"Sylvester Stallone in the new 40k show/GW hypocrisy" Topic

Noticed Sly Marbo.

Obviously Sylvester Rambo.

So a company that is takes people to court over generic names, is ok doing that to this day.

The least they could do is offer Sly, the real one, the role. Or, heaven forbid, give the guy some royalties.

Have they used other names in a similar way?

Marco Columbo, did he get around in a coat solving crimes?

I remember the Buffy rip off in gang war. Muffy? Something like that.

Got one, write it below.

They took Umbridge against a figure with a Warhammer, an author having space marines, no doubt more. Stick em below.

What other people/characters haven't they ripped off? Again, below.

Sister with flamer, Sig Wavey.
Liquid necron, the N2000.
Another guard tough guy catachan, Arny Swiss.

Its just odd they are still doing this.

Not the only ones to have done it though. Lots were in the 80s.

Fav names from old cats? Place below.

PS

Was meant to be on the SciFi media board too, if an editor sees this.

I'm sure Sly's lawyers are well aware of this, and he could well afford any lawsuit that had merit.
Their LOTR range has many fine "portraits" figures that compensated the NIL.

The Conquest Warlord Last of the Mohicans range got the actors' approval for the sculpts. Wes Studi was particularly impressed with his.
I'm not so sure about the Brigade Games set, but it's a rational thing to do.

GW isn't totally evil, unlike The Ohio State University.

Marco Columbo, did he get around in a coat solving crimes?

Actually, the gentleman was actually named Marco Colombo (not Columbo), and he was clearly inspired by Christopher Columbus (and maybe a bit by Marco Polo, at least when it comes to names). For more details, check out Warhammer Armies: Dogs of War (1998).

That book also contains such as classic as Pirazzo's lost legion, Leonardo da Miragliano and Lucrezzia Belladonna.

I'm not much of a contemporary culture guy but aren't there pretty much a finite number of tropes that keep getting recycled in all kinds of genres?

The scrappy guy with the Bronx/Brooklyn/Jersey/Philly accent was a trope used in every other WW2 film in the 40's and 50's and even GW would concede that the armored kickbutt trooper with really big guns is a staple of most video games, movies from video games and many many SF universes.

"Their LOTR range has many fine "portraits" figures that compensated the NIL."

Actually, I would suspect that their contracts covered such things.

If they weren't to receive compensation, they still agreed to take the part.

From my understanding the LOTR actors each got a painted version of every figure based on their character.

"finite number of tropes"

Yes, but Sly Marbo is obviously Sylvester Rambo. That was deliberately using their names. Jack Marbo, or Sly Banks, are less direct, but they didn't do that.

Add it to a guy mentioned as a one man army and the general look of they guy, they are fooling no one.

Legal? Probably, but then again, so is using space marines and warhammer out side of GW, and they carried on about that…

While doing this!?!

Parady figures and names are not uncommon. Mad Max and Dr who, most named main characters from popular sci fi and fantasy.

Enhance your calm H Man. When you can afford as many lawyers as GW can buy, I'm sure everything you do is perfectly legal.

Actually, there was some discussion here a few years ago about head sprues of famous actors. As I recall the consensus was that while we would enjoy the effect, the minimum money it would take to get the attention of their licensing people was more than you'd ever make on the deal.

Why do you care?

DBDD

I think Pulp Miniatures did a Columbo figure, they also did Bing Crosby & Bob Hope USO figures.

Crooked dice, so on.

But not many use the actors name.

Its just odd, coming from a company that takes their own presumed IP so seriously.

You can't use space marines (or so they thought), but they can rip off Rambo.

There is an imbalance there.

Actually, especially with the new 3 army imperial guard, you probably wouldn't have at least a third of them without Rambo and Sylvester Stallone.

Perhaps GW try to sue him for having the same name. Sounds like their sort of tomfoolery.

The Little Man (Sylvester Stallone???) will only win if he has better lawyers. That only happens on TV shows from the 80s, with a name like "Storefront Lawyers". And that happens when the show is ignorant of The Law. It's a constitutional requirement that TV lawyers don't know how The Law really works. 🤷
Maybe if Sly gets She Hulk as his lawyer.

Or, maybe he has already been compensated, or doesn't give a 💩. He's too busy being a Mob Boss in Tulsa.
We are peasants. We are not clued in how our betters work. If Sly doesn't care, why should I?

Intead of suing GW, Stallone could probably just buy the company outright (it'd be cheaper… ;-)

"The Little Man (Sylvester Stallone???) will only win if he has better lawyers"

Not sure what that means?

"TV shows from the 80s, with a name like "Storefront Lawyers""

Personally, I prefer LA Law.

Recently watched the first season. Have the third season, have no others, yet. So do I watch the third season, or wait until I acquire the rest?

Its a whole thing.

"If Sly doesn't care, why should I?"

Considering 2 above posts, well may one ask.

Its still funny, baffling, weird that a company that tries to call orcs orruks(?) for no sane reason would then call an army man after an actor and character in a film franchise they have nothing to do with (?).

I can get it that smaller out fits, including early GW, do parodies to help their figures be more popular with the poblic, but GW no longer need it.

They have changes so many names, yet keep one that is so obviously a knock off.

They changes the name of the imperial guard, for no good reason, yet keep Sly Marbo.

If you care that much, why don't YOU sue GW?

And no suggestion GW pay Tolkien--or David Morrell, come to that. Well, I don't believe TSR ever paid a dime to Michael Moorcock. either.

I always thought the Ral Partha Amazon Slave Chariot ‘steeds' were Stallone and Schwarzenegger.
link

Far be it from me to defend GW, but what exactly did they owe to Tolkien or Moorcock?

If we're talking about the LOTR movies, the Great Man himself sold off all rights in the 50s, I believe. He thought, quite rightfully at the time, that it was not filmable.
Ironically, the rights were owned by … Sol Zaentz (?), the exact same guy who screwed over Creedence Clearwater Revival.
GW negotiated with the film maker for the rights to do rules and figures. Tolkien was long out of the loop.

OFM, I said TSR never paid Moorcock--from whom they swiped the whole "law vs chaos" business.

As for GW, the whole Warhammer set-up is Tolkienian from the books, and all WH40K does is toss Heinlein's cap troopers into the mix.

As for David Morrell, he actually created Dak Rambo. But again, it was done in a book, so it probably doesn't count.

This is what GW does. They take anything they regard as potentially profitable, never acknowledge and pay only as a last resort. I've known supply sergeants with more respect for other people's property. H Man's upset over them using actors' faces, but it's a relatively minor example of their overall policy, and those faces wouldn't be worth much without producers, directors and scriptwriters.

If your dungoneering party includes a thief, why waste time complaining that he picks pockets?

OFM, I said TSR never paid Moorcock--from whom they swiped the whole "law vs chaos" business.

Ok. Correct. My bad.
But, it's just a concept. An idea. Hardly something you can stake a claim to.

"If you care that much, why don't YOU sue GW?"

If people don't care, then why are they yelling at me?

"And no suggestion GW pay Tolkien--or David Morrell, come to that."

It would be middle earth entertainment, or such like.

Orcs, elves, dwarfs weren't created by Tolkien. In fact he should be paying Shakespeare, so on. Like most popular things, LOTR, star Wars, Warhammer, 40k, most things, they are just a mix of popular things that already exist.

Sly Marbo, is obviously Sylvester Rambo. This is directly using names. Again, odd for a company that sues, and loses, for far less.

That said, I'm sure there are some apple growers who are Out For Blood. Perhaps that's the next film in the series.

Farmer sitting on Apple creates. "He took our name boys."

Boy. "So, what are we gonna do, pops?"

" Why, we take it back."

After the titles.

"John, come quick!"

"Yeah, whaa iz itt," well, you know the voice.

"Kids are getting sick at the school, someone poisoned all the apples."

"Whick aoplzz?"

"The Rambo apples"

Zoom in on Rambo's eyes, in shadow.

Cue the montage, sharpening the apple pealer, strapping on the picking basket, loading the sticker gun with apple stickers…

As for Warhammer, they didn't lift from Tolkien exclusively. No, they ripped off quite a few others.
For Warhammer Fantasy, I can not see their world having much to do with Tolkien's subtly disguised Christian viewpoint. In WFB, EVERYONE was a Bad Guy. And they changed the rules and mythos every 3 or 4 years. They did it whenever they thought they could get away with it. $$$$ or ££££

I'm still annoyed that they invalidated my very cute and large Forest Goblin army.

I'm not defending GW at all. (No, really?) But they are defending their IP with a stable of bloodthirsty lawyers.
If Sylvester Stallone was offended, his own stable of lawyers probably told him that it wouldn't be worth the bother. Just how much could he be compensated? $43.74 USD?
A lot of "justified" lawsuits are never pursued, because it's not worth the effort.

It really doesn't make GW look any better. For what, one character model. Still very odd. They've changed loads of names, I wonder why they didn't change it. Makes them look cheap and tackybto need to use someone's name to push their product, 20+ years ago, maybe.

"For Warhammer Fantasy, I can not see their world having much to do with Tolkien's subtly disguised Christian viewpoint. In WFB, EVERYONE was a Bad Guy."

All the heavy empire religious stuff seems very Christian/crusades. Plus the bretonians reliquary and questing knights, all very crusades. Something like that.

The high elves weren't bad guys, from my understanding.

WFB was always good v evil. Possibly, less obvious if you look at a particular faction.

Lizardmen were meant to be evil, but seemed like the real good guys.

Like the LOTR films. Are orcs evil? Or are the two people killing them with no emotion and numbering them evil? Hmm… Now where have we seen that before?

Perhaps the orcs are the only good guys in those films?

"Sorry, you can't have you white tree banner, it's a symbol of hate"

"A gang of Rohan youths seen painting horse heads on an orc hut. Guards are investigating."

Umm … Warhammer fantasy borrowed mostly from Moorcock – the GW people were fans, pure and simple.

WH40K – there's a whisker of difference between Space Marines and Heinlein's Mobile Infantry.

Who cared back then? SF/F Gaming was a niche within a very niche hobby.

As for the use of faces – that has been done for more than 50 years – sometimes they are famous sometimes they are just gamer friends. GW had a whole line of figures inspired by Rambo – so what? Other people have done home guard figures that look suspiciously like the actors from Dad's Army. So what?

Here's a comparison – cartoonists daily lampoon politicians with sometimes grotesque illustrations. Do you think they ask permission and pay a royalty fee?

Hint – they don't.

I also think it is probably too late to sue GW as they have been using the image for 30 years or more. There was a case made when the first Terminator film came out that it infringed on Harlan Ellison's copyright – it stole from a story he'd written called Soldier.

He succeeded partly because he was a notorious attack dog, and an influential film critic and because he was prompt in complaining. Also Cameron had stupidly said that he'd borrowed from a Harlan Ellison story when writing Terminator.

"Here's a comparison – cartoonists daily lampoon politicians with sometimes grotesque illustrations. Do you think they ask permission and pay a royalty fee?

Hint – they don't."

Political commentary and satire is protected by law.

I've been looking into Ellison v Cameron over on the SciFi media board. A developing situation.

BTW – that's Ambassador Stalone these days. Maybe GW should do an appropriate figure….

They should do the emperor shouting "your fired!" to Horus while all the marines chant "40,000 more years!"

Why don't Space Marines (or whatever they're called) wear helmets?

Most of them do…. it's officers who don't bother. And scouts.

Presumably the officers are just a bit dumb…and the scouts are showing off 🙄

OFM, its due to the nature of the helmets. In order to reduce the size of the support arm, Space Marine helmets contain a small charge that is linked to health monitors in the suits. If the Marine falls below a certain level of health from wounds, and cannot be healed by an Apothecary, the charge detonates and decapitates the wearer.

Anyone who works this out and is also smart enough not to get seriously wounded will probably remove their helmet: They are instantly promoted to Sergeant, and usually become Officers since they have a few clues.

Your all thinking the wrong way.

Why do space marines were helmets?

So the sculptors can use a generic blank helmet and not have to sculpt a face.