This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is The Empire Strikes Back and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
Greetings WingNuts,
The Wing Commander movie club found the Search for Spock worth the effort! It sometimes feels like Star Trek III gets a bad rap just to fit together the 'even good, odd bad' Star Trek movie joke. The reality is that it only ever falters at the very end with a final ten minutes of dull Vulcan resurrection that loses more and more meaning the further we travel from the tastes of 1980s fandom. But everything else, what a movie! And not only that, Star Trek III takes the world of Star Trek II and twists it into what it will become for the next thirty years. The 'tone' of Star Trek TNG and its spinoffs is born in Search for Spock's first act… as are a huge number of the models, sets and ideas (including the modern Klingon) that will go on to fuel an enormous franchise. And a rousing story, to boot.
The big connection to Wing Commander is that Star Trek III was the origin of the "Spacedock". The Enterprise returns to this massive enclosure in Earth orbit early in the film and then in the second act Kirk and his crew must steal the Enterprise from its depths. The Spacedock model was constructed by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) for the film. Their artists created a distinct and impressive model which would go on to serve in a number of Star Trek roles. Additional footage of the Spacedock was shot for Star Trek IV and Star Trek VI. Star Trek V reused stock footage as did several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation which matted the new model of the Enterprise on top of Kirk's ship. In recent years, it has appeared on Discovery, Lower Decks and Picard. Here are some great behind the images from Memory Alpha:
Per tradition, we've put together a gallery of shots of the station. You can absolutely see how Chris Douglas adapted the idea into Privateer's distinct Perry.
It looks particularly like Perry in wireframe form on Uhura's bridge readout aboard the Enterprise!
And if you're interested in some of the contemporary lore for the station, here's a page from FASA's Star Trek III sourcebook that covers the new installation:
Did you know there are only two images of Perry in all of the original Privateer? The one from the front of the box and the one that appears in the game itself!
Perry's closed off internal bays are not based on the Spacedock's open area… but the little animated shuttle that was ultimately cut from the game does seem to reference the shuttlepods that fly around the Spacedock.
Sully also got so large because of the Genesis device.
StarfleetDesign is a prolific and talented illustrator known for recreating obscure Star Trek-related graphics... and sometimes imagining new ones! That's exactly what happened here, with a Wing Commander-styled take on the Star Trek logo.
Star Trek / Wing Commander Mashup Logo (ArtStation)
A custom Star Trek logo in the style of the Wing Commander logo from the original game box art. This is entirely vector art created with Affinity Designer, but wit texturing and other adjustments made using Affinity Photo.
Star Trek in the style of the Wing Commander logo. Vector art created with Affinity Designer
A horizontal version, created mainly for anyone that wants to use it as a header image on social media
I actually don't know much about Wing Commander, but I am a fan of the STOP typeface created by Aldo Novarese (1971)
Detail of texture effects
Detail of raw vector art
This one is straight outta the Wing Commander Discord! Talented regular user Friend Computer has created three Wing Commander fonts for everyone to use. They say: "You might want to note there are minor differences to improve readability and kerning. Otherwise the fonts are free to use in projects as people see fit." Awesome! They've created a font based on the one used in computer menus in Wing Commander III and IV and then two more based on ones seen in Privateer: the Quine 4000 font and the in flight nav computer font.
Wing Leader
Note: "This is my version on Wing Commander Font. There are minor changes to the font to improve readability and kerning There's a few style choices I made as some of the letters didn't feel consistent.
Download
Quine 4000
Note: "Here's the Privateer font from the QUINE 4000 computer with some small adjustments for readability. I had to guess on the extra characters.
Fragged Nav Computer
Note: "Here's the Privateer Nav Computer Style Font."
We recently put together an article covering the names of the different transports in Wing Commander II. A few weeks later I was surprised to discover I had received a pretty fascinating anonymous message about it:
I was just reading the Wing Commander II transports article, and noticing the breakdown with the comm portraits I remembered: have you guys ever written about how those portraits are originally from Ultima VI (Gwenno and Nomaan)? I can't be the only one who noticed that, right?
We had not written such an article because we had never noticed the connection! But sure enough, it's 100% true: both of the VDU images for the male and female freighter pilots in Wing Commander II are reused from NPC portraits in Ultima VI! To the best of my knowledge (and despite the huge amount of crossover between Wing Commander and Ultima players, myself included) I've never seen anyone else point this out. Kudos, what a find! Here they are:
For those not familiar with Ultima lore, Nomaan is a more minor NPC who appears in Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny and Ultima VI: The False Prophet. He runs Naughty Nomaan's, a weapons shop in the city of Jhelom in both games. Like many Ultima characters, he is based on one of Richard Garriott's friends from the Society for Creative Anachronism, Jerry Self. Self's SCA character was named Nomaan Bucharde.
Gwenno, on the other hand, is one of the most significant characters in the Ultima series. She appears in some form or another starting in the original game, often as a potential party member and the wife of crossbow master Iolo. She is based on Kathleen Jones, the wife of the real Iolo, David Watson. Both were old friends of Garriott (again from the SCA) and together they composed Ultima's most famous piece of music, Stones. Mrs. Jones sadly passed away in 2000 and is memorialized in the world of Ultima Online. Her appearance seems to vary from game to game.
This is not the first time we've known about plans to reuse Ultima VI material in Wing Commander II. You can read about a cut feature that was designed for WC2 which would've reused the TV animations from the Ultima VI opening.
Spock has been found – and guess what, he regenerated and lived his whole life and happened to end up exactly as old as he was the first time. What luck! In all seriousness, we loved Star Trek III and talked a lot about how important it was in setting up the next twenty years of Star Trek storytelling.
This week, things are changing just a little bit: we're moving from the previous collection of films, which were exclusively ones which inspired Wing Commander, to add a new set of movies that are referenced in Wing Commander stories (either in front of or behind the screens). If we come across another reference to a movie that inspired Wing Commander, we'll prioritize that in future weeks. Until then, enjoy a new batch of films with a little more variety… and some interesting Wing Commander connections that we'll explore in these intro posts.
With that in mind, we're kicking things off with the Star Wars movie we didn't already do: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
So what's our very first Wing Commander reference? Wing Commander Prophecy gets the honor by featuring a quote that references The Empire Strikes Back during the T'lan Meth E2 pilot rescue. The SAR pilot deliberately echoes a line from ESB when he finds Maniac's wingman: "We found him, sir! Repeat: we've found him!". The original line, spoken by a snowspeeder pilot upon discovering Han and Luke, is "I found them. Repeat, I found them." Here's Wing Commander Prophecy's audio clip:
There's also a great sequence in End Run that is clearly referencing the Imperial attack on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. During the Confederation's amphibious assault on Vukar Tag, we get a neat description of how the landing craft drop off 'walkers' like the ones invented for Star Wars! Too bad we didn't get to see that in Wing Commander III…
He pulled up to a hundred meters above the plateau and swept over it. Mongol and Chamberlain were lower down, weaving S-turns back and forth, waiting for targets to crop up. In the dust and confusion, he saw the grunts clambering out of their ships, racing through the wreckage, ground fighting vehicles pouring out the forward hatches, hovering up, and then skimming away. The heavy weapons landers touched down, disgorging their massive “walkers” which could traverse any terrain and earned as much armaments as a light corvette. There was a flurry of laser rifle fire, more secondary explosions, one of the landing craft, now serving as a medevac, already taking off and heading back out to space.
Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?
The Empire Strikes Back is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. It is currently streaming via subscription on Paramount+. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on UHD in 2020 and remains in print around the world. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.
For the previous Star Wars films, we made a point of watching the theatrical versions. Because The Empire Strikes Back's theatrical version is so close to the later special edition, everyone can choose which they'd prefer on their own.
How do we watch the movie together?
It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!
Here's a piece of fan art I never expected to see: a chibi version of the Kilrathi priestess from Secret Missions 2 by DeKreteOne on DeviantArt!
This is one that is a little less than usual, but I still wanted to try. I've enjoyed the Wing Commander series since my dad showed me the games when I was a kid. The Kilrathi always stuck in my mind as such a neat villain race, and the Priestess of Sivar, one of the only female Kilrathi ever to be seen (in a cutscene in Secret Missions 2 for the first game), has remained in my mind since I first saw her.
I drew this a while back, and just got around to wrapping up the colors/shading. Even though it is a little obscure of a concept, and not everyone enjoys the idea of more than one pair of breasts, I will probably draw some more art of her when I come up with some new concepts. I liked drawing her, and exploring what she would look like under the (admittedly skimpy) outfit.
I also posted this up on my X/Twitter page, with a screenshot of the original pixel art I based this on. Go check it out if you want. Also, go play Wing Commander, it is really fun.
I have more fanart and more chibis coming soon, I'll have to make a separate fanart folder on her soon enough.
More of this kind of fun, please! Here's her original appearance from 1991:
Last month, we posted some cool Hornet art by ulimann644 on DeviantArt. At the time we wondered what they were going to do next… and now we know, one of my favorite Wing Commander ship designs of all time: the original Fralthi!
Fralthi-class Carrier (DeviantArt)
This is my second WING COMMANDER mesh. The FRALTHI-CLASS Cruiser/Light Carrier of the Kilrathi in WING COMMANDER 1.Ulimann644 also posted two work in progress versions which show how much effort when into this ship.
Hope you like it.
Software:
- Lightwave 2024
- Photoshop
Fralthi-class Carrier (DeviantArt)
This is a second WIP-Picture of my second WING COMMANDER mesh.
I made some changes at the basic-colors and added a few new details. The Light Carrier/Cruiser has also it's gun-turrets now.
Hope you like it.
Software:
- Lightwave 2024
Fralthi-class Carrier WIP 1 (DeviantArt)
This is a first WIP-Picture of my second WING COMMANDER mesh - a few others will follow this year.
The FRALTHI-CLASS light carrier from the first WC-PC-Game. I plan to make some minor modifications to the original in the hope that the carrier will look better than in the templates.
Hope you like it.
Software:
- Lightwave 2024
It sounds like a Wing Commander I Dralthi is next… I can't wait to see how it turns out!
This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here (it's a weird one!). The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
Greetings WingNuts,
The Wing Commander movie club has traveled to distant galaxies and lived through some of the most deadly warfare in human history… and now we can add surviving high school in Los Angeles to our list of accomplishments! Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a movie that never quite comes together: it's endlessly promising a slightly better film that you sincerely wish you were watching. It's perfectly pleasant and certainly plenty of fun… but you come away wondering why there wasn't just a little more there.
As previously noted, the Wing Commander connection is slight: the original introductory story for Privateer included a character named Jake Rubio, a sketchy privateer who attempts to take advantage of the player when he is just starting out as an independent operator. Rubio's appearance was to be based on actor Paul Reubens' appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Reubens plays vampire henchman Amilyn and he makes quite an impression!
Sully did not like the part where Lothos ate a kitten. Sully wants to eat a kitten!
You all can identify any fighter in space at this point… but what about the small arms? Today we've put together a guide to the smaller weapons of Wing Commander Academy: handguns, rifles, grenades and more! Animated shows like Academy create a sort of visual bible of model sheets of "props" that can be reused from episode to episode… resulting in a consistency where the same weapon can appear each time that type is needed. It's interesting to see where Academy does this and where it creates new weapons for particular stories! We've divided everything by faction: Space Force, Marines, Kilrathi, Dioscuri and then unique weapons that appear only once associated with a particular character. Enjoy!
Terran Confederation Space Force
The Space Force pistol is the most common weapon to appear on Wing Commander Academy, used by six different episodes. Like the similarly prolific Kilrathi Pistol, it has more design work than the average prop and seems to be intentionally toyetic. It is carried by shipboard security and seems to be part of the survival kit carried by the Scimitars. Implied to be non-lethal, though this is not explicit. In Red and Blue, Burroughs uses one to dispatch a guard during his escape. In The Most Delicate Instrument it is carried by security aboard the Tiger's Claw and onoe is used by Blizzard to break into Archer's quarters. Maverick (and later Grunt) carry one stored aboard Blair's Scimitar in Word of Honor and Maniac has one aboard his fighter that he uses to dispatch at least one Dioscurian in Lords of the Sky. Archer uses hers to destroy a robot in On Both Your Houses and finally Maverick carries one in Price of Victory after he is shot down. In Red and Blue, when used at close range, it causes a blue electrical discharge. In The Most Delicate Instrument and Word of Honor it fires thin blue bolts, in On Both Your Houses it fires wide blue bolts and in Lords of the Sky it fires wide yellow bolts.
The second type of Space Force pistol appears twice. Maya reveals in Recreation that she never goes anywhere without one. All three cadets carry them in holsters during the mission to Greenhouse in On Both Your Houses. Fires a long blue bolt. Seems to be lethal (it explodes a Greenhouse robot).
The Space Force Submachine Gun appears in only one shot, carried by the helmeted guard assigned to protect the flight line on Sirius in Red and Blue. Not fired.
The Space Force blaster appears twice, carried by security personnel in The Most Delicate Instrument and pilots assigned to guard duty in Recreation. It fires non lethal blasts in both situations. Referred to as a "blaster" in the The Most Delicate Instrument script and a "laser rifle" in the Recreation outline. It fires both long yellow bolts (when used by the cadets) and long blue bolts (when fired by security) in The Most Delicate Instrument and an unspecified blue discharge in Recreation.
The imposing rifle appears in two episodes: Grunt carries it in his Scimitar and uses it to fight the Dioscurians when he lands in Lords of the Sky. Blair and Grunt both carry them when they land on Dolos in Glory of Sivar. It fires long yellow bursts in the first appearance and long blue ones in the second. Note that it is NOT the custom marine rifle Grunt had in Word of Honor; it may be the equivalent of a rifle carried for hunting during a survival situation.
Terran Confederation Marine Corps
Word of Honor begins with a flashback to trench warfare on Repleetah and in the process shows us several weapons that are specific to the marines. The most significant of these is the laser rifle, which Grunt refers to by name later in the episode. It appears later in the story (Grunt having saved his from his marine service) and then shows up in two other places. In Recreation, it is carried by the guard protecting the Warrior King in the Tiger's Claw's brig. And then in Glory of Sivar it is, strangely, used throughout the episode by Kilrathi soldiers. It is used by different Kilrathi throughout the episode: the party that searches the crashed Sartha, the guards at the labor camp, the soldiers that capture Maverick and Grunt, the guards on the flagship and the soldier that the cadets encounter while trying to escape. It fires long blue bolts in its first two appearances and long red bolts when used by the Kilrathi.
Most of the marines also carry a distinct type of pistol in holsters on their chests or hips. We do not ever see the pistol unholstered but the visible portion does not seem to match the unique pistol Grunt carries in the third act of Word of Honor or either of the types used by the Space Force.
One marine fires a bazooka which destroys a Kilrathi tank. It fires a large, circular blue energy bolt.
Another marine has a pair of grenades attached to his uniform. We do not see them used.
Grunt picks up a timed explosive charge carried via shoulder strap to destroy a Kilrathi tank. It seems to be a nod to the tricorder from the original Star Trek television series. It generates a large yellow explosion which causes the tank to combust.
Empire of Kilrah
Like the Space Force, the Kilrathi have a distinct pistol and rifle which appear consistently across the run of the show; they also seem to be toyetic, designed to look less like 20th century guns and more something that a toy company could release in a roleplaying line. The Kilrathi pistol first shows up in The Last One Left, brandished by Gharal to capture Blair (it seems to be holstered on his back). It returns in Word of Honor carried by Kurlan when he escapes from his downed Dralthi. In Price of Victory, Blair acquires a Kilrathi pistol from a survival kit; the enemy pilots trying to prevent his escape also have them. The pistol fires red bolts.
The standard Kilrathi rifle features a distinct double barrel. Gharal's troops carry these rifles in The Last One Left while the Kilrathi soldiers on Dioscuri use them throughout the episode in Lords of the Sky. In Price of Victory they are carried by the Kilrathi party searching for Maverick. The rifles fire yellow bolts in Lords of the Sky and red bolts in Price of Victory.
The Kilrathi soldiers that board the Pleiku in Walking Wounded carry another unique type of rifle which has a fixed bayonet. We do not see these fired but they double as a cutting torch at one point during the boarding.
Dioscuri
The inhabitants of Dioscuri-2 use a variety of types of Stone Age weaponry, both in combat and for ceremonial purposes, as part of their role in Word of Honor. These props appear in four different scenes and each time they are unique! The party which captures Maniac carried long spears tipped with stones that had been carved into pincers. One Dioscrian throws a bolas, a trio of weighted balls connected by a cord, to capture Maniac.
The party which attacks Grunt is armed primarily with hand axes. Most are smooth but at least one seems to have markings. One of these Dioscurians is carrying a wooden club.
The chieftain that speaks to Maverick and Maniac carries a ceremonial staff topped with a skull and a beard of feathers that match the ones he wears. His escorts carry torches.
Finally, when it comes time to sacrifice the cadets, the chieftain brandishes a two-handed halberd which has distinct markings carved in its blade.
Unique
Grunt has an unusual pistol in the third act of Word of Honor. It's not either of the Space Force sidearms and it doesn't seem to match the marine pistols seen in the episode's flashback. It's not really clear at all where he gets it, but it appears extensively and clearly has a model sheet it's working from.
Zurakh, the Strakha pilot, flashes a blade when insulted by his commander. We get a closeup look at the middle of the weapon but never really see the whole thing.
And last but not least, we can't forget the Warrior King's staff from Recreation! It fires bolts of green energy that surround their target in tendrils of similarly colored light. As used it is non-lethal but he implies it can kill Maverick. He actually leaves the staff on the carrier after he's captured so it's not clear what its current disposition is!
We hope this guide has been useful. It's really interesting seeing how a model sheet can be used across a whole show to build continuity… and what happens when that doesn't happen correctly! Did you catch any small arms we missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll update the guide.
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