Yeah, have to agree with Alexel above. Just about anything has been made before already, if we want to argue that way, and 40k by itself is proof that simply rehashing and giving it a fresh paintjob works out. The vast, vast majority of TV series and movies that we get to watch these days have been told before in some manner or another; what makes them interesting is the setting and the characters, which tend to give these stories a new twist or just make them more enjoyable to watch because people dig the background and atmosphere of the world.

Where 40k would excel is hamming up the extreme and embracing the utterly ludicrous. The comedic and satirical aspects, once so integral to the setting, would make great movies. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, as everything must be more grimdark and Marvel has released Guardians of the 40keks before the idea even occurred to GW. They missed out bigtime on the comedy aspect and not taking themselves so seriously, and as GotG proved, you can still tell a good, serious story with a lot of laughs. Sadly, Caiphas Cain and co. who would work in this format are the unloved stepchildren.

This I also have to disagree with, vehemently, although I'm sure it's just a matter of personal preferences. To me, turning it into a silly comedy would do the setting just as much of a disservice as the current trend of silly ÜBEREPIC does. Proper Grimdark would work like a period drama a la Name of the Rose or Black Death, where crazy conventions that would well qualify as satirical are presented in such a straight-faced manner that they are as creepy as they ought to be if the setting were a real world with real people reacting in realistic manners to whatever they face.

At the risk of Godwinning the thread, I'm sure all of us have seen how easy it is to do comedy with Nazis, but obviously that doesn't mean that they were good for a laugh when people were actually being at risk of being killed or tortured by them, and it really isn't hard to convey this in a movie; we have multiple examples of this, too.

The only question is whether you'd prefer a show that lets you immerse in an actual living, breathing world, or if you just want it to give you a good laugh. Both approaches are viable, but I daresay that a lot of 40k's potential would be wasted if you'd stick with the latter. Just as if real life war movies were limited to stuff like Blackadder and Hogan's Heroes, rather than giving us Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket.

If you crank up the grimdark aspect and take 40k seriously, you end up with Jessica Jones in tone, only with protagonists that have no relatable moral compass whatsoever. Add to that that your average viewer is going to have a hard time taking a setting seriously that is a potpurri of easily identifiable rip-offs and where basic physics do not work in lieu of superhero stunts, if you try to run 40k by the serious books, as written, it'll flop hard. 40k's living world is about as unrelatable and unrealistic as that of the Star Wars prequels. The motivations are inhuman, the reactions are bizarre and enstranging and there are no good guys, there is no one the audience will want to relate to, unless you really just make it a dumb action flick. A serious portrayal of the 40k verse is, like Dune, only going to appeal to a niche audience, which in no way will justify the production costs to accurately portray 40k's scope and scale.

RE your nazi anology, I'm also going to disagree. I'll just point to Charlie Chaplin and a very infamous Donald Duck comic there.

I see a DH show my like the movie V for vendetta, a cautionary tale about what happens when you do things like the empire does them. American politics could really use that now. The hero's start out all starry eyed about fighting the good fight and end up not sure if what they are doing is right.

If you crank up the grimdark aspect and take 40k seriously, you end up with Jessica Jones in tone, only with protagonists that have no relatable moral compass whatsoever. Add to that that your average viewer is going to have a hard time taking a setting seriously that is a potpurri of easily identifiable rip-offs and where basic physics do not work in lieu of superhero stunts, if you try to run 40k by the serious books, as written, it'll flop hard. 40k's living world is about as unrelatable and unrealistic as that of the Star Wars prequels. The motivations are inhuman, the reactions are bizarre and enstranging and there are no good guys, there is no one the audience will want to relate to, unless you really just make it a dumb action flick. A serious portrayal of the 40k verse is, like Dune, only going to appeal to a niche audience, which in no way will justify the production costs to accurately portray 40k's scope and scale.

Then you just don't see 40k the way I do (and it's allright).

Because, no, not because 40k is a universe where the Empire is dumb, that the normal men composing it can't be related to.

****, we can relate to medieval characters that lived in a epoch dumb as hell at a societal level, which is kinda the same case of 40k. We can still relate to many characters of it.

Sure, if you use Marine No. 33 or Yarrick, you won't. Such big characters must be background characters, or side characters that the principal characters meet and fear because of their inhuman ways.

But sure, if you make a story about those, yeah...you'll make bolterporn. And bolterporn, even for fans of 40k universe, is not very good.

If you crank up the grimdark aspect and take 40k seriously, you end up with Jessica Jones in tone, only with protagonists that have no relatable moral compass whatsoever. Add to that that your average viewer is going to have a hard time taking a setting seriously that is a potpurri of easily identifiable rip-offs and where basic physics do not work in lieu of superhero stunts, if you try to run 40k by the serious books, as written, it'll flop hard.

A different morality is not the same as an unrelatable moral compass. There are tons of successful movies or books that present us with both pro- and antagonists who have a more complex reasoning for their actions than "them orks killed my parents" or "this guy kidnapped my girlfriend". Because that's bland, stereotypical storytelling from the last millennium, and I think many people have grown to appreciate characters whose morality is defined by shades of grey rather than black vs white.

The Imperium of Man is all about shades of grey, about a people at the brink of destruction sacrificing freedom and justice by clinging to a state-propagated "greater good" as their only chance to survive, whilst at the same time pursuing their own egoistic goals as part of a very relatable human weakness. Because that's where the drama really flows from.

Specifically because 40k as a setting is stolen together from hundreds of other franchises and the real world, it only means that the character archetypes that exist there are also found in these other successful IPs. And if you can copy the content, chances are you can copy the success. All it takes is a careful hand and a good idea.

I also find it a bit funny how you slam 40k for easily identifiable rip-offs and superhero stunts but then go and suggest Ciaphas Cain as a solution.

I'm fairly sure that was before they liberated the camps, tho.

A little discussed fact is that various aspects of fascism were actually pretty popular in the UK and the USA before WW2. Great Britain had its own offshoot of the Nazi party, and in the US, politicians and scientists were openly discussing the benefits of eugenics or actively enforcing compulsory sterilization. Diplomatic relations were great. It wasn't until the veil was lifted that the populace actually began to see how horrible it gets once such doctrines become part of everyday life.