What property would you like to see made into a western animated series?

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Bootleg fireworks. I want to see a western animated series based on practically any bootleg fireworks package you can find.

 

[Squilookle]

I'd love to see Rogue Squadron done as a western animation. Or even say... TIE Fighter, anyone?

 

[Worgen]

Fucken Guild Wars 2, that game has a very interesting back ground and some very well thought out races that would work great in an expanded universe.

 

[Godhead]

A TV series based on the Metro books/games would definitely get me to start watching TV outside of sports again. A Mad Max series would be some pretty good Saturday Morning watching as well.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Done properly they can just roll out Warhammer 40k everything, we are talking every chapter, every race, there is almost 40 years of material on this stuff right now and more is being written constantly.

Of course you can't go kids cartoon with that, the heavy brutal narrative is what makes Warhammer special, if you aren't serving that tone then shit just goes to same old bland action hero nonsense which there is plenty of.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Done properly they can just roll out Warhammer 40k everything, we are talking every chapter, every race, there is almost 40 years of material on this stuff right now and more is being written constantly.

Of course you can't go kids cartoon with that, the heavy brutal narrative is what makes Warhammer special, if you aren't serving that tone then shit just goes to same old bland action hero nonsense which there is plenty of.

Guess they'd have to do 40k, since they can't do WHFB anymore...

 

[FPLOON]

A story based around the Corruption of Champions lore... I'm sure HBO would help showcase it...

Other than that, Tower Prep... considering it was dealing with teens with superhuman abilities being held at a teen high school equivalent of an island prison... Plus, it can go more in-dept to how Tower Prep came to be and shit...

 

[Dragonlayer]

But if that's too fun loving, how about a Warhammer 40k toon? Centered on a DeathWatch kill team as they try to survive each other. Have like...a Dark Angel, a Space Wolf, a Flesh Tearer, Minotaur and an Inceptor. Maybe throw in a Lamenter and Mortifactor in season 2.
Just be a good ol' everyone hates everyone else but there are orks and necrons around fluster cluck.

Hoo boy, now that's a good fit. Though it still remains to my understanding that lore-wise Spehhs Mahreens are supposed to be pretty much emotionless, stoic fanatics, and therefore quite fundamentally unrelatable as protagonists. How about Gaunt's Ghosts? I haven't read the books, but have heard good things about them, and they're set in the most human faction of the 40k-verse.

Eh? Dan Abnett has a dedicated following sure, but I absolutely hate his interpretation of 40k. Basically, his stories are a waste of the setting. Gaunts Ghosts could realistically take place in Star Wars, Starship Troopers, Star Trek or even StarGate and you'd have to change almost nothing for it to fit. It's dudes and dudettes with lasers fighting other dudes and dudettes with lasers, and on the rare occasion, generic alien race with lasers. Nothing unique or lore-centric at all.

I mean if you're not going to do giant armored super soldiers punching daemons and orks in the face with power fists and thunder hammers, why bother? That's the point of 40k! If the choice is giant drunk burly werewolf space vikings with axes fighting giant plague filled walking cancer space zombies or Prvt. Bill and Prvt. Steve arguing about shift changes...ten bucks which I choose.

I find that's the appeal of Dan Abnett's work though, to inject some realism into the universe through the struggles of ordinary humans against impossible odds. Yes yes, I know we could argue back and forth all day whether 40K *can* be realistic with all the greenskined biker gangs whose weapons work through the power of belief and 8ft tall super soldier monks punching tanks to death, but over-emphasizing that stuff gets nonsensical and tiresome fast. There's so much more you can do with the setting and the Gaunt's Ghosts series pulls this off superbly in my opinion: cut-throat politicking behind a thin facade of courtesy amongst allies in a bitterly contested war-zones, elite teams of assassins infiltrating Chaos occupied Hive-cities to hunt down warlords and officers whilst being hunted themselves, defending a literal saint reborn against a cross-section of alien bounty-hunters and more!

OT

I'm probably just being ignorant, but I can't think of any Western animated series that weren't comedies so I'm struggling to think of a more serious property to be animated.

 

[Buckets]

Most definitely Discworld as said earlier, some of the story rich roleplay environments such as Shadowrun, Dragonlance or the Forgotten Realms would make a great animated (or even real) series.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I'm ashamed nobody said psychonauts.

I'll second Psychonauts - the setup is really good and even if they didn't take from the game's story directly, it would work well as sort of a campy, adventure blah blah because of the art style and the fact that all the characters have, well, character.

I also second Johnny the Homicidal Maniac as a miniseries, but one that has a lot of care and attention brought to it so that it covers the source material without being either too campy/tribute-y or too far from the source.... then again, maybe it should be left alone; JTHM helped me through rough patches and I'd die inside to see it not represented well enough in a mini-series. Hmmmm

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...the Exile/Avernum games?

I find that's the appeal of Dan Abnett's work though, to inject some realism into the universe through the struggles of ordinary humans against impossible odds. Yes yes, I know we could argue back and forth all day whether 40K *can* be realistic with all the greenskined biker gangs whose weapons work through the power of belief and 8ft tall super soldier monks punching tanks to death, but over-emphasizing that stuff gets nonsensical and tiresome fast. There's so much more you can do with the setting and the Gaunt's Ghosts series pulls this off superbly in my opinion: cut-throat politicking behind a thin facade of courtesy amongst allies in a bitterly contested war-zones, elite teams of assassins infiltrating Chaos occupied Hive-cities to hunt down warlords and officers whilst being hunted themselves, defending a literal saint reborn against a cross-section of alien bounty-hunters and more!

Er, strongly disagree that GG is realistic, rather the complaint was that it is often very generic, would work in any other setting.

While I am at it, I'm going to spoil the ending to next Abnett story. Either they kill the enemy commander and the other side gives up, or some magic thing saves the heroes, or both. I've also spoilt everything else he's written for BL.

Also, the Ghosts are way overpowered, relying way too much on hero luck. People talk about him killing off characters, but it took 5 stories in to kill off someone anyone might actually care about, and maybe one a book (out of dozens) since then, alongside loads of MkRandoms. The units alongside them always get slaughtered to rack up the bodycount, just not the precious ghosts.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Hmmm...the Exile/Avernum games?

I find that's the appeal of Dan Abnett's work though, to inject some realism into the universe through the struggles of ordinary humans against impossible odds. Yes yes, I know we could argue back and forth all day whether 40K *can* be realistic with all the greenskined biker gangs whose weapons work through the power of belief and 8ft tall super soldier monks punching tanks to death, but over-emphasizing that stuff gets nonsensical and tiresome fast. There's so much more you can do with the setting and the Gaunt's Ghosts series pulls this off superbly in my opinion: cut-throat politicking behind a thin facade of courtesy amongst allies in a bitterly contested war-zones, elite teams of assassins infiltrating Chaos occupied Hive-cities to hunt down warlords and officers whilst being hunted themselves, defending a literal saint reborn against a cross-section of alien bounty-hunters and more!

Er, strongly disagree that GG is realistic, rather the complaint was that it is often very generic, would work in any other setting.

While I am at it, I'm going to spoil the ending to next Abnett story. Either they kill the enemy commander and the other side gives up, or some magic thing saves the heroes, or both. I've also spoilt everything else he's written for BL.

Also, the Ghosts are way overpowered, relying way too much on hero luck. People talk about him killing off characters, but it took 5 stories in to kill off someone anyone might actually care about, and maybe one a book (out of dozens) since then, alongside loads of MkRandoms. The units alongside them always get slaughtered to rack up the bodycount, just not the precious ghosts.

Note that I said "some" realism, though I apologize if the meaning was unclear: I meant Abnett's Guard stories involve an expanded awareness of the military and civilian dimensions of 40K existence. While we are still fundamentally talking about people with future laser guns blasting away at evil ghost possessed people, the books go into aspects that are often forgotten by other 40K stories that heap on the cheesier parts of 40K, like the hard-partying wolfish pop-culture Vikings of the Space Wolf series. Stuff like inter-factional disputes, political considerations driving strategic aims, life under enemy occupation and logistics make the Ghosts books shine to me, whereas other books - while more often then not still enjoyable reads - just want to put the average 40K codex cover art to words (i.e. one giant battle involving everything in an army, fought as a duel). Does this make the stories generic? I don't think so, because while they share tropes common to other military sci-fi stories they are still firmly grounded in 40K's lore - the Imperial Guard is very different to the Mobile Federation.

Well of course he sounds like an incredibly basic writer when you sum up his stories like that, but so does everything else!

- Angel Exterminatus: Perturabo decides to help Fulgrim find a deadly McGuffin but doesn't like all the sex the Emperor's Children are having, so leaves him at the end and then loyalists kill some jerks.
- Cadian Blood: Cadians fight a zombie apocalypse, destroy a McGuffin and then kill some jerks.
- Witch Hunter: Mathias Thulmann hunts some Skaven and a Necromancer while they look for a McGuffin, then kills some jerks.

Naturally, there's a lot more to all these books!

Now on this last point I'm somewhat in agreement with you: Chaos Marines go down suspiciously easy whenever encountered by the Ghosts and most of the big-name troopers make it through to the end, but plenty of other Tanith die. Hell, Tanith die in entirely unrelated novels like Titanicus.

 

[necromanzer52]

I reckon a Harry Potter series could be done quite well. They wouldn't have to cut out nearly as much as the movies did. Also, given that the books are actually finished now, they can plan the whole thing out from the start rather than finding themselves on the last book and realising they've left so much important stuff from the previous books out that there's no way any of this is going to make a bit of sense in the end.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Note that I said "some" realism, though I apologize if the meaning was unclear: I meant Abnett's Guard stories involve an expanded awareness of the military and civilian dimensions of 40K existence. While we are still fundamentally talking about people with future laser guns blasting away at evil ghost possessed people, the books go into aspects that are often forgotten by other 40K stories that heap on the cheesier parts of 40K, like the hard-partying wolfish pop-culture Vikings of the Space Wolf series. Stuff like inter-factional disputes, political considerations driving strategic aims, life under enemy occupation and logistics make the Ghosts books shine to me, whereas other books - while more often then not still enjoyable reads - just want to put the average 40K codex cover art to words (i.e. one giant battle involving everything in an army, fought as a duel). Does this make the stories generic? I don't think so, because while they share tropes common to other military sci-fi stories they are still firmly grounded in 40K's lore - the Imperial Guard is very different to the Mobile Federation.

In of itself, that doesn't make him generic, it's the manner in which he does so.

Now, I absolutely agree that far too many 40k books are just describing the cover art, that's a good way of putting it, and Abnett does stand out for going a bit further than that. Just, while he is very good at coming up with set piece and locations, he's not particularly interested in making them fit the established 40k universe, or even anything else he's established in his other stories. Occasionally not even the other parts of the same book. He comes up with memorable places and ideas that don't fit together into any greater context, they could just as easily be set in any other generic sci-fi universe.

There's a lot of BL books that do worldbuilding much better. Bill King's protagonists in all of his stuff tend to be more or less the same, but they will sit down and contemplate the universe and their place within in to bring the world to life, and in ways that are consistent and, as much as possible, make sense. Of course, IMHO, Bill King far surpassed more or less everyone else who has written for the BL in this, so it's not fair to condemn Abnett for not being as good as King at that.

Abnett's other problem is that some of his highest profile generic characters are people that shouldn't be. Someone like Corbec or Rawne, ok, they come from a culture noticeably like ours, but Tanith might have just been like that. Abnett even says Rawne is a "typical Imperial male"...which is rubbish of course, there is no such thing, but whatever. They are fairly well executed character even if we've seen them over and over before.

Eisenhorn and Gaunt, however, can't be. They are perfectly well written generic heroes that are filling the spaces where an Inquisitor and a Commissar should be. They should be fanatics with a mindset very alien to us. You could take Gaunt out of 40k and stick him in as a generic British or US officer in a WW2 story, and he'd work fine. You should not be able to do that with a Guard Commissar.

Abnett, of course, is far from alone in this. Mike Lee turned Malus Darkblade into a generic chosen one over the course of the series, and then into a hero for the last book. Goto went so far as to have an Inquisitor refer to marines as "big boy scouts".

In fairness to Abnett, he seems to have totally gotten past this for "Riders of the Dead". He'd obviously done loads of research, and sometimes it got annoying how much he wanted to show that he did, but he made the north seem very different from just another bunch of barbarians.

Well of course he sounds like an incredibly basic writer when you sum up his stories like that

Not his stories, his endings. He's done many, many stories for BL, and they all share the same endings.

Now, I must say that I don't think Abnett is a bad writer. His stuff is almost always going to be entertaining, it's just that he's not so good at being consistent, or rather, in covering up his inconsistencies. Most BL stuff tends to be neither consistent nor entertaining. "The marines (including one who is "big, even for a marine" epicly killed the monster without use of anything resembling tactics and then discovered that the Inquisitor was up to no good, because he always is"...that's half of every 40k book ever, it seems.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Honestly, I'd like a cartoon based on a Mercenary Guild in the World of Warcraft universe. Ignoring most of the important characters (mainly Thrall, because fuck Thrall) and just following five main characters as the various leaders of the Horde and the Alliance continue to blunder through and fuck everything up for everyone else.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

The Diablo series.

Blizzard's created such a rich world with all three games, it would be interesting to see an animated series set in the world of Sanctuary featuring some of the character classes banding together to either fight one of the Lesser Evils or dealing with the chaos after banishing The Big D himself.

The Big D... prrfrfhhhsftshshststhhhh! I can already see the fan campaign to fund the series: "Give us the D!"

What? I'm totally not mentally 12! What are you looking at!?

There was at one point talk of a Deadwood movie, and those rumors have ignited recently again, but as an animated series it could be continued for years on end without having to worry about the actors aging.

 

[Mikeybb]

Discworld, just have Rincewind wander from place to place each episode. An occasional episode in the ramtops will be great.

You probably know they did a couple of animated one offs then.

I'd be behind this though for sure.
Something based on and catching the feel of the diskworld rather than a clean adaption would fit better, perhaps touching on the larger stories for finales.

One thing I know they were working on at one point was a series based on 'guards guards', following the cases and patrols of the much put upon nightwatch of Ankh Morpork.
That would have made a good series, cartoon or otherwise.

*Snipped in the name of Him on Terra*

*Snipped by the ordos postus editica*

As much as I'd love to see it, I'd have trouble imagining an implementation which could stay true to the source material without muting some of the more outlandish elements of the universe.
That said, if there's a chance of doing it, likely that it'd come from the works of Abnett.
Aside from him being prolific, he has a pedigree in pacing his work to an episodic format given his status as an alumni (still contributing) of 2000ad.
Gaunts Ghosts is Sharp in space and as a series goes it's unafraid of killing off major characters at pivotal moments.
While I'd love the Inquisitor style of story, A good old war story like Gaunts would survive the transition to an animated series I feel.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As much as I'd love to see it, I'd have trouble imagining an implementation which could stay true to the source material without muting some of the more outlandish elements of the universe.
That said, if there's a chance of doing it, likely that it'd come from the works of Abnett.
Aside from him being prolific, he has a pedigree in pacing his work to an episodic format given his status as an alumni (still contributing) of 2000ad.
Gaunts Ghosts is Sharp in space and as a series goes it's unafraid of killing off major characters at pivotal moments.
While I'd love the Inquisitor style of story, A good old war story like Gaunts would survive the transition to an animated series I feel.

Didn't they make an (obscure) animated thing by Abnett about marines?

My concern with doing 40k is that there'd be a temptation to cram every army in somehow, which would tend to go very badly. It'd be "The" 40k show, not "a" 40k show.

OTOH, well, Event Horizon or Pitch Black could easily have been 40k films.

 

[Mikeybb]

*Razed by Snippodon the postspoiler*
My concern with doing 40k is that there'd be a temptation to cram every army in somehow, which would tend to go very badly. It'd be "The" 40k show, not "a" 40k show.

OTOH, well, Event Horizon or Pitch Black could easily have been 40k films.

Yeah, it was his script that was used for the Ultramarine 'movie' they made.
The thing was probably about 45 minutes of movie with a good extra half hour of walking to pad out the dialogue.
When things were happening, it was good.
When they were dragging their power armoured heels, it was noticeable.
It's worth a watch for the imagery on show and some truly good bits, but all in all they stretched the material they had too thinly.
A shorter movie packed tightly would have been better quality.

Truely spoken regarding the danger of scope.
It's a big universe and it'd be hard to fit it all in.
Perhaps Caphias Caine would be a better choice?
He and his ever filthy assistant do tend to get into all kinds of mischief with all kinds of different folks.
There'd be a wider ranger of content within it.

Granted there'd be some accusations of "this is just blackadder in 40k."
To which the answer is "yeah, but this is BLACKADDER in 40k!"
Then, as that fact slowly sunk it, there would be much rejoicing.