1). Given that the movie is supposed to be the same continuity, what IS the explanation of how Bossman appears to be dead in the movie (although his fighter is apparently in tact and on the Claw), and yet he's alive again in WC1? It's not like he could have gone out on a patrol and never came back, and hence be presumed dead, unless he was in a different ship, since his ship is sitting on the flight deck. But he obviously didn't come back from a patrol injured, get pulled from his ship, and then die, because then he certainly would be dead. The only scenarios I can think of would be either that he'd been temporarily assigned to a different fighter and hadn't come back, or that he'd gone on a covert ops mission of some sort, a la Bluehair in Special Ops, or Angel in WC3, and that there'd been no word and hence he'd been presumed dead. Is there anything anywhere that sheds light on this?
I should stress first that there is, as of yet, no 'canonical' explanation for Bossman's double (heh, actually, triple - nobody played SWC...) death. There are only fan theories.
First, lets note that what you just said is something not many people pick up on (including, it would seem, several screenwriters). Isn't it really darned odd that Bossman's fighter is sitting there, perfectly fine, on the flight deck? This isn't World War II - a bullet doesn't penetrate your cockpit and mortally wound you but allow you to heroically land your plane first. They clearly aren't wearing pressurized suits and even if they were some kind of flesh wound would render one useless in the first place. I wish I knew what the guy who came up with the Blair-gets-Boss'-fighter scenario was thinking.
What we do know is how Chris McCubbin explained this oddity, in The Confederation Handbook. In the form of a letter from Angel to Boss' wife (the letter she was writing in SM2! The spirit, if not the letter, of the characters...) she explains that he was 'vaporized by radiation' and that his fighter was later recovered. What this discounts, however, is the idea that he was just flying a different fighter or wounded in a missile strike on the carrier or something else.
Everything from here on out is unstated theory and should be recognized as such:
- Bossman's fighter was disabled and he was pulled out and taken prisoner by the Kilrathi.
- The letter written to Bossman's wife is a lie, referencing End Run's statement from Bear about how reassuring letters are sent home about dying quickly and painlessly rather than being taken prisoner.
- ???
- Profit.... I mean, back to the Tiger's Claw through an as-of-yet untold story.
2). I understand that Broadswords had been around for a long time, and indeed, we see them in the movie (I guess we're supposed to assume that they are the same Broadsword we see in WC2, perhaps an earlier version, and not a completely different fighter like the Rapier I was). However, I don't really understand the role that Broadswords would have played in the fleet back then, except possibly as SAR vessels. This was before the invention of torpedoes, as I recall (the WC2 manual states quite clearly that torpedoes were then a recent invention...unless it means "phase-shield penetrating torpedoes"), and the WC1 era fighters, at least, seemed quite capable of handling non-phase-shielded capships up to a Fralthi size at least without needing bomber support. Indeed, we know that in the McAulliffe ambush, the Raptor featured very heavily in capship attack. So why would you ever use a big slow bomber when a Raptor or even a Scimitar (which was also used in capship strike missions...see Claw Marks and the mission that Tooner and Dribbles were lost on) were completely capable and could also handle fighters better?
* The idea that torpedoes were around before Wing Commander II shows up before the movie; in fact, the idea that there were ship-killer torpedoes and impenetrable shields is an important element of the Action Stations prequel novel. I think we had accepted that these things go in cycles well before the movie.
* Enyo Engagement, not McAuliffe Ambush. More to the point, though, the Raptors involved in the battle plan weren't put there to slaughter capital ships - they were put there as a mine-laying decoy force so insignificant as to seemingly guarantee a Kilrathi victory.
* Note that the mission Tooner and Dibbles were on was *part of* a strike against a Ralari; we don't know what else it involved (the rest of the strike force damaged but didn't destroy the Rathtak). Which speaks to the greater point here - it's easy to blow up capital ships in Wing Commander I, but all the fiction (especially that in the game itself) implies that it isn't. When you miss destroying a cruiser, for instance, Halcyon will tell you he's sending a whole squadron of Raptors against it.
Overall, though, the idea is that even when you can damage a ship with guns it's a lot easier to knock it out with a single shield-penetrating torpedo. (Broadswords had alrady shown up on the Tiger's Claw, too - on the Academy cartoon.)
I'm not trying to stick my nose in the air, but I think it's good to look at Wing Commander (or any decent work of fiction) from both in- and out-of-universe perspectives. Something like the morality of blowing up Kilrah is interesting to talk about as insiders, while other things seem to require a step outside. Why do Blair and Maniac morph between four or so radically different appearances? I don't think this requires any explanation other than "different art styles, different actors," but I'm willing to take a stab at it in-continuity if you are. Working theory: repeated combat missions can make pilots spontaneously transform, and sometimes grow black outlines.
