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Hey guys,

So I just watched the Ultramarines film and I have to say I was pretty disappointed. It's wasn't just the quality of the animation, I was actually pleasantly surprised considering the abominable quality of the trailers, but there was just so much inherently *wrong* with the film on more than a few occasions. It really left me scratching my head and wondering that if these guys are the genetically-enhanced, hyper-conditioned super soldiers created to protect the Imperium, then its a wonder that said Imperium has remained standing as long as it has. I won't be addressing any problems with the animation as I fully understand that some liberties had to be made due to budgetary contraints. Anyway, here goes:

i) 10 Ultramarines and a Land Speeder go to investigate the reported loss of an outpost manned by an entire *company* of Imperial Fists.
OK, so each and every Space Marine is, in his own right, supposed to be a tactical genius. They can assess situations faster than any mortal alive, and adapt to the ebb and flow of a battlefield by experly reading the enemy. So why is it that not one of the Ultramarines thought 'Hang on lads, there's only 10 of us here, and we're going into an unknown, hostile area that's responsible for the deaths of over a *hundred* Imperial Fists. Maybe we should call for backup?'

ii)A Space Marine Battle Barge can be manned by 10 Space Marines, an Apothecary and a Captain.
Seriously, where is everyone? Why is this Battle Barge utterly abandoned but for the main characters? Surely it'd be a veritable hive of activity, not in this case it seems.

iii) A Space Marine Captain apparantly has no sub-ordinates and thus has to lead each and every recon mission personally.
I don't know much about the Space Marine's military hierachy, but I *do* know that Captains are responsible for much, much more than just a squad of new recruits. Where are the Sergeants and Line Officers? Surely there's an equivalent of a Lieutenant that this mission could have been delegated to? Why does the gent who is responsible for *an entire battle company* (not that this is represented in the movie in any way) have to hold the hands of the new recruits in their first foray? That is exactly what a Sergeant or aforementioned Lieutenant should do, and as these are Space Marines where each Sergeant has over a decade of combt experience, they should be more than experienced enough to not have to waste the Captain's valuable time.

iv) The Captain orders the Thunderhawk to drop the squad off miles from the objective, with no transport and only a Land Speeder for support.
Worst. Captain. Ever. Why not drop the Land Speeder off first, let it do its job (as a reconaissance vehicle), and then drop the squad off closer, if not on top of the objective? Why not dump the Speeder and use a much more common Rhino to get from A to B? For a military branch of the Imperium that specialises in surgical, precise and lightning-fast engagements, this Captain sure does love to get his guys to trudge ever so slowly towards their destination.

v) The Thunderhawk leaves.
GUH?! It's got a massive great big gun! It's already been established that there's no-one else alive on the Battle Barge so why not keep it around for, oh I don't know, *providing fire support*?! Surely the far more advanced scanning and detection devices on the Thunderhawk would provide invaluable intelligence to the squad on the ground? Not in this case it seems...

vi) The Sergeant gets into the Speeder.
HOW is this a viable tactical desicion? Your Sergeant should be the gent who looks after and has the trust and respect of the entire squad, yet you force him to undertake scouting duties? What would happen if, I don't know, the Speeder gets ambushed and the Captain goes missing? Who will the squad look to for leadership then? No-one. Why? *Because you put their only NCO in a LAND SPEEDER*

vii) There's a Land Speeder here in the first place.
Considering they are ancient relics utilising valuable and rare technology from a bygone age, it seems they are common enough to throw away on minor recon missions. Also, way to go guys by not bothering to recover the Speeder or destroy it to prevent the technology falling into the hands of Chaos!

I could go on and on, and on, and on about the mutitude of problems with the film; problems that,which probably wouldn't be noticed by viewers who have no prior knowledge of the 40k universe, would *definetely* be noticed by fans of 40k who are the very people this film was marketed at! There are just SO MANY glaring faults that pop up throughout the move (the 8 I have written about take place in the first 30-40 minutes) that it is very hard to see what, if any, influence an established author like Dan Abnett actually had over the script.

Following on from that point, I think another major flaw was getting a BL writer who is used to having 100s of pages at his disposal to create and develop characters and personalites, relationships, rivalries etc and forcing him to condense everything down into a 90 minute script. I guess that just because you can write an excellent novel, it doesn't automatically qualify you as an excellent scriptwriter.

But I think I've rambled on for long enough. Like I said there are loads more issues that fans of the 40k universe (which, lets face it, we all are) will immediately notice. As a first foray into the world of movies I guess it isn't *bad*, merely average, but it was definetely rather disappointing watching the 'immortal, mighty, steel and doom Space Marines' flounder around in a dustbowl for 50 minutes before getting their asses kicked.

L. Wrex

TL;DR. Many faults with the movie. Space Marines are portrayed as tactical idiots and the overall quality of the script leaves a lot to be desired. 5/10

I agree that there were many fluff errors but I liked the movie despite it's numerous flaws.

Also, it was a strike cruiser not a battle barge, but your point still stands.

*sigh* yet another hater
1) this is answered in the move, which seems like you havent watched it, or otherwise it would have answered your question.
2)Did you see the whole strike cruise? No.
3)What so apperantly a captain cannot personally go on a recon missions with some newbies? Theres nothing wrong with that
4)Its because the objective was in the middle of some storm.
5)Again, storm, and with all the mountains/cliffs it pretty much imposible to give good fire support.
6)Theres a good argument, still a good movie
7)What? got a problem with that? land speeders are fast, perfect for scouting.

Were you expecting Avatar?
Sure a lot of small errors here and there, still a good movie.

Hey all, I am not a "hater" but I think the OP had some good points. I enjoyed the movie, because . . . it was a 40K movie, but it is still OK to have issues with the fim.

I thought the captain being included was strange too, don't the chaplains train the new recruits? Also I guess I was disappointed with the action too, as the moviettes in their video games are more dramatic than a lot of the action in this film.

The voice acting was very good, and some of the scenes were great (like the bullet with the "kill the heretic" on it was ace).

I wish the editor had made the characters speak over each other a little more, to make it seem more realistic. But it felt like the conversations were drawn out to fit the pace of the animation.

As a Black Legion player I totally appreciated that the movie was a tragedy ; ) Poor daemon prince . . .

Nulipuli2 wrote:Were you expecting Avatar?
Sure a lot of small errors here and there, still a good movie.

Why does every supporter of the movie always make a comparison to Avatar? That's like comparing an episode of Family Guy to Citizen Kane, they are completely different animals aimed at completely different target audiences. No, I was not expecting quality on par with a $bajillion movie, but there's a big difference between aiming your expectations highly and aiming them reasonably. I'll be the first to admit the faults weren't massive in scale, but there was plenty of them regularly enough to leave you scratching your head.

I guess that when someone uses Dan Abnett's name as a selling point for a product you expect a certain degree of, for lack of a better word, common sense within the fluff. Considering SMs are supposed to be the best of the best of the best, they must have really been scraping the barrel of suitable recruits to come up with these clowns.

L. Wrex

1. It's a recon operation. They don't know what's down there, so it's not like they're sending an entire company of guys.

2. 3D characters are hard to model and they wanted to save time, money, etc. Trust me, I wish they had hundreds of Marines just going about their business onboard, but I know the limits of low budget 3D.

3. Yeah, I don't even know. Should've been a sergeant or a lieutenant or something.

4. Well, paratroopers don't always drop on the combat zone; usually some distance away and then hoof it to where they need to go. Should've dropped the speeder off first though.

5. It's obvious the pilot had to run by the bank to cash some space-checks. I don't know either.

6. Well, the captain was leading the squad, so I guess the sergeant wasn't totally needed? Would've made more sense to have him stick with the squad.

7. Speeders are common enough; you can get 9 in an average Marine list.

tl;dr: a lot of things done for dramatic effect don't make much sense.

There were many things wrong with the film, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

Just going to point out another problem.

"We have five minutes before this ship delivers a Daemon straight to your home world!"

Don't turn the engines off then. Of course there's also no way that an entire chapter of Space Marines at the heart of its power can defeat what one inexperienced Battle-Brother can bash to death with a glowing hammer.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:There were many things wrong with the film, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

Just going to point out another problem.

"We have five minutes before this ship delivers a Daemon straight to your home world!"

Don't turn the engines off then. Of course there's also no way that an entire chapter of Space Marines at the heart of its power can defeat what one inexperienced Battle-Brother can bash to death with a glowing hammer.

Wasn't the daemon doing a ritual to summon more demons and using their ship as a trojan horse?

I also would have laughed it they ported back to Macragge and found it under attack by Hive Fleet Behemoth.

Surving Space marines on board "AW COME ON!"

Not to mention the whole suggestion that the newbie became a Captain, copying every single thing that Severus did - just before his demise and possession.

Problems that was a film full of em. It was fraught with faliure from start me and my freind spent hours discussing why it was so bad.

1)Half the film is pointless drivell ,and nothing happens for 40 mins they land on a reall dusty planets and just walk for ages jumping at every noise.

2) In what universe did space marines have banners that crackled with electricity when chaos was near. Plus why did the banner not light up when he was fighting the demon prince.

3)Every bolt went straight through space marine armour

4) When did chaplains have phycic powers?

The last two comments you made, royal house, are also two of the largest WTF issues.

Seriously, that Chaplain had about a hundred years on Severus, yet just let himself get shot in the face. He should've been able to whoop the possessed Captain's ass.

the movie was awful, low buget is no excuse.
Watch Deadspace:Aftermath, it has low budget and crapy graphics throughout, yet is a very engrossing film.

Long story short, give this film the Avatart budget and would still have sucked.

DO A BLOODY M.A.N.G.A.. there i said what were all thinking

OMG GUYZ WUT U TA7KIN ABOUT IT WAZ THE B3ST FILUM OV ALL TEIM!!!!

OV ALL TIEEEEM!!!!!!

U HATERZ R LEIK SO lame N DAT U SHUDTN TIYPE AT ALL COZ U GUYZ R JUST 10YR OLDS HU PROBLEH STILL EAT COCO POPS :(

KTHBAIX

Ethancol wrote:OMG GUYZ WUT U TA7KIN ABOUT IT WAZ THE B3ST FILUM OV ALL TEIM!!!!

OV ALL TIEEEEM!!!!!!

U HATERZ R LEIK SO lame N DAT U SHUDTN TIYPE AT ALL COZ U GUYZ R JUST 10YR OLDS HU PROBLEH STILL EAT COCO POPS :(

KTHBAIX

Everyone knows deliberate illiteracy and sarcasm, combined with overused memes, is really edgy and cool. I wish I could be as witty as you.

The idiot ball got tossed around quite a bit. To be fair, some of them they did try to address (Severus explicitly states that there were no other forces nearby and that they were all they had, which partly explain why only a squad of 10 marines got sent down). Although I always assumed Severus was a Veteran Sergeant, not a Captain =/

However, for a 40k movie, it lacked alot of the stuff 40k is known for. It really should have had more action. The THQ opening for Dawn of War had more action than the movie. Plus, it's more of a coming of age story really (a new battle brother ascends to the position of captain). Personally I'd have prefered something along the lines of the first DoW plotline, which had just as much twist and turns as well as character development packed into about roughly the same amount of time.

Ah, that reminds me.


The intro to the ORIGINAL Dawn of War which was made in, at the latest, 2004 I believe.

It had better graphics than the entire film.

Comparison time:





Infinitely better than the whole film. There is a lot of character, if you look closely enough, even if the Marines are rather underpowered in that clip.

But what we all REALLY wanted to see is this:

Those cinematics are excellent.

I still can't wait for this movie.
It looks amazing.

Fan film eh?

Edit: Notice how the intro to both DoW I and DoW II show a Heavy Bolter on pause.

Whoa! Those intros are badass! A Dreadnought? Orks? Eldar!

Still, though: They're 3 minutes long. Making a 70 minute movie is a lot different.

I'm a newbie to the hobby, but I thoroughly liked Ultramarines. I don't have a lot of geeky gripes* (this small little in-universe detail was wrong!). The story was good, the action was cool (I DO wish there was more action--that's the only real gripe I have), and it was a satisfying whole.

I had no problem with the animation--sure it's not state-of-the-art, and the faces talking weren't amazing, but they didn't pull me out of the movie. This ain't Pixar kids, and these guys didn't have the budget to pull that off. It was fun, it had a cool twist, and it had chainswords to the FACE! WTF else do you want?

*that said, though, the trailers absolutely got the gunfire and the armor right--the movie had bolter rounds piercing ceramite armor like it was butter. It's exciting to see it mostly ricocheting off the armor and occasionally piercing it in the trailers!

Bolters and armor. That brings up fighting.

Seriously, the Chaos Space Marines fought and died like Orks. What the hell was up with that?

And not to mention the fact that they never ran out of ammunition and I think I only saw about one(!) reload in the entire film.

A marine took a "two-handed-throwing-axe" to the shoulder and he just fell to his knees and cried a bit.

Dude, he'd rip it out and throw it back if this film was half right.

Okay, on Dakka, obviously geek gripes are valid.

But I'd like to see people critique the film on its merits as a film alone--not "there wouldn't be a landspeeder", but rather, was the story good? Was it an enjoyable watch from beginning to end?

I thought it was, and I won't begrudge people who thought it wasn't, but seriously, you can't say it's a TERRIBLE movie because the Captain shouldn't have been on the mission or whatever.

I have already stated that I enjoyed it for what it was. But the point of this thread is to discuss what was wrong with it.

Everything was either average or below average, but I enjoyed it regardless.

I personally did not enjoy the movie, not much for the wrong 40k related fluff or background or references or all of them, but because of script issues, plenty of mistakes a real army would never do, let alone an "elite army".

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
i) 10 Ultramarines and a Land Speeder go to investigate the reported loss of an outpost manned by an entire *company* of Imperial Fists.

That's the first issue. An entire company of whatever army gets wiped out and you send a bunch of troops on a pic-nic there? You could already read how the movie would continue from there.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
ii)A Space Marine Battle Barge can be manned by 10 Space Marines, an Apothecary and a Captain.
Seriously, where is everyone? Why is this Battle Barge utterly abandoned but for the main characters? Surely it'd be a veritable hive of activity, not in this case it seems.

Nothing to add, I totally agree.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
iii) A Space Marine Captain apparantly has no sub-ordinates and thus has to lead each and every recon mission personally.

Meh. He wanted to go, nothing prevents him from going, I don't see this as an issue.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
iv) The Captain orders the Thunderhawk to drop the squad off miles from the objective, with no transport and only a Land Speeder for support.

It's not strange, they couldn't have been dropped nearer (as the movie explains).

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
v) The Thunderhawk leaves.

Same as above.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
vi) The Sergeant gets into the Speeder.
HOW is this a viable tactical desicion? Your Sergeant should be the gent who looks after and has the trust and respect of the entire squad, yet you force him to undertake scouting duties? What would happen if, I don't know, the Speeder gets ambushed and the Captain goes missing? Who will the squad look to for leadership then? No-one. Why? *Because you put their only NCO in a LAND SPEEDER*

I totally agree, another bad tactical choice ANY army commander wouldn't make.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:
vii) There's a Land Speeder here in the first place.
Considering they are ancient relics utilising valuable and rare technology from a bygone age, it seems they are common enough to throw away on minor recon missions. Also, way to go guys by not bothering to recover the Speeder or destroy it to prevent the technology falling into the hands of Chaos!

I still agree, any decent commander wouldn't leave valuable assets behind unless he was running for his life and couldn't take/carry them.

Hans Chung-Otterson wrote:
But I'd like to see people critique the film on its merits as a film alone--not "there wouldn't be a landspeeder", but rather, was the story good? Was it an enjoyable watch from beginning to end?

Overall the story was poor and weak, there was no thrill and it was predictable, characters were poorly characterized and animations were pretty still. You cannot script a war-themed movie starring an elite army and make them perform what every recruit learns not to do on his first camp day. I'd say 4-5/10

My main issue is not with the animation in the film, I understand and accept that we could never have DoW-quality (it would cost an obscene amount of money, especially when GW don't even finance the projects that use their IP, but that's a gripe for another time). And I get that liberties had to be taken to ensure the film arrived within budget in the first place, but it doesn't help shake the feeling that the whole project seems...rushed. Which is actually quite ironic considering the pace of the film was so slow.

Again, when you use an author of such calibre as Dan Abnett as a method to market the movie, certain expectations are set. You EXPECT the universe to make sense, you EXPECT SM to make viable tactical decisions, what you don't expect is face-palming stupidity throughout the entire runtime.

If this film had been marketed towards consumers who had no prior knowledge of the universe whatsoever then yes, perhaps all these faults could be excused owing to simple ignorance on behalf of the viewer. However, when the target market for the film is people who have a deep and thorough understanding of the fiction, then there's simply no excuse not to ensure that the integrity of the script is upto scratch. It reeks of laziness and I get the inherent impression that the creators justified such decisions on the grounds that people wanted a film so badly that they would suck up any old junk, and be grateful for it because 'we have a movie now'.

Also this video is hilarious:




Did anyone expect people who are employed by Games Workshop to say anything other than: 'ZOMG this movie is the awesome' I mean...really?!

L. Wrex

Very well said, Wrex.

And that video is just.. just pure fail. But they obviously couldn't have said anything else now, could they?

If I'd seen that before watching the actual movie, I would've been even more disappointed.

There's still the matter of how most of the movie involved them walking through a battle field and little more. Even without knowing much of the fluff, if a movie opens with "In the grim dark future there is only war", you'd kinda expect a bit more action.

I have only one specific problem with the movie: The Daemon.

I mean, under who's dominion was it? It looked like a Daemon Prince, but it sure didn't act like any Daemon Prince I ever heard of...

I'm just really curious about it...

Also; yes, I'm relatively new to the game and books compared to most posters on Dakka.

I agree with darkvoid and wrex here. There are just too many things in this film that left me scratching my head.

By the way, there is a point that no one mentionned yet: Why would a strike cruiser be used to transport a single squad???

I know the Ultramarines are the most BLING BLING chapter of the imperium but still, I didn't know they were so rich they could afford a strike cruiser (a damn 3 kilometer long ship with enough armament to obliterate a daemon host from orbit) for each of their squads!

Seriously, if I remember well, the ultramarines are said to possess one of the largest SM warfleets: three battle barges, probably three times that number in strike cruisers and a dozen escort squadrons (whereas most chapters only have one battle barge, a few strike cruisers and escort squadrons). But still, offering an entire strike cruiser to a squad of newbies? Of fresh faced marines?

OK, maybe you are going to tell me that this mission was of critical importance and that this squad needed to get to mithron ASAP, but then, why not simply use an escort? Something like a gladius frigate or a hunter destroyer? Something three times as fast as a strike cruiser (but still one kilometer long and with enough firepower to level a sub-hive)?

Having said that, I still enjoyed the film, but only because it was based on the W40K universe, not really because it was a good film production.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Ah, that reminds me.


The intro to the ORIGINAL Dawn of War which was made in, at the latest, 2004 I believe.

It had better graphics than the entire film.

Comparison time:





Infinitely better than the whole film. There is a lot of character, if you look closely enough, even if the Marines are rather underpowered in that clip.

But what we all REALLY wanted to see is this:

I absolutely adore how people don't understand 3D studios or budgets. These intros are by Blur and Plastic Wax. The money it cost to make those 2 minute short scenes of awesomeness is about on par with the money it cost to make the entire Ultramarines movie. Who would have guessed that time+money+talent = high quality, right? Just because something is newer doesn't automatically mean it will be of higher quality. Compare dreck like Hoodwinked to the first Toy Story to get what I mean. To be fair though, the story in Ultramarines wasn't so good, and that's something that shouldn't have been a problem - budget or not.