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The LOTR came out in 1954... and it was made around 2000? that's a full 50 years. Also, Since LOTR, it's about 60 years until the Horus Heresy comes out.

Is it plausible to say that you can assume it will be 60 years before the Horus Heresy will be made into movies?? so if you're 21 now... around when you're 70 years old you'll be able to see the film?

And since it took 50 years to get from the creation of 1 epic to another.... do you think it will be 2070 until the equivalent of the Horus Heresy to be created in another IP?

1954 LOTR -------60yrs------ 2006 HH ----~~~2070 (new epic)----

What do you think this new epic and this new IP will be in 2070?

And also, how much money do you think realistically will it take to be able to completely make the Horus Heresy and be true to the book series? I'm thinking atleast between 1-1.5 billion dollars....

...and if this was to happen do you think the origin story of the Emperor will be told? ...lol and again do you think 1.-1.5 bil a plausible nmber?

I don't think the Heresy could ever work as a film even with the world's largest budget and the best SFX going. 40k is alreay an over-the-top setting that can never be accurately shown on screen, and the HH is to 40k what the 80s is to the 00s; Everything was bigger.

The size of battle in LOTR would be the HH equivalent of a water-pistol fight in the back garden. I think the scale is just too massive to ever be accurately portrayed.

The HH series is epic only in terms of sheer page count, and has a lot more in common with, for example, the Doctor Who novels that took up that franchise during the hiatus between the end of the original tv series in 89 and the revival in 2005. Like those it veers from good to bad and back again, from pulp to something approaching literature and back.

The Lord of the Rings it is not.

I'd also consider it incredibly unfilmable. Leaving aside the sheer scale of it the series it is almost entirely focused on manly men doing manly things in a manly manner. Even the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings - a recognised classic and the defining work of 20th century english fantasy in the english language - had to struggle with the lack of female characters, to focus on one of the more glaring problems of any potential adaptation.

Were I looking for material to adapt for a 40K blockbuster I'd look at Gaunt's Ghosts. I wouldn't touch the HH with a ten foot pole.

 Paradigm wrote:
I don't think the Heresy could ever work as a film even with the world's largest budget and the best SFX going. 40k is alreay an over-the-top setting that can never be accurately shown on screen, and the HH is to 40k what the 80s is to the 00s; Everything was bigger.

The size of battle in LOTR would be the HH equivalent of a water-pistol fight in the back garden. I think the scale is just too massive to ever be accurately portrayed.

Hey, I understand what you mean... however, I just want to say a few things:

1) Star Wars the Clone Wars --- The showed all those clones, so what's the deal heh?
2) Althought yes, you hear "MILLIONS OF BROTHERS FIGHTING MILLIONS OF BROTHERS" and "HUNDRED MILLIONS OF IMPERIAL GUARD FIGHTING HUNDRED MILLION OF CULTIS" that happens yes, and so did it in places lets say the Vietnam War where you have what? 1 million Vietnamese soldier fighting 100k American soldier? if you were to imagine yourself in either sides, you'll realistically only see your unit, composed of what? maybe 100 guys? 1000 guys? and you'll be fighting for 3-4 houses at a time before you go on to the next 3-4 houses and realisticly you'll only be involved in fighting for 1/100 of the city while the rest of the MILLION of your allies fight in other parts? what I'm trying to say is, in first person, which is what we'll see in the movie, we won't see MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of people. We'll likely only see The Emperor and those closest to him charging or the Primarch and the closest 100 Space Maurice kicking down a door. There can be some wild shot that shots 1000? maybe 10000? but you don't got to worry about showing 100000000 vs 1000000 lol!!!!!!

3) No matter how complex the armor is... again we only see a few, lets say on the BIGGEST CAPITAL SHIP IN EXISTENCE in 31k where the emperor and his primach have meetings. We'll see the FX made for like 21 guys only. I think it will be OK.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ashcroft wrote:
The HH series is epic only in terms of sheer page count, and has a lot more in common with, for example, the Doctor Who novels that took up that franchise during the hiatus between the end of the original tv series in 89 and the revival in 2005. Like those it veers from good to bad and back again, from pulp to something approaching literature and back.

The Lord of the Rings it is not.

I'd also consider it incredibly unfilmable. Leaving aside the sheer scale of it the series it is almost entirely focused on manly men doing manly things in a manly manner. Even the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings - a recognised classic and the defining work of 20th century english fantasy in the english language - had to struggle with the lack of female characters, to focus on one of the more glaring problems of any potential adaptation.

Were I looking for material to adapt for a 40K blockbuster I'd look at Gaunt's Ghosts. I wouldn't touch the HH with a ten foot pole.

Hi,

I'm confused as to why you worry that HH can't be made into the film? you're saying it's too much good vs evil? or too much men and no women?

Super_Megazord wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
I don't think the Heresy could ever work as a film even with the world's largest budget and the best SFX going. 40k is alreay an over-the-top setting that can never be accurately shown on screen, and the HH is to 40k what the 80s is to the 00s; Everything was bigger.

The size of battle in LOTR would be the HH equivalent of a water-pistol fight in the back garden. I think the scale is just too massive to ever be accurately portrayed.

Hey, I understand what you mean... however, I just want to say a few things:

1) Star Wars the Clone Wars --- The showed all those clones, so what's the deal heh?
2) Althought yes, you hear "MILLIONS OF BROTHERS FIGHTING MILLIONS OF BROTHERS" and "HUNDRED MILLIONS OF IMPERIAL GUARD FIGHTING HUNDRED MILLION OF CULTIS" that happens yes, and so did it in places lets say the Vietnam War where you have what? 1 million Vietnamese soldier fighting 100k American soldier? if you were to imagine yourself in either sides, you'll realistically only see your unit, composed of what? maybe 100 guys? 1000 guys? and you'll be fighting for 3-4 houses at a time before you go on to the next 3-4 houses and realisticly you'll only be involved in fighting for 1/100 of the city while the rest of the MILLION of your allies fight in other parts? what I'm trying to say is, in first person, which is what we'll see in the movie, we won't see MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of people. We'll likely only see The Emperor and those closest to him charging or the Primarch and the closest 100 Space Maurice kicking down a door. There can be some wild shot that shots 1000? maybe 10000? but you don't got to worry about showing 100000000 vs 1000000 lol!!!!!!

3) No matter how complex the armor is... again we only see a few, lets say on the BIGGEST CAPITAL SHIP IN EXISTENCE in 31k where the emperor and his primach have meetings. We'll see the FX made for like 21 guys only. I think it will be OK.

Fair point about Clone Wars, and I agree that the series really shines when it can show the scale of battles the movies simply could not. However, even in 40k terms, let alone HH, those battles are tiny in comparison. And while you might only focus on a few characters, you'd still need a huge bunch of really large-scale shots, as without the immense scale, 40k loses a lot of it's power, and that would be hard to do with any degree of realism without the budget of an entire nation behind it. Think of the size of the buildings and tanks, and the fact that Titans and SHVs are fairly commonplace, and you can see how it would need to be huge.

Also, in Vietman that was the total number of troops on each side, in 40k, that's the forces you'd get at a single engagement, and you'd need to show that somehow. Again, without the ability to convey the sheer over-the-top scale, 40k falls down.

As for the SFX, if you think that ever guy in power armour needs to be either CGI, motion-captured or have actual suits of Power Armour, then it's clearly a monstrous task when you have even a dozen of these guys on screen. There's also the risk that is the CGI wasn't flawless, it would look cheap and tacky. For the Primarchs, you'd also need one hell of a cast, and while I'm sure we all have a list of actors up to the job (and there's a thread on it every couple of months ) there's no way a cast like that could be assembled realistically. Think the kind of chararacter balancing that worked in The Avengers; they'd need to do that with 20 of the best actors around.

So I just think that 30k and 40k really are settings best left to the imagination and artwork; a film would need to be done right, and never could be whilst remaining faithful.

Maybe in 50 years if technology is significantly better, but right now, I'd say it's damn near impossible

Oh, and by the way, Welcome to Dakka!

Lol alright thank you for welcoming me...

...well I'm sure people can be creative with the visual. I know your desire to see the massive battle in scale in order to be true but.... realistically, how would that work in a film? you'll have to imagine yourself in say today's predator drone which flies thousand of miles above a city and you see the camera from that angel. But then... everything will be ants... or worse you can't see anything just small ball of orange explosion. The environment in which I realistically see the massive scale that you desire would be seeing the fleet from orbit and then transport entering the planet. Again, like I say you can see thousands or maybe ten thousand at a time... but seeing hundred of millions of millions isn't realistic in real life or fantasy... you can show 1000 vs 1000 and show a battle of 500 vs 500 in a city where you get certain things like a big building blocking your views... or a giant titan legs blocking your view. You can't see it all I'm srry.


And aside... when I think of possible Horus Heresy movies... I don't think of seeing ten million vs ten millions at a time for 3 hours lol. People would just get a fatigue and it would be pointless. I'm thinking of the action and visual spectacle as the fluff....

...what's really the meat is the human interaction, the built up to break people's heart. You know what I mean <.<... when I say... break people's heart >.>... <.<... yes like mentally in term of the human interaction. I say spectacle 25% of movie, human interaction for heart breaking 75% of movie.

Super_Megazord wrote:
I'm confused as to why you worry that HH can't be made into the film? you're saying it's too much good vs evil? or too much men and no women?

It's a combination of factors really.

Firstly, a straight up adaptation of the BL series to date would be impossible. It's already about six times the length of LotR; it's a chronological nightmare (think how many of the books start before Isstvan); there are few to no viewpoint characters who an audience could follow across the entire series; there are a ton of side stories that do nothing to progress the overall story...

It could - theoretically - work as a Marvel movieverse style project - with a lot of the books being potential spin-offs rather than tied into the core story. I think that's the only way it could work really, given that those who could be considered viewpoint characters - Horus and (initially at least) Loken come to mind - don't appear consistently across the entire series. The fact that Horus - the arch villain of the entire series - is the closest the series has to a recurring main character doesn't make it any more adaptation friendly.

Just thinking about it, it would be more feasible as a tv adaptation spread over multiple seasons. Of course then the question of how expensive it would be becomes even more of an issue.

The lack of female characters does hurt the series. Not fatally, but what's noticeable on the page would be glaring on the screen. 99% of the main characters are either oblivious to or incapable of romantic feelings, and before anyone says that isn't essential I'd invite them to consider how many film or television series on this scale are entirely without it.

Personally I think the realisation of the battles would be the least of the problems - to do it well would be challenging, but it could be done, albeit at considerable expense. It's not the visuals that kill this project, it's the characters.

 ashcroft wrote:

Super_Megazord wrote:
I'm confused as to why you worry that HH can't be made into the film? you're saying it's too much good vs evil? or too much men and no women?

It's a combination of factors really.

Firstly, a straight up adaptation of the BL series to date would be impossible. It's already about six times the length of LotR; it's a chronological nightmare (think how many of the books start before Isstvan); there are few to no viewpoint characters who an audience could follow across the entire series; there are a ton of side stories that do nothing to progress the overall story...

It could - theoretically - work as a Marvel movieverse style project - with a lot of the books being potential spin-offs rather than tied into the core story. I think that's the only way it could work really, given that those who could be considered viewpoint characters - Horus and (initially at least) Loken come to mind - don't appear consistently across the entire series. The fact that Horus - the arch villain of the entire series - is the closest the series has to a recurring main character doesn't make it any more adaptation friendly.

Just thinking about it, it would be more feasible as a tv adaptation spread over multiple seasons. Of course then the question of how expensive it would be becomes even more of an issue.

The lack of female characters does hurt the series. Not fatally, but what's noticeable on the page would be glaring on the screen. 99% of the main characters are either oblivious to or incapable of romantic feelings, and before anyone says that isn't essential I'd invite them to consider how many film or television series on this scale are entirely without it.

Personally I think the realisation of the battles would be the least of the problems - to do it well would be challenging, but it could be done, albeit at considerable expense. It's not the visuals that kill this project, it's the characters.

Lol... if the LOTR is a Triology and the HH is x6 LOTR then 6x3 = 18 movies? lol.... I don't see what's wrong with it. I can follow it like TV seasons but in movie form for 18 summers. I think I agree with you about TV series, for some part, anything non-space marine is on TV.... like Marvel agent of Shield. Anything Commissar, Inquisition, and IG is on TV lol.

...if your worry is characters, then I'm not worried. Character interaction is cheap. CHEAP. It's just human acting. So you get many tries. All you have to do is write the script and figure out what's necessary... but at the same time still keep it true. IMO if it was up to me I have everything in :3... but... I mean... it might feel all over the place. Why can't you just keep the side story, anything, as you say, not advancing the story, out of it lol?

I kind of imagine something like Star Wars... but with guidline of all the books. Everything, CHARACTERS, that was discussed extensively in a book or throughout all the books should be placed in the movie. I see entire movie dedicated to 1 primarch and his exploit with his legion alone in 1 movie. Just focusing on 1, sometime having 2 or 3 other primarch as cameo... if things are mention briefly, just have it shown as fast fluff cut in like certain jedi master leading troop or flying squadron ship etc.

Man... the only problem is... would main stream audience bite.

...I'm really interested in how to show romance. With scales of The Emperor... Primarch and Space Maurice... there aren't really females their size to be with them... aside from discussion indoctrination and stuff... maybe we can show an IG main character who has a wife or something... but it won't fit... with the rest...

YOU KNOW WHAT I SAY? I've always wanted to read 1 book, like I want them to make 1 book, out of some hundred they have that talk about Space Marine falling in love and having kids. In Biology, just cause most of of a specie is a cetain way, there are always mutation that make a small population different. So make 1 of the Space Marine fall in love with a villager girl or something LOL.

LOLOLOLOLOL. I say feth IT and put this in, and anger everyone LOL.

I see Horus Heresy being a series (animated or CGI... Like a halfway point between Clone Wars and Babylon 5). That'd work best and has a chance to happen.