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fatty wrote:

Spoiler:

you see a imperial fist marine nailed to a stone with a chaos star on it. but no they have to see a dead black legion marine before they conclude well now we know our enemy Chaos maines

Well, in their defense

Spoiler:

a marine gets half his head blown up but the apotacary has too kneel besidethe body and feel the pulse before he speaks those magic words. head wound, fatal , enemy (no Sh*t Sherlock)

I felt this one was bad, too, but in retrospective,

@ Kroothawk's point 2)

It's a bit like I think the Imperium is, but I imagine it's a lot more fleshed out for you. Yet I don't think that it came out as "Nazi" too much; never once I thought about that.

3) Yeah, less walking would've been fine. Showing them jumping and running... I wanted to see how the HB dude managed that. There were a lot of parts that didn't add anything to the movie, sometimes I felt like they tried to put some elements in that didn't work at all because they missed others altogether.

I gave it 1 1/2 stars. Underwhelmed is an understatement.

Fist, Ill hit what no one else has. Price.

The only option is to buy a 'collectors edition' for 40$. Double what youd pay for any other move and 10$ more than other collectors editions of movies that arent so crappy.

I understand we're talking about GW here and price is always an issue, but when I pay too much for my miniatures, Im getting some really nice minis, not some slapdash boring crapfest with a comic book included.

Second is the movie itself. The giant plot holes are covered elaborately in previous posts so ill try to stick to new observations.

The plot is boring. Half of the movie is simply them walking around. As though the studio thought that would be more than enough to keep us entertained. Its filler, 80 minutes? Half that if you cut out all the walking.

The animation is abysmal. In the opening scenes I was reminded of the old Saturday morning cartoon series Reboot. This is not a good thing in 2010. Motion capture would have changed this movie entirely. They simply took shortcuts to make more money. (40$ price tag, remember?)

Lastly a refute to some of the defenders. You cry that the budget was only about 9 million gbp. Well, I guess that was money wasted. District 9 was made with only roughly 19 million gbp. Less than double and we have one of the greatest sci-fi movies made in this decade? Im gonna have to say that money wasnt the issue.

FreekyE wrote:
The animation is abysmal. In the opening scenes I was reminded of the old Saturday morning cartoon series Reboot. This is not a good thing in 2010. Motion capture would have changed this movie entirely. They simply took shortcuts to make more money. (40$ price tag, remember?)

Hilarious! I was just talking about this last night with my buddy that also watched this move. We said the EXACT same thing. I even said that it reminded me of Reboot...a damn cartoon from the early 90's. Hell, I think Reboot may actually have a leg up on the Space Marines in the animation department. I don't mean to say that they Ultramarine animators took the easy way out here. I am thinking it was quite the chore to find that software from 15 years ago, much less get those old Packard Bell's booted up again so they could render those guys walking around. Come to think of it just getting Windows 95 patched up and ready for a production of this magnitude was likely a herculean task in itself.

I sat down and watched it and enjoyed it immensely, 4 stars. Some of the action made me go woah, some of the wounds made me go ouch and some of the one liners made me go ha ha. I think it did the trick.

It might not be 100% accurate and there might be things wrong with it, but heck, it's a good action movie that you can watch and not have to pay to much attention too to enjoy, I do enough of that playing the game. I am just glad that it was a close enough representation of 40k and didn't entirely suck.

More please!

I gave it 4 stars, loved it.
Voice acting was great, yeah the animation was a bit ropey in places but hey what do people expect. As a first real attempt it did the job.

Friend of mine forced me to watch Damnatus a couple of days before so perhaps that had some bearing on my perception of this film.

So when do we get template crozius's & if anyone knows anything about ultramarines they would know that the surviving marine would of got his arse kicked for 1) knowingly touching a relic he wasn't worthy of weilding yet(just look @ poor ragnar he got sent 2 terra for something similar) not to mention breaking a statis chamber that can't be replaced 2) breaking the codex poor ventris got sent to the eye of terror for doing that & he saved a planet named in honour of the chapter this guy had only just got his power armour & 3) what can a squad of ultramarines do that an entire battle company of imperial fists not do? but it was nice to see someone having a go the battle barge anime was wicked but please DO SOME RESEARCH it ain't hard my nephew knows that much

Oh yeah i gave it 3 stars was still good to watch just hurt to see so many bloppers oh well maybe there'll be a sequel lol

Decent.

Pretty much sums it up. Its nice to see a movie, but the graphics are on par with some on the DoW cutscenes.
It'd be nice if they make another, maybe not focusing on one of the most resented marine chapters... and getting the funding to make it look alot smother would be nice.

The voice acting was ok, it seemed a little off in parts, some of the voices didn't scream "marine" at me.
The sound effects seemed awkward in places, there were alot of scenes where you'd expect more noise from that many marine walking/jogging/jumping etc

There were some really nice parts in it, the story didn't live upto my expectations with Dan writing the storyline, but i enjoyed it none-the-less. It was great to finally see something like this... and i can't wait for more... sci-fi films are raking in the money ATM, so its a possibility.

I would give it four stars if it were not for the with no real explaination and some other small "misses and issues".
I decided to leave the quality of the graphics and such out, that stuff don't bother me...hell I preffer 10 year old games over most new ones...

So three point 5 stars it is from me, a splendid success!

I'm pretty sure they used the Crozius to cast a level 20 Turn Undead spell. :p

I'd give it a 3

It was ok, i thought it would've been better but its only the first movie

I gave it one star... The voice acting is what carried this movie. The inconsistencies fluff wise were far too great to be ignored, and the animation was pretty bad. I was hoping for a lot more...

dayve110 wrote:Decent.

Pretty much sums it up. Its nice to see a movie, but the graphics are on par with some on the DoW cutscenes.

Actually, DoW I's Intro Scene had better animations, and depicted my personal vision of a 40k movie a lot more than this. Especially the face animation and "dirt" I can't stand the the "clean whiteness" of the Apothecary in the dunes. And of course the "Balefire". Ugly as hell...

Good synchro cannot increase gakky plot..

Unrealistic Battlescenes, check! A single bolter round almost instant-kills a power-armoured space marine with a hit in the chest.. a fuckin' axe hit into the shoulder too??.. Crozius has AoE-energy-attack? WTF?

For what it is worth. The movie did quite well. It was below the amount of money that I wish it could of had. The Fire was quite good and the smoke was good too.
Plot was to be expected in a 40k script.
Pretty good for a 7,000$ movie

From all the reports I've seen, the budget was closer to 9 million pounds.

Ouze wrote:
Come now. Wanting to own the first 40k movie ever doesn't make you a marine fanboy.

Wanting to buy EVERY product they put out just because it has a space marine on it would though (and the clubmate who did buy the geek edition is one).

It's not the first 40k movie ever.
It's the first official 40k movie (small difference, but given the concepts and other ideas that 40k has riffed on over the decades, an important one).
Saw it yesterday. 2 1/2 stars. Seen better cartoons, seen worse. Wasn't expecting FF:TSW graphics (that film bankrupted Square Enix pictures) but something slightly better than Transformers 1985 wasn't entirely unwatchable.
Acting was fine - script was a letdown (even Larry Olivier would have struggled with it).
It's always welcoming to hear General Zod (Terence Stamp) or Sean Pertwee in a gaming related thing. Sean is no stranger to it (having voiced a character in Fire Warrior and also several in the Killzone games). Pity the dialogue was so dire.

FreekyE wrote:I gave it 1 1/2 stars. Underwhelmed is an understatement.

Fist, Ill hit what no one else has. Price.

The only option is to buy a 'collectors edition' for 40$. Double what youd pay for any other move and 10$ more than other collectors editions of movies that arent so crappy.

I understand we're talking about GW here and price is always an issue, but when I pay too much for my miniatures, Im getting some really nice minis, not some slapdash boring crapfest with a comic book included.

i think nobody said anything about the price because we downloaded it which is perfectley legal. the uploading is illigal
but than again i would have too order it from gw to be able too buy it in the netherlands

I gave it 2 stars.

I had very low expectations for the movie, and it met them, but didn't exceed them. The characters were pathetically bland, the plot would have been fine if it had been a 1/2 hour film, and the animation wasn't great, but I knew that was going to be the case, and lets face it, they're space marines, they dont really move with much grace to begin with (especially Ultra marines).

I have the same problem with this movie that I had with the campaign in Dawn of war 2. it's an unrealistic scenario for a game of Warhammer. Warhammer is about epic battles, this is just a squad snooping around. In DoW 2, you finally get to a point where you have bigger armies, but the movie avoids that. I realize as movies go that might seem like a bad idea, but I think if they wanted to get people in the 'Warhammer frame of mind', there should have been a big battle with tons of troops somewhere, even if it was brief. And couldn't we have had an actual special character in there?

Oh well, props to the guys who did it, I'm sure it was a HUGE undertaking, and will hopefully get you more work, and us more warhammer media. Keep at it, there's plenty more stories in the 41st millennium !!

Oh dear.

1 star only for me. I wanted this to be sooo good but was bored rigid.

The main points for me are cost. Daylight robbery. Legal mugging in action.
Please don't try to justify it by saying it funds future productions, it has done the exact opposite and guaranteed that the film be pirated. Double the cost of any brand new blockbuster is totally out of order, especially when films such as inception cost £200 million + to make. But it's OK, you get a nice tin.

Boring!! Endless hours, days, no, weeks of walking. Walking. Walking. Walking.

Plot holes so deep you could sink your ex wife into. They had to make a comic to explain the plot holes, fairy nuff, but what is it with the Space Marines saying "OOooh I don't know, I think we should turn back"

What the hell happened to Know no Fear??

Don't get me started on how a Chaos tainted marine is hunted by three Space Marines (and no-one else) in the whole damned ship!

40K is about War. Lots of war, not a half assed bunch of newbies walking around for ages then saying "Oooh I think we should turn back"

A wasted opportunity. Total tosh.

One and a half stars. Most of the problems have already been touched upon but to reiterate:

- Plot ( too many ).
- Inconsistencies with background ( most egrerious: Chaplains with a "Turn Heretic"- ability ).

So many people saying this threads full of haters! I for one am not a hater, I think it's great they made this. What i'm deeply dissapointed in is more that Dan Abnett wrote this. If it was a pure attempt by a new company who had been given permission to use the gw ip then I'd be more than happy with the plot, however Dan could have done so much more with this without busting the budget. He's a talented writer. This movie doesn't come close to showing what he's capable of. Still a great fan of his, just hugly dissapointed that this is what was churrned out for a first attmpt at a movie. And in no way am I soley putting the blame on Dan for this as being a random film watcher, I have no idea what retraints he was given. For all I know the loons at GW HQ put a rough rubbish plot together and his role was to turn it into a script and improve what he could.

I think that Dan Abnett's overrated anyway, as was Bill King.

Destrado wrote: I think that Dan Abnett's overrated anyway, as was Bill King.

well i disagree with the Dan Abnett part i dont kow Bill King.

i dont hate the film i hate the part where they disapointed us with this.
and i agree with those who say they needed a grand battle.
personally i would have liked too see a movie from Dan's novel Titanicus. it has epic combat, a small groups trying too survive and epic titan battles. with those 3 subjects you could even reach out too pepoel who dont know warhammer

I wonder how much higher the rating is considering its based on 4 stars? I was about to cast my vote, thinking it was out of 5, when I realised

Abnetts great, I can't think of anyone else they could have given this first movie to (and I think even though he has his detractors, he would probably be the most liked if a poll were to be run).

well the story goes that they brought in a writer out side gw and that Dan found his story so out of place he took his job over and wote this which gw liked better.

Well I listened to some of the space marine novels on tape, and yea, this story is about in line with them, scale wise (few marines) nemesis wise (1 big baddie) and general vagueness on setting the scene and why.

I guess in a sense that makes it a pretty typical 40k story.

(I had hoped for more but the fan boy in me is really glad to have a nice collectors box of it!)

I gave it three stars, as gamers we were always going to micro analyse the film,it would of had to have alot more money thrown at it to be perfect.

However the film could of been so much more just look at the background and stories available.

A little like the Judge Dredd movie great stories/background but not nearly worked to its full potential. Though one thing to be thankful it doesn't have Stalllone in it....

The Chaplain made the film 'BURRRRRRRNN HERETICS' awesome part awesome voice actor but the film was pretty bad IMO the marines walked as if they were sulking about and the heavy bolter dude missed all his shoots bad dice rolling dude

dudes and duddets whe forget one part. i didnt see a single die being rolled in the movie.

it would be awesome too make a short animated stroy of a CSM playing Ultrasmurfs vs a Ultrasmurf playing a CSM army.?

When I put the disc in my PS2 (Yes, shut up. I don't have a PS3 -or- a proper DVD player. Bite me) I expected to see exactly what this was - a first attempt. An Icebreaker. A test of "Will full-length 40K movies sell?" by GW. What I got, was more than I could've hoped for. Keeping everything in perspective and remembering that this was done by a studio without much of a name in the industry, I was very suprised at how well things turned out. The visuals and animations weren't the best, but they were certainly good enough for an up-and-coming studio. The audio was just amazing - I only wish I had surround sound for the film. The script was pretty much what you'd expect for a 40K film.Start with character development, and then just load on the violence and gore for the second half. It still turned out better than 90% of the gak that Hollywood vomits out. As a film, I give it 3.5/4. As a market test and the first real full-length animated film done by Codex, I'd have to give it a 4/4.

I watched the movie and shortly afterwards was painting with a buddy of mine who put on 'Starship Troopers' for background noise. I used to like that movie when it first came out. Then I joined the Marine Corps and actually read the book (which is now one of my favorites). Since then, I've come to realize that the movie was seemingly intended only to mock the book. Another of my favorite books is the 'Queen of the Dammed.' Similarly, when I saw the movie version, I was utterly disgusted; and not only because the theatre was full of screaming 12-year-old Aaliyah fans. I don't think the producers of either movie made ANY meaningful effort to stay true to the books. This is a common theme among most movie adaptations and often results on the response (and one could argue rule) that "the book was better."
The point I'm trying to make is that, in my opinion, 'Ultramarine,' while far from perfect, was a significantly better overall adaptation of my favorite game when compared to those of my favorite books by major Hollywood production companies (who possess much greater resources). While the movie clearly had its issues and inaccuracies, at the end of the day I'm happy that I got a 40K movie that was seemingly aimed towards a 40K audience. I'll look forward to another, and hopefully better, movie in the future.