Post by logic79 on Nov 14, 2010 1:00:01 GMT
A warning. What follows are the views and opinions of Logic79. These views are not those of this website and many of them aren’t all that well thought out or well spelt. My grammar is best described as ballistic. Much of what follows will probably contradict each other… Just like the Bible, and just as long winded. I ask that you try your hardest to understand and feel free to leave any comments.
First off, I would like to get something off my chest. Codex Pictures is NOT Games Workshop! Codex Pictures invited 50 forum “fan boys” to come and review their film. Then gave us beer. Then asked us for our opinions, encouraging us to be critical (although I didn’t hear of anyone from War Seer being present, so perhaps they weren’t willing to take THAT much criticism just yet!). When we were critical, Producer Bob Thompson (I think… the picture on their website is really out of date if it is him) would listen, allow us to finish, and then (here is the really amazing thing!) gave us a full and sensible actual answer… that actually answered our questions without reverting to “coz we know best and we are always right”. On top of that, they then asked us to go out into the world and tell our forums of choice what we REALLY thought of their film! I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t see GW ever behaving like that.
So on to the film. Well, it’s not terrible. I had somehow managed to avoid seeing any of the blogs, forums and even the previews. So, I went into this without any preconceptions or expectations. Something that the guys from Beasts of War seemed to find quite interesting (I’m the idiot with the “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS” bag).
I’ll start with what I liked.
The Ultramarines are stunning! They look brilliant. The Chaplin's helm is a work of art. When the Marines strike a heroic pose, the colouring, lighting and music are as I said, stunning. It is just how it should be. Let’s face it, when painting, we all have these cinematic moments in mind. We can all hear the rousing music in our minds, as we imagine the model climbing atop a large pile of his slain foe (or is that just me?). Also, everything looks as it should do. The Battle Barge, the Thunderhawk and the Land speeder, all spot on and just how you see them on the table top. I loved watching a chain sword hacking its way through a bad guy’s head! But let’s face it, one thing that GW is really good at, is protecting their IP. So if it hadn’t looked exactly like the models, then the movie wouldn’t have been made.
It has a reasonable story. They haven’t tried to cope with the full history of the 40 000 universe, and quite frankly, I’m thankful for this. To me, the obvious thing would have been to take one of the bestselling 40k novels and turn it into a screenplay. However, this would have meant a lot of cutting and restructuring of the story so that it paced correctly for a movie. Instead, we have a new story written by everyone’s favourite Black Library author, Dan Abnett. I’ll be honest; it isn’t going to blow you away with a complex plot or clever twists. It’s a good solid script, without any fancy trimmings and the occasional surprising splash of humour.
Ok, now let us move on to what we “fan boys” are good at. The criticisms. The film runs for roughly 78 minutes, or so we were told. To me, the movie felt much shorter. Now this isn’t because I was enjoying myself so much that time flew by, it’s because nothing much happens. Toy Story 3 had more peril. It doesn’t really give the impression that in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
The story revolves around a single squad of Marines landing on a planet and saving the day. GW art is all about the huge battles that involve millions of lives. John Blanche recently wrote an article about it in White Dwarf. I can’t help but feel that this sort of battle scene is exactly what the film is missing. But you have to admire Codex pictures, for when quizzed about this they simply replied “we couldn’t afford it!” Gotta respect that sort of honesty with your customers. There simply wasn’t enough close combat. I wanted real up close in your face hand to hand combat. I wanted to see the bad guys getting hacked to bits. Quite frankly, Spiderman was gorier.
I gushed quite a bit about the appearance of the film’s heroes. The exact opposite can be said for their opponents. I’m not saying that they are ugly or grotesque. Imagine if you would that the Ultramarines have been painted by the ‘Eavy metal team, then the bad guys have been painted by numbers. They are solid block colours with little or no decoration or shading. Pretty much like how my armies are painted.
Remember that I said the lighting and sound are stunning? I’m from a theatrical background and was taught that if people notice the sound and lighting it means that something has gone wrong. If they have used the whole interview, I can be seen rambling on about how great the music is on Beasts of War. Surely, I should be so wrapped up in the story and the action that I wouldn’t be sitting there singling out one part of what should be a total package?
Great fanfare was made of the “with state-of-the-art facial capture animation technology.” Personally, I found this lead to some rather odd facial expressions, and bizarrely, the marines didn’t always appear to be mouthing the words that were being said. The voices sounded exactly the same whether the Marine was helmeted or bear headed. The main hero of the story sounded ever so slightly like Starscream which lead to me not ever trusting him or growing to like him. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to like any of the Ultramarines, surely a bad thing when they are the heroes of the story.
The biggest hurdle for Codex pictures seems to have been something that comes so naturally for most of us. Walking. Now I have to say, I am slightly more forgiving on this, as Space Marine armour is hugely impractical and I was amazed that they had figured out a way of getting them to move at all. Having said that, watching them walk down stairs was painful.
The biggest problem I have with the whole film though was weight. The Marines are light footed, their steps almost springy. No hint that these are nearly 8 foot tall killing machines wearing massively heavy and restricting suits of armour. The Marines cross a rickety old wooden bridge without out the panels breaking and falling away, or the bridge sagging under the weight of these behemoths. Bolters are huge ungainly things, yet the Marines handle them as if made of foam. When reloading, there wasn’t a satisfying slamming home of the new magazine. The Heavy Bolter doesn’t look at all heavy. Oh, and the gore was too watery.
So it’s a bad film right? Well, no. Actually it’s not. I liked it. It would be a brilliant film to sit and paint to. And it really does give you a good feel of the 40k universe that GW can’t portray in any of their traditional forms. Sadly, it has a happy ending. Even so, I'd happily give it a 7/10.
I really feel for Codex Pictures, because GW fans tend to be hugely critical of everything to do with the hobby, even when we love it. Worse is when people criticize films without actually having seen them. I have the feeling that in the coming months, forums will be filled with people slagging off this film, but I would be willing to bet that just about all of them will own a copy, and watch it regularly. I was lucky enough to be able to talk to one of the producers for quite a while after them film, and I really want this to be a success for Codex Pictures. Their plans for the future if this does well are actually really quite exciting, and in my opinion, the direction that GW should be aiming for with many of their franchises.
First off, I would like to get something off my chest. Codex Pictures is NOT Games Workshop! Codex Pictures invited 50 forum “fan boys” to come and review their film. Then gave us beer. Then asked us for our opinions, encouraging us to be critical (although I didn’t hear of anyone from War Seer being present, so perhaps they weren’t willing to take THAT much criticism just yet!). When we were critical, Producer Bob Thompson (I think… the picture on their website is really out of date if it is him) would listen, allow us to finish, and then (here is the really amazing thing!) gave us a full and sensible actual answer… that actually answered our questions without reverting to “coz we know best and we are always right”. On top of that, they then asked us to go out into the world and tell our forums of choice what we REALLY thought of their film! I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t see GW ever behaving like that.
So on to the film. Well, it’s not terrible. I had somehow managed to avoid seeing any of the blogs, forums and even the previews. So, I went into this without any preconceptions or expectations. Something that the guys from Beasts of War seemed to find quite interesting (I’m the idiot with the “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS” bag).
I’ll start with what I liked.
The Ultramarines are stunning! They look brilliant. The Chaplin's helm is a work of art. When the Marines strike a heroic pose, the colouring, lighting and music are as I said, stunning. It is just how it should be. Let’s face it, when painting, we all have these cinematic moments in mind. We can all hear the rousing music in our minds, as we imagine the model climbing atop a large pile of his slain foe (or is that just me?). Also, everything looks as it should do. The Battle Barge, the Thunderhawk and the Land speeder, all spot on and just how you see them on the table top. I loved watching a chain sword hacking its way through a bad guy’s head! But let’s face it, one thing that GW is really good at, is protecting their IP. So if it hadn’t looked exactly like the models, then the movie wouldn’t have been made.
It has a reasonable story. They haven’t tried to cope with the full history of the 40 000 universe, and quite frankly, I’m thankful for this. To me, the obvious thing would have been to take one of the bestselling 40k novels and turn it into a screenplay. However, this would have meant a lot of cutting and restructuring of the story so that it paced correctly for a movie. Instead, we have a new story written by everyone’s favourite Black Library author, Dan Abnett. I’ll be honest; it isn’t going to blow you away with a complex plot or clever twists. It’s a good solid script, without any fancy trimmings and the occasional surprising splash of humour.
Ok, now let us move on to what we “fan boys” are good at. The criticisms. The film runs for roughly 78 minutes, or so we were told. To me, the movie felt much shorter. Now this isn’t because I was enjoying myself so much that time flew by, it’s because nothing much happens. Toy Story 3 had more peril. It doesn’t really give the impression that in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
The story revolves around a single squad of Marines landing on a planet and saving the day. GW art is all about the huge battles that involve millions of lives. John Blanche recently wrote an article about it in White Dwarf. I can’t help but feel that this sort of battle scene is exactly what the film is missing. But you have to admire Codex pictures, for when quizzed about this they simply replied “we couldn’t afford it!” Gotta respect that sort of honesty with your customers. There simply wasn’t enough close combat. I wanted real up close in your face hand to hand combat. I wanted to see the bad guys getting hacked to bits. Quite frankly, Spiderman was gorier.
I gushed quite a bit about the appearance of the film’s heroes. The exact opposite can be said for their opponents. I’m not saying that they are ugly or grotesque. Imagine if you would that the Ultramarines have been painted by the ‘Eavy metal team, then the bad guys have been painted by numbers. They are solid block colours with little or no decoration or shading. Pretty much like how my armies are painted.
Remember that I said the lighting and sound are stunning? I’m from a theatrical background and was taught that if people notice the sound and lighting it means that something has gone wrong. If they have used the whole interview, I can be seen rambling on about how great the music is on Beasts of War. Surely, I should be so wrapped up in the story and the action that I wouldn’t be sitting there singling out one part of what should be a total package?
Great fanfare was made of the “with state-of-the-art facial capture animation technology.” Personally, I found this lead to some rather odd facial expressions, and bizarrely, the marines didn’t always appear to be mouthing the words that were being said. The voices sounded exactly the same whether the Marine was helmeted or bear headed. The main hero of the story sounded ever so slightly like Starscream which lead to me not ever trusting him or growing to like him. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to like any of the Ultramarines, surely a bad thing when they are the heroes of the story.
The biggest hurdle for Codex pictures seems to have been something that comes so naturally for most of us. Walking. Now I have to say, I am slightly more forgiving on this, as Space Marine armour is hugely impractical and I was amazed that they had figured out a way of getting them to move at all. Having said that, watching them walk down stairs was painful.
The biggest problem I have with the whole film though was weight. The Marines are light footed, their steps almost springy. No hint that these are nearly 8 foot tall killing machines wearing massively heavy and restricting suits of armour. The Marines cross a rickety old wooden bridge without out the panels breaking and falling away, or the bridge sagging under the weight of these behemoths. Bolters are huge ungainly things, yet the Marines handle them as if made of foam. When reloading, there wasn’t a satisfying slamming home of the new magazine. The Heavy Bolter doesn’t look at all heavy. Oh, and the gore was too watery.
So it’s a bad film right? Well, no. Actually it’s not. I liked it. It would be a brilliant film to sit and paint to. And it really does give you a good feel of the 40k universe that GW can’t portray in any of their traditional forms. Sadly, it has a happy ending. Even so, I'd happily give it a 7/10.
I really feel for Codex Pictures, because GW fans tend to be hugely critical of everything to do with the hobby, even when we love it. Worse is when people criticize films without actually having seen them. I have the feeling that in the coming months, forums will be filled with people slagging off this film, but I would be willing to bet that just about all of them will own a copy, and watch it regularly. I was lucky enough to be able to talk to one of the producers for quite a while after them film, and I really want this to be a success for Codex Pictures. Their plans for the future if this does well are actually really quite exciting, and in my opinion, the direction that GW should be aiming for with many of their franchises.
