The TRUTH about the 40k + Amazon series

All I need to know is that the dog consented. The rest is none of my business.

Man, I love your channel. Thanks!

So they have 2 extremely good story hooks where Cavill can be main character, show most of the imperial factions, and only have to intro space marines near the end. Eisenhorn Inquisitor Story or a Genestealer Cult uprising on a Hive World. The former can be a planet hopping romp as the Inquisition is tracking down a Daemon and each new planet/location slowly introduces a different part of the setting; the latter can very slowly build the conflict showing the machinations of how the cult infests society and better express what Imperial life is like, to the point where you are almost rooting for the strange aliens to win and it climaxes with the conflict starting and the final episode of the first season ends with Tyranids and Space Marines arriving. Cavil is Eisenhorn in either case or perhaps Ciaphus Cain or Gaunt in the Cult line.

I still think a modified Ciaphas Cain would work solidly. I REALLY disagree with a lot of what this video says for struggles, as these are strengths for this series, with it being SO different from other options.

If I had control I'd always have Space Marines be quite distant, terrifying even if allied.
Make the first episode entirely revolve around things in the universe that the first squad we follow believes to be real and fair, even just. Show that some of them just want to see their family again, have them march off to war with tears in their eyes hugging their kids. Hit at interesting character development for one character, two others have a possible romance. Etc, things to make you think these will be the characters going forwards.
Show off the Guardsmen's handbook and all of its idiocy in there.
Show how dysfunctional this world is, but the average person believes in it.

Then the characters hit the ground running on a battlefield and get absolutely SLAUGHTERED terrifyingly.
When there is only one left he throws his gun to the ground and retreats.
Ciaphas shoots him in the back saying saying something about no retreating.
Another character names the Commissar and then boom end of episode.

Warhammer is inherently bleak and hard to do as a series for anything. But, that bleakness can be an EXTREME strength. I'll point out that you mentioned other adaptations of books, such as Game of Thrones, it was a popular opinion at one point that the series would be unadaptable from right out the gate (it fell apart due to lack of skill later to be fair).

solution to everything mentioned in this video. adapt broken sword by guy Hailey.

The only thing wrong with the first judge dredd movie was Rob Schneider. The second movie was well shot, acted, etc. But was a small story, unworthy of being made into a movie. Also Andor sucked balls.

First movie / show should be a detective show, uncovering a chaos cult and ending with a big battle.

I've wondered about number 2. I think the solution is a new story taking hints from the wider lore. Make the story or at least one of the story lines from a new guardsmen from a agri world or smaller colony, some where a bit isolated or maybe part of Ultramar. You can add the small town vibe in a relatively relatable setting, then build it up with training and deployment off world. They (like us) would largely be ignorant of how the larger imperium works, perhaps protest some of the harsher and zealous practices before being confronted with the necessity of the Imperium's ruthlessness. Or have war show up to their home and beat the naivety out of them. A loss of innocence story. This would also allow a mixed gender/race cast without triggering the whole Spacemarine debate. Use Spacemarines like they did Dragon in Game of thrones, sparingly until you get to the finale. Think Gaunts Ghost meets band of Brothers.

You could do the same thing with a space marine recruit but that could be a dive of the deep end.

I don't see this show ever actually getting off the ground, I just see too much of a tug of war between Henry Caville and creative mandates handed down by the higher up's at Amazon being inevitable. Henry Caville is a huge fan of 40k, probably more so than any other franchise and he is a BIG stickler for the accepted story and lore. The introduction of female Custodes to the formerly "Brotherhood of 10,000" as demanded by Amazon(this is confirmed) is symptomatic of a much larger issue at play here.

The rings of power is a perfect example of Amazons creative interference, it's a perfectly serviceable show for people who aren't LOTR lore buffs but people who are got an end product that was so heavily altered from the original Silmarilion source material that it may as well have been put out under a different name and IP entirely. Anyone who knows about J.R.R. Tolkien's feeling towards his work knows that he is undoubtedly spinning in his grave.

Praise be to Space King.

Boomers aren't the general audience, anymore, and I'm tired of pretending the old fucks matter. Young men are statistically more right-wing than boomers who saw Judge Dredd, so all a studio needs to do is lean into that. To hell what some has been comedian says, nobody watches daytime tv outside the nursing home.

A story about a cynical, rich rogue trader who hates "both sides" and makes Marvel movie quips could reach millenials, who actually pay for these subscription services. The best move is to just accept GW isn't Disney and go nuts with the ultraviolence and grimdark, show a galaxy that is unatractive and frozen one minute to Doomsday.

I think that the cannon dimensions from WH40k make almost impossibile to do as a movie with real humans.
I mean average 2.5 m marines, 3 m custodes etc etc :))))
Anime ok, cartoon ok, 3d animation animation ok , but real movie . The cost of CGI to be credible and not Babilon 5 styles

I like the cgi series of blood angels, I would happily watch some more of that, honestly anything can be done with the setting , maybe have the tv show grab the most important bits of the lore and modifiy anything that does not bode well for a series, this if done properly can work out

Ciaphas Cain could do it. Maybe adapt the Necron story so Space Marines can be B.D. Heroes at the end to keep that section of the fanbase happy.

I get your points and think they are potential pitfalls but I do think they can be overcome. Fallout and Dune (the latter of which, let's face it 40k owes a huge debt) show that there are audiences for this kind of stuff. I think Eisenhorn is ideal because the books have a diverse set of characters, a broadly 3 act structure and potential for interpersonal drama - with potential treachery and red herrings abound. Plus it works very much like a cop procedural - something that is familiar to audiences and makes the other elements potentially more palatable. Eisenhorn is a bit of iconoclast himself and often breaks or bends the rules and questions them. This allows a show to highlight and explore the universe while critiquing it.

fingers crossed anyway!

Oh and the best approach with Space Marines is to have them appear sparingly and keep them enigmatic.

I would have Henry Cavill as an Imperial Guard Officer/Comander. That way he can be attached to the planet where most events are set. Would allow him to interact with Imperial Guards, Civilians, Threatening Space Marine Librarians. Would allow him to suspect choatic coruption and be suspected of coruption. Second half of the series his Army Comand is comanded to investigate something on another planet. There are huge loses and at this point the army is reduced to about a 1500 points 40K army with a Psyker and posh imperial Knight Armiger pilot, one or a couple of marines seperated from their own unit, maybe a tech priest. Adventures ensue.
Agree Marines as the central caracters would be a strugle for a series, but when thay become both very dangerous and absolutly needed asset they could be plot gold.

pariah nexus shows that the internal conflict excists and can show nuance of character even amongst space marines. Make a 90 min show like that and we have success.

The worst thing could happen is a "Foundation" style adaptation that just drops a bunch of character and place names into the script of an unrelated story mad-libs style.

the first judge dredd movie rocked, watched it like 10 times when I was a kid. I couldnt finish the new one

I find it hilarious that you think Amazon will put this much thought into it. They'll just put black people and lesbians in it and call it a day.

Video aged like milk since Space Marine 2 came out

The 'plucky rebel rises up against the imperium' idea sounds pretty good imo, they can even ascend to demonhood for a sequel or something

Just watch the dawn of war 3 intro cinematic again while picturing it in the context of being a promotional trailer for a show or movie. It looks way more fitting for that than the game it was made for.

Give me a GITS-style serie where a Tau and his squad of auxiliaries (kroot, human, vespid, thraxian, tharellian, nicassar...) have to solve crime, diplomatic incidents and important secrets. Or take the rogue trader angle.

I think 40k is adaptable, but here's my take that's probably entirely different and unique from what everyone else has said, the problem I see with modern media is that there is a curve that governs every piece of media that gets produced: one one axis you have the budget of the project; the higher this goes, the higher the chance of success of actually doing the piece of media justice, and also capturing a wider audience. However, on the other axis, as the amount of money goes up, so too does the amount of pressure, and thus, studio interference, that gets put onto the project in an effort to make it succeed to get it to make its money back: the higher this goes, the lower the chance of the project being either faithful, or well received, as in order to make back X million dollars + interest, you will need to appeal to as broad a population as possible, so all rough edges, character, and uniqueness will be sanded off and replaced with the producer's perception of "what people like these days"

Arcane is a standout, not because people "understand video games" because they clearly do not. Arcane was a standout because League was making a billion times more money than any other entertainment product, and so the show was self funded. Essentially bypassing the law of "more money = more interference and pressure = less faithful and good"

A better example would be something like Invincible: Invincible was a relatively cheap show to make, the animation tbh is quite bad. But likely because of that lower cost, the creatives were able to adapt the product without being constrained or interfered with.

Rings of power was so expensive, and as a result, the show was jam packed full of nonsense in an attempt to appeal to the broadest base possible, but it cost the show dearly because its both bad and unfaithful.

Invincible found the sweet spot though. Enough budget to adapt the project and do it justice, but not enough that it drew the attention of the metaphorical eye of Sauron that comes with huge budgets.

A similar thing happened with Space Marine 2: the budget was relatively much smaller compared to many other AAA releases in recent times. I shudder to think what would have happened had the budget ballooned out to be the size of one of those. There would have had to be loads more microtransactions, the story probably would have been changed, etc etc. And thats in an industry where there is loads of successful history with stories that mainly involve tough dudes shooting stuff.

That alone would scare off much of hollywood, so the key to adapting 40k is to find the sweet spot of budget vs external interference. And tragically that won't be 90 minutes of the Astartes-series-level content that we want. At least not until the entry has proven itself with lesser budgets.

Caiaphas Cain seems like the right choice. He's a relatable dude, the only "relatively" sane person in an insane world, and regularly crosses paths with all the big names. Outfitting imperial guardsmen is a lot cheaper and the space marines can show up, do their badass thing, and leave.

A love story is there with Amberley Vail, and he and Ferik Jurgen can play off each other.

Overall, it's a lot easier to relate to flesh and blood humans fighting against impossible odds than a brickwall of a man with a puny head.

What you could do is have a marine threaten to follow the Everdeen pattern plot.

Space Marine: Traitor
Set up is a 10 minute flashback run through of induction, scout training, (always on some remote desert or jungle, killing obviously hostile gribbly aliens with no nearby civilians)
We follow four scouts, one is killed in action, to be referenced as appropriate. 'Did Aspirant Sean Bean die for this?' 'Aspirant Bean would have wanted us to fight on' etc.
First episode the three survivors deploy as new marines. Brother Kirk, Brother Spock and Brother McCoy. The Sergeant remarks that Kirk has been assigned the role of squadleader as he shows great leadership potential.

They have to put down a rebellion in a hive city where their actions are far more morally questionable than exploding monstrous foes. Brother McCoy, wrestling with his indoctrination vs the carnage and suffering he has seen goes to the chaplain with his doubts to get our first real infodump:
Chaplain places the Imperium in its context- the only bastion against the foul aliens and unholy demons that cant be reasoned with or bought. As he speaks we cutaway to animate some different warzones where the humans enslaved by orks have it worse, the humans tortured by the eldar have it worse, the humans on worlds lost to the Tyranids are eaten alive.

McCoy isnt entirely convinced. He is the mouthpiece for the viewers skepticism. Spock rationalises the violence very well, while Kirk is happy to fight and kill and enjoys his service in the chapter, he is a rising star. McCoy hears some of the separatist arguments and it starts to look like there's a very real chance he can be swayed against the Imperium.

Kirk is lost in action, falling down a plot critical chasm and the shock of this rattles Spock and McCoy, who argue about what they are even doing imposing their will on this world. Sarge imposes order on the squad. Battles ensue and we see that some of the separatists noble claims are lies. Actual chaos is at the heart of the rebellion, we see mutants and evidence of cultist atrocities against the faithful. The people suffering under chaos have it worse, possessed by daemons or sacrificed in rituals.

They find Kirk covered in blood in a desecrated chapel. He in now leading some cultists in their slaughter of civilians and we get a flashback to his corruption, the whispers encouraging him to spill more blood in specific ways even while he was with his brothers. His literal fall and recovery provided time for the whispers to work on him. He now leads a mass of the cultists and has designs on overthrowing the cult leaders and stealing their evident chaos power.

Sarge and Spock are killed in the ensuing fighting and McCoy loses an arm and an eye, but Kirk is killed. The cleanup montage has McCoy fitted with bionics, the apothecaries retrieving Spock's Geneseed and the Chaplains ritually burning Kirk's chaos tainted corpse and seed. McCoy gets a new sarge and is promoted to squadleader under him. The Chaplains ending monologue over the montage references the sacrifice of men to hold the darkness at bay and we see that in his final moments the chapel priest had drawn a ceremonial hammer stood between his congregation and Kirk in a futile attempt to save them.

Next story Space Marine: Savior
McCoy leads a demi-squad to reinforce the poor bloody guard and we are introduced to guard liason Likeable Peasantson and his officer Noble McPurebred who are just trying to keep their men alive in this horrible warzone.

Salamanders avoid a lot of these pitfalls.

I can't watch anything new without mocking it profusely. This will certainly be most mockable

It is so easy to deal with. Put a tiny sexy chick who should be protected by a small bunch of space marines. The potential of romance will carry the whole show. Each excort dies for only Cavill to save her. An old but strong formula. Like the father-child formula of Mandalorian.

Since the announcement of this I have long said that Cavill should not be a space marine....as big as he is, he is not big enough, you need someone like brock lesnar or brian cage from the wrestling world to convincingly play a space marine....surrounded by people who are 5'7 and shorter

They've been watering down what Warhammer "is" for years now. While Amazon did pleasantly surprise me with the Fallout series, I can't see a Warhammer series being a tongue-in-cheek parody universe. GW's going to demand the setting is taken "seriously" and the result of that will probably be very bland.

Literally the book "Space wolf" is the perfect frame for a space marine show. You see Ragnar as a human thru his transition including the trials of morkai which will cover plenty of Easter eggs and setting exposition.

It’s possible but going to be an extremely complex job for the writers and producers. I hope that love is in there for the subject matter along with deep understanding of great tv 📺. This could be magnificent. Let’s see

guardian is ball boy. genius

base it around a drunk rougue trader who is force to perform a mission for the imperium and escapes into the outer galaxy. or a spece marine falling to chaos. either way, there is your human conflict. marlow's faust had a bad guy as a protagonist and is considered a classic

I dunno the setting is pretty flexible. You could tell a great story in 40k people do it all the time. It just requires creativity and the ability to not just repeat the memed, iconic, marketable stuff over and over.

a rogue trader crew consisting of you dashing han solo esque Cavil, a tech priest, a cynical eldar ranger, an unga bunga ogryn, and a sister hospitaler must deliver a macguffin to some sketch system and are pursued by chaos. betrayed along the way by some imperial navy bois or some gooch vandire like character turned chaos. barely make it after saved by sparce marnines. lose most everything. wonder if it was worth it as they fly into the sunset.

It will suck shine. It will be water downed and generic.

If your name is not syama pederson you should not be putting your 40k content behind a paywall. And yes including the secret level one. Astartes is the only thing ive seen that actually stands up to the quality Id want from a paid product

We need Gorkamorka the movie: The Rise Of The Red Gobbo.

It could have some decent characters with the gobbos and diggas along with the orky hijinks.

The Gobbo can have an opening monologue explaining the basics of Gorkamorka and waaagh and get kicked out of it by a mekboy and shoved in an engine showing the ork oppression of the grots.

Heroine for middle class nerds is heroin.

I'm super late to the comments here.

If they do a 40k Amazon series. I think it should be a Rogue Trader series.

Feed the normies the 40k universe drop by drip from the perspective of a 3rd party person (this channeling the audience into the MC).

No interpersonal conflict nor character development in 40K? 😂 What you have in knowledge you lack in imagination.
Too biased also. I don't think I will watch anymore.

We all know the only real option for an aclaimed adaptation of 40k is the Inquisition War Trilogy.

The obvious solution is a Blackadder style comedy about a squad of Guardsmen in a trench, except it's a new squad each time as they get blown to bits each episode, and each time end up having to deal with a different faction, like the episode where they attempt to share a dugout with an incredibly bland Space Marine, miserable Battle Sister, or facing incredibly goofy orks (the only episode where they don't end up dying horribly at some armoured/ high ranking psychopath's behest, but only just)

Sorted.

In my perfect world they do the first four Horus books followed by the first heretic. And make it in the style of "Arcane" I just don't see it working for live action.