WH40K coming to Amazon stream

[Blackhawk748]

They're just going to make the Imperium the good guys and "justified", aren't they?

Reminder that the Imperium of Man is like... 12 factions all loosely bundled together with a whole bunch of guns sticking out at everything that twitches cuz pretty much everything that twitches wants to eat/kill/render them into fuel and their general reactions to things is fairly justified.

The 40k universe sucks and no faction that is "nice" lasts more than 10 minutes because one of the innumerable horrors wipes them out. Cuz even the minor factions are nasty.

Should they be seen as "good"? I mean, plenty of people in the Imperium are fine on the small scale. Inquisitors and various Guardsmen who just want to protect their fellow Man, Space Marines who believe in honor and decency. Them taken as a whole faction populated by Trillions of Trillions of people? No. But then again, noone is good in 40k. No not even the Tau even in their first iteration, they were just horrifically naive.

Actually, I have an even better idea what the series should be.

Basically Tales from the Crypt but instead of the Cryptkeeper you have Trazyn the Infinite and every story is about one of his exhibits.

I would watch this. It'd be great.

[Fyraltari]

[QUOTE=Blackhawk748;25658645]Reminder that the Imperium of Man is like... 12 factions all loosely bundled together with a whole bunch of guns sticking out at everything that twitches cuz pretty much everything that twitches wants to eat/kill/render them into fuel and their general reactions to things is fairly justified.

The 40k universe sucks and no faction that is "nice" lasts more than 10 minutes because one of the innumerable horrors wipes them out. Cuz even the minor factions are nasty.

Should they be seen as "good"? I mean, plenty of people in the Imperium are fine on the small scale. Inquisitors and various Guardsmen who just want to protect their fellow Man, Space Marines who believe in honor and decency. Them taken as a whole faction populated by Trillions of Trillions of people? No. But then again, noone is good in 40k. No not even the Tau even in their first iteration, they were just horrifically naive.

To be a man in such times [...] is to live in the cruellest and the most bloody regime imaginable

Emphasis mine.

Inquisitors will shoot you for wanting to think for yourself, space Marines and Guardsmen will slaughter entire factories for going on strikes. There are no good guys in W40k, but the Imperium especially isn't. The Imperium gets treated with leniency by the fanbase because they're the human faction, but every flaw present in any of the xeno factions is present a hundred times worse in the Imperium. And Chaos is practically indistiguishable from the Imperium. Simply put, the Imperium is the worst threat to humanity in the whole setting. Hell, the Mechanicus straight-up hate the fact that they are humans and want to be robots instead.

[SerTabris]

The funny thing is, there's a much better IP for this kind of story. StarCraft is basically SpaceMarines vs. Tyranids vs Eldar, but it threw out all of the grimdark and turned it into something much more in line with contemporary movies.
WH40k really defines itself by the grimdark, over the top machismo and grey on grey morality. It doesn't actually take itself serious but is very good at keeping a straight face. Keep that and it will not work well with new viewers. Throw it out and fans will most likely be unhappy.

Well, I don't imagine that a concept that starts with 'movie/series deal with Activision Blizzard' is going to get far with anyone right now considering their current reputation.

[Lord Raziere]

The fact of the matter is, he was going to be worshipped anyway, Lorgar or no Lorgar. This way Chaos won't infiltrate basically every Emperor cult. It might have been better if he'd accepted the religious role and wrote the bloody holy book himself (the entire Imperium pretty much runs off heresy at this point).

Plus it's really not certain what will happen when the Emperor does. For all his psychic might there's nothing definitive that makes him akin to the Ruinous Powers. It's possible he'll become more like the Eldar gods, or potentially just die. We know very little about him beyond 'terrifyingly powerful psyker, probably not actually three metres tall'.

Doesn't matter.

Ruinous powers are all emotion, all feeling, all experiences. religion is just an ignition for greater amounts of what they feed upon, thats it. the warp has shown that over long periods of time, concentrated amounts of emotion, feeling, concepts eventually birth another god. the last time one was birthed? Slaanesh ATE most of the Eldar gods themselves and got even more powerful from it. there is no actual metaphysical difference between one god or other, its all psychic energy. and even if he just dies....well 10,000 years of zealotry, faith and paranoia and whatnot don't just go away. that fifth Chaos God is coming whether humanity likes it or not and they're going to end up a second Eldar.

[Psyren]

I know next to nothing about WH40k so I'm interested in learning about the setting through this! Glad to see Henry Cavill has a prominent project lined up after all all the pants-on-head insanity going on over at the DCEU.

[Rynjin]

I know next to nothing about WH40k so I'm interested in learning about the setting through this! Glad to see Henry Cavill has a prominent project lined up after all all the pants-on-head insanity going on over at the DCEU.

All you really need to know is that IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE 41ST MILLENNIUM THERE IS ONLY WAR-

[t209]

Speaking of issue with modern audience, I think current trajectory since Gathering Storm is heading that way.
At least Necrons becoming quirky robots (at last Trazyn), Guilliman's Imperium trying to be abit more progressive, and even Squats are back (so far, other than explotation, they have decent living standards and basically Dark Age of Technology humanity).

[Cheesegear]

They're just going to make the Imperium the good guys and "justified", aren't they?

It's Amazon; So I'm pretty sure it will be the complete opposite.

Amazon's Halo comes to mind immediately.

[Eldan]

Speaking of issue with modern audience, I think current trajectory since Gathering Storm is heading that way.
At least Necrons becoming quirky robots (at last Trazyn), Guilliman's Imperium trying to be abit more progressive, and even Squats are back (so far, other than explotation, they have decent living standards and basically Dark Age of Technology humanity).

They have decent living standards, but they are also clones enslaved to insane AI that is slowly breaking down, and they make a living by mining entire planets, population included.

I think they are grimdark enough.

[Wraith]

A long time ago, the GitP Warhammer 40k thread had a discussion about a potential 40k TV show or movie, and we more or less came to the conclusion that 40k as it is CAN'T be made into something that is suitable for a normal audience.

It's not just the incredible amount of gore and violence, but also the political themes. To keep it incredibly brief to abide by the rules; there are no 'good' guys, but even the protagonists consider acts and mentalities which are unrepeatable on this board to be lightweight liberalism.

That being said, this was before The Boys and (to a lesser extent) some of the more depraved things that happened in Game of Thrones made it to TV, so perhaps there could now be room for softer version of 40k.

As such, I'm imagining that a 40k TV series will likely be about Space Marines being big and heroic and killing monsters, because that wouldn't be a million miles away from the 40k video game (Space Marine 2) that is due out reasonably soon, not quite as a tie-in but following it in the public memory. The alternative would be something like Eisenhorn, to slowly start out with normal humans doing relatively reasonable things, and then slippery-sloping their way into more typical 40k horror.

And frankly, Henry Caville as Captain Titus or Gregor Eisenhorn? I'm down for that.

[KorvinStarmast]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkHS7h9X...jpg&name=large

Saw that elsewhere and dropped by here to see what you all thought.

Wow, I know only a little about WH 40K but I might get a bit more interested if this is coming.
But will Amazon screw it up?

[dancrilis]

I think this would very much depend on the understanding of 40K that people have and what they want to do.

For instance
- Space Marine fanfic, we follow a space marine captain who is a decent guy and always right and who never suffers any serious setbacks (how some of the books and media over the years have indicated they are).
- Gorkamorka - there are a number of factions competing for scant resources and raiding each other but also trading captives and goods with each other, the muties are the major in focus faction as they come to terms (or not) with what has happened to them while trying to stay loyal to the Imperial Creed.
- Rogue Trader - a rogue trader and they entourage explore and conquer worlds in a very dark version of 'going where no man has gone before' style show, episodes could be almost stand alone.
- more or less anything else you can think of.

40K is a setting where you can pick and choose what you want, but if you try to pick and choose everything you have (in my mind) likely made a serious mistake.

[Trafalgar]

I am glad that Henry Cavill is involved as both an actor and an Executive Producer since he is a big WH40k fan. Of course, the title "Executive Producer" is more honorary than anything else.

I have mixed feelings about Amazon Prime though. On one hand, I like The Boys, Invincible, and The Expanse. On the other hand, I did not like Wheel of Time or Rings of Power.

[Rynjin]

Of those, the only one I actually liked was Invincible (never watched Rings of Power TBF). Weird seeing it laid out like that, Amazon basically never hits (TBF again, The Expanse wasn't really their show).

[Trafalgar]

Of those, the only one I actually liked was Invincible (never watched Rings of Power TBF). Weird seeing it laid out like that, Amazon basically never hits (TBF again, The Expanse wasn't really their show).

I think seasons 4-6 of The Expanse was Amazon. Good Omens was also excellent just because of David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

[GloatingSwine]

As such, I'm imagining that a 40k TV series will likely be about Space Marines being big and heroic and killing monsters, because that wouldn't be a million miles away from the 40k video game (Space Marine 2) that is due out reasonably soon, not quite as a tie-in but following it in the public memory. The alternative would be something like Eisenhorn, to slowly start out with normal humans doing relatively reasonable things, and then slippery-sloping their way into more typical 40k horror.

The problem with a Space Marine focused show is that Space Marines all talk like pillocks. It would be really hard to have dialogue that actual people would put up with listening to for more than ten minutes when everyone is talking in duty obsessed warrior monk nonsense.

That's why I think it'll be an Inquisitor focused show, because they deal with the "normal" people of the 41st millenium which means that you can nave normal people dialogue that the audience won't be baffled or annoyed by and also pick and choose which bits of the setting to focus on. It'll not actually *be* Eisenhorn because I think the rights to that are still out with someone else, but it'll be a similar shape. Square jawed inquisitor and his team of investigators with different special skills.

[Catullus64]

What would really rock, and do the most justice to the source material, would be even less serialized than my above-suggested Trek-like pitch. Imagine a series of short battle vignettes, akin to the animated Gennady Tartakovsky Clone Wars shorts. Light on dialogue and plot, heavy on action and atmosphere. Give every army its day in the grimdark limelight. 40k has pretty much always been better at implying good stories through visuals, tone, and sparse dialogue than it ever has been at actually telling those stories in detail. (That's not really even a criticism - as a wargame, that's pretty much all it needs to do.)

Again, not much real chance of that happening, since that wouldn't make too much use of Cavill's highly bankable face.

[snowblizz]

They're just going to make the Imperium the good guys and "justified", aren't they?

Yes. In a best case scenario.

[Lord Raziere]

Yes. In a best case scenario.

No, thats one of the worser ones.

[The Glyphstone]

Haven't we gotten plenty of modern media that proves shades of grey are possible? Heck, both The Boys and Game of Thrones were explicitly mentioned up-thread, why are we immediately going to the doom-pool of assuming morality-washing?

[Lord Raziere]

Haven't we gotten plenty of modern media that proves shades of grey are possible? Heck, both The Boys and Game of Thrones were explicitly mentioned up-thread, why are we immediately going to the doom-pool of assuming morality-washing?

Its hard to have shades of grey when everything is painted black. the fundamental problem is that the Imperium is an oppressive regime that makes the Star Wars Empire look cuddly, while the go to faction to rebel against that, are literal soul-eating demons and evil cultists who make the Joker look PG. there is no one to root for, not even in a subjective sense, they're just all horrible. which makes it highly vulnerable to the Eight Deadly Words: "I don't care what happens to these people."

and trying to give the Imperium and Chaos nuance when they are presented so over the top ridiculously is a tricky thing at best. My personal opinion is that some pieces of media are simply not for everyone and that one of the better things that could happen to Wh40k from this is that the show fails and nothing changes. it can just continue to be a niche franchise that grows on its own, attracts those that can stomach it and not those who can't, as a Wh40k fan, I'm fine with it not being mainstream, extremely fine.

[Trafalgar]

The problem is if Amazon makes a show that is for Warhammer 40k fans who also happen to have an Amazon Prime account, it won't be successful. Amazon needs to bring in non Warhammer 40k fans in. Balancing "grim dark" with "appealing to normies" will be difficult.

[pendell]

Well, The Tion Confederacy are blue skins and Avatar 2 is coming out -- why not tell a story from the Tion viewpoint against the evil colonialist Imperials? I'm not sure that's what the modern audience wants, but it's the sort of thing that would fly in modern Hollywood.

Thing about the empire is *within the context of its universe* it IS justified. Chaos starts out as a thought; therefore the Empire has extremely strict thoughtcrime laws and an Inquisition to enforce them. Any desire for positive change feeds Tzeentch , therefore the Empire locks down everything and ended any meaningful progress centuries ago. It's a city under siege, under martial law, except it's a "city" the size of a galaxy. A "siege" that has no hope of ever ending. Which would feed despair, except despair feeds Nurgle. I don't know how the Empire deals with that. The most you can say for the Empire is that it does hold the other factions at bay and leaves a place in the galaxy where ordinary humans can live, love, laugh without being eaten by demons or consumed by Tyranids or otherwise murdered. So long as you stay in your lane vis-a-vis heresy life can be .. well, maybe not good but certainly no worse than our middle ages.

Which is why WH40K -- at least, as written as a wargame -- can only be a parody where everything is made as dark as possible for humor. Because if we were to take the Empire's view of the world as applying in the real world -- that the world is dark and full of terrors, which only a military dictatorship can protect us from -- that's the apologia of every two-bit dictator and strongman since Caesar "protecting" Rome from the Gauls. It's the antithesis of modern western thought and a reversion back to -- well, not the middle ages but the early modern period which gave us both the original Inquisition and Louis XIV's absolute monarchy.

To criticize the Empire we have to step outside the fictional universe and criticize the bedrock foundations and assumptions which make up the world in the first place. But if we accept the universe running as written, it's hard for me to see how the human race could survive without creating something like the Imperium. Those humans which took a different path are either dead, slaves of the other factions, or chaos-creatures.

Actually, that might be one way to explore the world -- perhaps the world as we know it from Games Workshop is merely the Imperium's propaganda and the galaxy in the year 39000 CE isn't as dark a a place as dictatorial propaganda makes it out to be and the Empire can be made something else. Certainly it would be a different view of the world.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rynjin]

Thing about the empire is *within the context of its universe* it IS justified. Chaos starts out as a thought; therefore the Empire has extremely strict thoughtcrime laws and an Inquisition to enforce them. Any desire for positive change feeds Tzeentch , therefore the Empire locks down everything and ended any meaningful progress centuries ago. It's a city under siege, under martial law, except it's a "city" the size of a galaxy. A "siege" that has no hope of ever ending. Which would feed despair, except despair feeds Nurgle. I don't know how the Empire deals with that. The most you can say for the Empire is that it does hold the other factions at bay and leaves a place in the galaxy where ordinary humans can live, love, laugh without being eaten by demons or consumed by Tyranids or otherwise murdered. So long as you stay in your lane vis-a-vis heresy life can be .. well, maybe not good but certainly no worse than our middle ages.

Isn't part of the DEEPEST LORE that this wrong though? In that it's a short term "solution" but will eventually result in an exponentially worse outcome once something goes wrong.

[pendell]

Isn't part of the DEEPEST LORE that this wrong though? In that it's a short term "solution" but will eventually result in an exponentially worse outcome once something goes wrong.

Agreed, it's a short-term bandaid. But until someone in universe comes up with a better solution it's what humanity has. A bandaid won't solve the deeper problems but it may keep the patient from bleeding out before a proper solution CAN be brought into play. So the Empire is essentially fighting a delaying action until that better solution can appear -- a solution which won't appear in game lore because there's no wargame to be made from that. It might be hinted at at some point, though.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Lord Raziere]

GW has come out and specifically said that the Imperium are not the good guys.

they are not justified. they are not good. they are the cruelest and bloodiest regime imaginable, and they are not to be taken as who are doing the best they can, or the right thing.

[Fyraltari]

Thing about the empire is *within the context of its universe* it IS justified.

No it isn't. The ultimate joke of the Imperium of Man is that even the existence of Chaos does not justify its crimes. Because their approach to it is terribly ineffective. It's no coincidence that the leaders of every chaos faction in 40K are Space Marines. The Imperium gave chaos its bast warriors, provides it with a constant flow of desperate people who would side with anyone and anything to escape the Imperium and the Imperium even does them the favour of hiding the existence of Chaos, leaving billions upon billions of people unprepared to deal with them. The technology, and the armies of Chaos all come from the Imperium. The Ruinous Powers wouldn't be a tenth as ruinous without the Imperium to prop them up.

Chaos starts out as a thought; therefore the Empire has extremely strict thoughtcrime laws and an Inquisition to enforce them. Any desire for positive change feeds Tzeentch , therefore the Empire locks down everything and ended any meaningful progress centuries ago. It's a city under siege, under martial law, except it's a "city" the size of a galaxy. A "siege" that has no hope of ever ending. Which would feed despair, except despair feeds Nurgle. I don't know how the Empire deals with that. The most you can say for the Empire is that it does hold the other factions at bay and leaves a place in the galaxy where ordinary humans can live, love, laugh without being eaten by demons or consumed by Tyranids or otherwise murdered. So long as you stay in your lane vis-a-vis heresy life can be .. well, maybe not good but certainly no worse than our middle ages.

A logical argument must be dismissed with absolute conviction!
A moment of laxity spawns a lifetime of heresy.
A suspicious mind is a healthy mind.
Be strong in your ignorance.
By the manner of our death are we judged.
Call no man happy until he is dead.
Death is honor.
Death is the only answer
Destroy, destroy, destroy!
Enlightenment is a myth we do not need to understand in order to hate.
Exist for the Emperor.
Faith, Hate and Ignorance.
Fear the shadows; despise the night. There are horrors that no man can face and survive.
Happiness is a delusion of the weak.

I could keep going, but you get the point. The Imperium does not want its subjects to "live, love, laugh" they want them to be paranoid, hateful and small-minded cogs who endlessly toil without respite until they die in service. Human life is literally worthless to the Imperium, every moment not in service to the war machine is a waste, every thought not of absolute dedication to the rotting skeleton-in-chief or hatred towards anything different is suspect. It is much worse than the middle-ages ever was. Again, it's written in every book that the Imperium is the cruelest regime imaginable.

Which is why WH40K -- at least, as written as a wargame -- can only be a parody where everything is made as dark as possible for humor. Because if we were to take the Empire's view of the world as applying in the real world -- that the world is dark and full of terrors, which only a military dictatorship can protect us from -- that's the apologia of every two-bit dictator and strongman since Caesar "protecting" Rome from the Gauls. It's the antithesis of modern western thought and a reversion back to -- well, not the middle ages but the early modern period which gave us both the original Inquisition and Louis XIV's absolute monarchy.

But Warhammer 40k wasn't written as a parody. It was written as a satire, as a political one even, in the vein of 2000 AD. The point of it was to mock a specific political trend that I won't discuss more here.

To criticize the Empire we have to step outside the fictional universe and criticize the bedrock foundations and assumptions which make up the world in the first place. But if we accept the universe running as written, it's hard for me to see how the human race could survive without creating something like the Imperium. Those humans which took a different path are either dead, slaves of the other factions, or chaos-creatures.

Or, in the vast majority of cases, were slaughtered by the Imperium. The Imperium itself destroyed every other human civilization during the Great Crusades even though many had been not only surviving but thriving. ****, with the recent return of the Squats as the LEagues of Votann, we see that there's another human civilization that isn't employing the Imperium's methods, even allying with non-humans, and is doing just fine ten thousand years after big-E and Horus's shouting match. In-universe, Mankind used to be a much more advanced and powerful race and stayed as such during millenia until it was destroyed by a freak phenomenon (the birth of Slaanesh creating warp storms isolating every other planet) that the Imperium wouldn't be able to deal with either, but the Imperium conceals this golden age and call it "The Dark Age of Technology".

So yeah, even in a world were every fear of the fascist is true, fascism is still a terrible way to address them.

[Spacewolf]

A long time ago, the GitP Warhammer 40k thread had a discussion about a potential 40k TV show or movie, and we more or less came to the conclusion that 40k as it is CAN'T be made into something that is suitable for a normal audience.

It's not just the incredible amount of gore and violence, but also the political themes. To keep it incredibly brief to abide by the rules; there are no 'good' guys, but even the protagonists consider acts and mentalities which are unrepeatable on this board to be lightweight liberalism.

That being said, this was before The Boys and (to a lesser extent) some of the more depraved things that happened in Game of Thrones made it to TV, so perhaps there could now be room for softer version of 40k.

As such, I'm imagining that a 40k TV series will likely be about Space Marines being big and heroic and killing monsters, because that wouldn't be a million miles away from the 40k video game (Space Marine 2) that is due out reasonably soon, not quite as a tie-in but following it in the public memory. The alternative would be something like Eisenhorn, to slowly start out with normal humans doing relatively reasonable things, and then slippery-sloping their way into more typical 40k horror.

And frankly, Henry Caville as Captain Titus or Gregor Eisenhorn? I'm down for that.

Cavill is probably to young for Eisenhorn, Ravenor on the other hand. They could start it while Eisenhorn was still teaching him then use Cavills power to start of the Eisenhorn show before spinning off into two tv shows. Someone mentioned these guys do horror and Cherubael would be a good first season antagonist if they wanted horror.

[Rynjin]

Cavill is probably to young for Eisenhorn, Ravenor on the other hand. They could start it while Eisenhorn was still teaching him then use Cavills power to start of the Eisenhorn show before spinning off into two tv shows. Someone mentioned these guys do horror and Cherubael would be a good first season antagonist if they wanted horror.

Eh, isn't Eisenhorn like "really 700 years old" anyway? Does it matter if he's 400 and looks 50 or 400 and looks 39?

[Catullus64]

I hardly see the problem of 'no good guys in 40k.' There's no faction of good guys, but individual writers have had success shaping individuals who can remain sympathetic and understandable. Ciaphas Cain stands out to me as one of the great achievement in this regard, mostly accomplished via his wry detachment and cynicism about the horrors of the 41st Millenium. This despite him being a Commissar, practically the embodiment for Imperial oppression and fanaticism.