Synopsis
Mats Steen, a Norwegian man born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, becomes increasingly unable to participate in everyday activities. As a result, he spends most of his time playing video games, particularly World of Warcraft . His parents worry that he will miss out on life, unaware of what he does in the game.
Towards the end of his life, he starts a blog about living with the disease. When he dies at the age of 25, he leaves behind the password to it. His family uses the blog to announce his death, leading to various replies from his friends. The film tells the story of his life in the World of Warcraft guild Starlight—where he played the character Ibelin Redmoore—through animations based on the game, interspersed with retrospectives from his guild members, family, and excerpts from his blog.
As Ibelin, Steen kept his identity and medical condition a secret, worried that other guild members would treat him differently if they knew. He refused to communicate outside text chat, but he still developed close relationships with other guild members. He was perceived as a reliable friend they could share their problems with.
Steen's condition worsens over time, and it becomes harder for him to play the game. He appears more agitated, causing drama regarding his relationships in the guild, eventually leading him to lash out at a guild member. As his condition deteriorates, he develops severe breathing difficulties and has to be hospitalised. The guild member he lashed out at becomes concerned regarding Steen's absence, and confronts him about it. He explains his condition, and his fear of others' reactions. The friend encourages him to tell the other guild members, and he decides to apologise to the guild about his previous behaviour, later sharing his blog with them.
Eventually, Steen dies from muscular dystrophy. Five guild members from abroad attend his funeral in Oslo. The rest gather in the game, which becomes a yearly tradition. The film ends with a shot of his gravestone, which reads Mats "Ibelin" Steen.
Production
Benjamin Ree, the film director, first read about Mats Steen in a 2019 NRK article [4] about his life. [5] After learning that the family had recorded home movies throughout Steen's life, he reached out to them about making a film. Steen was also a member of a guild in World of Warcraft named Starlight, which had logged 42,000 pages of their text chats in the game. Ree was able to retrieve about 4,000 pages for the script. [5]
Ree was researching ways to visualise Starlight's text chats when he discovered an animation studio ran by Rasmus Tukia and hired him as an animator. [5] Tukia had previously posted his fan-made World of Warcraft machinimas on YouTube. [6] Most of the film's game animations were made and edited by Tukia using assets from World of Warcraft, but he collaborated with two other animators on "background characters, rigging and rendering". [6]
World of Warcraft is created and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. Ree and the producer, Ingvil Giske, did not contact them until three years into production, when the film was nearly finished. They were invited to screen the film at Blizzard's Californian office, where they were given permission to "use whatever [they] need[ed]". [6] In July 2023, before the film premiered, Blizzard added a replica of Steen's gravestone to World of Warcraft. [7]
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