One of the Illuminati behind Geek Pride was round today, so I thought I’d best do some more words, prove I’m not sitting on my laurels and all that.
Ultramarines; The fisher price, my first marine chapter of the 40k universe. The good, the proud, the straight laced stalwarts for the defence of the Imperium. But fuck me are they boring. Even the Blood Angels are cooler than these, and it’s a nightmare to get that blue armour shaded and highlighted properly even when you’re using Ultramarine Blue. The Workshop have forced these guys on the public for years, Space Crusade even had a spin-off simply called Ultramarines in the early 90s! I suppose they’re the most easily palatable of the chapters, no messed up immortal Primarch’s, no dark imagery or colour schemes…
So what better chapter to make into a game AND a movie? Yeah right.
Still, you’ll have read the reviews on the same already, I enjoyed it, despite having to play as Titus, and the obvious rip-off of their own chaos primarch, Horus of the Traitor Legions, lightning claws and all.
The movie however, you may not have seen.
Plot-wise, its Aliens, distress beacon, lost contact with a colony; few marines go in to see what’s cooking; Find a massacre (of an annoyingly cooler chapter of marines) and all hell breaks loose, predictably. There’s enough geekery involved to confuse the layman, geneseeds, Astropaths and the like, but not a whole lot of plot. Not even Sean Pertwee of Event Horizon can lift it; which is an utter shame.
These ideas have been kicking about since I was a kid, planned movies on such a rich, immersive universe; and what a universe it is. Sadly because of the lack of funding, they never come to much. Spacemarine is quite clearly a work of love, the detail that’s gone into it is immense but due to the limited budget the niche market, the final product, and much as it pains me to say this, does, at some points, feel like a 90 minute cut scene from the game. If there were no limits on the budget, or at least a bigger one it’s clear the developers would have put much more into the movie, more depth, more of the nightmares that are Chaos and it would have been all the grander for it. As it is they were limited and you could tell.
The above said there are some really nice touches, the space shots are for the most part pretty special, the marines vessel is perfect in its gothic majesty, the Thunderhawk Gunship is spot on and even the Ultramarines themselves all have that pious outlook one would expect from the chapter itself.
To summarise, if you’re a fan of the 40k universe, give this a whirl, you won’t fall in love, but it’s cool to watch non the less. If you’re not, then I’d steer clear of it as firstly you wont get the nuances and secondly it will bore the tits off you.
by wavesofstatic 04/12/2011
