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 Jadenim wrote:
Look, I’m a big Tau fan, but I wouldn’t call them “good”. Better, maybe, but not good. At least they give you an option in “Join us or die!”

Oh I wasn't calling them good. I was putting them in the same category as the Tyranids: Beasts that need to be exterminated.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
Look, I’m a big Tau fan, but I wouldn’t call them “good”. Better, maybe, but not good. At least they give you an option in “Join us or die!”

Oh I wasn't calling them good. I was putting them in the same category as the Tyranids: Beasts that need to be exterminated.

Now hold on there. T'au meat is a delicacy, second only to Grox tenderloin. they at least should be retained as cattle.

This could well be GW's (Marvel > Iron Man) or (ASOIAF > Game Of Thrones) moment if done well. Sure people knew of Superheros and GRRM's books previously, but they exploded into the mainstream with those productions and it really could happen here. When It comes to casting, I think it would be prudent to cast relative unknowns, rather than all of these household names being mentioned so far. It means you could sign them up to multiple-year contracts and they wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. I think a production budget for the first season of around 25/50 Million would show they are really going for it and taking it seriously.

I wouldn't be surprised, in the years to come, if we didn't find out that the advance in the story, the injection of some hope to the setting was laying the groundwork in order to make an attempt to break into the mainstream.

you can tell a good story without having to be rays of sunshine. do eisenhorn well and it'll be fantastic as is. the tale is really the story of how far a man can fall for the best reasons. heck I'd argue in today's climate that might be a relevant story arc

Shows similar in tone.

Cracker (Robbie Coltrane)

Luther (Idris Elba)

Scandi Drama (lots and lots).

All pretty grim. Palpable auras of depression. Good Men doing Questionable Things.

There's precedent, and you don't really need to tone 40k down for that to work.

Also, consider Rogue One. The scenes on Jedha and Ring of Kafrene. Stormtroopers roughing people up in the street. Random attacks. And that's in Star Wars, which is otherwise fairly squeaky in the public consciousness.

Don’t get me started on the possibilities of less sunny Star Wars media.

You can debate the merits of where the story went, but the cultural phenomenon that is Game Of Thrones shows that you can go incredibly dark and brutal and be very popular.

Altered Carbon as a sci fi show was pretty dark in places too.

 NivlacSupreme wrote:
Don’t get me started on the possibilities of less sunny Star Wars media.

With Cassian getting a series on Disney+, we might both be in for a treat

 Hollow wrote:
You can debate the merits of where the story went, but the cultural phenomenon that is Game Of Thrones shows that you can go incredibly dark and brutal and be very popular.

which mioght be why they felt comfortable with doing this, the tech is there and thereseems to be an appitite for grimdark

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Shows similar in tone.

Cracker (Robbie Coltrane)

Luther (Idris Elba)

Scandi Drama (lots and lots).

All pretty grim. Palpable auras of depression. Good Men doing Questionable Things.

There's precedent, and you don't really need to tone 40k down for that to work.

Also, consider Rogue One. The scenes on Jedha and Ring of Kafrene. Stormtroopers roughing people up in the street. Random attacks. And that's in Star Wars, which is otherwise fairly squeaky in the public consciousness.

According to the production company's website they also were involved with Chris Carter's X-Files spin-off Millennium, starring Lance Henriksen.

Not only was that darker than the X-Files - a lot of it's themes are very similar to Eisenhorn. An agent working for a shadowy organisation with almost unlimited authority. He has the ability to see into the minds of evil people although it's not explicitly stated he has psychic powers. And as he spends more and more time hunting evil people he himself begins to do questionable things and his moral compass shifts. And then it turns out pretty much that there really are demons behind the scenes pulling the strings....

Not actual a show I ever watched.

Think it might've come out just as I started full time work, and discovered The Pub.

Should probably check it out some day.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not actual a show I ever watched.

Think it might've come out just as I started full time work, and discovered The Pub.

Should probably check it out some day.

I remember it being an amazing series, much darker than any show at the time. I have them all on DVD but haven't watched them for a looong time - not sure how they would hold up now but it was great show.

 Ratius wrote:
Altered Carbon as a sci fi show was pretty dark in places too.

Likewise, The Expanse isn't a barrel of laughs. A protagonist torturing people in episode one and whatnot. I think it might end up looking a lot like the stations in The Expanse, actually. That seems a sensible way to do a 40k story without Hollywood money. Small set Bladerunner, basically.

 Ratius wrote:
Altered Carbon as a sci fi show was pretty dark in places too.

That's a really good parallel to draw, nice spot.

Eisenhorn and Caine are both excellent jumping off points, with very different viewpoints. Eisenhorn's going to know more about the big picture and the universe than anyone he encounters in it- we're following a Mentor archetype. Exposition can be put in as he briefs his team, cooperates with planetary governments, and small voiceovers as he's dramatically walking places. He's a serious, powerful character that we fully invest in and at the end it's going to leave people debating whether he's good or bad, often with themselves.

Caine is in many ways the opposite. He's your Phillip J. Fry, your John Crichton, your Captain Jack Sparrow. He's aware of what his job is supposed to be, and goes about doing as little of it as possible, prioritizing preserving his life and his quality of it. An ideal opener for him would be him making a dramatic entrance, challenging someone to a duel, and after a tense fight and defeating them leaning close and whispering "I'll take those 20 creds you owe me now, thanks" He's a character defined by his lack of goals and morals.

So for a short, compact series- Eisenhorn is much better. If you want 3 seasons, 10-12 episodes each of his central trilogy- he's your man. If you want a standard spread of 26 episodes of middling quality until audiences lose interests, with each season put on one or two planets with one major threat, Caine's your bro, bro.

 Yodhrin wrote:
All of them, for anyone capable of reading between the lines. Or did you think someone abducted as part of a near-death experience/taken by sky-gods during gladiatorial combat as a prepubescent and then subjected to a few years of brainwashing, chemical therapy, and genetic engineering so as to end up in the body of a walking muscle-tank at around 16 would turn out a well adjusted young man?

That's a valid interpretation, sure. But I can't help but feel that, despite your valid complaints regarding excessive flanderisation of certain elements of the setting, you're perpetuating the same crime here. Yes, Marines are dehumanized war machines; but they can, on occasion, be heroic warrior monks as well. They should be, because if everything is awful, then nothing really is. If everything is painted black, there's no contrast to be had.

40k might have started its life as a one note satire, but satire not rooted in live human character has no longevity and it certainly isn't a product you can expect to sell for 30 years, primarily to teens, worldwide. It now needs to sustain itself as a setting rather than an inside joke, and that requires at least a modicum of variety at the emotional and conceptual levels.

A Marine that is both a drugged up, bioengineered child soldier AND a stoic warrior monk is much more interesting, provided the idea is executed correctly, than either of those extremes on their own.

I think the other important thing to remember is, whilst the production costs for some parts would be large, xenos has a hell of a lot of dialogue, and they also do not visit that many locations, meaning sets can be used and reused often. Lastly, the requirement to build certain sets can be cut down with good location scouting. The gothic/scifi/grimdark touch is just that. All you need to do is spruce up a church for example.

And in addition to this, the cast in regards to important/pivotal characters is quite small, notably so in xenos, far far far far less than GoT's for example.


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 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
All of them, for anyone capable of reading between the lines. Or did you think someone abducted as part of a near-death experience/taken by sky-gods during gladiatorial combat as a prepubescent and then subjected to a few years of brainwashing, chemical therapy, and genetic engineering so as to end up in the body of a walking muscle-tank at around 16 would turn out a well adjusted young man?

That's a valid interpretation, sure. But I can't help but feel that, despite your valid complaints regarding excessive flanderisation of certain elements of the setting, you're perpetuating the same crime here. Yes, Marines are dehumanized war machines; but they can, on occasion, be heroic warrior monks as well. They should be, because if everything is awful, then nothing really is. If everything is painted black, there's no contrast to be had.

40k might have started its life as a one note satire, but satire not rooted in live human character has no longevity and it certainly isn't a product you can expect to sell for 30 years, primarily to teens, worldwide. It now needs to sustain itself as a setting rather than an inside joke, and that requires at least a modicum of variety at the emotional and conceptual levels.

A Marine that is both a drugged up, bioengineered child soldier AND a stoic warrior monk is much more interesting, provided the idea is executed correctly, than either of those extremes on their own.

In regards to this argument above, my favourite part of xenos is Eisenhorns conversation with the deathwatch librarian, especially his curiosity at exactly how Gregor managed to slay the emperors children marine over tea. This is how marines should have been kept as and for me how marines still are, despite the newer fluff. Cultured, confident, normal in some ways, a healthy ego for someone so powerful, but that underlining absolute fear due to the capability.

I see people arguing for American or British accent.
No.
Don't.
We need pigus latinum and pigissimus latinorum, in other word Low Gothic and High Gothic. Event if they have to pull an italian to do it!
You'll just read the subtitles like everybody else.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Cultured, confident, normal in some ways, a healthy ego for someone so powerful, but that underlining absolute fear due to the capability.

"He was the perfect embodiment of civilized strength in peace, even extending his little finger to drink the tea Bequin brought us. The fact that said finger was the size and shape of an Arbites truncheon was beside the point."

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
All of them, for anyone capable of reading between the lines. Or did you think someone abducted as part of a near-death experience/taken by sky-gods during gladiatorial combat as a prepubescent and then subjected to a few years of brainwashing, chemical therapy, and genetic engineering so as to end up in the body of a walking muscle-tank at around 16 would turn out a well adjusted young man?

That's a valid interpretation, sure. But I can't help but feel that, despite your valid complaints regarding excessive flanderisation of certain elements of the setting, you're perpetuating the same crime here. Yes, Marines are dehumanized war machines; but they can, on occasion, be heroic warrior monks as well. They should be, because if everything is awful, then nothing really is. If everything is painted black, there's no contrast to be had.

40k might have started its life as a one note satire, but satire not rooted in live human character has no longevity and it certainly isn't a product you can expect to sell for 30 years, primarily to teens, worldwide. It now needs to sustain itself as a setting rather than an inside joke, and that requires at least a modicum of variety at the emotional and conceptual levels.

A Marine that is both a drugged up, bioengineered child soldier AND a stoic warrior monk is much more interesting, provided the idea is executed correctly, than either of those extremes on their own.

I don't disagree, my original statement was self-evidently quite hyperbolic, I just think in recent years they've drifted much too far towards the "stoic warrior monk" end. I liked it when the spectrum was Marines Malevolent & a few outliers - Almost Everyone Else - Salamanders and a few outliers, representing "use those refugees as bait for Orks and then bombard the camp killing them all, muahaha" psychopathy, general ruthlessness and callousness, and the noble-posthuman who protects humanity while always having to stand apart from it archetypes, respectively. Marines should be presented as really damaged, as uncanny, as Other - even when they are being Good Guys - but that's hard to pull off and over the years it seems like most of the Studio and BL authors have stopped even trying.

 Yodhrin wrote:
... but that's hard to pull off and over the years it seems like most of the Studio and BL authors have stopped even trying.

It only seems like they've stopped trying? There are some places where it is all but assured.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I'm hopeful this will change as they go through and continue to rewrite the fluff of the game. I'd much rather see the IoM toned back, made less fascist and more of a force for good in the galaxy. This show might be able to do that.

And rob 40K of one of the things that makes it unique? That there are no good factions, only good people within those factions (except Tyranids obviously... and the Tau ).

It's old and stale. I'm still hoping 40K gets the same treatment WHFB got. Bring on the AoSification of 40K!!

 BrookM wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Cultured, confident, normal in some ways, a healthy ego for someone so powerful, but that underlining absolute fear due to the capability.

"He was the perfect embodiment of civilized strength in peace, even extending his little finger to drink the tea Bequin brought us. The fact that said finger was the size and shape of an Arbites truncheon was beside the point."

Ahhh, I loved that scene. Such great descriptive language.

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I'm hopeful this will change as they go through and continue to rewrite the fluff of the game. I'd much rather see the IoM toned back, made less fascist and more of a force for good in the galaxy. This show might be able to do that.

And rob 40K of one of the things that makes it unique? That there are no good factions, only good people within those factions (except Tyranids obviously... and the Tau ).

It's old and stale. I'm still hoping 40K gets the same treatment WHFB got. Bring on the AoSification of 40K!!

I never get this - if you dislike it so much, why not go and play/read something else? That way you(plural) get to play/read something you enjoy, and your(plural) enjoyment doesn't come at the expense of everyone else's.

The whole point of 40k is that there aren't any good guys. Want good guys? Go play Starcraft! :p

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I'm hopeful this will change as they go through and continue to rewrite the fluff of the game. I'd much rather see the IoM toned back, made less fascist and more of a force for good in the galaxy. This show might be able to do that.

And rob 40K of one of the things that makes it unique? That there are no good factions, only good people within those factions (except Tyranids obviously... and the Tau ).

It's old and stale. I'm still hoping 40K gets the same treatment WHFB got. Bring on the AoSification of 40K!!

The entire point of the setting is that is a a grim, dark, hopeless, uncaring dystopian future where nothing really matters and everything is bad, though. That's the defining trait of W40K overall and especially that of the Imperium - even when the Imperium tries to be 'good', it certainly isn't the vast, vast majority of the time. To want that to be changed is to ask for the core identity of the setting to be taken away. If this show avoids portraying the Imperium in a dark way and instead tries to give the impression that they're really good guys, I don't think it will have understood W40K and what makes it what it is. The same applies to other aspects of the setting, if it just comes across as a typical somewhat dark sci-fi setting that isn't really that much worse than others, then it won't be properly 40K. Those things can't be taken away without ruining the setting in quite a significant way.

Eisenhorn TV show? cool
it`ll be about 5-6 years until its done so -___-

Manu Bennett as Eisenhorn

Still waiting for Kate Beckinsale as Ms Bequin

You can be funny and dark - see Killing Eve, Into the Badlands, I Zombie or the Cain novels.....Only Fools and Horses - hilarious and great drama in the same show.

Amusing stuff in a series/book etc makes the darker stuff more effective.

Purely dark is often dull and you become immune to the suffering of characters, have some joy, laughter and then do very bad things is far far more effective.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I'm hopeful this will change as they go through and continue to rewrite the fluff of the game. I'd much rather see the IoM toned back, made less fascist and more of a force for good in the galaxy. This show might be able to do that.

And rob 40K of one of the things that makes it unique? That there are no good factions, only good people within those factions (except Tyranids obviously... and the Tau ).

It's old and stale. I'm still hoping 40K gets the same treatment WHFB got. Bring on the AoSification of 40K!!

I never get this - if you dislike it so much, why not go and play/read something else? That way you(plural) get to play/read something you enjoy, and your(plural) enjoyment doesn't come at the expense of everyone else's.

I just ignore the current fluff as it is. I'm just saying that I believe they need to make the change in order to survive. On the one hand, I get it, players like what they like. But on the other hand, this isn't high class literature. And GW have backed themselves into some really bad holes due to the way their story is written. Some primarchs being dead is bad, because it makes it harder to put out content for them, which in turn angers fans of one chapter over another, especially when one chapter gets to have their primarchs, while Iron Hands and Nightlords get nothing.

At the very least stuff like this needs to change. Either models should be anything goes, ie separate the stories from the table top or retcons ensue. I'd say pick the best option in this case as option 1.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I'm hopeful this will change as they go through and continue to rewrite the fluff of the game. I'd much rather see the IoM toned back, made less fascist and more of a force for good in the galaxy. This show might be able to do that.

And rob 40K of one of the things that makes it unique? That there are no good factions, only good people within those factions (except Tyranids obviously... and the Tau ).

It's old and stale. I'm still hoping 40K gets the same treatment WHFB got. Bring on the AoSification of 40K!!

The entire point of the setting is that is a a grim, dark, hopeless, uncaring dystopian future where nothing really matters and everything is bad, though. That's the defining trait of W40K overall and especially that of the Imperium - even when the Imperium tries to be 'good', it certainly isn't the vast, vast majority of the time. To want that to be changed is to ask for the core identity of the setting to be taken away. If this show avoids portraying the Imperium in a dark way and instead tries to give the impression that they're really good guys, I don't think it will have understood W40K and what makes it what it is. The same applies to other aspects of the setting, if it just comes across as a typical somewhat dark sci-fi setting that isn't really that much worse than others, then it won't be properly 40K. Those things can't be taken away without ruining the setting in quite a significant way.

I guess. It's still C class scifi, don't take it that seriously?