Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

There are 3

I think the plot of Astartes is, at its base, quite simple that the more complex stuff can be ignored when you reduce it to its base components.

the pacing is excellent, you don't need any foreknowledge of the setting to enjoy it(showed it to wife and she dug it), & can take it all at face value.

if they keep the feel of the prior episodes, I cant wait for more.

Racerguy180 wrote:
the pacing is excellent, you don't need any foreknowledge of the setting to enjoy it(showed it to wife and she dug it), & can take it all at face value.

if they keep the feel of the prior episodes, I cant wait for more.

This is why I'm absolutely baffled that people think GW should get involved in something like this. Unless you simply mean "loan this guy some money". If GW got involved, the quality of this endeavor would only get worse. It'd be rushed, with a ham-fisted storyline based around selling the latest models, etc. It'd wreak of corporate involvement. I'd much rather see the community support him than have anyone in GW even come near this kind of project.

Proper and true fan art is almost always better than big-company sales gimmick stuff.

 Adrassil wrote:
The defenders are human and seem to be very zealous in their defence (shown by the fact they stand and fight Astartes and when they cut down their own men with the emplacement as they retreat)

I think it's not so much cutting down the retreating troops, and more that a marine target became available and shooting that target was more important than not shooting their retreating troops.

Note that They didn't fire until the marine unmasked even though their colleagues were clearly in view for a while beforehand.

 Flinty wrote:

 Adrassil wrote:
The defenders are human and seem to be very zealous in their defence (shown by the fact they stand and fight Astartes and when they cut down their own men with the emplacement as they retreat)

I think it's not so much cutting down the retreating troops, and more that a marine target became available and shooting that target was more important than not shooting their retreating troops.

Note that They didn't fire until the marine unmasked even though their colleagues were clearly in view for a while beforehand.

I quite liked that. It felt very 40k that they showed a mentality of "we won't kill you for no reason but your life isn't so valuable we'll give up a few seconds of shooting time."

 Flinty wrote:

 Adrassil wrote:
The defenders are human and seem to be very zealous in their defence (shown by the fact they stand and fight Astartes and when they cut down their own men with the emplacement as they retreat)

I think it's not so much cutting down the retreating troops, and more that a marine target became available and shooting that target was more important than not shooting their retreating troops.

Note that They didn't fire until the marine unmasked even though their colleagues were clearly in view for a while beforehand.

Yeah, I got that, thought it went without saying. Still 'cut' them down, though pretty frigging ruthless.

Not sure if this has been discussed yet but have we had Games Workshop's reactions to this project? They've already hired one fan to make a film for them (Angels of Death), I could definitely see them picking up this guy for more works.

 Adrassil wrote:
Yeah, Astartes frigging rocks. As a writer who's somewhat delved into scriptwriting in my class (I'm writing a horror TV show script now but that's very different), I think the writing is excellent in terms of telling a story through visuals without much dialogue and how it starts so simply and slowly weaves the more complex aspects of the story, making it understandable, to me, anyway and allows for a lot of interpretation for the viewer. This was the problem with Death of Hope to me, there's just too much introduced too fast, making it hard to understand, for me anyway. I have to admire all the time and effort poured into Death of Hope, though.

The dark atmosphere of both is amazing and almost palpable and the ending of Astartes is wow.

Excellent work all round, looking forward to seeing more from this channel!

I went and watched Death of Hope based entirely on this thread.

Honestly.. Other than solid visuals, it has nothing going for it. Whomever made it has no idea about pacing, story telling, or anything that actually makes media fun to consume. It's pretty but boring & confusing at best. And at worst, it's outright pornographic in plenty of places.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Adrassil wrote:
Yeah, Astartes frigging rocks. As a writer who's somewhat delved into scriptwriting in my class (I'm writing a horror TV show script now but that's very different), I think the writing is excellent in terms of telling a story through visuals without much dialogue and how it starts so simply and slowly weaves the more complex aspects of the story, making it understandable, to me, anyway and allows for a lot of interpretation for the viewer. This was the problem with Death of Hope to me, there's just too much introduced too fast, making it hard to understand, for me anyway. I have to admire all the time and effort poured into Death of Hope, though.

The dark atmosphere of both is amazing and almost palpable and the ending of Astartes is wow.

Excellent work all round, looking forward to seeing more from this channel!

I went and watched Death of Hope based entirely on this thread.

Honestly.. Other than solid visuals, it has nothing going for it. Whomever made it has no idea about pacing, story telling, or anything that actually makes media fun to consume. It's pretty but boring & confusing at best. And at worst, it's outright pornographic in plenty of places.

Death of hope(for me at least) really expresses the early view of chaos. it has the feel of the Realm of Chaos & Slaves to Darkness but with the story development of the HH series. It really helps to look at DOH as the HH but if it was fleshed out in Rogue Trader.

I like both for the same reasons and for differing ones as well.
DOH is unnervingly beautiful but does require foreknowledge to understand what's going on. The pit fighting scene really smacks home the notion of just how khornate the WE had become in such a short time. Remember WE colors are actually Blue & White, the only reason they're red is blood & viscera that's never been cleaned.
The Shadow crusade
Astartes is one of the best portrayals of how cold, calculated & precise they are in prosecuting the Emperors Wrath. When they dispatch the "resistance" from their boarding action it shows that they have done this for possibly centuries, on countless ships, countless times.

 morganfreeman wrote:
it's outright pornographic in plenty of places.

what?

Racerguy180 wrote:


Death of hope(for me at least) really expresses the early view of chaos. it has the feel of the Realm of Chaos & Slaves to Darkness but with the story development of the HH series. It really helps to look at DOH as the HH but if it was fleshed out in Rogue Trader.

DOH is unnervingly beautiful but does require foreknowledge to understand what's going on. The pit fighting scene really smacks home the notion of just how khornate the WE had become in such a short time. Remember WE colors are actually Blue & White, the only reason they're red is blood & viscera that's never been cleaned.

I'm familiar enough with the lore to understand what's going on.

Even excusing it for that (which is fine in context), it's objectively bad. The story has no beats and no pacing. Characters are not introduced or sufficiently built to give any stakes or investment within the context itself. It starkly pinwheels with no real levity. It's not an exaggeration to say that the faceless marines in Astartes have more characterization.

It's purely spectacle. And while that's fine (I love me some Pacific Rim), the fact that it takes itself seriously and tries to have substance detracts from what it could be good at.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
it's outright pornographic in plenty of places.

what?

Porn is obviously short-hand for sex media, but something can be pornographic without going anywhere near sex.

The SAW films, especially past the first one, are pornographic. Specifically they're torture porn. Hostel is also torture porn. Alien Covenant is a recent example of a movie which is (mild) gore porn (gorn), and one which I even enjoyed.. Basically, gratuitous displays of something A-typical tends to be pornographic. This is especially true when it's done for shock value, but is generally applicable even if it's not.

In Death of Hope, the pornographic sections are the living torso hanging above the door, and also the mother-child-thing.

With regards to the torso, we spend over two minutes of video time being shown every angle and detail of its existence. The lack of legs, the knifes skewered through the body, the hooks stretching flesh, the torn away lips, the forced open eyes which cannot blink. Ect, ect. A single shot would be able to convey all of this information accurately, but instead the camera spans (very slowly) around the entire 'person' to show us every lurid detail. It quickly stops being 'horrifying' and just becomes lurid.

For this kind of thing "done right," I'd advise the final Medical scene in Event Horizon. We're given a very similar shot of someone's fate, but it's an utterly horrifying display in part because it's so fast (less than 10 seconds). This allows the viewers imagination to carry the image on afterwards.

The second example is going to be the mother-child thing. There's not much to say about this, as it's very much the same. We spend minutes of screen time viewing every angle and every horrific detail of her fate, and it's supposed to shock and horrify us. But it doesn't carry any weight, and the enormous display simply becomes boring and eye-rolling.

In both cases, these are characters which exist purely to suffer these fates. The half-marine has no name and exists only to yell a single name which sparks a scene transition. The woman and child serve absolutely no purpose; they had a brief running scene, and she was shouting "Don't kill my baby!" in the preview. She, and the child, are not characters; they're scenery. Both examples exist purely to provide shock value from how horrific their fates are, but it doesn't deliver due to the over-focus vs lack of investment.

As a writer, it's the viewing equivalent of purple prose. Overt and overblown detail given to unimportant aspects of the story, serving only to draw attention to itself.

I say this as someone who objectively loves body horror. Chaos spawn, chaos mutations, all that? Awesome. The Thing is one of my favorite movies & concepts. None of this offended or bothered me, it really just bored me.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Porn is obviously short-hand for sex media, but something can be pornographic without going anywhere near sex.

You had me check Wikipedia but it says :
"Pornography (often shortened to porn) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal."

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Porn is obviously short-hand for sex media, but something can be pornographic without going anywhere near sex.

You had me check Wikipedia but it says :
"Pornography (often shortened to porn) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal."

Honestly, wikipedia is usually not exactly the best source. Try Merriam-Webster, for example (you're looking up words, so best use an actual dictionary):

What is pornography?

For many people, any attempt to define the word pornography calls to mind the oft-quoted line from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964: “. . . I know it when I see it.” While compilers of dictionaries might wish to be granted such latitude in explaining the meaning of certain words, they are held to a higher standard. Pornography, which has been used in English since the middle of the 19th century, comes from the Greek pornographos (“writing about prostitutes”), and initially referred to visual or written matter designed to cause sexual arousal, a meaning that is still the most common one employed today. Pornography has taken on an additional, non-sexualized, sense: one that refers to a depiction of sensational material (such as violence) in order to elicit a reaction. The phrase “pornography of violence,” for example, began to be used in the early 1950s.

See also phrases such as "food porn", "misery porn", et cetĕra.

 morganfreeman wrote:
I went and watched Death of Hope based entirely on this thread.

Honestly.. Other than solid visuals, it has nothing going for it. Whomever made it has no idea about pacing, story telling, or anything that actually makes media fun to consume. It's pretty but boring & confusing at best. And at worst, it's outright pornographic in plenty of places.

That's my thoughts on the matter. It's a very well made slideshow of grim art. There's not really a story behind it. Obviously, that could change in time, but right now, it's not a story.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
I went and watched Death of Hope based entirely on this thread.

Honestly.. Other than solid visuals, it has nothing going for it. Whomever made it has no idea about pacing, story telling, or anything that actually makes media fun to consume. It's pretty but boring & confusing at best. And at worst, it's outright pornographic in plenty of places.

That's my thoughts on the matter. It's a very well made slideshow of grim art. There's not really a story behind it. Obviously, that could change in time, but right now, it's not a story.

I'd say it's a good summary of everything "wrong" with people who pine for more grimdark.

Darkness is not about visuals. If you slather people with detailed torture and pain it'll be dark for only a short time, after which it becomes the norm and boring. You have to have investment in characters, or at least a investment in narrative / setting, to elicit a proper emotional response.

DoH is a lovely example because it has no discernible characterization and the narrative (or what attempts are made to have one) obviously exist to rail-road the viewer from one 'grim' scene to the next. So it strikes me as what I thought 'dark' storytelling was back when I was 14.

I mean, pointing to a bad execution of a concept and pretending that single example is actually representative of the concept itself is certainly a way to sound like you've won an argument, but it's also completely disingenuous nonsense.

I'm very much in favour of "more grimdark" in modern GW's output, but I also thought DoH was pretty cringey at times and much preferred Astartes, which was extremely grimdark(or is people exploding into showers of gore as they're exterminated by merciless walking tanks who subsequently get slowly sucked into an extradimensional horror and deposited on a nightmare world not grimdark now? ).

 Yodhrin wrote:
I mean, pointing to a bad execution of a concept and pretending that single example is actually representative of the concept itself is certainly a way to sound like you've won an argument, but it's also completely disingenuous nonsense.

I'm very much in favour of "more grimdark" in modern GW's output, but I also thought DoH was pretty cringey at times and much preferred Astartes, which was extremely grimdark(or is people exploding into showers of gore as they're exterminated by merciless walking tanks who subsequently get slowly sucked into an extradimensional horror and deposited on a nightmare world not grimdark now? ).

You seem to think I'm actually engaging in an argument, and that from there I'm setting up a strawman to make it seem that I've won an argument. I'm doing neither; but by trying to represent that as what I am doing, you're just doing it yourself because you take.. I don't know.. I guess offense to what I said? 40k has always been fairly gratuitous, as well as satirical, with its grim darkness I'm quite fond of that. Although in retrospect, I see how stating that 'darkness' requires more than just graphic images - specifically characterization and plot structure - could get some serious blowback on a place like Dakkadakka.

Saying that I think a noticeable margin of people misunderstand what makes 'darkness' in media (be that film, literature, or what have you) doesn't mean I don't enjoy the genuine article. Not only am I quite fond of 'dark' media, but I can even hop on board with some of the more pulpy stuff from time to time. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed Astartes (as I've stated).

Astartes news and rumors?

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
I mean, pointing to a bad execution of a concept and pretending that single example is actually representative of the concept itself is certainly a way to sound like you've won an argument, but it's also completely disingenuous nonsense.

I'm very much in favour of "more grimdark" in modern GW's output, but I also thought DoH was pretty cringey at times and much preferred Astartes, which was extremely grimdark(or is people exploding into showers of gore as they're exterminated by merciless walking tanks who subsequently get slowly sucked into an extradimensional horror and deposited on a nightmare world not grimdark now? ).

You seem to think I'm actually engaging in an argument, and that from there I'm setting up a strawman to make it seem that I've won an argument. I'm doing neither; but by trying to represent that as what I am doing, you're just doing it yourself because you take.. I don't know.. I guess offense to what I said? 40k has always been fairly gratuitous, as well as satirical, with its grim darkness I'm quite fond of that. Although in retrospect, I see how stating that 'darkness' requires more than just graphic images - specifically characterization and plot structure - could get some serious blowback on a place like Dakkadakka.

Saying that I think a noticeable margin of people misunderstand what makes 'darkness' in media (be that film, literature, or what have you) doesn't mean I don't enjoy the genuine article. Not only am I quite fond of 'dark' media, but I can even hop on board with some of the more pulpy stuff from time to time. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed Astartes (as I've stated).

Engaging in an argument and making an argument are related but distinct. You were doing the latter, and you were indeed setting up a strawman to make it look like your position was the right one. You're doing it again there, when you try and insinuate my response is being driven by offence, and so emotion, and so isn't actually a valid and reasonable reply. And again when you restate your initial nonsense as something beyond challenge except, of course, here on Dakka, where its evil hivemind cannot be reasoned with

What you said was that "people who pine for more grimdark" could be summarised by the quoted sentiment, which to refresh your memory was "[they have] no idea about pacing, story telling, or anything that actually makes media fun to consume", that what they're "pining" for is "boring & confusing at best" and is at worst "outright pornographic".

If you didn't actually intend for the opinion to expressed to apply to everyone who would prefer some unspecified amount more grimdark than is presently presented by GW's IPs, then you worded your argument poorly and could simply admit that without snark. If you did, then my original criticism stands.

 Yodhrin wrote:


Engaging in an argument and making an argument are related but distinct. You were doing the latter, and you were indeed setting up a strawman to make it look like your position was the right one. You're doing it again there, when you try and insinuate my response is being driven by offence, and so emotion, and so isn't actually a valid and reasonable reply. And again when you restate your initial nonsense as something beyond challenge except, of course, here on Dakka, where its evil hivemind cannot be reasoned with

What you said was that "people who pine for more grimdark" could be summarised by the quoted sentiment, which to refresh your memory was "[they have] no idea about pacing, story telling, or anything that actually makes media fun to consume", that what they're "pining" for is "boring & confusing at best" and is at worst "outright pornographic".

If you didn't actually intend for the opinion to expressed to apply to everyone who would prefer some unspecified amount more grimdark than is presently presented by GW's IPs, then you worded your argument poorly and could simply admit that without snark. If you did, then my original criticism stands.

Except your entire premise about my 'arguments' is based on the death of objectivity. Like wise, your accusations of strawmanning are based on my attempts to (briefly) explain aspects of storytelling & narrative, as well as comparing between something which is narrative or story driven vs a "fluff" piece which is just there for fun and spectacle. This is where my assumption that I've offended you comes from; because you decided to try and sling mud when I'm stating why I didn't enjoy something, and then talking a little about aspects of story in media.

I even take steps to clarify that there's nothing inherently wrong with this stuff. Do note that when I referred to everything 'wrong' with those who pine for grimdark, I took the time to put the potentially offensive term (wrong) in quotes. Because I'm not stating it's wrong in the objective sense of being bad / indefensible, I'm saying wrong in that they may not grasp elements of story or depth. This is also why I circle back around to what constitute "dark" story telling for me when I was younger. Because as I've aged - and as most people age - my understanding of media shifted from entirely superficial to being somewhat rooted in the subtext / message.

I'm really not understanding where you got the impression that I'm trying to use DoH's poor execution as a facade to dismiss.. Anything other than DOH. I went so far as to say that I enjoy fluff pieces (Pacific Rim) which exist purely for spectacle, as well as some legitimately bad pieces of film (Alien Covenant).

Just about the only solid 'argument' I've stated is that Astartes is objectively better than DoH. A point which we seem to agree on. I don't actually see where you're getting on my case from. I enjoy 40k as a setting and I also enjoy grimdark as a.. er.. genre? Not sure how to quantify that one. I simply made a comment that darkness is tied to more than just visuals about pain; that narrative and other elements of a story give it weight and make it effective. I could write up a whole essay on why characterization and narrative is critical to getting emotional response in a work, but I honestly can't be asked for something like this. Without trying to define your position, my best interpretation of where you're coming from is that you took offense to that comment as a dismissal of all 'grimdark' and are now trying to say that I'm dismissing the.. Uhm.. Well I guess genre, as I said before?

You two are arguing over a concept/style/tone that has no agreed-upon meaning ("grimdark").

I wish the Astartes guy would publish a single cut of all the episodes combined. That would make it so much easier to show people who might dig it but don't have much of a stake in 40K ephemera.

Quite, kindly take that discussion to the PM's or a topic of its own.

As for a single cut, one can always nicely ask the creator to do this, or maybe it's already done up and will be uploaded at a later date.

 BrookM wrote:
Quite, kindly take that discussion to the PM's or a topic of its own.

As for a single cut, one can always nicely ask the creator to do this, or maybe it's already done up and will be uploaded at a later date.

FWIW, I know that the creator said back when hackers took it over that he uses the channel to supplement his income. Five views of shorter content generates more income than one single longer view unfortunately so he's at a financial disincentive to do so. That's a reasonable reason to keep them separated IMO even though I too as a viewer would prefer a single viewing as well. YMMV.

There are edited versions on YouTube stitching them all together.

Astartes Update.

Orks, Tyranids and a Heavy Bolter or two. Enjoy!

Awesome

OMG thats awesome!

Awesome as always. I'm really happy to see Tyranids !

If you pause the video during each second, you can notice many little details which are quite awesome. In the first Astartes series, you could see SM as inhuman killing machines. In this short teaser, you see them on the receiving end.

For example, during the "tyranid part", the SM at the forefront has a wrecked/ripped off right arm. The one right behind him is missing a goddamn leg. Only the one in the back seems to not be injured.

Xenos rule

Great catch. Those are some awesome details!