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oni wrote:The negativity is sickening.

I think that's a bit strong of a statement. Granted I do find it a bit annoying since a 40k movie is something I've hoped for since I first started playing 40k about 15 years ago. I think people either don't understand that this is a low budget movie compared to say Transformers, Avatar, Iron Man, etc. and they are going to spend tens of millions on a straight to DVD release for a limited fan base, or they are just don't really care there's a 40k movie that doesn't fit what they personally want in a 40k movie. That's fine though, the naysayers here don't represent the majority of Dakka, let alone the entire 40k community. I think the site having problems due to the amount of pre-orders is evidence enough of this.

Having said that, the complaints about the graphics aren't unfounded. They don't look great, but again, it's not a multi-million dollar studio movie. I'm sure they could have done better, but we don't know the details of funding, etc. There's a good chance they spent alot of getting some big name actors to do the voice overs.

Looking at the bigger picture when it comes to GW continuing to make movies is pretty clear to me. If it makes money for them they will keep making more movies. This is a big part of the reason I am going to buy this movie. I'm happy there's a 40k movie at all, but I'll be really happy if they expand it to a series of movies and if they get really ambitious we might get a Horus Heresy movie series (fingers crossed).

SM vs CSM is a way of lightening the graphics load, the basckground are also 'cheap', look how sparse it is. I have seen many games with better graphics, and I am not talking about just the current games that need quad core processors and a graphics card with jet engine sized heat sinks.

I will be greatly entertained if for all the hype and IP legalism this film doesnt match the suprisingly unbad quality of Damnatus. It this point an opportunity for a mocking dirisible comparison is likely to be the best feature of the film.

Dear disappointed folk,

I'm sorry that you are disappointed, but please realize that we lucked out on this one.

Yeah, the animation is sub-par. But have you seen the fighting? Heads go flying, things are dismembered, and there is gore. Mmm, gore.

Now, have any of you seen the other movies this studio is famous for?

Do you remember the fighting in Bionicle? It mostly consisted of shooting little beams at people.

So, the animation may be crud in your opinion, but it could have been much cruddier.

Seriously, in-game killzone, gears or even halo look better lol.

spireland wrote:I'd take a good story and so-so animation over amazing animation written by a moron.

To the story vs graphics response earlier, yes, in the end story is more important, but not to the point where nothing else matters. The point is, is it too much to ask for a decent level of BOTH?? Would you have enjoyed Lord of the Rings as much had it been acted with Jack Black as Legolas and been shot in a parking lot with people shooting nerf arrows at each other??? Cmon, its a package, you can't just slice one aspect of a whole off the rest and pretend it doesn't impact the impression to some degree, minor or major depending? Not saying this is a case of major, as I haven't seen it yet and maybe the story is incredible, just saying generally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grotzooka wrote:Dear disappointed folk,

I'm sorry that you are disappointed, but please realize that we lucked out on this one.

Yeah, the animation is sub-par. But have you seen the fighting? Heads go flying, things are dismembered, and there is gore. Mmm, gore.

Now, have any of you seen the other movies this studio is famous for?

Do you remember the fighting in Bionicle? It mostly consisted of shooting little beams at people.

So, the animation may be crud in your opinion, but it could have been much cruddier.

It's crap but it could be crappier so don't be dissapointed LOL??????????

Jeeze I hope you don't assign these standards to everything in life!

Monster Rain wrote:I was seriously unimpressed with what I've seen of Damnatus.

This movie looks a lot better, TBH.

Damnatus was made by fans for a few thousand euro, what visual quality were you expecting?

This film ought to thoroughly eclipse it, actually the graphics quality looks roughly comperable, though Damnatus used a lot of flat animations to depict the vast scale of a world in the Imperium. Ship animations for one look better in Damnatus. The =I= Cobra looked fething awesome, the Ultramarines Strike Cruiser and Thunderhawk doesnt. Though your mileage may vary. See and compare for yourselves. Start at 2:10 for best visuals.



Russian subtitle version, so dont expect to understand it. If Damnatus piques your interest its leaked all over the net in the original German plus English subtitles.

As far as film quality is concerned, we are yet to see if Ultramarines has a good plot or not, but there was not too much wrong with the pacing and plot of Damnatus, it was quiate clever and had its moments, you dont even need to forgive the budget too much, they did a really impressive job of a SF action movie for the money they had. So long as you remind yourself that it will not be able to match up with what a professional studio can do you will be entertained, and possibly even impressed.

It's the fist official Warhammer 40,000 movie... This is a landmark product for GW and the hobby. This is the main reason I purchased it. I too wish the animation was better, but I still think it's good quality.

Is there any real information about the budget the animation studio was given?
And if so, how does that compare to the DoW game intro movie budget?

I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

From what I have seen, you need a good amount of money to get really good CGI.

For those Peter Jackson fans out there, I would say the UM movie is like PJ's "Bad Taste".
If it does well, the company might get to do "The Frighteners" next.

skrulnik wrote:I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

And we should care why? They're still charging $40 for it, in a world where movies like Avatar or Iron Man are released on DVD for $25.

Prophecy07 wrote:

I'm hope you're not talking about Damnatus, which is freaking amazing.

I thoroughly agree, but i tend to tone down my support for the film in case people who diont understand what goes into making 'quality' cinema fail to see beyond the budget limitations. Freaking amazing it was, but for that review they expect something to math Avatar for visuals.

Prophecy07 wrote:
I'm fairly certain it got a cease and desist letter from GW, but it may or may not still exist if you know where to look.

GW had a tantrum over it. Note how while Damnatus exists, however un-official they could not help but claim that Ultramarines is the 'first feature film' rather than 'first authorised feature film'. they should have just left that bit off, but GW dont know when to let go.

One of the nice things about getting Damnatus is that it is genuine freeware download, not pirate copy, irregardless of the nature of the sites you will likely find it on. GW might not like you watching it, but it's not theirs to complain. The most they can do is complain at the films makers for allowing it to 'leak'. The film mkakers cannot publically endorse the 'leak', but intended to release it free to the net anyway and therefore are not in any way motivated to 'protect' the work from viral distribution.

AlexHolker wrote:

skrulnik wrote:I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

And we should care why? They're still charging $40 for it, in a world where movies like Avatar or Iron Man are released on DVD for $25.

Economy of scale. They KNOW they will sell millions of copies of Iron Man and Avatar.

(comparatively) Low number runs of low budget movies are expensive to produce. All that limited edition packaging costs money, also.

AlexHolker wrote:

skrulnik wrote:I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

And we should care why? They're still charging $40 for it, in a world where movies like Avatar or Iron Man are released on DVD for $25.

To be fair that's pre-order special edition with a graphic novel.

It looks to me that the offer might be an investment offer, the DVD and product cover is finished but the product is not. However if enough people buy the pre-order the revenue generated might be enough to do scene x and y they orginally wanted to but couldnt do.

If the pre-order is now and release is sceduled for last weekend of November that is enough time to add a polish to the product based on invested pre-sale revenue.

AlexHolker wrote:

skrulnik wrote:I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

And we should care why? They're still charging $40 for it, in a world where movies like Avatar or Iron Man are released on DVD for $25.

No they aren't, they are selling the collectors edition for $40

that is like complaining that modern warfare 2 CE cost $100+ while ignoring the fact that it came with night vision goggles and such.

skrulnik wrote:Is there any real information about the budget the animation studio was given?
And if so, how does that compare to the DoW game intro movie budget?

I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

From what I have seen, you need a good amount of money to get really good CGI.

For those Peter Jackson fans out there, I would say the UM movie is like PJ's "Bad Taste".
If it does well, the company might get to do "The Frighteners" next.

There was this comment on Empireonline;

keatsmeister

I actually saw this trailer at the UK Games Day a couple of weeks ago, where producer David Kerney introduced the trailer and held a brief Q&A afterwards.

One of the key questions asked was why the CGI wasn't particularly great. Codex Pictures is essentially a start-up company that received zero funding from Games Workshop to help make the movie, so the implication was that anyone expecting to see top-end CGI is always going to be disappointed.

Can anyone else that went to Games Day back this up?

I just ordered mine (only £17.99 then a £8 p&p fee - feth its like buying from eBay but without the benefits!), so until this turns up - To all the naysayers and critiquers out there:

LA LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING


LA LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING

LA LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING

LA LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING

I would have bought this for 19.95. I mean the collector's edition. As it is 44$ to have it shipped to where I live means there is no chance.

This 'feature' is only 70 minutes long. This is the length/quality of movies I pick up in the 5-10$ bin to entertain my kids for an hour and then throw away. Like this: http://www.amazon.com/Strawberry-Shortcake-Glimmerberry-Ball-Movie/dp/B003U6SJZO/ref=sr_1_31?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1286571086&sr=1-31

I wasn't expecting Pixar but it takes more than early 90's Saturday morning cartoon to get that much of my money.

No matter the quality of the animation or the length, I will faithfully purchase it in the hopes that GW makes a profit and are encouraged to make more movies, WITH BIGGER BUDGETS.

Either we support this now or we will lose the chance of getting any truly awesome movies.

Well I will probably watch it and enjoy as I'm easy to please but obviously it is not great graphically and besides which the ultramarines are a bunch of apple-polishing goody-two shoes who probably iron their underwear and put name tags on it. Not that thats all bad when you have the responsibility of guarding humanity but its a bit dull all the same

MADLarkin wrote:No matter the quality of the animation or the length, I will faithfully purchase it in the hopes that GW makes a profit and are encouraged to make more movies, WITH BIGGER BUDGETS.

Either we support this now or we will lose the chance of getting any truly awesome movies.

Truth.

Support it people! Not because THIS movie is awesome, but rather so the NEXT one (ones!!) will be!

Space Wolves in 2012. Make it so!

Dashofpepper wrote:Ah well.

DakkaDakka does not condone piracy except . . .

Wow I know girl who has that same face. But different eyes O.o

Anyway the Ultramarines movie does not look good.

The props of Damnatus were wonderful, but it moved way to slow for my tastes.

Ordered my copy of the Ultramarines film. My order number was 100000216. So either they've sold over a hundred million, which crashed the server, or 216 have purchased; lots of people looked but few bought.

AlexHolker wrote:

skrulnik wrote:I would bet the entire UM movie budget is a fraction of what the 5-min intro movie had.

And we should care why? They're still charging $40 for it, in a world where movies like Avatar or Iron Man are released on DVD for $25.

To be fair that's pre-order special edition with a graphic novel and not a bad price for that if its limited edition. If the film eventually get a cult status (unlikely) it coould even be an investment.

It looks to me that the offer might be another type of investment offer, the DVD and product cover is finished but the product is not. However if enough people buy the pre-order the revenue generated might be enough to do scene x and y they orginally wanted to but couldn't do.

Two months for pre-order is a long time, and its also a very long time in CGI post-production. Normally the final master is ready for dulication and distribution only about a week before actual release, even less for something like this. thd comic need be printed now, print run times are far lionger than DVd setup times. The packaging is done now, but the film will still be worked on, were it not they would have released already.

The extrs money raiserd might be the difference between a pivotal fight scene occuring in a cheap featureless hazy desert, or in a well detailed Cities of Death ruins with stunning background visuals and proper lighting effects.

Is there going to be a general release of this film without the comic book and fancy packaging?

Every time I hear "taint of Chaos" I giggle.

That aside, nothing really dazzling for me to be excited over. I'll rent it at best.

Moopy wrote:The props of Damnatus were wonderful, but it moved way to slow for my tastes.

Ordered my copy of the Ultramarines film. My order number was 100000216. So either they've sold over a hundred million, which crashed the server, or 216 have purchased; lots of people looked but few bought.

i am #224

i doubt they have sold a million copies.



if they have then omgtheydefinitlywillmakeanothermovieorten

I'm as happy for a 40k movie as the next gamer...but damn the animation in this is CRAP. It looks like it was patched together using the Dawn of War 2 graphics engine.

We live in hope

Not bad, turned out better than expected.

olympia wrote:It looks like it was patched together using the Dawn of War 2 graphics engine.

it isn't that good man. and that opening scene cost a TON of money to make.

Yeah visually that doesn't really impress me much, looks a bit rushed, if the story line comes back with posotive reviewsd i may dare buy it

If this does well, it could help GW to pitch the idea to a studio that will actually put up some money for better production values.

If the community gets behind this thing we could get a proper 40k movie somewhere down the line.

Kurgash wins.