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.

That would be a good premise... for a saturday morning monster of the week cartoon series... Don't think it would work though as a foundational series to build out from though.

I think it could work if done well. There are good TV series (not masterpieces but rather good compared to the average series) that started out as "monster of the week" (Fringe) or "case of the week" (Person of Interest) and turned into something with rather good world building and overarching narratives instead of perpetually staying in the weekly formula.

And after that setup you can start getting into a bunch of the stuff that such a smaller, more intimate, series can only explore tangentially.

That’s what I was thinking, it’s a good way to introduce lots of different elements from the setting.

For me what rules out HH is the up front commitment - you'd need a minimum of 3 or 4 series to tell the (condensed) story. What if it doesn't get the viewing figures Amazon wants? They either cancel it, making other series less likely to bring in new fans, or try to finish it quickly which would annoy existing fans.

The safe bet is surely a 6 - 8 episode series
focusing on a few characters (Guard?) that can see them interact with a selection of iconic races, settings and characters. Follow that up with spin offs, more in depth series, adaptations of existing stories etc.

Considering all points brought up so far, it seems to me like the holy grail for a 40k show might just be the First Tyrannic War told largely from Kryptman's perspective. You start out small with an investigation of the attack on Tyran, follow the path of the Hive Fleet and have a big finale in the Battle of Macragge. You get lots of opportunities to showcase various aspects of the Imperium, from civilian over the Inquisition and Mechanicus to the navy. You have Space Marines, and not just any old Space Marines, but our Spiritual Liege's own. A lot of the story can be told from a command center with big wigs debating around a holographic table. The narrative is an escalating conflict that doesn't require a big investment for a good time so you can blow the CGI budget on the Battle of Macragge. Even then you can keep it small if need be by focusing on the polar fortresses and the first company's last stand, with a few vistas of surface and space battle thrown in for completion. And alongside the actual 40k things that hopefully jive with the audience, you have a relatable humans versus alien invaders narrative that continues to work so well in shows and movies.

Seems to me like you could make a compelling eight to ten episode story arc out of that.

Give me the comedy show entirely or at least partially from the POV of an Ork.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Give me the comedy show entirely or at least partially from the POV of an Ork.

Blackadder 40k for the win then..

 Geifer wrote:
Considering all points brought up so far, it seems to me like the holy grail for a 40k show might just be the First Tyrannic War told largely from Kryptman's perspective. You start out small with an investigation of the attack on Tyran, follow the path of the Hive Fleet and have a big finale in the Battle of Macragge. You get lots of opportunities to showcase various aspects of the Imperium, from civilian over the Inquisition and Mechanicus to the navy. You have Space Marines, and not just any old Space Marines, but our Spiritual Liege's own. A lot of the story can be told from a command center with big wigs debating around a holographic table. The narrative is an escalating conflict that doesn't require a big investment for a good time so you can blow the CGI budget on the Battle of Macragge. Even then you can keep it small if need be by focusing on the polar fortresses and the first company's last stand, with a few vistas of surface and space battle thrown in for completion. And alongside the actual 40k things that hopefully jive with the audience, you have a relatable humans versus alien invaders narrative that continues to work so well in shows and movies.

Seems to me like you could make a compelling eight to ten episode story arc out of that.

Tyranids are likely higher budget than what I would imagine they would want to invest into a first outing if the goal is to test the feasibility and market before building out a proper cinematic universe over time. I also don't think anything involving Tyranids would be particularly interesting as a first go round for mass market audiences. Its too derivative of starship troopers and alien, and im sure starcraft fanboys will call it a ripoff of their game or whatever. You want something with a degree of familiarity with your audiences when you introduce a new setting, but you don't want it to be *too* familiar, otherwise comparisons to other works set in and you put yourself in the shadow of what came before. Something like that is better saved for once you establish an audience and people have a better grasp of the background (both IRL and in-universe). Plus, leading off with Tyranids (or really any xenos) as the BBEG skews the perspective on what the core conflict of the setting is (order (the Imperium) against chaos), as well as making any subsequent BBEG or threat after that seem insignificant by comparison given the magnitude of destruction left in the Tyranids wake and the unstoppable nature of their advance. Tyranids really are a big problem that 40k has in published fiction as well - if the fiction was more generally coherent and there was a more concerted effort to "orchestrate" and "direct" Black Library fiction as a work of collaborative storytelling, the conflict against the Tyranids would very quickly overtake everything else and consume the setting and become the primary focus of storytelling until someone grew enough of a backbone to pull the plug on it and figured out a way to diminish the threat, likely with heavy handed retcons and no small amount of deus ex machina involved. GW has in a way written themselves into a corner with the Tyranids, the only reason it hasn't caught up to them is because of GWs willingness to ignore and actively retcon its own fiction to prevent the Tyranids from eating everyone and everything, otherwise half of Imperium Sanctus (to say nothing of Noctis) would effectively already have been eaten for lunch by the nids.

Old-Four-Arms wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Give me the comedy show entirely or at least partially from the POV of an Ork.

Blackadder 40k for the win then..

Blackorker.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Give me the comedy show entirely or at least partially from the POV of an Ork.

Honestly? Perspective of a Grot might be more fun. They tend to be more intelligent, and as a natural underdog may offer a more entertaining perspective on Orky Kultur?

Actually doing Tyranids like Alien (genstealer on a ship/hormagaunt in the woods) would actually be a very viable way to do Tyranids in the 40K setting.

Yes its derivative, but cinema/TV freaking loves doing stuff that's been done before. Plus its actually lore accurate and somewhat of a nice nod to some of the original inspirations for the tyranids in the first place.

It would also mean they could get away doing a Tyranid without actually needing it to be on-scene a lot of the time. The original Alien the Alien itself doesn't appear all that often, it makes select appearances that worked with a limited budget.


An Alien 1 style series/show could certainly be a way to introduce them as a Xenos threat. Heck one of the Eisenhorn stories (I think a one of the short story format ones) features a roaming hunting loan hormagaunt threatening a population in just such a style. Once again appearing only a scant few times here and there and done so that it could be one of several different xenos or just a wild monster or chaos or such until its identified nearer the end - going from memory on that though so it might be a little different storywise.

A series following a Cadian regiment which focuses on a diverse group of c10 of them. A few intro episodes with them training, with the classic tough drill sergeant pushing them. We get to know the sassy one, the funny one, the dumb one, etc. Then they get shipped off to the front. So far so generic, doesn't scare off people who know nothing about the setting.

Then boom - the front isn't a 2nd world war or modern desert/urban setting - it's a chaos nightmare. Turns out the funny one is brave, the sassy one gets corrupted etc. All appears lost, until the Space Marines come to save the day.

That is a series that doesn't take too many risks, but is still distinctly a 40k setting. And if it gets acceptable viewing figures Amazon can do follow ups / spin offs - where do the survivors go next / Space Marine focused / Chaos focused, or be almost entirely unconnected with the odd cameo (the funny one now has his own platoon!).

Going too deep into the lore, or focusing on non human characters before the world setting is introduced is risky - Amazon will be looking to bring in new viewers as well as existing 40k fans. A relatively grounded start would hopefully mitigate that and lead to more expansive and ambitious content.

Y'know, I'd love to see a big screen outing for this fellow...

bobthe4th wrote:
A series following a Cadian regiment which focuses on a diverse group of c10 of them. A few intro episodes with them training, with the classic tough drill sergeant pushing them. We get to know the sassy one, the funny one, the dumb one, etc. Then they get shipped off to the front. So far so generic, doesn't scare off people who know nothing about the setting.

Then boom - the front isn't a 2nd world war or modern desert/urban setting - it's a chaos nightmare. Turns out the funny one is brave, the sassy one gets corrupted etc. All appears lost, until the Space Marines come to save the day.

That is a series that doesn't take too many risks, but is still distinctly a 40k setting. And if it gets acceptable viewing figures Amazon can do follow ups / spin offs - where do the survivors go next / Space Marine focused / Chaos focused, or be almost entirely unconnected with the odd cameo (the funny one now has his own platoon!).

Going too deep into the lore, or focusing on non human characters before the world setting is introduced is risky - Amazon will be looking to bring in new viewers as well as existing 40k fans. A relatively grounded start would hopefully mitigate that and lead to more expansive and ambitious content.

I don't generally disagree with this, but the problem I see with it is the dollarydoo cost of "shipping them off to the front". Anything which even begins to accurately represent the scale of warfare in the 40k setting, particularly of a "chaos nightmare" if various bits of artwork are anything to go by (my mind goes to a couple pieces of artwork in particular), is probably going to push the budget into the realm of a AAA hollywood feature film range for anything more than a few quick cuts to distant battle scenes.

The irony really is that anything that puts the "war" in warhammer 40,000 onto the screen will probably not happen in the first outing, not the first season anyway, as the cost of those big battles and the special effects entailed is really expensive and probably more than they would want to invest while they are still testing the waters for money making potential. Then again we are talking about the studio that dropped almost a half billion dollars just for the first season of Rings of Power, so maybe I'm overthinking it - though not having seen said show I have no idea if they spent that on big battle scenes like that or something else.

 Geifer wrote:
Considering all points brought up so far, it seems to me like the holy grail for a 40k show might just be the First Tyrannic War told largely from Kryptman's perspective.

This would be my personal favourite of all the suggestions so far.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I don't generally disagree with this, but the problem I see with it is the dollarydoo cost of "shipping them off to the front". Anything which even begins to accurately represent the scale of warfare in the 40k setting, particularly of a "chaos nightmare" if various bits of artwork are anything to go by (my mind goes to a couple pieces of artwork in particular), is probably going to push the budget into the realm of a AAA hollywood feature film range for anything more than a few quick cuts to distant battle scenes.

The irony really is that anything that puts the "war" in warhammer 40,000 onto the screen will probably not happen in the first outing, not the first season anyway, as the cost of those big battles and the special effects entailed is really expensive and probably more than they would want to invest while they are still testing the waters for money making potential. Then again we are talking about the studio that dropped almost a half billion dollars just for the first season of Rings of Power, so maybe I'm overthinking it - though not having seen said show I have no idea if they spent that on big battle scenes like that or something else.

Good point - they could use the old Spielberg technique of not revealing the “monster(s)” until as late as possible. I do think they will need to have a least a few expensive effects though, otherwise there’s not much point in getting the 40K license.

It’ll be interesting to see how much is invested in the Fallout series - kind of similar in that you can save money by limiting the big set pieces, and narrowing the focus, or go all out with visually impressive settings (e.g. Liberty Prime striding through a post apocalyptic Washington DC).

I think I’m gonna advocate for an Original Tale.

Because is there’s one thing the sheer scope of the 40K setting allows? It’s Original Tales.

Pick a planet or invent a system. Show us its trials and tribulations. Maybe it’s fighting off an Ork Invasion. Maybe a Genestealer Cult has been discovered.

What bobthe4th described is basically space above and beyond, and that was easy enough to make. Not every conflict is grand and massive. Some of the time it’s small groups of soldiers exploring tight tunnels and space hulks.

 Flinty wrote:
What bobthe4th described is basically space above and beyond, and that was easy enough to make. Not every conflict is grand and massive. Some of the time it’s small groups of soldiers exploring tight tunnels and space hulks.

While it's true that you can have a vast range in 40k stories, I can't shake the feeling that the first outing of live action 40k should set expectations. Consider Pitch Black and how vastly different Chronicles of Riddick felt. Or for an example to the opposite, Starship Troopers and its first sequel. In my opinion going all in on big action or claustrophobic horror has the potential to railroad new viewers into thinking that specific thing is what 40k is all about and when a followup show/movie comes around and shows something completely different, a portion of the audience feels cheated.

I know we're all trying to save Amazon's money with our suggestions (some more than others, no doubt), but I think being too miserly isn't going to end well. It won't do either Amazon or GW any good if the big move into mainstream media is a budget production that skimps on Marines and big battles because some dudes cosplaying Guardsmen are cheaper than CGI. Caution may be well advised for an unproven property, but so is confidence. You are trying to sell the audience on the experience, after all, and being too cheap sends the wrong message.

But then you have Alien and Aliens. I mean surely whoever is running this project is actively salivating over trying to emulate that particular lightning In A bottle.

 Flinty wrote:
But then you have Alien and Aliens. I mean surely whoever is running this project is actively salivating over trying to emulate that particular lightning In A bottle.

I'm never quite sure how to feel about GW in a case like this. On the one hand they have the hubris to think they can succeed where so many others failed. On the other hand they are notoriously conservative and wouldn't gamble their future on a long shot like this.

Also, I totally knew you were going to bring up Alien/s.

The problem is you can spend *a lot* of money and still not be able to have huge battle scenes every episode. Game of Thrones certainly wasn't struggling for budget in later later seasons, but episodes depicting actual full scale wars in any detail were still very limited.

Hollywood usually,ly messes up mass battle scenes anyway. Better to stick with small unitactionstuff anyway.

Well that and Battle scenes are just bolter porn/visual gimmicks. They don't necessarily provide any exposition, character development, or drive plot forward. They're expensive but not really the reason people watch films or television, you include them because they help tell a story or move the narrative along from point to point, but your focus is never actually on the war being fought, rather its on the participants.

 BertBert wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Considering all points brought up so far, it seems to me like the holy grail for a 40k show might just be the First Tyrannic War told largely from Kryptman's perspective.

This would be my personal favourite of all the suggestions so far.

Counterpoint:
Just do the Battle of Tyran.

Introduces the weirdness of the AdMech, the sheer horror of Tyranids, and throws in those lovable lunks of Catachan to boot!

Awsum to see Henry as one of the forces behind it, he clearly cares about 40k a great deal and likely won't run it into the ground for profit. Hope they stick to the source material and it doesn't become like how Amazon handled LOTR. (not in the 'euughhh woke prepagandah' kind of way but in the staying true to the source material kind of way.) Just hoping it is suitably grimdark and is geared towards fans, not random people that might not even care about it (knowing GW execs not sure if that's how it'll turn out) but it's just cool to see some news on this. I look forward to this with cautious optimism.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 BertBert wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Considering all points brought up so far, it seems to me like the holy grail for a 40k show might just be the First Tyrannic War told largely from Kryptman's perspective.

This would be my personal favourite of all the suggestions so far.

Counterpoint:
Just do the Battle of Tyran.

Introduces the weirdness of the AdMech, the sheer horror of Tyranids, and throws in those lovable lunks of Catachan to boot!

And the added (grimdark) bonus is that all characters will die at the end

Let’s think The Terminator. And how brief scenes of the Future War setup the overall stakes.

That can be applied to 40K, specifically a show about an Inquisitor (who needn’t be Eisenhorn!).

You open with the expected narrations (only war, grim dark, won’t be missed blah blah blah), over a massed battle. Could be Orks, could be GSC, maybe a Chaos Invasion.

Narration then shifts to focus on the actual job of an Inquisitor. Preventing any given world being plunged into war.

Right there, the importance of the Inquisition is set out. The stakes are set out. And yes. The means of the Inquisition receive some early justification.