Time to talk about something that I have little knowledge in, but I feel like this will give me a pretty good excuse to address one of my major gripes with so much of what we're seeing in TV these days and keep it relevant to the whole wargaming thing.
That's right, we're going to talk about the Warhammer 40K show that is in the works with Amazon Studios.
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| What could possibly go wrong? |
Right off the bat I gotta say: I'm not super interested in this show. I don't really care for the 40K setting and think the lore is actually kind of shallow and uninspiring (who would have guessed guys going by the name World Eaters would turn out to be evil?!). That being said, this is a big thing in this industry and this is sort of a monumental event. Not because it's the first TV show based on a tabletop gaming property (Battletech, Dungeons & Dragons and even Heavy Gear beat them to that punch), but because it's the first Warhammer show that's not fan content (well, to an extent).
So, what will this show even be about? Frankly, we haven't the damn clue just yet. Obviously there are speculations aplenty, but nothing is known as the contract was only just recently actually signed and there has been no word from Amazon, Games Workshop or show frontrunner Henry Cavil as to what exactly we're going to be seeing on the screen. But I thought we could talk about a couple of the major speculations/hopes I've been seeing from the internet at large.
Gaunt's Ghosts
Once again, for the sake of full disclosure, I've not read the Gaunt's Ghosts books. People always tell me they're good, but as I said the 40K setting as a whole just doesn't grab me. But people swear by these books as some of the best to come out of Black Library and offer a humanizing look at the universe of the 41st millennium.
And yeah, it could work. A largely human cast, recognizable, to fans, characters that might be easy to get potential new fans on board with. It has the makings of a possible success.
And in much the same vein we have...
Eisenhorn
Another wildly popular series among the 40k fandom, the Eisenhorn books follow the titular Inquisitor as he does inquisitorial things and presumably kills some aliens.
This also offers a pretty decent entry, I imagine, with a human main lead and what can be set up as fairly straightforward plot for a season: go to world, snuff out heresy, toss in some Chaos cultists and maybe end with a fight against a Chaos Marine. Nice, easy and lets you explore some elements of the setting without being so dense and off-putting to casual viewers who have no prior knowledge of 40K lore.
And then there's this fucking thing...
The Horus Heresy
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| aka, Daddy Issues Destroys the Universe |
I know people would cream their pants for a high budget Horus Heresy series, but it's never fucking happening. Do you know why? Because that budget would have to be astronomical. An entire show about Space Marines, in live action, is so insanely cost prohibitive that unless they make the show about some Solar Auxilia goons with the occasional Space Marine cameo it just isn't logical.
And people will go "but the show Astartes was so successful!" It was also animated. A Horus Heresy animated show could work, but depending on the animation style could still get expensive. But in live action, where the characters would basically all be CGI anyway? What's the damn point?
The other issue is that what story do you tell? Do you try and cover the whole thing? Good luck with that, the book series has 63 god damned books. Do you just cover a specific event? If so, which one? How much detail do you give to cover this stupidly absurdly huge conflict that's going on?
I know this is the one people want the most, but it just isn't feasible without the entire budget of the EU behind it.
But this brings me to a point I want to make: does this show need to cover an existing story? We've been seeing a lot of stuff based on popular franchises lately, such as The Witcher and Halo getting shows that break off from the established lore pretty hard while still trying to claim to be adaptations.
And there's the problem: why make an adaptation? Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenhorn? Already been told, they've been done and if you want to know those stories go read the books. This is a chance to do something new, something in a popular IP without being a direct adaptation that will only piss people off when it's even slightly different. Because we don't need the same story over and over, especially in big settings like 40K's, but rather something fresh.
Personally, I would make the show about a Rogue Trader and their crew. Then you can have different locales pretty easily, expand the cast with new characters and introduce people to stuff like the Eldar and Tau without having to do the whole "hurr suffer not the xeno durr!" bullshit that makes 40K so tiresome. Having human characters who are able to interact with aliens in a way other than sheer pointless violence opens up a lot of doors for storytelling. And then when you do want an alien to gun down you can toss in some Orks because the more of those stupid fucking comic relief shitheads that get brutally killed the better.
Or set it in a hive city. Have it be about a couple of gangs a la Necromunda and then you can even toss in some Arbites if you can avoid getting sued for the blatant Judge Dredd rip-off. This lets you have an all human cast, but work in some impressive set pieces, have a fight involving one of the big old mining droids or something and steer well clear of possibly messing up the lore in any major way. It would take a fair bit more exposition to get non-fans into the whole concept of hive cities and gangs and how they fit into the greater 40K narrative, but it could be done.
Basically: no more adaptations. Give us something new that we can't get from some other form of media. Don't risk pissing fans off with bad adaptations, do something adjacent to major events if you must and maybe have someone lore famous make a cameo.
Makes me wonder, though, if other wargaming IPs could make for good television...
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