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I'm just watching the Uber Extended Version of the 1984 Dune film and it has gotten me thinking...

There is a lot of stuff that has inspired 40k.

Robert Heinlein - Starship Troopers.
Frank Herbert - Dune.
The 1984 Dune film has had tons ripped from it to form a basis for the Imperium.
Alien - Genestealers are very similar to the Alien.
Terminator - Necrons.
Mad Max - Gorkamorka.
The bible story of the War in Heaven - The Horus Heresy.
Judge Dredd - Necromunda, Adeptus Arbites.

Those are the two biggest pieces of literature that I could think of that have inspired 40k.

But it turn, what has been inspired by 40k?

Starship Troopers Movie - The MI are very close to the Cadians.
Event Horizon - The "other" realm is very close to the EoT.
Chronicles of Riddick - Just about everything in this film can trace stuff back to 40k.

I can't think of anything else ATM that can trace something back to some 40k inspiration, has anyone else got any they could add?

I think I posted something on this awhile back. More than awhile back, probably, been away for months.

"Embassytown" by China Mieville has starships flying through a psychoreactive dimension known as the Immer. Sometimes, weird things from the Immer pour into our reality and carnage ensues. Sounds like the Warp and its Daemons to me.

Pretty much everything in Mieville's "new weird" and scifi work echoes 40k/WHFB to me (haven't read any of his urban fantasy stuff, yet). More importantly, his stories are usually adorned by weird, confusing and even shocking ideas that are dealt with in a couple lines, never fully described or explained nor central to the main plot. Things as amazing as an ever-changing spot of unreality caused by the detonation of a magical bomb, biomechanical sea monsters used as troop transports and submersibles, a nation ruled by an aristocracy of the undead, a beach formed by the rusting technological leftovers of a lost empire or a city built on the shell of a living giant tortoise are just mentioned in passing, played only for shocks and flavor.

Odd, but some of GW's background text shares this quality. Think the Blind King, the Nova Terra Interregnum... blurbs of story that might or might not be expanded but that, for now, serve only to convey the feeling that the reader is taking a brief look at a terribly vast and alien universe, where many stories have happened outside his/her frame of reference.

Mièville is a celebrated author, but doesn't shy away from admitting 'lowbrow' influences. He's confessed to having taken cues from 'roleplaying games' in the past. No names. Of course, it also could be that both him and the folks that wrote (and keep writing) 40k draw inspiration from the same sources: Jack Vance, Lovecraft, 2000 A.D., Doctor Who...

How about the other way around? I won't put my money on it, but some stuff in the Dark Eldar codex sounds oddly Mievillean. Comorragh, as it is now described, bears more than a passing resemblance to the pirate city of Armada from "The Scar". Wracks and Grotesques echo the reMade, monstrosities made from human stock by the thaumaturges of New Crobuzon. And the Talos Pain Engine is described (and looks) just like a riot control "device" portrayed in "Perdido Street Station", resembling a floating biomechanical lump of flesh armed with scores of pain-inducing tentacles. While GW writers never clearly confess their influences, rather leaving the player to figure out, this is one I see them actively keeping a secret. Mieville may be a lauded sci-fi and fantasy author, but his politically charged, mature and often disturbing themes are not likely to sit well with some of the fanbase. If there's been a 'homage' to Mieville hiding in some GW materials, it'll probably remain that way, hidden.

Never heard of China Mieville... Something you'd recommend?

To add to the OPs list

Foundation by Asimov
All of Lovecraft's work

A note on 40ks influences:
If it is published sicif/fantasy/history/religions/mythology then it has influenced 40k. The setting is so vast and influenced by so many people that the influences (ranging from subtle to overt) are myriad. As well, the various influences on the readers/players of the setting greatly affect how they perceive the influences. Where one person sees the Imperium of Man as a rip off of the Cornio Empire of Herbert's Dune, another will see it as a mirror of Asimov's Foundation's Empire. Interestingly it is both neither of these things and both of them. This holds true for a million little and big elements of the setting.

A note on things influenced by 40k:
Due to my above blurb it is incredibly difficult to identify things specifically influenced by 40k, as they could be influenced by the myriad things which 40k is derived from.

On a third note:
I love Mieville's works. Kraken was fantastic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also to the OP:

There is no direct Bible story of the war in heaven. The Horus Heresey is (almost a blow by blow) Milton's Paradise Lost.

Anytime

It's not for every taste, though, so better issue some warnings first: His stories usually start slow and some remain slow for a long time. Sex and gore? Check. Disturbing, vomit-inducing sex and gore? Check (oh, the reMade brothel scene...). Strong leftist leanings, some might find that offensive. Not my case, but sometimes he'd break into overlong philosophical tirades written in excruciating Situationist lingo. THAT I find offensive. In his defence, I must say that Mieville does a good job at keeping the ham-fist in check. I. e. one of the characters in "Iron Council" is a demigod for the workers, Mr. La Revolution incarnate. That doesn't prevent him from being a manipulative donkey-cave whose dedication to the wellbeing of the oppressed masses might be an attempt to compensate for his utter lack of interpersonal empathy, though.

If despite all this you're willing to give it a go, I suggest you start with this one, it's the one that got me hooked.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Scar-New-Crobuzon-2/dp/0330534319/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

I have long believed that those who wrote Codex: Tau Empire were influenced at least partially by the forces of the Purpose from Alan Dean Foster's The Damned trilogy, although sometimes I wonder if anyone read those three books who wasn't me.

That being said, LightCavalier is right, and so much has influenced 40k that it would probably be easier to point out the things that haven't influenced the setting. You also can't discount the power of coincidental similarity, which I am quite certain has occurred at least once or twice in 40k's history, given the voluminous amount of novels, Codex backstory, and in-universe anecdotes.