Topic: Ultramarine Movie thread - movie delayed

[Sheepz]

Not seen the movie, just the trailers, so I guess I'm not overqualified to talk. I won't be watching the Ultramarines Movie having seen the trailers because it looks like a total waste of time.

First: The limited clips looked crap. This is a trailer. It is the best part of the movie and the best part of the movie you can get into two minutes is the words HONOUR! GLORY! epic battle music and then a then a rather disappointing two dimensional buff smurf. They apparently seem to fight largely on flat pieces of yellowish grey earth devoid of any dust or foilage. Chaos Space Marines run like idiots onto bolter shells which kill them in a single hit. The dialogue consists largely of "FOR THE EMPEROR" "I KNOW ABOUT CHAOS AND BAD STUFF" and "WHY ARE WE ALL SHOUTING YET HAVE REALLY LAME VOICES THAT IN NO WAY REPRESENT BEING A BAD ASS NINE FOOT TALL KILLING MACHINE?"

Seriously, one of them sounded like a bloke I work with. I cannot, in ever, imagine him snapping the spine of a Hormagaunt over his knee cap while screaming "Thus is the fate of all Xenos!". Bad dialogue, voice acting, and graphics aside. In two minutes, I felt more pounded by cliches that if I'd sat through every vomit inducing chick flick I've ever been forced to watch while someone smashed me repeatedly over the head with a sizeable hammer. Now some cliches are good. The Dawn of War Intro was fairly entertaining, at least, DoW II or Dark Crusade was. But that is not a basis for an entire film, ever.

2) It was written by Dan Abnett.

I know its going to have a amphetamine parrot story, because Dan Abnett is a horrific parody of a writer (as if he were merely an interdimensional being wearing the skin of someone who used to be a low-end-of-average writer). I've read sizeable portions of Abnett, after all, it is difficult not to, since 80% of Games Workshop's material is his low grade pulp that I would really think twice before wiping my arse on in case it came pre-infected with genital warts. And the point is, he cannot write. He cannot write for HUMANS. His Ghost books are appalling. Seriously appalling. With a complete disregard for anything remotely canon.

If he cannot write for humans, how can he hope to write a complex plot for superhuman soliders that are a bit squiffy in the head because they're psychoindoctinated religious fanatics with no mercy who spend all day setting fire to people they generally disagree with. Because the movie needs a good plot. Abnett writes trashy combat pulp, and some people labour under the misaprehension that he is pretty good at writing trashy combat pulp, so lets assume that he is:

You do not need trashy combat pulp. It can have visual violence in absolute spades but it needs a plot. Also, you don't need a good combat writer to describe how to eviscerate someone when you can just film it.

So there we go. I don't want to see the Ultramarines film. And I won't.

[Mr Draken]

So Ive just watched the movie and here are my thoughts.(which is basically a mini review SPOILERS AHEAD)

This movie is probably the best representation we could hope for as a first done movie. Wile its not super blockbuster standards(which seems to be what people were thinking it was going to be, thus they are let down) i think the way the movie flowed worked excellently for 40k.

The start shows very little, but enough to grab you. Your not sure whats going on, but you know its a battle, you know its marines, and they are losing.  It reminds me of the trailer for the latest black library book actually, like its showing u the beacon that's being sent out, the distress call in a way.

The movie then jumps to a ritual training fight, a lesson. we get our first glimpse of the heroes and learn abit about what it is to be a marine. (yes i know its very over the top but it fits well with the image of the ultras being hardcore warrior monks/Spartans)  We gauge very quickly that these marines have just become full fledged battle brothers, and have yet to taste real combat, we also get very quickly that the hunger for glory is well and truly in them.  We see the arrogance you would expect from fresh recruits just out of basic thinking they can take on anything.

When we reach the planet things get interesting. Its very dark and mysterious, it keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering if/when the action will start, and just how it will start. When it does its brief to begin, and quickly picks up but at a good pace.  I personally love the fact that it splits the action, keeps it cut up and has the suspense rebuild as you go, it kept me glued to the movie.

I saw a post before stating this movie had no middle, this is the middle, this is the main bit, we learn whats happening, we learn who the enemy is, and there are some decent combat scenes. I'm very glad its got a lot of shooting and close combat, its a healthy mix and fits how i thought a space marine would battle.

Now this movie picks up pace, they are racing for their transport, trying to evacuate the survivors and the relic, we see distrust from some of the marines towards their brothers from another chapter, which im glad for as its well shown in the novels that this is a regular occurrence. 

The pace slows and we have a calm point when they return to the ship, but the suspense is even thicker here, as we know something is left, we can feel that something isn't right.  When it picks up and the true enemy is revealed, it really hits high gear. the fighting is very well done, and the "cat and mouse" game with the demon is something id expect, you cant take something this powerful head on with what you got, use your heads!

The ending of the demon is a very heroic triumphant moment, the hero rises up and crushes his foe into the ground!

the movies finish fits well with the 40k universe in my opinion.  We see our main surviving heroes giving the same speech they received at the start of the movie, this shows that even though they may have won the day, there will always be another battle, there will always be new marines to train, the student becomes the teacher, etc.  The universe keeps moving and there will always be more battles to be fought.

All in all i think this movie sums up the 40k universe in general, as well as the marines for what they are very very nicely.  Its not way over the top with the strength of the marines, but its not showing them to be weak little girlie men either.  It shows them for what they are, great warriors and heroes of the 40k universe.  It shows with the ending that the struggle between order and disorder will continue always.

yeah i guess that was fairly long, and not super detailed, but that's how i saw this movie. I hope these people make more, because in my opinion they have given us something that shows our hobby off extremely well.

[Phantomime]

Not seen the movie, just the trailers, so I guess I'm not overqualified to talk. I won't be watching the Ultramarines Movie having seen the trailers because it looks like a total waste of time.

First: The limited clips looked crap. This is a trailer. It is the best part of the movie and the best part of the movie you can get into two minutes is the words HONOUR! GLORY! epic battle music and then a then a rather disappointing two dimensional buff smurf. They apparently seem to fight largely on flat pieces of yellowish grey earth devoid of any dust or foilage. Chaos Space Marines run like idiots onto bolter shells which kill them in a single hit. The dialogue consists largely of "FOR THE EMPEROR" "I KNOW ABOUT CHAOS AND BAD STUFF" and "WHY ARE WE ALL SHOUTING YET HAVE REALLY LAME VOICES THAT IN NO WAY REPRESENT BEING A BAD ASS NINE FOOT TALL KILLING MACHINE?"

...

2) It was written by Dan Abnett.

I know its going to have a amphetamine parrot story, because Dan Abnett is a horrific parody of a writer (as if he were merely an interdimensional being wearing the skin of someone who used to be a low-end-of-average writer).

... blah blah blah

K, I am a fan of abnett, not so much the Ghost Novels (after Trator General I lost interest), but revanor, eisenhorn, titanicus, and whatever the Imperial Airforce book was called were all pretty awesome for the most part, as for being cannon.. a lot of GW stuff has taken bits from his writting cause he plays up the guard, and thus everything else looks STUPIDLY CRAZY INSANE, because as we all know, guard are worth ~5pts/ea, and outside of their tanks, are only even sort of notable for being able to kill lictors in melee. ANYWAYS..

Yes, This is a BAD movie. horrible even.
Is it Dark, Gothic, did it give any sense of the atmosphere that IS the Imperium of Man? Hell No.
Is it scary, suspenceful, hell, anything invoking an emotional responce other than boredom? Nope.
Did it make sense? Sort of, but, wait.. no.
Did it atleast look pretty? Nuh uh. (the CG budget monster tried to rear its ugly head, but unfortunantly this is a Space Marine Movie, so it got shot in the face by a marine who stole the deamon's own weapon (cause Space Marine Chapters seem able to dip into any codex they like for toys), and thus died any chance of seeing a pretty movie with neat stuff and atleast an average plot.

Dont get me wrong, Marines CAN be heroes.. just, mr producer-man, honestly, take a step back, take a deep breath, figure out WHAT you want to show - Heroic? OK! we can do that! - and just do it. if its a 5min flick, cool, atleast it will be memorable - condenced awesome almost always is. This, this was a lot of poorly animated walking, a useless landspeeder flying around and then being left as a tomb, (oh wait.. SPOILER?) ect ect ect.. dull as crap, obviously made for messed up little kids who's parents dont mind them watching shows where characters get their animated brains blown out of their Powered Armor (dang, that was likely a SPOILER too... my bad.)

[jawmonkey]

I dunno, every time that chainsword fired up I was yelling "Oh hell yeah!"

[Phantomime]

and yet.. it never really did anything..

the power swords might as well have been normal swords, and the armor a nice coating of butter for all the good it did anyone... and like, 1-shot-killing marines, even with bolters.. it simply doesnt give the right sense of scale. Guard were needed. Marines SHOULD always be set against guard atleast to start, so that you can SEE how redculasly insane they are vs something you know (*insert: a human, make fight: Marine. Clean up mess.*)

Remember all the jokes about the IG's flashlights vs the mighty bolter? you get NO sense of that.

all you ever see are bodies, mostly Imperial Fists, which is epicly wrong to start with - there are more IG, servators, support staff (menials), mechanicus, ect. than a number of Marines from a single Chapter, anywhere, ever! Its stupid, according to the movie 1/10th of the Imperial Fists were Killed off on this planet defending this chappel. and yet everything you would expect from the Fists was thrown aside for...? a duller plot?
(crap, did it again... SPOILER. you all must just hate me now.. )

[Impervious]

I watched this movie during the holidays, and then rewatched it a few times to make sure my opinion on it was justified.  Saying that I was disappointed would be an understatement. Having 4 2 minute combats in an hour and twenty long movie which has no story to it was beslubbering ridiculous.  As a big fan of the warhammer universe, I didn't mind the mediocre CGI at all, but damn the movie was so bad.

If anything, it had more than enough combat scenes.  The rest of the movie progressed soooooo slowly, and could have easily been compressed to 20 minutes in length.....  The very ending was way over the top.  An entire company of Imperial Fists assigned to defend the codex is just plain dumb.  The lack of Guard support and what not was terrible. 

I'm just disappointed.....  I know it was a low budget CGI movie, and I shouldn't have had high expectations, but the trailers gave me hope.  Actually watching the movie crushed my hopes quicker than that one Chaos Marine's head.....

[Manit0u]

IF clearly had IG support there. I'm sure I saw some IG corpses and wrecked Basilisks there.
The real question is, how almost entire IF 5th Company gets obliterated and in its place a dozen freshmen UM succeed?

[Radec]

 They're invaded, a warp gate opens and a amphetamine parrotload of daemonic furies (some kind of lesser daemons I suppose) pours out and slaughters the fists (along the CSM I suppose). The fists are killed, the chaplain turns on the beacon, CSM do some defiling, the furies are called off, the trap is laid and the daemon lurks waiting for a vessel to come. The marines succeed because it is included in the  daemon's plans (along with sheer bad assery).
BTW Many of the marines take a couple of shot before being brought down(3-4 to be exact). It's  the firing rate of the bolters and the sheer volume of fire that makes it look like they die outright.

P.S.

Ok here it is. 9 marines died from more than 1 shot (I counted only those who gave clear body signs they were shot several times - I wasn't  sure about 2 marines so I gave the outright death the benefit of the doubt and counted them as instant killed ) and 14 marines died outright.

[Manit0u]

Some of the SM are one-shotted. Most of the CSM are one-shotted and die in scores.

[Disciple of Nagash: GT]

Not a fan of the movie at all. Few things that I have no idea why it happened. Why not move the thunderhawk closer to where they needed to be? Or at the very least, have it pick them up closer once they found what they were looking for. Secondly, why would they only send a single squad when a company was asking for help? If a company of marines was saying "Hey, we're getting boned down here" you'd think that they'd give a little more, specially when they sent a battlebarge to help. Where the hell were the rest of the marines on that battle barge? As was already stated, why is it a group of n00bs is able to do much better in the whole situation than the company that was there already? When the hell did the Crozius become a weapon like that? My crozius on my chaplains is just a power weapon. Why does everything and anything die like a be-atch? How come marines are able to fire their bolters and never have to reload?

[Radec]

Not a fan of the movie at all. Few things that I have no idea why it happened. Why not move the thunderhawk closer to where they needed to be? Or at the very least, have it pick them up closer once they found what they were looking for. Secondly, why would they only send a single squad when a company was asking for help? If a company of marines was saying "Hey, we're getting boned down here" you'd think that they'd give a little more, specially when they sent a battlebarge to help. Where the hell were the rest of the marines on that battle barge? As was already stated, why is it a group of n00bs is able to do much better in the whole situation than the company that was there already?

It is quite clear why they landed so far. You did notice the freaking big sandstorm, over the fortress, on the holo-projector, right? I'm not sure but I think it's been said a couple of times already in this thread - there is a comic book acting as a prequel to the film. On the chaplain thing - yeah it would have been nice to see him bash some skulls (I was disappointed too), but there is already a character that does the close combat part pretty well - the captain. I guess they wanted to show the chaplain in a different light - as some kind of a priest - John Hurt said it in the bonus disk material I think.
@Manit0u - as I don't remember this aspect quite clearly later tonight I'll count how many marines died outright (most of them were in the background I think) and how many took some shelling before they dropped down.

[augustmanifesto]

IF clearly had IG support there. I'm sure I saw some IG corpses and wrecked Basilisks there.
The real question is, how almost entire IF 5th Company gets obliterated and in its place a dozen freshmen UM succeed?

the real question is why would the Imperial Fists dedicate an entire battle company to defending a book in the middle of nowhere instead of, you know, simply putting the book in the reclusiam of Phalanx, that handy-dandy moon-sized space ship where they keep everything else.



I also really liked how the majority of dead Imperial Fists bodies were out in the open, outside of the massive, readily defendable shrine complex. Because after three weeks of fighting, you decide to leave your battlements and do that. But, hey, it's not like the Imperial Fists are noted siege experts and masters of defensive warfare or anything. No, not at all...

[jawmonkey]

IF clearly had IG support there. I'm sure I saw some IG corpses and wrecked Basilisks there.
The real question is, how almost entire IF 5th Company gets obliterated and in its place a dozen freshmen UM succeed?

the real question is why would the Imperial Fists dedicate an entire battle company to defending a book in the middle of nowhere instead of, you know, simply putting the book in the reclusiam of Phalanx, that handy-dandy moon-sized space ship where they keep everything else.

It's obviously a scary book to have around, important enough to necessitate a large amount of SM to guard it, but too damned scary for IG to be around it. Also, everyone knows that the Ultramarines are the best, this movie merely demonstrates just how much better they are than other chapters; previous fluff about Imperial Fists exploits have obviously been greatly exagerated (remember, they are wearing yellow armour).

I also really liked how the majority of dead Imperial Fists bodies were out in the open, outside of the massive, readily defendable shrine complex. Because after three weeks of fighting, you decide to leave your battlements and do that. But, hey, it's not like the Imperial Fists are noted siege experts and masters of defensive warfare or anything. No, not at all...

They were obviously tricked; they heard there were cookies, they went to check it out and found out that the cookie vendors were in fact crazed chaos space marines!  They tried to fall back, but it was too late, the vile chaos marines took off their chef's hats and threw down their plates of yummy cookies... only to reveal hot bolter death!!