Ultramarines: A review.

Its fucking awful.

Thanks.





OK serious time.  Its really, really fucking awful.   Terrible animation, terrible acting, weak script.

You really have to be a super rabid fanboi to rate this.  I mean , the kind who defends opinions and decisions in opposition to the facts.  The kind who would *still* argue that the sky was pink just so you were right, even when all evidence suggests otherwise.

However, there are ways to give this animated feature a positive review:

• just flat out lie
• Focus on the positives( the script..kinda,er...marines...., umm......A thunderhawk?)
• Special Pleading, and other fallacies.

Of these, the one I see most often is number 3: special pleading.

The argument is summed up thus:  "Its good because its all we have"

I'm fairly sure that the inherent flaw is obvious to all and sundry, but I'm a particularly petty geek when it comes to this sort of thing.  To say "its good because its all we have" is a cop-out, a weak position from which you cannot recover.  If something is shit, it's shit.  If something could be done better, then it should be done better!

Bickering Space Marines , untrustful and paranoid, a wafer thin , poorly explained premise, non-sequiturs all over the place, and people still go "SQUEEE".  Throw in some piss poor voice acting , so bad I doubt that anyone in the production team had the balls to stand up and say "Oh, Hi Mr Stamp, can you do the lines again, only this time...kind of professionally, or good?", and we have a perfect combo of weak plot, bad acting, and poor direction.

I'm fairly sure even the most rabid fanboy cannot argue that the lines were delivered with all the emotion of a wooden chair, I'm also sure that many of those fanboys would agree that the premise for the story is poorly set up, full of holes and doesn't really make much sense within the lore.  

So why so many OMGWTFAWESOME write ups and reviews?

Special Pleading.  My favorite logical fallacy.  Throw in a dash of entrenched position, post-purchase justification and just a pinch of inner-circle membership and there is a perfectly cooked cake of why being a fanboy is a bad thing.

I remember watching Beasts of War's coverage of the special screening down in london and the thing that struck me most was not the details of the film, but that the post-film interviews were all very tame in the use of language.  No one was "OMG THAT WAS AWESOME" , not one person had a massive cheesey grin, the kind you get after a win or sex or a good film (just me?  hmmm).  

All the interviews were of people who iterated good things about the films, leaving out the bad stuff, or of more considered analysis that left any heartfelt praise well to one side.  Despite the underwhelming response, everyone was glad they had pre-ordered or pre-purchased (entrenched position, special pleading and post-purchase justification).  Add to this the horrifically cliquey nature of 40K fanboyism (well, 40K and all wargames, in fact 40K is the least of the offenders here), and you simply cant say that the film was shit or your outside the fold.  Why is it so hard to admit that the minotaurs are a cartoonish and shit sculpt?  Why is it so hard to admit that older PP sculpts are a little 1 dimensional, comical even?  

Why is it so difficult to admit that one facet of something can be flawed, whilst the whole remains undiminished?

The film was bad, we deserved better, lets hope we get it next time.  How do I know there will be a next time?  

Because 99% of people who bought the film cant admit it was a lemon.  

Hey, if you liked it, more power to you, but even you have to admit the voices were flatter than piss on a plate.