If you have not watched The Lord Inquisitor Prologue, and you intend to do so at a later point, then please read no further. This article contains spoilers.
If you know what the Lord Inquisitor Prologue is, and would like to watch it right now, then follow this link! Warning: its probably at least a "15" certificate in the UK.
Okay, enough spoiler warning. Here's my thoughts.
Overview.
The Prologue is in excellent shape and its a real credit to the animators and digital artists who are bringing this film to life. I've not seen much like it before (well, not in a long time at any rate). It reminds me of when Toy Story first came out: real bleeding edge animation in three dimensions. But more than that, this is for adults with lots of Grim and Dark thrown in.
The previous Warhammer 40,000 film featuring the Ultramarines was very much walk, talk, shoot, walk, talk, shoot in essence. This film -- or the prologue at least -- hints at a much superior plot and animation to say the least.
Themes.
I'll divide the prologue up in to a few shorter themes. This first theme I want to touch on is the grand overview shots. These consist of fleets of ships in orbit, and several wide-angle views of Holy Terra itself during a parade. To say these were magnificent would do it injustice. I've not seen the like either in movies or computer games like this before. I'm blown away.
The second theme was the exchange where Inquisitor Marcus casts judgement on someone. Without going in to too much detail, there are certainly bits of Grimness here as might be expected. What I wasn't ready for was the deliberate torture that the Inquisitor undertakes. Its unclear on the motivation for this, and it was a bit of a shocker to some extent. This is part of the reason why this movie is a breed apart from the previous W40k movie. This is no "PG" rating folks.
And as for hints of Darkness, there were certainly plenty of them with the slaves carrying part of the procession along on Holy Terra. Interestingly enough, I was very interested to see how much "daylight" there were in the scenes displayed. One always has these images in the head of how everything is shrouded and in darkness. Its easy to forget that in 40k, grimness and darkness don't have to be literal and the world still turns. That, I thought, was a great thing to undertake and is very often overlooked.
Finally, did we mention Imperial Fists? I think we should. If you're a Fists fan, you're going to like their appearance here. I did! And I'm not even a Fists fanboy.
Summary.
5 out of 5 stars. Seriously: the looks amazing for the final product. But again: this is not a PG movie. Be warned.
The entire thing is great, but the stunning moments for me was the scale of everything. Seeing the ships in orbit, their size, and the amount of guns on them. Terra, just how large and congested everything is. I never really envisioned the cities on Terra, though I know they exist of course, so those opening shots with Marcus on the balcony were awesome. The details, oh so many details, were just amazing.
ReplyDeleteGood review. I found the visuals great but the inquisitor character was instantly unlikable, irrespective of the bizarre torture scene. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not.
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