Ultramarines Movie Thoughts – SUPER SPOILERS!!!
Spanky Harrison here, and today I want to talk about a couple of things that have stuck with me from the Ultramarines movie. Seriously, DO NOT read this if you haven’t seen it. Final warning!
The Crozius
Ok, so when the Chaplain shoots some kind of crazy stasis wave out of his Crozius, I was perplexed. One of the main things I had heard through the grapevine about this movie was that GW had a heavy oversight role, to make sure that they did everything “right.” Then we get this wacky stasis wave or whatever. I mean, its easy enough to assume that it was some kind of special relic Crozius, and if they had taken so much as three seconds to say that in the movie, it would have been fine. But they don’t, so it’s a bit weird. Even so, not that big of a deal.
As for the plot-like elements, there were two things that really jumped out at me, and that I think were very well done.
Foreshadowing and (gasp) Character Growth!
The first thing is the parallels between the opening scene in the chapel, and the final battle with the demon prince. The opening scene shows one of the main characters (I think Verenor, but it might have been Proteus, I’m bad with names) in a ceremonial duel with Captain Severus. The captain appears to be beaten, but pulls it out at the last minute with some tricky moves and a bit of grit. More importantly, he slams home a few important lessons about what it means to be a Space Marine. Specifically, “We never yield.” Then they all stand in front of the reliquary, and Severus pulls out a totally sweet thunderhammer, talks about how it has been wielded by countless heroes, and slain all sorts of awful things, and then tells the newly promoted Marines that maybe someday they will be worthy to wield it, but for now, they can kneel before it. (Kneel! Kneel before the ZodHammer!)
This all pays off later when, in the final scene, Proteus/Verenor (I get them confused, so I’m just going to say Proteus for now) are fighting against the demon. All seems lost, and the demon is about to possess Proteus’ body, when, in a series of moves very similar to the Captain’s in the earlier scene, Proteus manages to turn the tables while saying something to the effect of “We never yield.” Very nice parallel. Then he yanks the thunderhammer out of the reliquary, and goes to town. Not only is a totally sweet way to end the fight, but it’s also an excellent metaphor for how the character has developed from a (relatively) raw recruit, hungry for glory, into the kind of legendary hero that Space Marines are supposed to be. I think there’s also a cool parallel with one of the Apothecary’s comments to the effect of “There is no glory, only Victory” in that scene as well. Overall, the final fight with the demon is very well done, and ties the rest of the movie together really well.
On Hobbits and Space Marines
The other part that I really liked was the whole thing with Captain Severus and the Demon. Their fight is pretty cool, but when he goes over the edge with the demon, it was pretty much impossible not to draw the parallel with Gandalf v. Balrog in Lord of the Rings. However, rather than try to downplay that, they actually use the similarity to make a very striking statement about the 40k setting as a whole. Later, when the Captain returns in the nick of time, way more awesome than before, you might think, “hey look, he’s “Captain the White” now!” However, this isn’t Middle Earth, this is Warhammer 40k. And in 40k, the demon kills you and uses your corpse to get close to your friends and kill everyone on your entire planet. Or at least he tries to. Like I said, they use the parallels to make a very striking statement about the setting.
