Remember the old P&P RPG Mutant Chronicles? No? Ok, what about the tabletop miniature game Warzone? Still no? Well, it looks like a movie based on the IP is due for a US release sometime this year. You can find a trailer here and, because I know you’re about to wiki it, yes that is John Malkovich (Ron Perlman too, but that’s hardly a surprise…even though this looks like it might be a step up from his usual gig as being the best thing in an Uwe Boll movie.)
I’ve seen it. It’s pretty terrible. I’d read one of the novels (apparently the good one) and I have some of the RPG source books and a mess of Doom Trooper cards, but the movie does very little to leverage the only interesting parts of the lore: the interplay between the super-corporations and the reversion to antiquated tech due to a supernatural event.
I dunno I watched it and it wasn’t that bad. I loved the steampunk vibe it gave off.
Looks pretty cool.
The RPG setting did nothying for me originally.
Huh, isn’t this movie old? I saw it months ago. It was equal parts awsome and terrible.
From wikipedia:
The film was released throughout Europe[1] in an unfinished form. The film will premiere on VOD on March 27, 2009, with a theatrical release set for select cities on April 24, 2009.[2]
If there’s an even more awesomer version coming, I and my switched-off brain eagerly await it!
(You need to be about ten mentally while watching it, but it’s fun then)
And Malkovich’s greatest genre role since Eragon!
That looks amazing. THanks for the heads up.
Anyone else getting a super-dark Sky Captain vibe from the set-pieces?
You are going to be very disappointed.
Here’s how I’m hoping this works…
Mutant Chronicles is to Warhammer 40K - as - D&D Movie is to LOTR Trilogy.
Mutant Chronicles, and it’s a long way since 1993 so pardon me if I fail here, was a rip of 40K from when some of their miniatures artists jumped ship and formed their own company. I can’t remember if it was Heartbreaker, related to that split, or not. But, it was a really lame product. I remember their “Siege of the Citadel” game, which was supposed to be a “borrowing heavily” of Space Hulk.
Here’s some of the minis from that game: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/303333
The inspiration isn’t hard to determine, eh?
Anyway, they floated that D&D movie out there as a market test before rolling with the LOTR movies. This determined that we were willing to put up with bald men with cornflower blue lipstick so we could handle the mild changes they were making to the holy trilogy.
So, by my purely made-up logic this means that the Warhammer 40K trilogy will be upon us inside of 5 years. I hope they start with the Horus Heresy.
Huh? Mutant Chronicles was originally a no-miniatures pen & paper RPG, and a successor to the Swedish game Mutant. The publisher was Target Games (now gone). They also made another pen & paper game named Kult.
Oh, I remember Kult. Didn’t like much about it except I thought the D20 damage system was particularly nice and brutal. Bad bad meatgrinder for player characters though, since you could pretty much 1-shot kill anybody if you rolled nicely.
Yep. It’s a regular P&P game. Has nothing to do with miniatures. However, it DOES borrow heavily, which is all Aszurom meant. It’s a bit like Warcraft and Warhammer, actually. You play as space marines with some mutants and such. I remember being a pretty kick ass character the one time I played the game, actually.
Hahaha, wow, ‘Siege of the Citadel’? Somebody was bitter!
Siege isn’t really like Space Hulk, it’s more like HeroQuest. And it’s easily either the best or second best game of it’s kind for that sort of thing. Siege was a boardgame extension of the RPG (which no one played), and it begat Fury of the Clansmen, which begat Blood Berets, which begat the full Warzone miniatures system. Each game expanded the minis line and setting a little bit. Now Fantasy Flight is putting out a pre-painted plastic collectible miniatures game, though they’ve changed large parts of the setting and done a complete overhaul of the art style (it’s no longer a 40k rip-off).