New Ultramarines Movie Trailer is out... and looks awful

[white_rabbit]

I'm pretty sure a bad animator charges the same hourly rate as a good one.

An Agency bricklayer can charge me £400/thou, but I'm going to laugh at him when he does.

And not Hire him.

[Batman]

No. But given this looks marginally better than the opening cinematics of Dawn of War, which is six years old and a game I think for a movie we can expect more.

The opening cinematics were not part of the game and were in fact animated by an established animation company, professionals who cost a lot more than Codex Pictures can spend on a per-minute rate, and they only included one or two backgrounds and a few different models to be created.
Making a whole movie is very different.

Absolutely. For starters, it usually means you have a much bigger budget. If you can't afford to hire capable animators you have no business doing an animated movie to begin with.
Also, we're talking about an intro sequence six years old looking almost as good as their stuff. Six years is an eternity in IT.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I think you're missing the point, Batman. We're talking about a direct-to-video DVD film based on a tabletop wargame wherein space knights and space orks try to kill each other with chainsaw swords.

There is no huge budget. There never will be a huge budget for this. No one in Hollywood is willing to finance a full budget film based on this premise, and the miniatures company that owns the intellectual property makes less money in a whole year than a mainstream movie makes in a weekend. They can't afford a whole budget, and even if they could, they would have to be as loony as a comic book character to think they'd make back their budget from such a small, fickle niche audience. The only way this movie could get made was if it was made on the cheap. The very cheap.

The fact that you can recognize the names of the voice actors in it means that the majority of the budget probably went to talents who aren't in the field of animation.

To give you an idea of the scale of the film, the last release of Codex Pictures was a Bionicle movie. Never heard of it? That's exactly the same reaction a Warhammer 40,000 movie will get from the general public, too. In fact, Bionicle is far, far more mainstream than 40k, so Ultramarines will probably be lucky to make the kind of money a Bionicle movie makes. GW and CP have budgeted accordingly.

6 years may be an eternity, but what do you expect for roughly a tenth of the budget of a real animated movie? Pixar?

Keep in mind that DOW is a real, big budget game produced by a real, big name game company which contracts with real, big name animation studios to make realistic, big-budget cut scenes. You simply can't expect the same quality from a no-name British studio no one's ever heard of.

[Zaune]

That could have been more coherent and detailed, sorry; my fault for posting whilst on the phone. But my point was that a low budget isn't an excuse for just being sloppy.

[Srelex]

'Sloppy'? We've barely even seen any of it. Hell, the writing and the choreography might make up for it for all we know.

[Cykeisme]

I don't know, Bob the Gunslinger, I think you're underselling the value of the Warhammer 40k IP a little. Yes, GW probably doesn't make that much money off the tabletop games and novels. But I see that you recognize the impact the successful 40k video games have had, and yet you're not factoring that into the value that those games have added to the IP. Even other IPs that exist solely as relatively new video games get greenlighted by studios to be made into movies with decent budgets, and 40k has that and much more.
And then on a related but different point, the existence of the video games themselves have had serious money invested into them.. investments that proved to be sound.
Frankly I didn't know that Bionicle was a bigger thing than Warhammer 40k, but my viewpoint is biased because of the demographic I fit in.. after all, I am into things like 40k.

Ah, well, then again, I could be missing some important point and not getting the big picture; I'll admit I don't really understand all this as well as I probably should to partake in such a discussion.


I do agree with something others have said, though.. we have not seen enough to allow us to comment on anything aside from the animation quality. The visual quality is a part of it, but the finished product will be a whole that is the sum of more parts than that.

[Stark]

The DoW games were popular more because they were Relic rushgames than the 40k IP, unless you think everyone who bought DoW owned little metal men which is obviously not the case.

[Cykeisme]

The DoW games were popular more because they were Relic rushgames than the 40k IP, unless you think everyone who bought DoW owned little metal men which is obviously not the case.

Then why did Relic bother paying for the IP?
I'd also like to point out that I know more 40k fans who don't own little metal men than 40k fans who do. Yes, it's possible to be a 40k fan without playing the tabletop games. The wider availability novels compared to some years back, and appeal of the fiction (yes, GRIMDARK!!!), seems to have had an impact.

Besides, that addresses the second point I made in my earlier post, but not the first.. my first point was that even if the video games didn't sell well because of the IP (which is a fact I question), the video games selling well have added additional value to the IP.

Good strawman, anyway.

[Ryan Thunder]

No. But given this looks marginally better than the opening cinematics of Dawn of War, which is six years old and a game I think for a movie we can expect more.

The opening cinematics were not part of the game and were in fact animated by an established animation company, professionals who cost a lot more than Codex Pictures can spend on a per-minute rate, and they only included one or two backgrounds and a few different models to be created.

Making a whole movie is very different.

Alright, so it looks like dogshit, but that shouldn't surprise us?

[Batman]

The fact that DoW was a) made and b) made to the quality it was means there is someone who thinks 40K can make back that kind of investment (and it did, from all I can tell). We're obviously not talking Pixar/Dreamworks quality and budget here, but when fanfilms can match/beat that animation quality that's a pretty sad showing.
As others have said, animation isn't everything, and the movie might very well turn out good, but the animation is subpar by modern standards. Again, that's not necessarily a problem-Valen knows Trek (especially TOS) or B5 haven't aged well FX wise yet are still considerably popular.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

The fact that DoW was a) made and b) made to the quality it was means there is someone who thinks 40K can make back that kind of investment (and it did, from all I can tell). We're obviously not talking Pixar/Dreamworks quality and budget here, but when fanfilms can match/beat that animation quality that's a pretty sad showing.
As others have said, animation isn't everything, and the movie might very well turn out good, but the animation is subpar by modern standards. Again, that's not necessarily a problem-Valen knows Trek (especially TOS) or B5 haven't aged well FX wise yet are still considerably popular.

Yes, there is such a person. Note that he doesn't work for GW, but rather for Relic. Also note that GW may have a popular IP, but that does not translate into cash to invest in a film.

Also, I understand that one reason why GW hasn't yet gone the DOOM!: THE MOVIE route is because they wanted to retain creative control so that the film didn't end up like DOOM!: THE MOVIE. Hollywood studios are loathe to invest their own money into a "franchise" if they can't minimize risks by watering down the IP for maximum market penetration. "We need to make the Space Marines look like Jonas brothers. And they need to have romance with the lady Space Marines. Can your Orks talk all ghetto instead in Cockney accents? Orlando Bloom will of course play the Farseer sidekick to the noble Inquisitor."


As for the poor effects: yes, it is a shame, but I would rather have a B5 quality 40k movie with a chance at a decent story and some sort of fidelity to the universe than another big budget, beautifully rendered Super Mario Brothers. I don't trust the fungus. If you squint hard enough, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within could be a 40k movie. It's about as true to 40k as it is to Final Fantasy.

[Ryan Thunder]

If you squint hard enough, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within could be a 40k movie. It's about as true to 40k as it is to Final Fantasy.

I think that's a terrible example. None of the Final Fantasy games have ever had very much in common. I always figured that was just more of the same.

[Batman]

Spirits Within was a rather entertaining movie if you ask me. If haven't the foggiest if it had anything actually to do with the games other than using the franchise name to sell tickets, what with never having played a FF game in my life, but bad it was not.
As for Doom-The Movie, while I haven't seen it, I very much suspect everything you change from the original premise would be an improvement in a movie. Contrary to what Hollywood seems to believe, FPS games do NOT make really good movie material.

[Imperial528]

The animation didn't bother me much, and otherwise it was a good trailer up to the point where it showed Ultramarines being shot through their armor and being killed right then and there. If they wanted to show a space marine dying, the least the could've done is had him be shot multiple times while charging at his enemies guns blazing, rather than a "blargh I am dead" kind of effect.

[NecronLord]

So, I saw a new trailer at Games Day; much better, I'd say. It may be the buildup and being on an actual projection screen, but it all looked considerably better than the trailer we've seen so far.

[Srelex]

Did it show anything new?

[Commander 598]

On review of it, I don't know what everyone's whining about. Really, it looks great to me.
Spoiler

Somehow I missed seeing the Fists pinned up during my first viewing...

[NecronLord]

Did it show anything new?

It was all new footage. Bits of the villains. There are two Imperial Fists in the film.

[Srelex]

Villains? Chaos types, I presume?

[OsirisLord]

If you squint hard enough, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within could be a 40k movie. It's about as true to 40k as it is to Final Fantasy.

I think that's a terrible example. None of the Final Fantasy games have ever had very much in common. I always figured that was just more of the same.

Final Fantasy usually has a few repeating things that appear in nearly every games. Chocobos and a character named Cid who own an airship are obvious examples. Then you have the summons like Shiva and Bahamut, as well as the recurring bonus boss Gilgamesh. Also Final Fantasy tends to always lean towards the fantasy side, even if it has sci-fi styles blended in.

Spirits Within had none of that stuff.

@Stark. Dawn of War isn't the only Warhammer game made. For 40k there were the super old Space Hulk games, and the Space Hulk board game was originally published but Milton Bradly. Then you have stuff like the classic Final Liberation which did well despite not being about the Space Marines. And on the fantasy side they were able to make a Warhammer MMO and are working on a 40K MMO. Obviously such products aren't just shot out the door willy-nilly and require a large player base to support them. Age of Reckoning might not be as good as WoW but it still manages to endure under that behemoth's shadow.

[Commander 598]

Spirits Within had none of that stuff.

It had meteorite introduced aliens trying to infest the Earth's "spirit". I don't know how persistent that plot is to the rest of FF, but it was basically the plot of FF7, IIRC.

[Lost Soal]

Empireonline has a new trailer.
Looks much better now

[Stravo]

Now THAT is more like it.

"How do I recognize the taint of Chaos?" Really? A space marine needs to ask that?

[Srelex]

Much better. I wonder if they'll show Exterminatus or any space combat.

[NecronLord]

Empireonline has a new trailer.
Looks much better now

Yeah, that's the one they had at Games Day.