40k Movie

How would you handle a 40K movie? Personally I'd have Gaunt's Ghosts, have a story along the lines of Heart of Darkness.

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If it doesn't have space marines then you've just lost 75% of your audience. Guardsmen on their own don't differentiate it enough from every other Band of Brothers-style movie.

I'd love to see this turned into a movie, the only problem is the story would be lost if everything had to be explained in the movie.

Also what said

Remake starship troopers but have a single space marine show up halfway through and kick major ass.

Rebel Winter and the other book that features the Valhallan Ice Warriors having to rescue an important Ecclisarchal official from the planet that's about to be Virus bombed after loosing it to Chaos forces.

There isn't a statistically significant audience (at least by Hollywood standards) that would be drawn to the movie by the 40k label alone.

I'd probably do a Rogue Trader movie. It would give you lots of opportunities for exposition about the setting, while being able to avoid some of the more extreme audience-alienating levels of grimdark. Plus, you could include a qt Eldar girl among the protagonists without it going against canon.

I'm incredibly unoriginal, so it would probably be a Space Marine and a Scout versus Chaos Cultists in a direct copy of Dredd 3D

That's like saying everyone who watches the Marvel and DC movies are deep comic nerds.

They don't exactly have to know about the universe or the lore to get into it but doing a movie based on the Guard would be the simplest thing to do because it's not steep in as much lore (dumb or otherwise) as the other factions in the game).

A horror/action flick starring the Inquisition and directed by Del Toro

I'd do the tale of Captain Hercules Lucullus Skywalker Master-Commander Poirot

>"Mister Lupe, please get me away with this treachery"


tho this is a close 2nd

We already have a Guard movie about Cadians fighting Tyranids, and it's great.

Mein neger.

>The Zoanthrope cannot control the tyranids if you disable it's brain

Realistically, setting it during the Horus Heresy is the only way to make a decent movie. And desu, I'd want to have it animated by Genndy Tartakovsky given how shoddy it would be otherwise to really do a live action 40k battle justice.

Pers

-Open to a black screen. Games Workshop and 40K logos are shown. The sounds of blowing wind and distant gunfire are heard, faintly. The voice of the Vitrian Dragoon, Zogat, sounds out softly.

Zogat: “You men of Tanith… there are very few of you, I understand?”

-Fade-in to a close-up of trooper Caffran, his face caked with mud and uniform in disarray. Behind him, above the edge of a sodden crater, the devastation of a wrecked plain rife with shell-holes and barbed wire is visible. He nods, and speaks quietly.

Caffran: “Barely two thousand. All that could be salvaged from our homeworld when it died.”

Zogat: “What happened to your world? What happened to you?”

-Caffran turns, showcasing the blue dragon tattoo on his temple, and stares into the distance.

Caffran: “Tanith was a glorious place. A forest world, dense and… mysterious.

-Cut to sweeping shots of mountains, valleys, and plains, all overgrown in verdant trees. Caffran’s voice continues over the scenery.

Caffran: “The trees could move, you see. Made it somewhat difficult to get around.”

-Cut to shot of two men watching the shifting forest from a hilltop.

Caffran: “So, we developed good instincts.”

-The same men make their way through the forest.

Caffran: “How to find our way with no point of reference…”

-One of the men looks about intently, gazing at the sun for but a moment before continuing.

Caffran: “How to read the land…”

-The other man bends low to investigate a series of tracks on the forest floor. He points in the direction they lead.

Caffran: “How to move unseen and unheard…”

-The men silently creep up over a rise. A large beast comes into view, grazing on some low foliage.

Caffran: “And how to kill.”

-One of the men shoulders a rifle, and fires a single shot.

-Cut back to Caffran, who smirks slightly.

Caffran: “Turns out the Imperium of Man could use people of our particular skills.”

-Cut to wide-angle shot of troopships descending onto a plain filled with lines of tents. A stone city can be seen nearby. The sounds of celebration are heard.

Caffran: “We were the first regiment ever mustered from Tanith. We were eager to serve. Eager to fight for our home.”

-Cut to the regiment’s insignia, waving steadily in the breeze beneath a blue sky.

Caffran: “But then Tanith died.”

-The sky above the insignia turns a dirty red, filled with fire. Screams are heard over the roaring flames. The insignia falls over as the camera pans upward, showing the forests of Tanith ablaze. Hordes of Chaos spawn surge over the hills. One turns to look at the camera, and lunges for it. Cut to black.

Zogan: “And only two thousand of you survived.”

-Cut to Caffran, his face a mixture of anger and grim satisfaction.

Caffran: “All thanks to Gaunt.”

-Cut to a dropship, its rear bay open. Shots of hellfire spatter against the interior as a man in the uniform of a commissar urges more men into the vehicle. His face is intentionally kept above and out of the frame.

Caffran: “Gaunt saved us. Gave us a reason to fight again.”

-Cut to the same uniformed figure, pacing before the assembled troopers. They watch him intently, their faces showing signs of pain, frustration, and sorrow.

Caffran: “Showed us that we could still fight for our home.”

-The uniformed figure draws a bolt pistol, and holds it high. In response, the troopers hoist their own weapons in unison and fix bayonets.

Caffran: “Showed us that we could still make the enemy pay.”

-The troopers thrust their weapons forward, and a close-up shot shows the skull and daggers of the Tanith emblem on the silver blades.

Caffran: “We’re the vengeful spirits of a dead world, you see.”

-A series of rapid cuts ensues, showing the Ghosts in combat. Mkoll quietly and bloodily slits a foe’s throat. Corbec hefts his lasgun and urges his squad forward.

Caffran: “We’re the ghosts of Tanith.”

-Rawne levels his pistol at an offscreen target. Larkin fires a single shot from his weapon.

Caffran: “We’re HIS ghosts.”

-The quick cuts continue, culminating in an overhead shot of the downtrodden Ghosts, centered on Milo, who lifts his head up as a new voice calls out.

Gaunt: “Men of Tanith!”

Cut to Gaunt, standing on the crest of a muddy trench. He faces away from the camera, toward a fiery battlefield backlit by a golden sun. His uniform is torn and bloodied, he holds his smoking bolt pistol aloft, and his cape flaps wildly in the wind. The camera zooms toward him as he draws his chainsword and thumbs it on. He slowly turns, gazing directly at the camera, and asks:

Gaunt: “Do you want to live forever?”

Gaunt hefts the sword high and charges away from the camera. His cape whirls around, obscuring the shot as the view fades to black. Rising out of the darkness as though emerging from the smoke of battle, the title appears:

Caffran: “Gaunt’s Ghosts.”

It will be Die Hard but in spaaaaaace.

NO
SPACE MARINE
MAIN CHARACTERS

The worst thing a 40k movie can try to do is make a movie focused on Space Marines. Not only would the only option be to humanize space marines and probably all lack helmets because actors want face-time for fame, but it would butcher their disturbing nature.

The main characters need to be guardsmen. The weak human element provides the perfect lens with which to view the grimdark horror of the 40k universe with the irrelevancy of the individual mortal man and the brutality of war in the forty-first millennium. A shattered squad of Guardsmen retreating from a devastating defeat the hands of the Orks are pulling back with the few that survived the onslaught to the set rally point. During their trip through the bombed-out WWI style scenary of a world destroyed by endless war with much of the land converted into muddy trenches and all wildlife rendered extinct characters get picked off by Orks, who are shown to be the horrifying gigantic monsters they are. Single Boyz pose immense threats to the main characters, and much of the killing is simply of Grots. There's set-piece scenery like Leman Russ tank squadrons squaring off with Ork armor columns as they pull out, dogfights between bombers and fighters overhead, and the faint glow of an overhead space battle. The broken squad eventually comes across some civilian survivors in a bombed out hab block, which they decide to fortify and make their last stand to buy the civilians some time as they run back.

They make a stand against a Nob and several squads of Ork boyz, most of the characters die, but then the climax is the reveal that the battle in orbit was a Strike Cruiser entering. A drop pod lands near the hab, space marines emerge and are portrayed more like horror movie monsters, eldritch beings that inspire awe and terror in the survivors as they look on, the Space Marines charging off and completely ignoring them after slaughtering the Orks.

This. Awesome.

The movie ends with the emaciated surviving guardsmen being discovered in the bombed out Hab by a mechanized infantry contingent advancing up again after the space marines apparently killed the warboss. The guardsment are shoved into a chimera and given some rations while in the background, a pict feed of a propaganda news report drawls on inside the Chimera about how the Space Marine Chapter of (x) re-conquered the world in the name of the God Emperor most gloriously, and without any assistance.

For the Emperor, based on the novel about commissar Ciaphas Cain, directed by Edgar Wright.

I'd watch the hell out of that.

I would have it star the BLAHD REVANS

Their antics have literally never failed to entertain.

It needs to be a musical, honestly.

Marching songs for Imperial Guards, massive choirs for Marines, heavy metal for orks, opera for panzees, j-pop for space communists and barbershop quarter for the Ruinous Powers.

I'd have the writers of Archer play a game of Dark Heresy.

They'd make a series out of it and turn it into Rogue Trader by season 5.

>Damn you, Bane Johns!

Honestly, I think a 40K movie with Space Marines could be interesting--you'd just have to include the Guard as well. Make them equal players in the plot, and use the contrast between the regular Joes and the superhuman powerhouses as the central theme of the whole thing. Give us someone to root for on both levels, and show that while the Space Marines have the physical strength and prowess to overcome most anything, it's the human spirit in each Guardsman that lets him face the same horrors.

Movie of Spacewolf, Ragnar would work both to introduce people to the universe and for people who already do.

Yes, and we also have a half dozen superhero movies each year.

Space marines don't work as protagonists unless you go for a high fantasy LOTR type feel, or just make them superheroes, they are simply beyond the capability of all normal humans. I want an IG movie because there honestly has not been a good war movie since Generation Kill (and that was a miniseries). I want characters who are in shit, die in wayd both horrifically and anticlimactically, and actually know the meaning of sacrifice and fighting for a cause. Space Marines can't do this in a feature length film.

what about a mixed team? a commisar and a guardman, a space marine a inquisitor and maybe a sister because there most be a chick in everthing, in a world overrun by chaos, they try to survive while searching for the main force to regroup, but shit just keep happening.

This is something that should never be made. Like the well of souls it's a can of worms that should never be opened. No way in a month of Sundays would Hollywood ever get Warhammer and no one else would be willing to risk the huge budget it would need.

I don't know about a movie, but I could definately get behind a Game of Thrones length Eisenhorn tv series.

No idea who to direct, no idea the casting but both would need to be on point.

I'm not sure if the paralyzed face thing would work in a film though.

>How would you handle a 40K movie?
Probably as an animated cartoon series like Star Wars the Clone Wars. There is so much about 40k that while it looks nice in drawings or looks nice on models looks retarded as hell when you put it on camera and film it. There is a reason there has literally never been a good movie based off a video game.

As for making the movie about the IG, it is pointless. Why not just set it in WW1 or WW2 or whatever? From the perspective of guardsmen there isn't much about 40k that is really unique, just dudes with guns, artillery, and tanks. You can find all of that in literally any war movie. Space Marines are at least iconic.

I'd explore aspects of the settings that aren't really dealt with already. Maybe Adeptus Arbites or Underhive gangs. Maybe daily life in the Tau Empire. Maybe the internal power struggles of an Ork Waagh.

>I'm not sure if the paralyzed face thing would work in a film though.

>I'm not sure if the paralyzed face thing would work in a film though.

...

I don't understand what you're trying to convey.

I could imagine milo's pipes playing softly in the background of the overhead shot.

First one seems to be expressing disdain for ye of little faith, the other two are examples of what you describe: Stallone's face paralysis is infamous, and Edward Norton as Baldwin IV demonstrates considerable character despite his "face" for most of the movie being the pictured mask.

>How would you handle a 40K movie?
By focusing on the parts of it that differ from what we (or more specifically; the public) see as conventional science fiction.

Focusing on something that can look into how weird human society in the setting is would be best. Not the burly space dudes blasting space monsters, much as I could enjoy that.

I'd honestly love to see Inquisitor Kryptman's investigations into the Behemoth, but every retard and their fucking dog would be calling it a Starcraft ripoff when the blue space marines start blasting alien bug monsters.

youtube.com/watch?v=UICK5ZiPdVg
I can see it

Fair enough. I guess I'm too conditioned by Veeky Forums to see this as something other than reaction images.

Tom Hardy would make a great Eisenhorn, both pre and post-face-paralysis. He's got the right eyes for it--able to convey a lot with just the two of them.

>First one seems to be expressing disdain for ye of little faith
Ricardo Montalban had partial paralysis of one side of his face and one arm when they were filming Star Trek II. Though I can't seem to find any sources for that atm.

This, but a three season HBO series. I always imagined the Game of Thrones audience would be drawn to a 40k show. One season for each book.

I'm almost in tears because I know we will never get this. It won't ever happen. Damn it.

>>Imperial Guard focused
>>Trick Russel Crowe into starring
>>We die standing

An Ork Musical Comedy.
Fun for the whole family.

Either as a TV series based on the First DoW( 1 - SS)
Or a Movie based on DoW2

Thought she was pregnant at first.

But I think only anime could capture the absurdity of 40k without a budget of billions.

This

I don't understand all the people itt suggesting that the focus be moved away from 40ks biggest attributes of over the too rediculous war.

That being said, stretch out the opening scene in DoW 1 and slap a plot on it.

Make a movie about this. If you haven't read it yet go pirate it or something.

a lot of the Imperial Armour books could make pretty good movies if done properly, Anphelion Project for example would be nice.

>All Guardsmen Party

The problem is, a 40k movie is too likely to go the DC route instead of the Marvel route. Are you really prepared to see Green Lantern in 40k form?

If it has Space Marines, absolutely no Ultrasmurfs in it. Maybe later movies, but not in this one.

Lord of Night - Horror of hive cities, gangs, Redemptionist cult, the inquisition, psykers, xenos backed sedition, chaos space marines, everything that makes 40k unique.

Lord of the Night, sorry

Space wolves cod give an audience the familiar setting of viking warriors, but then use it as a jumping off point for introducing the concept of space as well.

If they use Chronicles of Riddick as an example, it could be alright.

Biggest audience would be just turning the Space Marines Battle Novels into movies.

That, and the first few Horus Heresy books.

The Lord Inquisitor is looking great, though.

Mate. I'm not even joking. You're making me teary at 7:40 on a Saturday morning. Fuck.

I would not focus a lot on the space marines, but on a certain personal story of someone (ie: an inquisitor. I would try to make it good as a standalone film, rather than a 40k film for the sake of a 40k film (generic plot etc.). I would also make the imagery extremally gothic, and the film bleak, but i would still have a sense of black homour.

Second War on Armageddon. Orks being a bit of humorous relief with big guns and scary faces, IG being regular soldiers, spes muhreens being MUH SOOPERHOOMANS

I would make a TV series instead, and it make it a Dark Heresy adaptation

Well we could always have a movie about the greatest captain of the Ultramarienes. Which is of course CATO SICARUIS

I wrote a similar plot in a 40k film thread. It was about a Guardsmen fortress holding out against an Ork Waaagh, waiting for Space Marine reinforcements. It was less about the fighting, and more about the growing tensions in a calm-before-the-storm situation, as supplies are starting to run low and the Commissars trigger finger became increasingly itchy.
My plot ended with guardsman mc dieing as the defense is finally breached, with the last thing they see is the drop pods raining down.

A movie about one adolescent striking scorpion playing with some elite catachans on a death world.

First thought: Eisenhorn or Space Hulk

But I'd also watch a lone Deathwing purging an entire city of cultists.

A character study of one Space Marine.

>Virtually born into fighting for his life, never given a chance to have a childhood. His boyhood is scenes of violence, feelings of despair and defeat.
>Hypnotized and drugged into loyalty, to the point where his mind doesn't need the drugs to take the fanatical route anymore - it just comes naturally, no matter how much he wishes it wouldn't.
>Subjected to painful augmentations, nearly left for dead on the operating table.
>Still just a teenager mentally, just a muscle-bound and augmented one psychically.
>He thinks he hears voices whispering to him, and he wonders if it's his sanity or something darker.
>His friends get cut down, one by one, for something that he doesn't quite understand.

The movie ends with a Mexican standoff between him, a Inquisitor and his rogue Captain.

So a remake of Soldier?

Space Marine is about the Marines and it still has a decent plot and characters.
>have Orks overrun some Imperial planet, the Guard are mostly killed or pushed back
>Deathwatch arrives for some reason, slaughters the Warboss and otherwise wrecks havoc for the Orks
>Guard starts securing the planet once again, Deathwatch fucks off
>receive some Vox transmissions from the nearby moon
>go to investigate
>it's somehow a Chaos Space Marine outpost and they are starting an invasion
>half of the team stays behind to delay them, the other half returns to rally the Guard for protection
Something like this shows how powerful they are compared to normal humans, Deathwatch offers as many characters as possible, requires no prior 40k knowledge if done right and has enough varied characters for an awesome marketing campaign.

No. Seriously no

>Deathwatch
Good thinking.
They can even have a Salamander to appease the diversity/ affirmative action hire crowd.

If the last scene isn't a fuckton of red drop pods doing the codex-approved strategy I'm not watching it.

The key is the start, the average movie goer is likely oblivious to 40k, this is truly a great asset.

You go to the theater and there are several titles that interest you. One is a medieval adventure, one a invasion flick, one a cyberpunk thriller, and one a remake of event horizon, they interest you because the trailers show nothing, a rarity and one that demands attention, now it doesn't matter what you pick because they're all 40k movies and as the film progresses the viewer is plunged deeper into the lore and the universe, the medieval one has imperial knights striding into battle with skitarii, the invasion one is a lost human world being brought into compliance, the cyberpunk one is a daemonic invasion, and event horizon is chaos and the ordos chronos of course, all with zero regard for the viewer's expected knowledge, and then before the credits role, we get a proper intro.
It is the forty first millenia...
as the script is read short clips of life in the 40k universe are shown over all facets of the lore.
And then you tease the first movie.

I like how this picture puts 8' tall into perspective.

The worst offence all the various 40k movies and short films have had is that they put Space Marines against Chaos with no frame of reference. Loyal fans will know how that the bolter is basically a fully automatic 40mm grenade launcher that weighs about 70 lbs, but when you just have SM vs SM it doesn't matter. If you're making a 40k movie involving the Guard, which I think it should, you need to show the Space Marines as these nigh-unkillable creatures capable of taking ridiculous punishment and carving their way through legions of normal humans.

Same for demons. I want to see people clawing their own eyes out the moment they see a lesser demon, a valiant last stand ruined in an instant by the guardsman popping like a blister, a Tzeench scorcerer blowing apart and entire platoon with eldrich fire before turning to look at the audience.

Deathwatch is perfect. The Chapter specific pauldrons and ornamentations will make them visually different and you can have all kinds of different personalities. And you can throw in some references that only hardcore fans will understand.

And then the camera pans out to a city-block sized metal claw foot crushing an entire armoured column in a single step and further up until it reaches the top of the Emperor Titan at which point it switches to the view of the princeps or one of the moderati as he clears a firing solution for one of the turbolasers and you can barely make out the bright colours of the Space Marines in the sea of insignificant ants underfoot.

Cliché but I'd love to see it.

>40K movie
there already exists one.

Inquisitor and his retinue as the protags. Allows you to have consistent screentime for a psyker, big-I himself, a space marine/deathwatch/etc. member and other freaks you'd have in a retinue. Good for showcasing the variety in the universe and developing unique characters.

Allows flexible plot that can range from giant battles to investigating heresies and anything between.

My lifelong dream is to see Vin Diesel play an inquisitor.

No.

And Lord Inquisitor will never be finished.

My ideal Inquisitor would be Clint Eastwood with Vin Diesel's head on a DW Space Marine in his entourage(lol manlet).

I'll take just about anything so long as that hack Abnett keeps his hands off it.

I'm not saying it couldn't be fucked up but I honestly think a Guard movie would be really hard to screw up unless the director/producer is just that bad.

Besides it doesn't even have to involve any of the popularly named Guard Regiments as even the most bearded Grog knows that there are countless no-name regiments that exist as well so really as long as you didn't screw anything else up (i.e. The Orks and the general appearance of a bog standard imperial planet) the movie could work.

Based idea

Personally would have a Jupiter rising like event start, rogue Rader dynasty ruling a sector from the stars while !earths (same tech as now) in the system are used as gene farms for rejuvenate treatments.

Have random invasion of orks, out of nowhere the rogue traders personal army is being deployed down on !earth, we see the comparison in tech between a lasgun and a m16 as the protagonist takes up arms of a fallen ig equipt trooper.

Ends with you think the protagonist is going to be killed by warboss while defending some main computer system (say orbital defense array), when the rogue trader and his elite squad of huscarls and xenos mercs? Roll in.

Next movie focused on the travels through the 40k universe as the protagonist is taken in by the crew.

I know nothing about WH40K and I am now interested

I'd be okay with that.

>The Pious, The Heretic and the Mutant

Read Ghosts of Tanith. Great series of about 9 books. Standard humans with pew pew laser-guns going up against insane cultists, bloodthirsty orcs and daemons from beyond the veil of darkness. Alternatively, pick up Dawn of War on Steam. It's an older RTS but it does a great job of introducing the 40k universe to a beginner and also being really, really fun.

This.

A Deathwatch movie would be my first choice as well. A good team could be
>Stern Ultramarine Leader
>Le quippy Wolf Guy (for the capeshit audience)
>Brooding Edgy Dark Angel
>Dreamy Fuccboi Blood Angel with Rage Issues
>2-6 other Chapter guys that die in a gruesome but awesome way

ThunderHawk Down

Isn't one of the key things about many of the Marines sent to Deathwatch that they're typically those with attitudes or often use strategies that deviate from their Chapter's typical behavior? So you'd have some more like

>Titus like Ultramarine Captain
>Stern and temperate Space Wolf Assault Marine
>Chatty and Upbeat Blood Angel and Dark Angel Tactical buddies
>Aggressive and reckless Imperial Fist Devastator
>Grumpy and callous Salamander Scout Sergeant

Of course that might just be confusing to the viewers and marines who follow their Chapters culture end up in Deathwatch too so I guess it's fine to just have them be typical.