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Just watched it...well, skimmed it. Didn't seem as bad as many said. The opening scene was pretty badass, but the terrible voice acting and awful camera angles ruined the dialogue for me, which was itself hit and miss.

Definitely promising though. I'd love to endorse a sequal. What does dakka think?

I love bad movies. Love them. I had to force myself to finish this one just so that I could say it's really bad without having to qualify it with 'but I didn't finish the movie'. I just didn't like it. But each to their own.

Visually, they did a good job of capturing the 41st Millennium. My gripe with the movie is how much they butcher the fluff. Marines aren't designed to sneak around, a battle barge is not for the shuttling of a mere dozen marines, and they should have had years of combat experience before going into the field. I also feel there was a missed opportunity with the land speeder to show how a multimelta fires, although you can look to the DoW computer games for that, I guess. I just felt that they could have done better with the fluff of the Space Marines in that movie.

BladeSwinga wrote:
Visually, they did a good job of capturing the 41st Millennium. My gripe with the movie is how much they butcher the fluff. Marines aren't designed to sneak around, a battle barge is not for the shuttling of a mere dozen marines, and they should have had years of combat experience before going into the field. I also feel there was a missed opportunity with the land speeder to show how a multimelta fires, although you can look to the DoW computer games for that, I guess. I just felt that they could have done better with the fluff of the Space Marines in that movie.

Agreed, it also doesn't help that 3/4 of the movie is them walking around, errr..... I mean performing Codex Astartes approved Cardiovascular exercise, 1/8 of it was all chatter and 1/8 was actually action. They could have done it much better.

The animation and effects were....okay, but the story was pretty weak to me. It was a fine movie (I wouldn't watch it again though), but it could have been so much better

it wasn't that bad apart as many have said the butchering of the fluff(BURN HERETICS...yeah well that is not what a crozius does and i think one of the jobs of chaplain is to keep an eye on librarians so no psykers there...)
I also didnt like the veteran=very old man in PA aspect as well as star wars storm trooper grade armor...
All in all tough it was a good try...i hope they make a second movie but with bigger battles and that they get thee fluff a bit better.

I have far greater faith in The Lord Inquisitor than any second attempt by that company.

 washout77 wrote:
The animation and effects were....okay, ...

The animation was poor by any standard. It was looking dated when they started on it, and all the more so by the time it was finished. And there is just something about bad CGI that makes it so much more painful to watch than bad old-school animation.

Although some of it is probably just disappointment over what it could have been.

The terrible quality of the animation made it look like a student film that just never stopped. Writing was ok, and some of the voice acting was pretty good (John Hurt, for example), but having such gak animation broke it completely.

 insaniak wrote:

 washout77 wrote:
The animation and effects were....okay, ...

The animation was poor by any standard. It was looking dated when they started on it, and all the more so by the time it was finished. And there is just something about bad CGI that makes it so much more painful to watch than bad old-school animation.

Although some of it is probably just disappointment over what it could have been.

Well I said they were okay based on the fact I love watching movies with terrible CGI (ya know those movies that are so bad they are good? That alone turned this into a semi-comedy movie for me). but yeah compare it with any sort of high budget movie and it fails pretty much everywhere. They also used some experimental system for it, so I give them props for taking a risk.

The problem with bad-to-mediocre CGI is that it was difficult to tell characters apart. This could be remedied by A) using a brighter or more exagerrated style (think Clone Wars) or B) using visual cues like different armor marks or helmet decorations.

The plot can be summed up with Family Guy's summary of Blair Witch:

Nothing's happening.... Nothing's happening.... Aaaannd it's over.

Another problem is that the characters display only the most basic personalities: Proteus is reckless, the apothecary is pragmatic, beyond those two ???? They could use more characterization. I was surprised that this movie was written by Dan Abnett... Whether you love or hate books like Horus Rising or Brothers of the Snake, you have to admit, those marines have more personality.

I suspect that Abnett's original script was about 4 hours long, and had to be cut down. Still wouldn't explain why they decided to keep all of the walking scenes.

Best scene was the fight at the end. Had a bit of the epicness that it should have.

Dumbest scene was: "I think I saw something!" "It was probably nothing."

Things it might have been:
Tyranid Lictor
Eldar Warp Spiders
Tau Stealth Suits
Dark Eldar Mandrakes
DAAAEMOOONS!

Edit: Upon rereading, it sounds like I hated the movie, but that isn't true. I lt was just 'okay'. There was a lot of room for improvement.

I also was a bit irritated (especially as an Eldar/Tyranid player) that they showed nearly 2 hours of SPESS MAHREENS fighting OTHER SPESS MAHREENS and about 2 minutes of 1 demon. Good thing they've invested decades building an incredibly detailed universe and lore, eh?

This film felt like it started life as a book, rather than a screenplay.

I'd expect 10 space marines wandering about being picked off through minor skirmishes and a daemon in a short story - I wanted bigger and better for the film.

I wanted to see 'full on astartes war!' not

 Krellnus wrote:

walking around, errr..... I mean performing Codex Astartes approved Cardiovascular exercise,

My vote for this would be NO! Emphatically NO!

Another movie by another company and WITHOUT Abnett as the writer would be cool, but I would not be interested in a sequal to "Guys in blue armor walking and talking".

I really felt like that film was just terrible imo. It had certain bright spots for sure. For example I thought they reproduced the armor/equipment faithfully, but almost everything else was just ... really terrible imo.

BladeSwinga wrote:
Visually, they did a good job of capturing the 41st Millennium. My gripe with the movie is how much they butcher the fluff. Marines aren't designed to sneak around, a battle barge is not for the shuttling of a mere dozen marines, and they should have had years of combat experience before going into the field. I also feel there was a missed opportunity with the land speeder to show how a multimelta fires, although you can look to the DoW computer games for that, I guess. I just felt that they could have done better with the fluff of the Space Marines in that movie.

This.
Also why would you let someone who has never been in a battle before carry your banner.

had years of combat experience before going into the field

How exactly does this happen?

majendie wrote:

had years of combat experience before going into the field

How exactly does this happen?

Space Marines start as Scouts (other than Space Wolves and Black Templars).

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Marine_Scout#.Ua8730CmgQI

Story - was OK if a little narrow in scope.

Editing - looked all over the place. The timing of a lot of the dialogue was off as if the voice actors were just firing off cue cards and there were far too many unnecessary pauses.

CG Rendering - was hit and miss. This makes me think there were a lot of changes made and rushed work. For instance take the scene in the drop ship where they were all strapped in. The lighting in this scene is very nice. You can see volumetrics, reflected light, DOF etc. Then take most of the rest of the film. I looks like a 10 year old- two point lights in the scene- scanline render. It screams of a rushed job.

Set Dressing - Every scene looked empty. The terrain just felt like one giant procedural texture. It’s as if the artist failed to take inspiration from any sources. There were no extras to make the ship feel alive. This can still be done on a time budget by the way.

Animation - With a couple of exceptions, the animation was amateurish. I don’t know what tools they used but most modern animation tools allow quick composition of shots from source animation files. If I were lead animator on that project I would have a pool of mocap walks, runs, idles etc to quickly build the shots then refine as needed. Some of the walks I saw in the film left me to believe they were done by someone with a total lack of animation knowledge.

Overall I get the feeling there were a lot of retakes on scenes at the last moment which has led to a hit and miss production. I am sure the team (If they still exist) have learned a lot from this film and I hope they make another.

Cheers Vim

And before they become tactical marines they'll have served as devastators and assault marines. I know what majendie means I think it's just the way it was worded.

Do they actually say the young guy has no experience? I can't remember the "film" clearly enough...

Editing - looked all over the place. The timing of a lot of the dialogue was off as if the voice actors were just firing off cue cards and there were far too many unnecessary pauses.

CG Rendering - was hit and miss. This makes me think there were a lot of changes made and rushed work. For instance take the scene in the drop ship where they were all strapped in. The lighting in this scene is very nice. You can see volumetrics, reflected light, DOF etc. Then take most of the rest of the film. I looks like a 10 year old- two point lights in the scene- scanline render. It screams of a rushed job.

Set Dressing - Every scene looked empty. The terrain just felt like one giant procedural texture. It’s as if the artist failed to take inspiration from any sources. There were no extras to make the ship feel alive. This can still be done on a time budget by the way.

Animation - With a couple of exceptions, the animation was amateurish. I don’t know what tools they used but most modern animation tools allow quick composition of shots from source animation files. If I were lead animator on that project I would have a pool of mocap walks, runs, idles etc to quickly build the shots then refine as needed. Some of the walks I saw in the film left me to believe they were done by someone with a total lack of animation knowledge.

Overall I get the feeling there were a lot of retakes on scenes at the last moment which has led to a hit and miss production. I am sure the team (If they still exist) have learned a lot from this film and I hope they make another.

There was, when the movie first came out, a statement made by the company that did the animation, where they basically confirmed what you've said there. A lot of changes were forced on them last second and they ran into budget issues, etc.

Tycho wrote:

Editing - looked all over the place. The timing of a lot of the dialogue was off as if the voice actors were just firing off cue cards and there were far too many unnecessary pauses.

CG Rendering - was hit and miss. This makes me think there were a lot of changes made and rushed work. For instance take the scene in the drop ship where they were all strapped in. The lighting in this scene is very nice. You can see volumetrics, reflected light, DOF etc. Then take most of the rest of the film. I looks like a 10 year old- two point lights in the scene- scanline render. It screams of a rushed job.

Set Dressing - Every scene looked empty. The terrain just felt like one giant procedural texture. It’s as if the artist failed to take inspiration from any sources. There were no extras to make the ship feel alive. This can still be done on a time budget by the way.

Animation - With a couple of exceptions, the animation was amateurish. I don’t know what tools they used but most modern animation tools allow quick composition of shots from source animation files. If I were lead animator on that project I would have a pool of mocap walks, runs, idles etc to quickly build the shots then refine as needed. Some of the walks I saw in the film left me to believe they were done by someone with a total lack of animation knowledge.

Overall I get the feeling there were a lot of retakes on scenes at the last moment which has led to a hit and miss production. I am sure the team (If they still exist) have learned a lot from this film and I hope they make another.

There was, when the movie first came out, a statement made by the company that did the animation, where they basically confirmed what you've said there. A lot of changes were forced on them last second and they ran into budget issues, etc.

It would be cool if you had a link to that article. It would be interesting to read

majendie wrote:
Do they actually say the young guy has no experience? I can't remember the "film" clearly enough...

In the movie, the captain explains that this will be their first battle as Ultramarines, or something like that, I don't remember the exact wording. It's not just Proteus the captain was addressing, but rather the whole squad.

The animation didn't really bother me so much. It was the fact that it was just an awful movie in general.

The plot was stupid and the dialog was stupid. I mean, there's not much difficulty to writing this kind of movie, so I have no idea how Abnett failed so spectacularly.

It would be cool if you had a link to that article. It would be interesting to read

I'll see if I can find it!

My favorite was, chaos doesn't get a gun.

I like bad movies, and I pretty much like anything with Warhammer related stuff, but I just did not like this movie. Only releasing it on DVD was a first misstep, though it's probably for the best. I spent enough on the limited collectors edition for something I just could not enjoy. Every aspect of it was mediocre to bad. The story was barely passable, most of the voice acting was flat, the animation was horrendous and far older than it's competitors, amongst many other problems. Mostly, it failed in the action department which is just absurd. The Dawn of War intros shouldn't have better animation and stories than the Ultramarines movie.

I really enjoyed the movie, but not because it was a good movie. It was actually a pretty awful movie, but it had space marines killing stuff which immediately made me enjoy it just because i've wanted a warhammer universe movie for a long time. It's almost a travesty how bad the animation was and that I still enjoyed it just because it was warhammer. They even re-used the same exact animations several times. several scenes were straight up copy paste.

I really didn't think the movie was that bad, in fact I quite enjoyed it and would be happy to see more.

The CGI was horrible. The story was OK. The "I can jump further than you" scene was cringe-worthy.

I give it a 3 out of 7.6.