Warhammer: 40K TV Show

[jademunky]

Ok, so I have not read any of the Eisenhorn series but am cautiously optimistic of a 40K TV show. I personally would just prefer Ciaphas Blackadder or make the Orks the POV characters but anyway...

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/07/17/warhammer-40000-live-action-tv-show-eisenhorn-enters-early-stages/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EdDyUVA2qs


What do you lot think? what are your hopes and what are your concerns?

How do we deal with the idea that the literal Nazis are the good guys by sheer comparison?

How do we introduce the Emperor? Either him being a God-that-won't-stop-dying or him being fed the souls of a thousand psykers a day?

How do we introduce the chaos gods? (and Slaanesh in particular? Or was this the thing that got it greenlit in the first place?)

The mandatory explaination of what a servitor is.

That we are supposed to mistrust the friendly blue aliens who actually do kinda (but not really) practice the space commie-ism that they preach.

The grimdark burnout from Game of Thrones.

The giant-ass amount of lore that will have to be dumbed down for TV.

Anyway, how does everyone else feel?

**Edit** Almost forgot, all praises to the Man-Emperor

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I thought it was a TV show made in 40k (10X more than 4K).

Cool, Eisenhorn is literally the only Warhammer book I've ever read, and it was a pretty fun trashy read.

I think you can start the show in media res with no explanation and let people figure out what things are and mean. Knowing very little about Warhammer and then reading Eisenhorn I don't think I missed much context.

 

[jademunky]

I thought it was a TV show made in 40k (10X more than 4K).

Cool, Eisenhorn is literally the only Warhammer book I've ever read, and it was a pretty fun trashy read.

I think you can start the show in media res with no explanation and let people figure out what things are and mean. Knowing very little about Warhammer and then reading Eisenhorn I don't think I missed much context.

On a sliding scale, how seriously does the book series take itself? I worry about long scenes where stoic men talk in hushed tones in dark (and inexpensive) hallways.

 

[jademunky]

I thought it was a TV show made in 40k (10X more than 4K).

thx fixed, changed title to Warhammer 40K TV Show

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I'd have gone for Ciaphas Cain myself, but okay...you could probably get more mileage out of bringing the IP to a new audience through Cain's relative relatability, and playing off the cheekiness in contrast to GRIMDARK.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I thought it was a TV show made in 40k (10X more than 4K).

Cool, Eisenhorn is literally the only Warhammer book I've ever read, and it was a pretty fun trashy read.

I think you can start the show in media res with no explanation and let people figure out what things are and mean. Knowing very little about Warhammer and then reading Eisenhorn I don't think I missed much context.

On a sliding scale, how seriously does the book series take itself? I worry about long scenes where stoic men talk in hushed tones in dark (and inexpensive) hallways.

Both way too seriously, and also not seriously at all.

The characters take themselves and everything they're doing deathly seriously, but the world is so ridiculously over the top that it's hard to actually take any of it seriously.

If they're mostly faithful to the books I don't think there will be many long scenes where stoic men talk in hallways. I feel like the books have a big gunfight or chase sequence every 20 pages or so. The books are very pulpy.

 

[jademunky]

Both way too seriously, and also not seriously at all.

The characters take themselves and everything they're doing deathly seriously, but the world is so ridiculously over the top that it's hard to actually take any of it seriously.

If they're mostly faithful to the books I don't think there will be many long scenes were stoic men talk in hallways. I feel like the books have a big gunfight or chase sequence every 20 pages or so. The books are very pulpy.

That sounds.... encouraging? Like I am not expecting them to go full Night Lords or anything...... yet.

 

[Worgen]

I was really suspicious of them making a live action 40k tv show then I remembered that 40k has worked in live action before.

Fuck it, lets have some space hulk intros too.

 

[jademunky]

I was really suspicious of them making a live action 40k tv show then I remembered that 40k has worked in live action before.

Ah the 90's, they were just so earnestly terrible.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

I'd have gone for Ciaphas Cain myself, but okay...you could probably get more mileage out of bringing the IP to a new audience through Cain's relative relatability, and playing off the cheekiness in contrast to GRIMDARK.

I definitely prefer Ciaphas Cain to Eisenhorn in the books, but I don't know how well he would translate to TV. His whole thing is the contrast between the outward appearance of his actions as a noble hero and his internal reasons for taking those actions being selfish and cowardly. The only way I could see to make that work is if they did the House of Cards thing where the main character frequently stops to narrate what they are actually thinking when their words or actions may not sufficiently clue in the audience to their intentions.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

What an absolute waste of the 40k IP. In a setting that allows for genetically engineered werewolf space viking wielding magic ice swords fighting demonic Egyptian ghosts robots, lets have a story about some dude solving space Clue.
Why have Game of Thrones meets Danta's Inferno with Star Wars, when we can have Law and Order: Space Clue?
A lore accurate interpretation of lower Imperium/Inquisitor life is Schindler's List, without the list part. Just Holocaust and everyone dies, the end.
Inquisitor stories are generic space stories. Take any Eisenhorn story, replace chainsword with lightsaber, lasgun with blaster, the Warp with the Force/Sith depending on who is using it, and you have a fully in-universe star wars story set in the fall of the Republic.
40k is not about the horrors of the galaxy as seen through Bill and Ted, 'cause humans die by the hundreds of billions in every Codex. 40k is all about larger than life demigods fighting larger than life Xenos races on planets made of crystals and fire.

Space Marines. Astartes. There is a reason 40k is different. Embrace it or get purged.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

What an absolute waste of the 40k IP. In a setting that allows for genetically engineered werewolf space viking wielding magic ice swords fighting demonic Egyptian ghosts robots, lets have a story about some dude solving space Clue.
Why have Game of Thrones meets Danta's Inferno with Star Wars, when we can have Law and Order: Space Clue?
A lore accurate interpretation of lower Imperium/Inquisitor life is Schindler's List, without the list part. Just Holocaust and everyone dies, the end.
Inquisitor stories are generic space stories. Take any Eisenhorn story, replace chainsword with lightsaber, lasgun with blaster, the Warp with the Force/Sith depending on who is using it, and you have a fully in-universe star wars story set in the fall of the Republic.
40k is not about the horrors of the galaxy as seen through Bill and Ted, 'cause humans die by the hundreds of billions in every Codex. 40k is all about larger than life demigods fighting larger than life Xenos races on planets made of crystals and fire.

Space Marines. Astartes. There is a reason 40k is different. Embrace it or get purged.

I find the Space Marines to be the last interesting part of Warhammer 40K, and I find Jedi to be the least interesting part of Star Wars. Come at me.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

What an absolute waste of the 40k IP. In a setting that allows for genetically engineered werewolf space viking wielding magic ice swords fighting demonic Egyptian ghosts robots, lets have a story about some dude solving space Clue.
Why have Game of Thrones meets Danta's Inferno with Star Wars, when we can have Law and Order: Space Clue?
A lore accurate interpretation of lower Imperium/Inquisitor life is Schindler's List, without the list part. Just Holocaust and everyone dies, the end.
Inquisitor stories are generic space stories. Take any Eisenhorn story, replace chainsword with lightsaber, lasgun with blaster, the Warp with the Force/Sith depending on who is using it, and you have a fully in-universe star wars story set in the fall of the Republic.
40k is not about the horrors of the galaxy as seen through Bill and Ted, 'cause humans die by the hundreds of billions in every Codex. 40k is all about larger than life demigods fighting larger than life Xenos races on planets made of crystals and fire.

Space Marines. Astartes. There is a reason 40k is different. Embrace it or get purged.

I find the Space Marines to be the last interesting part of Warhammer 40K, and I find Jedi to be the least interesting part of Star Wars. Come at me.

Space Marines exists in an IP where only Space Marines can exist. Warhammer 40k is an IP where 200 Space Marines drop to a planet at the last second to save 500 Billion souls from 2,000 extra dimensional daemons.
Meaning each Marine and Daemon is worth several tens of millions of people.
So we have blood crazed Italian Vampire berserker super soldiers fighting Magically insane demonic batamn super soldiers, and the most interesting part is Band of Brothers, no tech change, on the planet ZarChoaVaa VIth? We already have band of brothers. We don't need a literal copy. We need Wolf Lord Ragnar Blackmane vs Magnus the Red on the Planet of Fire with the White Scars 1st Company helping. THAT'S 40k. Dude vs Dude...we have that. Look at tomorrows news. That's dude vs dude.
40k allowes for larger than you or I.

To be in the 40k IP and not have Marines is to be in the Batman IP without Batman. Missed the point.

 

[Satinavian]

I don't find Space Marines interesting either.

Some things more interesting :

-Adeptus Mechanicus
-Eldar
-Necrons
-Tau

Now i am not a fan of the Inquisition either. That is just a bad joke repeated ad nauseum. But between this and Space Marines, yeah, why not.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

The books were pretty good. Hardly high literature but the whole Eisenhorne/Ravenor and the parts of the Bequin series' we've got are enjoyable and readable enough.

I think it has the potential to have some sort of appeal to the wider audience, at least in terms of the kind of people who might watch sci fi as opposed to the TV audience as a whole. They provide enough human drama and characters to be interested in. The characters aren't always stoic, you see their personalities and weaknesses for the most part. Not sure how they would translate from the first person aspect of the book to TV. A lot of what made Eisenhorne good was that you could see what he was thinking.

Ciaphus cain might have worked better overall as a character but I think it would rely too much on getting a good lead and a suitably entertaining Jurgen. Also space detectives investigating space crimes would be cheaper to produce than space soldiers fighting space battles. Eisenhorne has more plot too.

How do we deal with the idea that the literal Nazis are the good guys by sheer comparison?

Doesn't really come up in the novels, nothing particularly Naziish happens IIRC at least nothing front and centre.

How do we introduce the Emperor? Either him being a God-that-won't-stop-dying or him being fed the souls of a thousand psykers a day?

Again, doesn't really come up. To most citizens of the Imperium the Emperor is some sort of far away semi mythical entity, no need to really explain it in detail.

How do we introduce the chaos gods? (and Slaanesh in particular? Or was this the thing that got it greenlit in the first place?)

Evil god type entitys that are semi mythical. It's generally their followers that Eisenhorne deals with, much as Eisenhorne is the follower of a semi mythical god type entity.

The mandatory explaination of what a servitor is.

eeehhh, yeah...I think they will just have to have them in the background. I'm sure people will be able to find the explanation if they're that interested.

That we are supposed to mistrust the friendly blue aliens who actually do kinda (but not really) practice the space commie-ism that they preach.

Nothing Tau related in Eisenhorne.

The grimdark burnout from Game of Thrones.

It's not all grimdark all the time though. The main characters have their victories. It's not Ned Stark getting his head cut off every chapter. The world is shit, but it has sympathetic characters who are trying to make it less so.

The giant-ass amount of lore that will have to be dumbed down for TV.

Not really needed. Most of it doesn't come up.

Anyway, how does everyone else feel?

I think it'll be terrible.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

What an absolute waste of the 40k IP. In a setting that allows for genetically engineered werewolf space viking wielding magic ice swords fighting demonic Egyptian ghosts robots, lets have a story about some dude solving space Clue.
Why have Game of Thrones meets Danta's Inferno with Star Wars, when we can have Law and Order: Space Clue?

You haven't read the Eisenhorn trilogy, have you? It is far from a crime procedural and much more akin to a Indiana Jones movie set in 40k, if Indy had a ton of interesting side kicks and was bleak as all fuck. That and Eisenhorn does a really good job at showing the titular protagonists slide from idealistic, dogmatic believer into a cynic who believes that dealing with daemons can be a good way to fight other daemons.

Eisenhorn is nothing like the internet meme Inquisition, but rather goes a long way to show the tribulations of someone tasked with fighting corruption in a system that's endemically corrupt and beset on all sides by even more corruption.

 

[Hawki]

How do we introduce the Emperor? Either him being a God-that-won't-stop-dying or him being fed the souls of a thousand psykers a day?

You reference him, but don't show him. That's how the series has usually operated.

How do we introduce the chaos gods? (and Slaanesh in particular? Or was this the thing that got it greenlit in the first place?)

...same way you explain any deities in a work of fiction?

It's not like you even have to show them, and there's no guarantee that demons will be present.

The mandatory explaination of what a servitor is.

Would it be mandatory? I see a servitor, I can guess what its functions are.

That we are supposed to mistrust the friendly blue aliens who actually do kinda (but not really) practice the space commie-ism that they preach.

Don't the tau kind of have a first among equals approach? Not to mention the whole "we are liberating you, do not resist" when it comes to spreading the Greater Good?

The grimdark burnout from Game of Thrones.

I doubt that's an issue. Besides, these are separate genres.

The giant-ass amount of lore that will have to be dumbed down for TV.

That's a non-issue.

When it comes to fictional settings, I've noticed that there's basically two approaches - one is where setting serves story, the other where story serves setting. For instance, Lord of the Rings is an example of the former, in that there's a clearly identifiabel core narrative. Stuff like Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons are the latter, where the setting is mostly static, but stories are told in the context of that setting. It actually makes worldbuilding a non-issue because the world's already been built.

Anyway, how does everyone else feel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ

**Edit** Almost forgot, all praises to the Man-Emperor

Man-Emperor?

Heretic!

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

40k is all about larger than life demigods fighting larger than life Xenos races on planets made of crystals and fire.

Space Marines. Astartes. There is a reason 40k is different.

Speak for yourself. Necromunda is and always will be my choice of setting.

Embrace it or get purged.

Come on down to the Underhive and get me, screw. Yea, didn't think so.

SRSLY, Clovis the Redeemer is the best 40k fiction I ever read.

 

[jademunky]

What an absolute waste of the 40k IP. In a setting that allows for genetically engineered werewolf space viking wielding magic ice swords fighting demonic Egyptian ghosts robots, lets have a story about some dude solving space Clue.

Budget.

First you get space clue. If watching our inquisitor putter around in the dark in some hive city while muttering to himself about "lingering taint" is the price I have to pay to one day, many years from now, watch everyone's favourite Commisar face down a Waaaghhh, I'll pay it.

As for the Astartes, unless they are Chaos, they tend not to be relatable.

 

[jademunky]

When it comes to fictional settings, I've noticed that there's basically two approaches - one is where setting serves story, the other where story serves setting. For instance, Lord of the Rings is an example of the former, in that there's a clearly identifiabel core narrative. Stuff like Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons are the latter, where the setting is mostly static, but stories are told in the context of that setting. It actually makes worldbuilding a non-issue because the world's already been built.

Oh I get that it's already built, I'm just thinking how confusing it would be to throw that much terminology and jargon at the viewer. I imagine some 50-year-old sitting down and thinking "wait astropath? Eye of Terror? None of the cultists can be rehabilitated? You're just gonna..... ALL OF THEM!?"