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Except, for a first film, it's exactly what you would expect to see - given your budget, do you do a more restrained story as best you can, or do you attempt to recreate a universe that has had 20 years to grow?

If you're being realistic, you keep to the basics: get boltguns sounding right - which they did. Get some "human" interest going, by making the UM not faceless automatons. Create a simple, but interesting story. Get the voice acting right - which they did. The voice acting was VERY good.

they could easily have overeached, and that would have likely resulted in no film at all - or one that was much less than the current one.

Now they've got the basics sorted, we can get the more exciting bits in the next film.

I agree with what you say nosferatu, what they have done is done well, as I said in my first coments I did enjoy the film.

Im not saying they should have had an all out battle royal with everyone turning up and resulting in carnage, just have a story showing off the some of the marines best weapons and things, after all I thought that they wanted to try and reach out to everyone and get more people involved in GW stuff. In the initial interviews about the film they were reaching out to everyone and it was going for a cinema release, but as some have mentioned I think they must have looked at the budget a little more.

I did like the voices, they were always going to be good once we knew the cast, some great voice actors involved.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Except, for a first film, it's exactly what you would expect to see - given your budget, do you do a more restrained story as best you can, or do you attempt to recreate a universe that has had 20 years to grow?

If you're being realistic, you keep to the basics: get boltguns sounding right - which they did. Get some "human" interest going, by making the UM not faceless automatons. Create a simple, but interesting story. Get the voice acting right - which they did. The voice acting was VERY good.

they could easily have overeached, and that would have likely resulted in no film at all - or one that was much less than the current one.

Now they've got the basics sorted, we can get the more exciting bits in the next film.

Actually on consideration i think your completely correct on these points, i am sticking to 7.5/10 which is actually pretty much there. I think maybe i am spoiled by the quality of animation that PIXAR and DREAMWORKS put out on a regular basis, plus anime like Final Fantasy on top of this films like BEOWULF have raised the bar for adult action animated features. If this is the foundation a future Black Library type film series it will no doubt get better and better as budgets increase, circulation increases and a bit of critical acclaim heads their way. I would love to be involved in this kind of stuff even at beta level, QA type level giving honest and balanced opinion on how things could be improved. I would really like the kind of visceral action you see in the opening 20mins of "Saving private Ryan" in the 40K universe with Guard, Marines etc clashing with traitors and Xenos.

It would be nice to see a Sternguard Squad doing a building clearance, or a Hammernators deep striking into a foe, or the Ultimate "The Grey Knights" This would be a good one, as a small elite band of warriors (5 or 6) against some slavering beasts, it could be an extreme horror film (making Event Horizion look like the Teletubbies) casting a wider net plus it would probably become a cult classic.

The problme is that getting it more realistic costs a LOT more money - its not a smooth progression, there is a huge "step" cost in the software and render farms needed. Hopefully the film will generate enough direct funding from sales, and funding from others, in order to let them jump up tot he next level.

From the sounds of it the voice actors could be persuaded to come back,they definitely looked like they were having fun with it

7.5/10 sounds fine.

mwnciboo wrote:Look bottomline I shouldn't have to do some pre-reading prior to a film, this isn't school and I'm not doing a Degree in Film and Media. I don't mind reading books, but I am not reading comics its bad enough I have to put with the Wargamer Stigma, without adding Comic book guy from the Simpsons to the list of social taboos (I do respect the Artwork in Comics, but the stories are paper-thin forgive the pun). If i have to have pre-read something in order for this film to make sense (e.g. why they have broken away from GW Canon about how a Space Marine is trained), then quite frankly stuff it.

Truth.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mwnciboo wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:Except, for a first film, it's exactly what you would expect to see - given your budget, do you do a more restrained story as best you can, or do you attempt to recreate a universe that has had 20 years to grow?

If you're being realistic, you keep to the basics: get boltguns sounding right - which they did. Get some "human" interest going, by making the UM not faceless automatons. Create a simple, but interesting story. Get the voice acting right - which they did. The voice acting was VERY good.

they could easily have overeached, and that would have likely resulted in no film at all - or one that was much less than the current one.

Now they've got the basics sorted, we can get the more exciting bits in the next film.

Actually on consideration i think your completely correct on these points, i am sticking to 7.5/10 which is actually pretty much there. I think maybe i am spoiled by the quality of animation that PIXAR and DREAMWORKS put out on a regular basis, plus anime like Final Fantasy on top of this films like BEOWULF have raised the bar for adult action animated features. If this is the foundation a future Black Library type film series it will no doubt get better and better as budgets increase, circulation increases and a bit of critical acclaim heads their way. I would love to be involved in this kind of stuff even at beta level, QA type level giving honest and balanced opinion on how things could be improved. I would really like the kind of visceral action you see in the opening 20mins of "Saving private Ryan" in the 40K universe with Guard, Marines etc clashing with traitors and Xenos.

It would be nice to see a Sternguard Squad doing a building clearance, or a Hammernators deep striking into a foe, or the Ultimate "The Grey Knights" This would be a good one, as a small elite band of warriors (5 or 6) against some slavering beasts, it could be an extreme horror film (making Event Horizion look like the Teletubbies) casting a wider net plus it would probably become a cult classic.

Truth, again. Nice shout outs too.

A saving private ryan 40k style would be a winner. As for the quality of image then it is some way off some of the top studios work but to tell the story it doesn't have to be on that level. I would love to see it up there with the pixar's and so on, but I also wouldn't mind it being similar to what it is now with a more action style story. After all the opening credits were 'in the distant future there is only war'.

What they didn't tell you was were going to film them walking for two miles there and back.
There opening for dow had just as much action in two minutes.

I have posted my opinion on how bad this film was on other threads and how it failed to live up to my expectations. Having just watched the space marine game trailer on youtube again I really don't know why this film had such awful graphics, it truly was embarrassing. Also liver spots on Space Marines and a Crozius that makes a Chaplain into a Librarian please.

I still say we have to look at everything in context before passing judgement. Space Marine is a game with a massive budget whose developers are paying top dollar for a beautiful game.

Ultramarines is a low budget movie whose makers are skirting the bottom line. We really can't expect the same quality.

Was the story or the fluff background the 100% best? No. No it wasn't, but it was decent and not horrible. What we need to do is to support this film, so studios know 40k films have actual money in them (even if they follow GW's strict guidelines) and we'll get movies with bigger budgets that will have the beautiful graphics we want.

Haven't watched it yet... I'm thinking of buying the collector's edition mostly because I'm a fan of the SM.

I'm not too worried about the animation. I've made peace with the idea that it won't be 'Dawn of War intro' standard.

Agreed - it had a few minor issues, apparently ed believes that a low budget film should be on a par with a $5m budget game which is unrealistic to say the least.

The movie was decent, which is more than I expected.

the ship was NOT a battlebarge.

it was clearly a Strike Cruiser, those who can't tell the difference need to look at some BFG models.

ok now I gotta try and see this sometime.. so you buy this thing.. I havent been to the site, sorry computer is super slow.. Anyway pics look great.

my suggestion is to wait a couple months for them to release a bog standard version.

unless you really want the special tin and comic book.

nosferatu1001 wrote:For everyone asking why only 10 men - READ THE COMIC BOOK

nosferatu1001 wrote:again: READ THE COMIC.

Movies are there to tell a story, plain and simple. They could have covered a lot of this information with 10 minutes of worthy dialog in the beginning of the movie.

Overall, I'd give the movie a 7/10. The story was a bit predictable, but still enjoyable. The voice acting and music were SUPERB.

The thing that bugged me, like everybody else, was the animation. I understand it was practicaly an indie flick and done with a low budget, but it felt like I was watching a polished version of a Reboot or Beast Wars episode. The way everybody reacted to getting shot was almost too twitchy. The movement felt awkward to watch, and the experienced marines/apoc felt like they belonged in a old folks home and not on a battlefield.

A great example of a 40k movie is the dawn of war 2 intro : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0m28yz6kmg

Yes of course that had a higher budget, but the combat was very, very well choreographed and everything felt proportionate. Honestly, even the Dawn of war: Dark Crusade intro has me more engaged than most parts of Ultramarines ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nodA5bxueyo ) and thats just a short 1 minute intro.

Anyway, like i said, 7/10 and I would watch it again (watched it twice today in fact). The character development was quite good.

Re-boot whoa that brings back some memories, how did i forget about that show

ChrisWWII wrote:Hey, if we're lucky, maybe we'll get a live action Gaunt's Ghosts movie or something in the far future!

Until then....we'll just have to live with 'ok'.

we'd have to be very lucky!! space marines outsell every other gw product (including any warhammer etc) at least 10 to 1 - think about it for a second - everyone you know (including you!) has (or has had) a space marine army, plus something else like tau or warhammer... so the money rides on the next one being marines Vs someone else again...

bring on the Blood Angels!!

would be good if they included guard & sisters tho....

DB wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:Hey, if we're lucky, maybe we'll get a live action Gaunt's Ghosts movie or something in the far future!

Until then....we'll just have to live with 'ok'.

we'd have to be very lucky!! space marines outsell every other gw product (including any warhammer etc) at least 10 to 1 - think about it for a second - everyone you know (including you!) has (or has had) a space marine army, plus something else like tau or warhammer... so the money rides on the next one being marines Vs someone else again...

bring on the Blood Angels!!

would be good if they included guard & sisters tho....

I WANT gaunt's ghosts, but this won't be happening any time soon- SM are the posterboys, after all.
I REALISTICALLY WANT either salamanders/raven guard and GK fighting daemons/orks/eldar/tau.
having more "friendly" xenos like tau or eldar will show noobs that 40k isn't just SoB+GK+SM+IG=good and everyone else=bad.

I actually never collected Marines. I started out with Guard, and I'm sticking with Guard!

ChrisWWII wrote:I actually never collected Marines. I started out with Guard, and I'm sticking with Guard!

you mean you never bought a core game box set? shock!!!

Nope. My first kit was a box of Cadian Guardsmen. I still field them as vets.

I just watched the movie. I had myself a little bit of a nerdgasm. perhaps the sparkle in my eyes was a little bright as I tended to dismiss any faults there were.
My favourite bits? pretty much anything to do with the chaplain's armour especially the helmet.
The "Warhammer" hahaha of all the relics it could be.. A warhammer
And at the end of the day, the ultras are extra ultra

Animation was real gakky, but it was alright overall.

Just watched it about an hour ago and tbh my expectations of it were to much. I understand that it was low budget but it still could have been better mainly a bit more reaserch into the fluff wargear, personalities of the SM and the deamon, the animation was good, not the best but enjoyable to watch, the chaplains armour looked cool as bar his crozius any one else think i was a little small and hardly made him look impossing. ratings wise id give it a 6.

On the topic of other films that should be made i agree in full with everything said about a gaunts film, the books are amazing. Sadly i have to agree with what some one said about them doing SM films and the SM being posterboys. still they could do some good films with the SM, nice one would be SM vs Nids, one of the memorable battles in the books or in the 40k history.

I really don't understand why they bothered to make this CGI if all they had was like $50 in budget. They could have easily made a traditional animated fature that would have been less expensive (presumably), while looking a lot nicer. All the marines looked roughly the same, like a collection of dried prunes.

I'm also wondering why GW doesn't want to throw some money behind one of these productions. A higher budget, well-produced feature would draw a lot of attention to the game, and probably open another market for them to exploit. I guess the same backassward thinking that had them betting against computers and video games is still in place, even after changing the leadership of the company 3-4 times.

it would have been alot better if GW had put some money into it.


hopefully, this one made enough money to convince GW that another won't be a failure and put some money into it. Codex will hopefully make some money on it too so they can put more into the next one.

If GW had put money into it it would have been a great advert for 40k.

The only problem with that is that if they had tried to make it a good advert, they may have lost some of the hardcore fans. Why? Because they would have had to had devoted a good deal of time and effort trying to explain the very basic nature of the 40k universe to all the newbs. What Chaos is, what the Warp is, what psykers are, etc. etc.

If they had done that, I'm willing to bet we'd get people complaining they were just trying to sucker new little kids into the hobby, or that they were watering it down too much to make it easy to understand.

Besides, GW itself doesn't have the kind of money needed to do a big budget movie. Their pretax profits were in the region of 7.5 million pounds....while a movie with the kind of CGI and look that people want would be hundreds of millions of dollars....far beyond GWs ability to support.

And to those asking why they didn't do traditional animation? Well, that's expensive too. Making a movie just plain isn't cheap unless you're just filming a few of your friends with a discount camcorder. ANything better than that and you strt needed more and more money.

Mr Nobody wrote:I want to download it, but no one has pirated yet, so I might have to buy it. I hate being poor.

Piratebay had a torrent of it

Please don't pirate this movie....we need to be BUYING it so that the company makes money so that further along the line studios will make better 40k films.