The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Westfalia Chris]

Please do not get this detoured re: gender politics, especially since it is a strawman argument right now given that there are essentially no tangible/substantial facts on how this will actually play out.

[McMordain]

If there's one group of people who should never have creative control over something, it's fans of that thing. Just hand it off to someone that knows nothing about it, give them complete creative freedom, and then see what their spin on it is.

That kind of approach did not go well in the last few years. Alienating the fans form the get go, because the creative someone said they only heard about x thing in the given lore and they think it's stupid, is not a good idea. The main reason (I think) something gets adapted into movies/tv series is because it's popular/have a big fan base. They are your first and main source of income  for what you release. Subverting their expectations form the start is a move I will never understand.

On the other hand the Secret Level WH40K episode was good. If they stick to that kind of quality they should be ok.

[Mammoth miniatures]

That kind of approach did not go well in the last few years. Alienating the fans form the get go, because the creative someone said they only heard about x thing in the given lore and they think it's stupid, is not a good idea. The main reason (I think) something gets adapted into movies/tv series is because it's popular/have a big fan base. They are your first and main source of income  for what you release. Subverting their expectations form the start is a move I will never understand.

On the other hand the Secret Level WH40K episode was good. If they stick to that kind of quality they should be ok.

That doesn't come from creative control, it comes from interference. You have a major tv company demanding certain metrics, dictating series length/pacing/easily merchandisable elements. Then you have the IP holders demanding strict adherence to the lore - so the two massive companies end up writing the whole thing themselves and then slapping a pile of crap in front of some actually creative person and demanding they manufacture it.
then that creative person makes exactly what a bunch of executives with all the creativity of a compost heap have slapped together, and the result is tripe.

that's not actual creative lead film making - it's design by committee slop - it's visual bike shedding.

if we must live in a world of endless pop culture adaptations and regurgitations, at least let the people making them run with it and use the setting as a jumping off point instead of the endless back and forth compromise of being lore correct vs being actually watchable.

GW's books are a great example of this - the few black library books that are worth reading are the ones where an author has been allowed to do something odd with the setting. the inquisition wars, the infinite and the divine, gaunts ghosts, eisenhorn - all born out of handing a creative full control and saying "yeah just...just do a book and come back to us when it's done". meanwhile the vast majority of black library titles are awful because they tow the lore accuracy line so hard that you can practically see the author flicking through the IP compliance document as they write. If GW want to make something good that goes beyond "marine shoot gun, bad man explode" then they'll need to start allowing people to take creative risks with the 40k universe, and hardcore fans will never do that because they're too obsessed with purity to the point that they refuse to make the compromises demanded by a change in medium.

[McMordain]

That doesn't come from creative control, it comes from interference. You have a major tv company demanding certain metrics, dictating series length/pacing/easily merchandisable elements. Then you have the IP holders demanding strict adherence to the lore - so the two massive companies end up writing the whole thing themselves and then slapping a pile of crap in front of some actually creative person and demanding they manufacture it.
then that creative person makes exactly what a bunch of executives with all the creativity of a compost heap have slapped together, and the result is tripe.

that's not actual creative lead film making - it's design by committee slop - it's visual bike shedding.

Yeah corporate meddling is usually a bad thing.
However I still think that if you decided to adapt something, you should not disregard the established lore of the thing. If you do not like the lore, then create something original instead of rewriting the thing.

[Daeothar]

However I still think that if you decided to adapt something, you should not disregard the established lore of the thing. If you do not like the lore, then create something original instead of rewriting the thing.

Agreed. Uwe Boll never let corporate greed influence his creative decision making 

[zemjw]

Yeah corporate meddling is usually a bad thing.
However I still think that if you decided to adapt something, you should not disregard the established lore of the thing. If you do not like the lore, then create something original instead of rewriting the thing.

Amazon did this with Wheel of Time. They managed to create a show where nothing on the screen was in the book, and nothing in the book made it to the screen, other than the character names. It was utter dross

I don't actually know enough 40K lore (it never really grabbed me), but, if it would seem reasonable to assume a 40K show would at least be lore adjacent.

[Daeothar]

Amazon did this with Wheel of Time. They managed to create a show where nothing on the screen was in the book, and nothing in the book made it to the screen, other than the character names. It was utter dross

I did myself de disservice of sitting through the entire first season and I mostly agree with your assessment. However the fight on the slopes of the volcano in one of the last episodes was actually awesome!

I don't actually know enough 40K lore (it never really grabbed me), but, if it would seem reasonable to assume a 40K show would at least be lore adjacent.

Considering the width and depth of 40K lore and the enormity of the setting, pretty much anything is possible within 40K. Because of the diversity of worlds within the Imperium, a world reduced to steam powered technology that gets visited once every generation by tithe ships could easily be the backdrop for an entire season of Miss Marple without it being outside of the lore.

The idea that anything was possible in the 40K setting was pushed pretty hard in the first couple of editions. And it's why Eisenhorn could have fit into just about any (scifi) setting (even Miss Marple). The story is most important; the rest is flavour and window dressing. A very distinct set of window dressing in the case of 40K, but just that all the same.

Let's hope they will go story first and visuals second. But that's probably hoping against knowing better...

[robh]

Yeah corporate meddling is usually a bad thing.
However I still think that if you decided to adapt something, you should not disregard the established lore of the thing. If you do not like the lore, then create something original instead of rewriting the thing.

This exactly.
But since the early 2000s an IP only exists in corporate speak as a source of inbuilt paying audience, the actual lore, history and characters are an irrelevance (often an inconvenience) and will be ignored in order to push whichever of the 3 woke approved messages desired.

The issue with 40K is does anyone really think GW will have the spine to stand up and say, "No, our canon background says ...this... so that is the way it must be in the series/movies/merchandise etc"
Based on how quickly they capitulated on changing the canon around the Custodes, I don't.

Unless corporations take the hints from the abysmal reception to the non Tolkien "Rings of Power", non Sapkowsi "Witcher", non Jordan "Wheel of Time" and this weekend the non Tolkien (again) "Ride of the Rohirrim" and respect the source IP the roll of financial failure will continue.
There seems to be no understanding that if they piss me off by ruining an IP I am a fan of they don't just lose my money, but that of family and friends and their families, who, while not necessarily fans of the IP themselves would have sat alongside me in the theatre had I gone.
These things are popular IPs for a reason.

[anevilgiraffe]

Based on how quickly they capitulated on changing the canon around the Custodes, I don't.

eh?

[Mammoth miniatures]

eh?

GW decided to have some custodes be female and despite being an entirely in house decision it is apparently capitulation because...women bad?

[Belligerentparrot]

Robh - did you not read the mod's intervention earlier? Please, please, leave your odd obsession with things that haven't actually happened yet (so-called "woke" messaging) out of it so the rest of us can have a discussion without getting modded.

GW has a constantly evolving fluff canon and significantly rewrites loads of it at regular intervals. I still think of Space Marines as particularly tough fighters recruited from often primitive worlds f'example, as they were in RT. Nor do I remember anyone getting especially upset at the new Necromunda even though the fluff is really significantly rewritten. If the fans can handle those kind of things, I'm pretty sure they'll handle any new developments to canon in whatever Amazon comes up with, as long as the other GW sources back up those changes.

Mammoth - you're dead right about black library books 

[Belligerentparrot]

GW decided to have some custodes be female and despite being an entirely in house decision it is apparently capitulation because...women bad?

Pretty sure Sisters of Silence have been around in some form since early RT in the fluff, so this is hardly even going against the fluff, is it? Just going back to an older bit of fluff.

[pixelgeek]

It seems as if people are talking about thing that haven't even occurred.

Also, isn't the discussion of TV shows a bit off-topic?

[HerbertTarkel]

It seems as if people are talking about thing that haven't even occurred.

Also, isn't the discussion of TV shows a bit off-topic?

The short has an attached in-store only figure, Titus, which I believe makes it rather on-topic.

[pixelgeek]

The short has an attached in-store only figure, Titus, which I believe makes it rather on-topic.

And yet not a lot of discussion about it and a lot about IP