Astartes

This isnt just an animated fanfic of Giant Space Marines curbstomping the enemy, its far more then this:

• A top quality CGI film
• There is no dialogue, it conveys its premise with imagery, sound and violence
• It has Giant Space Marines curbstomping the enemy BUT the enemy are no push overs, they use actual tactics but against Space Marines.. its simply not enough. These Marines are professional beyond the limits of a baseline human.
• One man storyboarded and animated this all.

I was astounded by the sophistication of the directors storytelling eye, his economy of coverage. For someone who has no other directing credits. It's really impressive work. Forget the IP itself, or the actual animation and art (which is obviously beautiful, but plenty of people can make beautiful CGI, all you need is money and time) Far more interesting is the true skill in DIRECTING. Particularly directing action and staging. And temporal finesse. The editing. What he's leaving OUT for the mind to fill in is as important as the shots he does include. This guy need to know he's got talent. Don't get stuck in a CGI job. Develop this talent. Who ever gave this 4 stars is a stone cold cringe loser.

I know next to nothing about the Warhammer 40K IP. I stumbled across this because of a Youtube recommendation.

Simply amazing work. The visuls are good and improved through the first 5 episodes--but it wasn't the visuals that captured me--it was the directorial/editorial skill.

It is simply a superb example of minimalist storytelling. Tight editing, strong emotion, essentially no dialog--everything just clicks. I didn't need to know the IP in order to be sucked into the story and experience. It didn't matter.

There is a story here; a story about how awesome (yes, awesome) and ruthless the space marines are. It functions great in the last part as cosmic (Lovecraftian) horror. The rest of the parts are just a thrill ride of incredible directing, animation, cinematography, sound design, action, and style. The only problem is that the first parts are slightly worse when comparing to the last one as they are really short and their art/animation quality is a bit less detailed. There are a lot of dark shots where, when you are watching for the first time, you might not know what is exactly happening. Also, this is clearly for the fans of the 40k universe, thus someone who is going into this completely blind probably won't understand a thing, but they will enjoy it nonetheless.

This is a masterclass in cinematography, sound design and story telling. Without dialogue the mood is still clear and the fast cuts aren't there to hide shoddy choreography but to cram information into a tightly constructed scene.

Just spectacular.