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Tyranno wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

A female protagonist should NOT be a gimmick! It should be an equally regarded option as a male protagonist!
.

The point isn't that a female protagonist is laughable - its that a Buffy-esque female protagonist is laughable. That archetype's time has been and gone; its dated.

There could be female, combat capable female protagonists who doesn't resemble the Buffy archetype. But that would require imagination and ambition, not just copying what someone else did.

You're the one obsessing about Buffy and saying that every strong female character is a Buffy clone. Katniss is not a Buffy clone. Trinity is not a Buffy clone. She also kinda flaked out and failed in the Sequels That Are Denied though. The female lead from Starship Troopers wasn't even a Buffy clone!

Of all the races I think the closest any single race comes to being "good" would be either Tau (and even then they would be closer to Neutral on the Good/Evil axis) or Harlequins.

Think about it. Harlequins are known for appearing to the aid of other races to help take down Chaos. Furthermore, they visit other races and tell stories about the Eldar Fall to try and prevent other races from suffering the same fate.

Hollismason wrote:
It's not a heroic film about Waffen SS members kicking ass and taking names while snorting amphetamines and killing jews.

I know, I even explicitly stated it was not heroic. But anyway, John Rabe is still a good example of someone who was part of an undeniably and irredeemably evil organization that still managed to do good things at his own level. Like characters from a 40k story may do.
Anyway, I do agree with you that no 40k stuff will go mainstream because of grimdark and fascism. And I am perfectly happy with that. But when I saw your comparison, I just felt like “Challenge accepted !”.

It's not a accurate comparison because being a member of the Nazi party in Germany wasn't the same as being involved with the Nazis.

For that matter you could have used the example of Schindler.


I agree though, they'd have to change some core issues with the source material to make it palpable for mass appeal. Renegade unit that against the Empire and Chaos would be the way to go with that. It'd also be difficult to make a film about Space Marines, if they tried to stay true to the film because it'd just be boring.

 ashcroft wrote:

"Suffer not the alien to live."

Think about what that really means for a moment, then ask yourself why there are no 'friendly' alien races within the worlds conquered/reclaimed by the Imperium of Man. It's not a part of the background that is often dwelled upon,but it is undeniably there.

If you look deeply enough (i.e. overanalyse things) even saturday morning kids' shows could be called "morally grey".

Very, very flat villains, even aliens with (presumably) very different values (e.g. Power Rangers) enjoy "bad" things but call those things "bad". There's your cynical religious dictorship allegory - most races in the Universe decided/perpetuated the idea that those aliens' values or nature are inherantly "bad".

In Power Rangers, obviously sentient monsters and even major villains are killed without a second thought, and "good and true" races throughout the universe would annihilate them without a second though. There's your racism/genocide allegory.

Power Rangers even had (inexplicably) humans from planets other than Earth to aid in humans and aliens not living together.

But that doesn't Power Rangers a "grey franchise" where there's no "good guys" and whatnot

I can't imagine the negative IoM elements being anything beyond establishing the cyncism of the setting. Games Workshop says 40K is about heroes and villains, therefore there being heroes, "good guys", is canon.

"Hero" =/= "good guy".

A hero is defined by their actions, not their morals.

Uhm what. No that's not how that works. Morals are actions that you take and beliefs upheld, it's conforming to what is right.


There's no real "moral" force in the Universe especially not 40k which is specifically written to be grim. Everyone has shades of grey to them in 40k that's kind of the point. There's darkness in all the races, excepting maybe Orks and even they have immoral members of their race.

Even the goody good Tau have a darkness about them. Every race does.

The only one that could even be inconsidered beyond moral is Tyranids as they're basically just a biological entity.

That *is* how it works. That's how the Iliad has heroes on both sides of the war.

OED wrote:
A person, typically a man, who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities

Note the "or noble qualities". Not "and noble qualities".

Kharn the Betrayer is a hero. He's brave as feth, he's done incredible things, things that even other Space Marines cannot do, and to those who venerate Khorne, he would be a hero, an ideal to live up to.

Kharn the Betrayer is not a good guy. He's not even a particularly nice guy.

Yeah, Hero is relative.

To the Mongols Genghis Khan was certainly a hero; he lead their armies to glory and conquered most of China as well as parts of the Middle East.

To the Chinese back then he would have been seen as the devil incarnate, and even today he is despised in the Middle East, seeing him as a murderous tyrant.
For good reason too; his armies killed about 3 quarters of the population of the Iranian Plateau.

Tim Curry as Long John Silver wrote:Now take Sir Francis Drake.
The Spanish all despise him.
But to the British, he's a hero,
and they idolize him.
It's how you look at buccaneers,
that makes them bad, or good.
And I see us as members of
a noble brotherhood.

 Happyjew wrote:

Tim Curry as Long John Silver wrote:Now take Sir Francis Drake.
The Spanish all despise him.
But to the British, he's a hero,
and they idolize him.
It's how you look at buccaneers,
that makes them bad, or good.
And I see us as members of
a noble brotherhood.

^ Exactly.

Hero does not necessarily equal good. It usually just means he's popular.

See also Attila the Hun, the "Scourge of God".
Hated by the Eastern Roman Empire, loved by his subjects.

Heck, read the Nibelunglied. "Heroes on both sides fell like wheat".

 Jayden63 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
Jayden, your analysis has problems.
Flash Gordon came out after Star Wars, and looked so gawd-awful because they wanted it to be as cheesy as possible. (They had friggin QUEEN write the theme.)

Also, plenty of movies had music all over the place pre-Star Wars, it just wasn't as commonplace.

Actually, I was thinking of the old Flash Gordon black and white from the 30-40s. They had three serial films back then. As for sound, think African Queen, Steve McQueens Bullitt, heck even all the old Bond films. These are all "top" films and the soundtrack was lacking through a lot of the movie. But look at anything made now, or even in the past 20 years. It is a totally different thought process.

Resevoir Dogs. (Actually, anything by Quentin Tarintino.) Practically no music the entire time, except when it's really striking.

no I don't think it will ever become as big as star wars in terms of films

I don't see a Space Marine working very well if at all. I can't really see a story in which the audience can really feel empathy for them.

However, I think an Inquisitor's story, a Inquisitorial Henchman's story,a rogue trader's story, anyone still human's story would have the potential to be good. Space Marines could always be secondary or minor characters.

When I made the comparison to Star Wars I did not mean the construct of the movie but the ground breaking nature of the film. I dont know about most people but I am tired of the predictable plots all movies are following, something new would be such a nice new breath of air. I believe WHFK, or even some related type of story plot , could be used and none happy endings is not something new, if you watch Asian films, which have started to drift over to the west, Old boy comes to mind.
I would prefer this to the constant remakes, and ruining of my favorite classics, except Robo Cop I actually enjoyed that movie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
There's very few Hollywood movies with a strong female lead.

However, there is no lack of support character that are Action Girls or Faux Action Girls. Also, you kind of missed the whole Alien series in your list. And both Tarantino and Rodriguez movies from Grindhouse. And, I guess, a bunch of others.

 ashcroft wrote:
The Gaunt's Ghosts books would probably be the most adaptation-friendly material, seeing as they actually have identifiable, even sympathetic characters that an audience can relate to - but it achieves that mostly by keeping the more iconic elements of the setting - i.e. the Space Marines - more or less out of the action.

Actually, I would say what we actually need is everyone's favorite HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, commissar Ciaphas Cain !

Now Im sad cause I want to see a Cain moviee sooooo bad but know it will never happen. That my favorit BL books.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
I mean look at a Hollywood execs mind if this was proposed to them:
"So the main character is a 7 foot tall killing machine in power armour? Awesome, who's his love interest? Oh what wait...they're A sexual...mmm can't he have a girlfriend? What about one of those Sisters of Battle? Yeah that works, Ok So Captain Bloggs falls in love with Sister Needsrescuing and they're fighting these evil superhumans for the fate of the galaxy and what's that?...The bad guys win? The good guys are actually a dictatorship too? No we can't have that. Ok so change it so the Space Marine saves the girl, kills the big bad, delivers a cheeseball quotable phrase, Maybe he makes fun of the bad guy's lack of arms...I don't know, I'm not the writer, we're just shooting ideas. And they all live happily ever after. Huh? Grimdark, nah audiences won't like that, Oh but we do like the fact that you already jacked up the prices on the merch to promote the movie...oh those are the regular prices? Wow, how is this even a thing?"

Can't be quoted enough, really funny.

On topic, I think it could be made into a succesful, dark and grim grimdark movie but obviously it will never be as big as star wars. If it became as big as star wars, it would only mean that it has been finaly diluted and kiddified to the ground and noble hurr durr Space Marines with tough but good hearted Imperial Guardsmen finaly kill that evil chaos from hell.