left corner for easy assignment.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: "Warcraft III" features four playable factions: The Human Alliance — a coalition of humans, dwarves, and high elves — and the Orcish Horde — composed of orcs, trolls, and minotaur-inspired tauren — return from the previous games while the Undead Scourge and the Night Elves were added as two new factions. As in "StarCraft", each race has a unique set of units, structures, technologies, and base-building methodology.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game also introduces creeps, computer controlled units that are hostile to all players. Creeps guard key areas such as gold mines or neutral buildings and, when killed, provide experience points, gold, and special items that can be used by heroes. "Warcraft III" also introduced a day/night cycle to the series. Besides having advantages or disadvantages for certain races, at night most creeps fall asleep, making nighttime scouting safer; however, the line of sight for most units is also reduced. Additionally, some Night Elf units become invisible at night when not moving. Other minor changes to the gameplay were due to the 3D terrain. For instance, units on a cliff have an attack bonus when attacking units at lower elevations.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: In addition, "Warcraft III" adds powerful new units called heroes. For each enemy unit killed, a hero will gain experience points, which allow the hero to level-up to a maximum level of 10. Progressing up a level increases the hero's attributes and also allows the hero to gain new spell options (bringing role-playing video game elements to the series). Certain hero abilities can boost allied units. All heroes can equip items to increase skills, defense, and other abilities. At level six, the hero can obtain an "ultimate" skill that is more powerful than the three other spells that the hero possesses. Heroes can also utilize the various natural resources found throughout the map, such as controllable non-player characters, and markets in which the hero can purchase usable items. Often, hero units become the deciding factor in determining a winner.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: "Warcraft III"s campaign mode is divided into four campaigns, each featuring a different faction. Each campaign is itself divided into chapters, and there is a set order in which they have to be played as the story follows the events in these campaigns. Additionally, an optional prologue campaign that serves as a tutorial can be played before starting the main campaign. Unlike previous Blizzard titles, such as "Warcraft II" or "StarCraft", there are no mission briefings in which plot exposition occurs and objectives are announced; rather, "Warcraft III" uses a system of "seamless quests". Some plot development happens in an occasional cinematic, but most occurs in-game with cutscenes. Objectives, known as quests, are revealed during the progress of the map. Main quests are those that must be completed to proceed to the next chapter, but there are also optional side quests that are not initially revealed, but can be discovered and completed while following the main questline, oftentimes granting benefits that help with those main objectives.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Through each race's campaign, the player retains control of one or more heroes who slowly grow in experience as the levels progress, which is carried over to subsequent missions, allowing the hero to become more powerful throughout the course of the campaign.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: While different in terms of story-line and precise gameplay, all of the different races' campaigns are structured similarly. Each begins with a level involving simple mechanics to introduce the faction and the basic elements of their hero and units. After one or two such levels, the first "building mission" occurs, requiring them to build and maintain a base while competing with one or more enemy forces. The only campaign that breaks this pattern is the Night Elf campaign, whose first mission involves building a limited base. The last level of each race's campaign is an "epic battle" in which a large number of enemy foes has to be defeated.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game's multiplayer mode uses the Battle.net network. Players can create free accounts in regional "gateways," which helps reduce lag; these are Azeroth (U.S. East), Lordaeron (U.S. West), Northrend (Europe), and Kalimdor (Asia). Unlike previous Battle.net-enabled games, "Warcraft III" introduced anonymous matchmaking, automatically pairing players for games based on their skill level and game type preferences, preventing cheating and inflating their records artificially. If players want to play with a friend in ranked matches, "Warcraft III" offers "Arranged Team Games", where a team joins a lobby, and Battle.net will search for another team; as with anonymous matchmaking, the enemy team is not known beforehand.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: While campaign games can have many different objectives, the sole objective in multiplayer games is to destroy all the buildings of the opposition. In default melee matches, players can pick their own heroes, and losing one will not end the game. To make the game proceed more quickly, by default the map is fully revealed but covered in the fog of war. "Warcraft III", like Blizzard's previous title "StarCraft", allows for single and multiplayer replays to be recorded and viewed, allowing a game to be played at slower and faster speeds and viewed from the perspective of all players.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Players can also host custom games, using maps either created in the World Editor, or the default multiplayer scenarios. The map editor allows a variety of custom maps to be created, such as a number of tower defense and multiplayer online battle arena maps, the most notable of which was "Defense of the Ancients." The game also offers friends lists and channels for chatting, where players can create custom channels or join Blizzard-approved ones. "Warcraft III" also allows players to band together to form "clans", which can participate in tournaments or offer a recreational aspect to "Warcraft III". Global scores and standings in matchmaking games are kept on a "ladder".


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: "Warcraft III" takes place in the fictional world of Azeroth. Several years before the events of the game, a demon army known as the Burning Legion intent on Azeroth's destruction corrupted a race called the Orcs, and sent them through a portal to attack Azeroth. These events were previously shown in "", "" and "". After many years of fighting, the Orcs were defeated by a coalition of humans, dwarves and elves known as the Alliance; the surviving Orcs were herded into internment camps, where they seemed to lose their lust for battle. With no common enemy, a period of peace followed, but the Alliance began to fracture.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game follows the story of three different heroes: The one of young and idealistic human paladin and crown prince of Lordaeron, Arthas Menethil, as he becomes more and more corrupted until he joins the Undead and assists with the summoning of demonic forces to Azeroth; the adventures of Orc warchief Thrall as he brings his people to the world of Kalimdor to escape human captivity and the impending downfall of Lordaeron; and the events involving Tyrande Whisperwind, the Night Elven leader, who has to deal with both the arrival of humans and orcs in their sacred lands and the invasion by the demon forces.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game opens with the Orc leader, Thrall, waking from a nightmare warning him of the return of the Burning Legion. After a brief encounter with a being who is known only as "the Prophet", and, fearing that his dream was more of a vision than a nightmare, he leads his forces in an exodus from Lordaeron to the forgotten lands of Kalimdor.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Meanwhile, Arthas defends the village of Strahnbrad from orcs. He then joins Archmage Jaina Proudmoore, who aids him in investigating a rapidly spreading plague, which kills and turns human victims into the undead. Arthas kills the plague's originator, Kel'Thuzad, and then purges the infected city of Stratholme which leads Jaina to part ways with him in disgust. The Prophet, who failed to convince other human leaders to flee west, begs Jaina to go to Kalimdor. Arthas pursues the dreadlord Mal'Ganis to the icy continent of Northrend, where he helps his old friend Muradin Bronzebeard in finding a powerful sword called Frostmourne. When he is told that his forces have been recalled by the Emissary, he begins losing his sanity and engineers the burning of his own ships to prevent their return. Arthas and Muradin eventually find Frostmourne but learn that the sword is cursed. Disregarding the warning, Arthas offers his soul to gain the sword which leads to Muradin being knocked out (and presumed dead) by a shard of ice when Frostmourne is released. Arthas slays Mal'Ganis with the sword and returns to Lordaeron where he murders his father, King Terenas.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Now an Undead Death Knight, Arthas meets with the leader of the dreadlords, Tichondrius, who tasks him with resurrecting Kel'Thuzad. After exhuming his body and killing his former mentor Uther the Lightbringer for his father's urn to transport the remains in, Arthas sets off to Quel'Thalas, kingdom of the high elves. He kills Sylvanas Windrunner, the Ranger General of Silvermoon (only to resurrect her as a banshee), corrupts their sacred Sunwell and revives Kel'Thuzad as a Lich. The Lich informs him of the Burning Legion, a vast demonic army who are coming to consume the world, as well as about his true master, the Lich King, who was created to aid the Legion with his Undead Scourge but in truth wishes for the Legion to be destroyed. Arthas and Kel'Thuzad open a dimensional portal and summon the demon Archimonde and the Burning Legion, who begins his purging of Lordaeron with the destruction of Dalaran. Arthas and Kel'Thuzad are cast aside by Archimonde but Kel'Thuzad reveals to Arthas that the Lich King has already foreseen this and is planning to overthrow the Burning Legion.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Thrall arrives on Kalimdor, meeting Cairne Bloodhoof and the Tauren and clashes with a human expedition on the way to find an Oracle. Meanwhile, the Orcish Warsong Clan is left behind in Ashenvale to build a permanent settlement, but angers the Night Elves and their demigod Cenarius by cutting down the forests for resources. To defeat them, the Warsong leader Grom Hellscream drinks from a fountain contaminated with the blood of the Legion's pit lord commander Mannoroth, successfully killing Cenarius, but binding his clan to the Legion's control. Thrall manages to reach the Oracle, in fact the Prophet, who tells him of Grom's actions. Following the Prophet's directions, Thrall and Jaina join forces and capture Grom, healing him of Mannoroth's corruption. Thrall and Grom begin to hunt Mannoroth and Grom kills him, dying in the process, but in doing so freeing the orcs from the demonic control of Mannoroth.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Tyrande Whisperwind, leader of the Night Elves, is outraged to find the Humans and Orcs violating the forests and blames them for Cenarius' death, so she vows to destroy both. However, she soon finds out that the Burning Legion has arrived on Kalimdor. In order to oppose the Burning Legion, Tyrande reawakens the sleeping Elf Druids, starting with her lover, Malfurion Stormrage, and frees his brother Illidan Stormrage from prison, against Malfurion's wishes. Illidan meets Arthas, who tells him about the powerful "Skull of Gul'dan". Consuming the Skull and becoming a demon-elf hybrid, Illidan uses its power to kill Tichondrius but is banished from the forest by his brother as he is now part demon. Meanwhile, the Prophet summons Thrall, Jaina, Tyrande and Malfurion, and reveals that he used to be Medivh, the Last Guardian and the betrayer from "", returned to make amends for his past sins. With the Burning Legion marching towards Mount Hyjal in their intent to corrupt the World Tree and thus the whole world, Humans, Orcs, and Night Elves form a reluctant alliance to spring a trap on the Burning Legion. They manage to delay the Legion long enough for many ancestral spirits to gather at the World Tree and destroy Archimonde as he attempts to reach it but in doing so, the Night Elves lose their immortality and their power over nature will gradually wane over time, though they do not mind. Peace once again comes to Kalimdor as the Burning Legion's forces wither away in defeat. Medivh, in a final monologue, then states that he needed to teach the world that guardians are no longer necessary to look after Azeroth and that he is satisfied that his task is now complete. Medivh then disappears, stating that he will now take his place amongst the legends of the past.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: After the success of "" (1995) and "" (1996), Blizzard originally planned to continue the story with a point-and-click adventure game called "". This game was supposed to tell the story of Thrall from being raised in captivity to becoming the leader of his clan. However, in 1998, Blizzard canceled "Lord of the Clans" for not meeting the company's quality standards. Thrall's story was instead worked into "Warcraft III", whose development began in early 1998. The game was announced as a role-playing strategy game (RPS) on September 5, 1999, at a press conference by the game's lead designer Rob Pardo inside the Henley-Suite at the European Computer Trade Show 1999.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: According to Pardo, Mike O'Brien, the game's lead programmer, originally planned a strategy game—tentatively titled "Warcraft Legends"—with few units to command, over-the-shoulder camera and no base building. However, after a year of work this concept did not work out and the existing framework was used to create "Warcraft III" instead. As a result of these design choices, the first version shown at ECTS 1999 had no notable interface, however it did have portraits for the heroes. In first previews, the game's design and gameplay was therefore compared to games such as "Myth" and "Heroes of Might and Magic". Various articles showed that abilities and items were used via right-click on a unit and an appearing icon collar. In the early stages of development, Blizzard emphasized the role-playing aspect and downplayed base building. Around January 24, 2000 a video from Korea appeared on the Internet; the video showed some aspects of gameplay along with commentary by Pardo. This version already had an interface concept, however most of the interface were placeholders. It had a map, icons for abilities and unit commands and an eye-shaped display for gold. Originally, the game was planned to be released at the end of 2000.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: At E3 2000, Blizzard showed a first gameplay trailer that included an interface with some elements of the final design. Then from E3 2000 around May 12, 2000 to ECTS 2000 the game was not changed very much. Gameplay footage from 2001 reveals a polished version of the interface seen in the E3 2000 trailer. Back in November 2000, the game was set to feature five playable races (with the addition of demons) and only a single resource to be mined. In January 2001, Blizzard announced the Night Elves as the last race as well as the conversion of demons into an NPC race. The next major changes came between ECTS 2000 and E3 2001, when a different interface and the Night Elf race was revealed. The versions demonstrated at E3 2001 and ECTS 2001 already contained all the final interfaces and units. In April 2001, Blizzard still experimented with different resources and had versions of the game with gold, lumber, mana stones and upkeep or a race depending resource that represented the population like the required food in newer versions.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: In the middle of January 2002, Blizzard shipped out 5000 beta versions of "Warcraft III" to randomly selected testers in order to help improve it before being released in stores. The beta release had all the game's units and races, however, it was only playable over Battle.net; single player games and LAN play were not playable on the beta version of the game. "Warcraft III" was first released in the United States on July 3, 2002 and in Europe on July 5, 2002.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Blizzard continued to maintain "WarCraft III", regarding technical issues and compatibility for newer operating systems. In April 2018, Blizzard integrated widescreen support for the first time, more than 15 years after the game's first release.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: "Warcraft III" was the first Blizzard game to be rendered using 3D graphics. Unlike other 3D games of that era, this included all parts of the game, including the menu screens. All characters, including environment units like sheep, have their own 3D portraits when selected that animate when the unit is talking. The game does not use mission briefings like its predecessor but instead tells the story using cutscenes rendered using the game's 3D engine. These cutscenes show the characters using a side-view camera, zooming in to the models. Additionally, each campaign features pre-rendered cinematics that show the outcome of the campaign.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: According to Samwise Didier, Blizzard's art director for "Warcraft III", the company, when developing the first game of the series, attempted to create a more realistic experience, based on the belief that PC gamers preferred these graphics, leading to "Warcraft: Orcs and Humans" looking like Medieval Europe. Blizzard allowed classical fantasy properties like "Dungeons & Dragons" and "The Lord of the Rings" to influence "Warcraft II", adding more fantasy races such as elves, ogres and dwarves, while still keeping a more realistic design. With the establishment of a dependable fan base due to the success of the first two games, the creative team behind "Warcraft III" decided no longer to follow their artistic vision. As such, the game's visuals mark a notable departure from the previous games in the series, using bolder and more vibrant colors and pursuing a more comic book style. Didier also integrated characters he designed for "Dungeons & Dragons" into "Warcraft III", such as Uther The Lightbringer and Illidan Stormrage. The shift towards a more cartoonish looking world that started with "Warcraft III" was continued in "World of Warcraft" which deliberately used less realistic depictions to allow the game to be played on less powerful PCs, thus increasing the potential player-base. The artwork of "Warcraft III" was hugely influential on a number of other high fantasy real-time strategy games that followed it.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Most of the music of "Warcraft III" was composed by Tracy W. Bush, Derek Duke, Jason Hayes, and Glenn Stafford. The Limited Edition of "Reign of Chaos" came with much of the orchestral music on a separate CD. Each of the four playable races has different music: monastic music for the humans; ambient and Native American-sounding music for the Night Elves; warlike music for the Orcs; and fast, haunting music for the Undead.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: One of the signatures of Blizzard games are the unit quotes: If a single unit is clicked four or more times in a row, the unit's voice samples become increasingly comical. The unit may start getting angry at the player, or make allusions and references to other games, film or jokes.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Most of the game's missions and background story was written by Chris Metzen, who also provided the voice for Thrall. Metzen had previously contributed artwork to and became involved in writing stories and missions in "Warcraft II. Warcraft III" was the first game Metzen served as creative director for, a role he would continue in for all Blizzard games until his retirement in 2016.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: As did "Warcraft II" and "StarCraft" before it, "Warcraft III" contains a "World Editor" program that allows players to create their own custom scenarios and maps. The "World Editor" is powerful enough to allow modders to change almost any aspect of the game and create new maps that feature little of the game's original content. Despite its wealth of features, the "World Editor" was easy enough for players without any coding experience to design new games. Through Battle.net, players can then share these maps with others, increasing the popularity of custom maps. To facilitate modding, Blizzard and third-party developers released tools for a variety of tasks. Though the editor has received updates through game patches, it is not officially supported as a product.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Some custom maps have enjoyed great success, particularly maps based on "Aeon of Strife" such as "Defense of the Ancients (DotA)", which became a tournament item at BlizzCon 2005 and other tournaments around the world. "DotA" is largely attributed with to being the most significant inspiration for the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre. A strong fanbase has opened up the opportunity for sponsorship and advertising, eventually leading the genre to become a global cultural phenomenon. In 2012, Valve acquired commercial rights to the "DOTA" name trademark.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Immediately after the release, Blizzard began brainstorming content for an expansion and development began in October 2002. In January 2003, Blizzard announced that the expansion pack was titled "" and continues the story for the Night Elves, Humans and Undead after the events of the main game while providing a completely separate, role-playing focused campaign for the Orcs. Among other changes, "The Frozen Throne" added a new hero for each faction as well as five neutral heroes that can be hired by all factions. After a public beta test that allowed 20,000 players to test the expansion, it was released worldwide on July 1, 2003.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Upon release, Blizzard made "Warcraft III" available with four different box arts, one for each faction, in a limited edition. In addition to the regular game, a limited Collector's Edition "Warcraft III" bundle containing a "Warcraft III" cinematic DVD, including behind-the-scenes features and the cinematics of all prior "Warcraft" games; a Collector's Edition Soundtrack; a Collector's Edition instruction manual; "The Art of Warcraft" book; and lithographic prints was released. Blizzard also released the "Warcraft Battle Chest", which contains "Reign of Chaos" bundled with "The Frozen Throne" in one box. Another version, the Exclusive Gift Set, came bundled with the cinematic DVD, official BradyGames strategy guide, and Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: At BlizzCon 2018 on November 2, 2018, Blizzard announced a remaster of both "Warcraft III" and its expansion "" entitled "" featuring remodeled characters and graphics with a prospective release in 2020. It was released on January 28, 2020. Many promised features and updates were not included in the January 28, 2020 release of "Reforged", leading to mixed reception from critics and negative reception from fans, resulting in Blizzard offering refunds. The release of "Warcraft III: Reforged" resulted in the termination of the original titles "Warcraft III" and its expansion "" being supported any further.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: On review aggregator website Metacritic, "Warcraft III" received a score of 92/100, indicating "Universal acclaim".


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Most critics praised the game's graphics, both the design of the individual units as well as the game world itself, concluding that Blizzard successfully entered the 3-D universe. German magazine "PC Games" compared the units' appearance to beauty pageant contestants and emphasized many details such as waving capes, knights who balance their weight from one foot to another while standing around and bodies of water colored red when units die in them. The campaign-related cinematics were especially noted, with multiple critics declaring them most impressive feats of video rendering. However, "GameSpot" noted that the character models were of mediocre quality, especially when viewed up close during in-game cutscenes. Critics also praised the interface as simple yet powerful and making it very easy for players to effectively control their units.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game's soundtrack was widely lauded as atmospheric and aiding the game's tone, featuring faction-specific music such as heroic hymns (humans) or charming flute melodies (night elves). Reviewers especially noted the individual units' sound effects, the realistic battle noises and mystical magical effect sounds as well the units' humorous comments. The voice acting was praised by many reviewers, with "GameSpot" finding that it "conveys each personality distinctly and vividly". While "IGN" also praised most of it, they also noted that some voice acting was mediocre and very few voices actually bad.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: While each faction has different units with strengths and weaknesses, the game was found to be balanced enough that no faction is overpowered. "GameSpot" emphasized positively that the game adds some variety compared to other real-time strategy titles because it forces players to go exploring early on while simultaneously building their base, lest their hero does not gain sufficient experience to win in later battles. The review also noted that each faction has safeguards in place to prevent one player from rushing their opponent too early. "GamePro" also highlighted that the various mechanics, such as heroes and upkeep, offered more tactical possibilities than ever before.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: Many reviewers praised the game's campaign for creating an epic storyline that avoids typical stereotypes and provides a nuanced portrayal of the different factions. "Gamecritics.com" concluded that Blizzard had finally succeeded in fleshing out the story-line of the first two "Warcraft" titles, giving each side its own motivations and differences beyond cosmetics. In a retrospect published in March 2018, "Waypoint" calls the game's story "one of the all-time great single-player campaigns in history", specifically emphasizing the Alliance mission "The Culling" in which the player is placed in a no-win situation and forced to help Arthas slaughter his own people before they turn into aggressive zombies. Three years prior, in 2015, "Vice" called "The Culling" as well as Arthas's betrayal at the end of the Alliance campaign and the destruction of Dalaran three of the seven greatest moments in Blizzard Entertainment's history.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game's multiplayer features were lauded by many critics with "GamePro" describing them as "addictive" and a fruitful result of long beta testing. Reviewers emphasized that the Battle.net integration made multiplayer games easier than with any other game at that time and lauded the variety of factions as well as the balance between those factions.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: "Warcraft III" sold one million units in the first month after release, becoming the fastest-selling PC video game in history at that time and surpassing a record set by "Diablo II." The NPD Group declared it the third-best-selling computer game of 2002. In the United States, "Warcraft III" sold 1 million copies and earned $49.4 million by August 2006, after its release in July 2002, making it the country's seventh best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. "Warcraft III" received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom. In France, it sold over 200,000 units by March 2005.


title: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

text: The game was awarded the title "game of the year" by "GameSpot" as well as "best real-time strategy game of the year" by "PC Gamer" and received a number of other awards and accolades from critics. In 2018, "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" declared "Warcraft III" to be the 34th best strategy game of all time. German magazine "GameStar" ranked "Warcraft III" as the best strategy game and the second best PC game of all time in 2018, noting that the game and its expansion pack received scores higher than any other game since.