Wing Commander Movie in Kotaku.

I know it is frowned upon here, but I agree with almost everything said in that article.
I watched that movie four or five times in three different languages, and I came to the conclusion that I only did that because I love the games.

The positive things in the movie for me:
- Uniforms
- Tiger Claw design (although the original one would have been way cooler, look at Howie's Bengal!)
- Dogfight scenes
- Jürgen Prochnow because I am a fanboy
- The soundtrack
- The name.

That's it. I'm almost sure I'll watch it again when it is on TV again in Germany, and I'm almost sure I'll get depressed and/or angry again. Dammit.
 
It's funny -- we streamed a new longer cut of the Wing Commander movie in #WingNut last weekend and had a grand old time watching and talking about it. I guess the Kotaku guy was doing the exact opposite thing at the same time.

I woke up at 3 AM this morning to a message on my phone that I was "going to have to deal with morons today". You'd think that just meant it was a regular work day, but I quickly figured out it was a Kotaku thing.

My big problem, as always, is that I don't get the point of the article in the first place. "The Wing Commander movie is bad!" Well, there's a stunningly original thesis. Is there anyone in the world who doesn't agree with this? Or already know it? It's not a movie review where you're telling people to save their money, it's not a critical film study with any real detail. It's just such a stupid sickly cynical thing aimed at this terrible audience of people whose whole deal is that they enjoy hating things. Boo to that.

I can see two ways to do this article:

- As a retrospective. Paint March, 1999 for me. Tell me all about what people were hoping to see, what the world was like for gamers and moviegoers and sci fo geeks at the time and what it was like to find out that the movie sucked. (This is that couple-month period where we had The Matrix, Wing Commander and Star Wars --it *was* a weird time for those groups, filled with crazy high expectations and letdowns and weird surprises.)

- I maintain that the one truly amazing thing about the Wing Commander movie, that separates it from every other 'video game movie', is that no matter what you think of the film itself it *wasn't* a cash grab. Everything from Mario to Resident Evil to Tomb Raider is a case of the people owning the game pimping it out for a licensing fee. Here, Sony, buy our creation and do whatever you want with it. Wing Commander was different--it was directed by the man who created the series, the artists who worked on the game worked on the movie and so on. There's an amazing story to be told about that process beyond IT DIDN'T STAR MARK HAMILL BOO. So how about one of these big sites actually study the damn thing? How is it possible that I can spend my saturday chatting with the people who made the movie, looking through versions of the script and concept art and debating what happened *for fun* when a giant professional site with a million readers and 'professional' paid writers gives us a bullet point of complaints from the IMDb. And this crap will get more hits than I'll see in my lifetime! "What happened with the Wing Commander movie?" is such a complex question that with just a little work would give you a completely fascinating narrative (Chris Roberts so believed in the movie that he threw in so much of his own money--that's such an interesting story... and the kicker that the finished movie isn't very good is a great ending.)

There are some factual errors, too:

- The Wing Commander movie did not "kill the future of the franchise". The timeline doesn't bear this particular coping method out ('I didn't like it, therefore it had to have ruined everything!'). Origin shut down development of Privateer Online and laid off the 'Maverick' team before the film came out. The party after the movie premiere in Austin was a little bittersweet, because it was attended by all the guys who had built the series but now didn't have jobs. (If you had to boil the complex history of Wing Commander's "death" into a bullet point then I'd go with low sales of space sims after Prophecy combined with EA's decision to convert Origin into their MMO studio. Some credit has to go to the loss of Chris Roberts, too... but that was more of a slow burn.)

- Similarly, the bit about the movie ruining Chris Roberts' directorial career is a little off. It's one of those things you can stand behind as technically true (he didn't officially direct another movie--but I'm sure some of the Outlander folks would say differently even on that point) but not in the (mean) spirit Kotaku is intended. We're supposed to think the movie was so bad that Chris Roberts never worked in this town again... when, in fact, he went on to be a hugely succesful (and very hands-on) movie producer. It's a lame rhetorical trick.

- As great as Mark Hamill, John Rhys Davies and company were, there was absolutely no chance they were ever going to be the cast of a Wing Commander movie. Hamill had already aged out of the hero role and none of them were A-list stars in 1999 (and the cutscenes in Wing Commander 3 and 4 were *not* objectively amazing--they were so cool to everyone who owned a computer in 1994-6... but they weren't a theatrical-movie quality thing). I think a fundamental misunderstanding that runs through this article is that a video game movie is supposed to be for video game fans. The idea behind these movies is that the game is so succesful in that audience that it will appeal to everyone else--and that's the root of so many of the changes this article checks through. Consider that about two million people saw the Wing Commander movie in theaters... which is far, far more than ever bought any Wing Commander game. Everyone making these movies knows going in that they aren't for "gamers"... it just isn't how the economics work.

- Maniac was just an asshole in the original Wing Commander, too (which is when the movie is set). It was Tom Wilson who changed the character, not the Wing Commander movie.
 
Ehhh. Another day another internet review...

He's looking at WCA today...let's see how that goes.
 
The old mantra of "everyone wants to be a writer but no one wants to read" sunk into my head when reading that article. Unforunately, people WILL read that article and nod their heads and cluck their tounges and stroke their beads over it because they walked in with an established prejudice. Upon seeing validation, the common Internet thug with his Ivy Leauge attitude, straight-out-of-high-school education and low-paying temp job at the Sweets And Eats hut under the freeway will agreewhole heartedly that since its on the Internet, why, they themselves *must* be correct.

Its this kind of stupid group-think that started in 1999 because of The Phantom Menace. So many people complained about that movie ... and practically none of them understood what they were complaining about or why. Its just a bunch of kids who'd get lost on a Sit-N-Spin wanting to fit in with whatever they think is the "cool crowd" for those five minutes.

People that write on Kotaku I hope will grow up and look back on their writing as pretty poor and largely embarassing. But I'm not holding my breath on that either.
 
Sadly it should be pointed out that Kotaku is the equivalent of TMZ for video games. It's a delightful soufflé of bad writing, poor editing, and sanctimonious arrogance.
 
It's funny -- we streamed a new longer cut of the Wing Commander movie in #WingNut last weekend and had a grand old time watching and talking about it. I guess the Kotaku guy was doing the exact opposite thing at the same time.

Yeah, thanks for that. I was really looking forward to getting to watch it with a group of you guys. Your input is invaluable in the editing process.

My big problem, as always, is that I don't get the point of the article in the first place. "The Wing Commander movie is bad!" Well, there's a stunningly original thesis. Is there anyone in the world who doesn't agree with this? Or already know it? It's not a movie review where you're telling people to save their money, it's not a critical film study with any real detail. It's just such a stupid sickly cynical thing aimed at this terrible audience of people whose whole deal is that they enjoy hating things. Boo to that.

I don't quite understand this either. There's always a place for reasonably discussing the movie's shortcomming but none of these articles ever do this in any meaningful fashion. Who is this article written for? Certainly, the hits from people that - thinking that they need to watch a movie this weekend - missed the WC movie are negligible. Of those people, almost certainly they aren't already WC fans, and non-WC fans really don't give a crap about any of the complaints in the article.

Anyone who's been around here long enought knows that I'm a pretty firm believer that many of the movie's shortcommings could have been avoided in the editing room. If the story hadn't been butchered and the ending less anticlimactic I'm sure the movie wouldn't be a masterpiece but less people would have felt cheated by it. Some other judicious editing could have also avoided many of the more akward lines and wierd bits that get picked on too. There was a -maybe not completely awesome - better movie in there. An editor and producer with better instincts would have helped alot.

Somewhere in a vault a bunch of filmstock is sitting around waiting for Chris Roberts to get the inclination to go back and try and piece together a movie much closer to what he set out to make from the start. It may not make you want to have it's babies but I really hope we get to see that someday.
 
There's one major point i have to agree with, there really WAS a huge sense of disappointment when i watched it the first time. Disappointment can make people overlook the many good things, the author himself proves it with his strange reasoning.
Over time i found quite a few things i really like about this movie, but it required many viewings to overcome the initial disappointment and concentrate on watching the movie objectively, something the author obviously didn't bother with.
Concluding i can say, i prefer having a not so good movie over having no movie at all.
 
And I'd be interested to read the story of that disappointment--just from the perspective of a Wing Commander fan in 1998-9 watching the build up to the movie... that would be a great article.
 
And I'd be interested to read the story of that disappointment--just from the perspective of a Wing Commander fan in 1998-9 watching the build up to the movie... that would be a great article.

This is such an oddity for me. My experiences as a Wing Commander fan *Online* kind of coincide with the movie development. It probably explains alot about my obsession with it I guess. I came into the online WC world via Dans site as well as WCHS mostly to ask a question about changing nav points in WC Prophecy. I was around for Secret ops and of course followed the development of the movie pretty close. I was exstatic, really.

But my reactions to the film kind are a little different. I was really aprehensive with the plot descriptions that were around in the early days. The kilrathi have a super-weapon that will destroy the Universe! Lame. It was a huge relief when we finally had an accurate plot synopsis from the movie. When fans read the novel and said it was pretty good it was equally a relief.

I don't remember the specifics of if the leaked reviews bashing the film came out ahead of the novel or not. But that was part of why the novel reviews were nice too.

Anyway, it's really hard to judge my reaction to things like the film costumes and set design since we were exposed to much of it fairly early on. But the other problem was that being in a small town, our theater didn't play the movie for at least a month or two after it premiered elsewhere. So I experienced all the hate and anger from others without having seen the film myself.

I liked the retro look in the previews. I liked alot of what I saw. By the time I went the theater expecting something downright awful, I was... surprised? I didn't hate it. I enjoyed most of it actually.

My initial thoughts were that I really didn't like the off-the-shoulder shirts but I actually liked all the rest of the costumes. The ship designs were decent, though I didn't care for any of the fighters. They were too retro, but I understood the reason and the designs have grown on me. If I had the choice would I have chosen/designed them differently? Yes, but I have a soft-spot for them now, though I've always liked the Diligent's design.

I didn't care for Maniac in the movie. My perception of his role has changed since but initially he came off too surfer for me. Freddie Prinze Jr. I didn't hate or love, but pretty much everyone else in the film was great. I thought hunter was spot-on to what I rememberwd in the games. Again though I was prepared for all this.

Aside from an anticlimactic ending and the theater projecting the movie so dark that you couldn't tell what was happening in the dogfight sequences, I found my self actually enjoying it quite a bit. It wasn't as bad as people were making it out to be. For what it was, it was good and I was always aware while watching it that it could have been more. I've been intrigued by the missing scenes ever since... And sadly we've had to endure the same misguided arguments against the film ever since too -over and over and over and over. In a backhanded kind of compliment at least the Kotaku article avoided rehashing some of the worst offenses of that nature.
 
@LeHah: I love reading Kotaku. But I don't actually consider most of what Kotaku posts to be 'writing'

Bandit's entirely spot-on: Saying the Wing Commander movie is 'bad' is not an original thesis, even less so 12 years later. And the sad thing is that the series is called "Total Recall," which implies trying to 'remember' something more than a general time-faded sentiment. All the article concepts he proposes make better sense than treading the kind of opinions that can be found in YouTube links. It's also fairly obvious that in putting together the article, he just dug through Wikipedia.

Another thing I never really liked about these so-called 'retrospectives' is how everyone calls out Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matthew Lillard as terrible actors or terrible choices for leads, and I'm all like, look, this movie has a whole number of problems that have nothing to do with these actors. It's like saying Arnold Schwarzenegger was a lousy Mr. Freeze, when all he did was take the material that was handed to him.

I really liked Telep's novelization of the film and even bought the follow-up Pilgrim Stars. He really showed the potential to be had in the alternate universe established by the movie by evoking a great sense of despair in a time of war, which elaborated on the mysticism and post-human condition that the Pilgrims possessed and which had a traitor subplot that was much better developed than any of the traitor subplots that Roberts had ever created in the games. It's no Black Company, but it isn't trash.
 
The one thing that really bothered me when I saw the movie in theaters back then was the introduction of the whole "Pilgrim" thing. It didn't fit anywhere with everything I knew about the games I grew up playing and loved.

But, the following weekend I dragged a few friends to see it with me a second time and we had a good time with it. Like most folks I had issues with it, mostly about how different it was from the games. But, seeing as how Chris Roberts himself did it, I couldn't complain too much about this version of his vision.

Hell, some of those friends I dragged to the theater ended up becoming fans of Wing Commander. So in that way, You could say they accomplished something! :D
 
I forced my girlfriend to watch the movie several times. She thinks, it's a bad movie. And she's right and that's nothing new. The movie itself is a bad one, but for me, it is a guilty pleasure. Every now and then I watch the film and I am entertained. As I recall, I was very hyped, when the movie came out in Germany and as far as I know, it didn't come with the Episode 1 Trailer here. And i pretty much enjoyed it. It wasn't the blockbuster experience, but I think, these expectations came with the huge success of the games. But as Loaf stated, the cutscenes weren't as great as everyone is saying. Sure, they were technology impressive, but it is funny, that everyone says, they should have re-used the sets from Wing3 and 4. I would love to see the movie with all the green-screen-sets of Wing3.

I absolutely loved the fact, that they replaced Hamill, Wilson etc. but I hated Prinze and Lillard, though I can understand the decisions. As the Kotaku-article said right (and it's the only valid point in ther, imo), Prinze was big then. I didn't like Prinze's performance and I didn't like Lillard's loudness. I liked his charactes, but I think he got too much screen-time and thus getting to annoying. Angel, Paladin, Hunter and Tolwyn were really great, though I wasn't excited not to see McDowell.

I didn't care about the Pilgrim-Stuff. I was a plot-item like the navcom, it was okay.

I think it was a bad decsion to cut out the traitor-plot. Since WC2, the war painted as a dark and dangerous war, which destroyed the mental health of the characters bit by bit, changing their characters in a very interesting way. I always thought, that this should be in the movie, the suspense of deceeption. I think, the Pilgrim-thing would have been better recieved, if those scenes were included.

As for the article: It was bad. It was just "this was bad, that was bad, blablabla" and it was not fun to read. I know, that many of you guys hated the Spoony-Review but I absolutely loved that review. Not because it pointed out new things, just because it was very very funny. I love watching that thing again and again =). But this kotaku-article was just plain useless.
 
The one thing that really bothered me when I saw the movie in theaters back then was the introduction of the whole "Pilgrim" thing. It didn't fit anywhere with everything I knew about the games I grew up playing and loved.

The Pilgrims are a bit odd, and it really is better explained in the book, mainly because the book was written off the script before they knew the movie would be released without traitor subplots and whatnot. But it's also worth mentioning that a few key lines about genetic changes got trimmed out of Paladin's explanation to Blair about what Pilgrims are. It's one the few places where dialogue that was trimmed solely for time that I feel should have stayed.

I maintain that the worst thing about the Pilgrims is the name Pilgrims. Blair's supposed superpowers are such that they just don't matter in the post-movie universe. The way Jump tech develops make it not really a useful function. Blair became a fighter pilot without that ability after all. Beyond the genetic ability to "feel" minute gravitational forces there really isn't anything special about Pilgrims. But they created religion around their abilities and that 's what everyone hates about them - their superiority complex.

While it is odd that it was never mentioned in the rest of the series, it's also something that never mattered for the rest of the series. It's an aspect of Blair's character that was never explored rather than some kind of contradictory history for the character. The bigger issue here is that it was really hard for fans to accept that traits they didn't like about a character that - over the course of 5 games - they had imprinted alot of themselves. Really, what do we know about Blair from WC1?

Actually there was at least one document from early in the movie's development (which coincides with the development of WC4) where they were possibly going to call the Borderworlders... or something like that. It kind of suggests some interesting things about why they were singled out and specifically Paulson's comments to blair about them being subhuman.

But, the following weekend I dragged a few friends to see it with me a second time and we had a good time with it. Like most folks I had issues with it, mostly about how different it was from the games. But, seeing as how Chris Roberts himself did it, I couldn't complain too much about this version of his vision.

Hell, some of those friends I dragged to the theater ended up becoming fans of Wing Commander. So in that way, You could say they accomplished something! :D
That's a great story! I know many people that came to the series from the movie. In fact it's actually quite surprising how many people see the CIC gang at dragoncon and other events and ask when we'll see a sequel.


Another thing I never really liked about these so-called 'retrospectives' is how everyone calls out Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matthew Lillard as terrible actors or terrible choices for leads, and I'm all like, look, this movie has a whole number of problems that have nothing to do with these actors. It's like saying Arnold Schwarzenegger was a lousy Mr. Freeze, when all he did was take the material that was handed to him.

I never really hated Blair in the role, and even found his choice for the role fitting. I didn't think he was amazing either though. Oddly, in a number of the actual professional reviews of the movie (not the internet blog types) a number of them figured he was likable in the role. The ultimate sin of the WC movie though was that it was forgettable. It had decent production values but a non event for the finalle.

I really liked Telep's novelization of the film and even bought the follow-up Pilgrim Stars. He really showed the potential to be had in the alternate universe established by the movie by evoking a great sense of despair in a time of war, which elaborated on the mysticism and post-human condition that the Pilgrims possessed and which had a traitor subplot that was much better developed than any of the traitor subplots that Roberts had ever created in the games. It's no Black Company, but it isn't trash.

Most of the Pilgrim background in the movie novelization was in the original draft of the film by Kevin Droney. But in Kevin's draft there is no traitor. He has the Tiger's Claw as a left-over from the Pilgrim war. In fact it was Pilgrim ship, and when they handed it over at the end of the war they left a rogue AI chip onboard... and there was your traitor. The stuff about people hating Pilgrims is still there. Blair's mother is still a Pilgrim, and they mostly suspected Paladin of being a traitor but it was the Chip transmitting coordinates... Chris Roberts came up with the parts about Sansky and Admiral Wilson being Pilgrims and traitors.

Actually the first draft is an interesting read. It has all kinds of wierd time dilation stuff about space travel and is somewhat more militaristic. It's an interesting script and a good starting point for anyone wondering where much of what you see in the film came from. But it doesn't really read like a WC story. (Blair's callsign is Dodger and Angel's first name is Angelica?). It's actually surprising to see how extensive Chris Robert's rewrite is while strain's of Kevin's draft still come through.
 
I think it was a bad decsion to cut out the traitor-plot. Since WC2, the war painted as a dark and dangerous war, which destroyed the mental health of the characters bit by bit, changing their characters in a very interesting way. I always thought, that this should be in the movie, the suspense of deceeption. I think, the Pilgrim-thing would have been better recieved, if those scenes were included.
I agree that the movie would have been better with the traitor stuff left in. The challenge was both money and editing. Sowhere along the line they decided not to use the Merlin character save for some of the Fighter computer stuff. That left them in a bind as it was near impossible to make the traitor stuff make sense without Merlin.
 
Oh I totally agree. If the movie had everything that the novel did it would've been much better.

But, I'm sure that has been beaten to death here, as well as the reasons for the sub-plots being removed.

Never read the sequel to the movie novel. Worth tracking down, friends?
 
Actually there was at least one document from early in the movie's development (which coincides with the development of WC4) where they were possibly going to call the Borderworlders... or something like that. It kind of suggests some interesting things about why they were singled out and specifically Paulson's comments to blair about them being subhuman.

Having read the feedback on these forums for a year or two before finally seeing the movie on DVD, I'd already reduced my expectations. Even so, I still found the Pilgrim sub-storyline jarring.

Had they continued with this tie-in to the Borderworlders, I would have found it so much easier to adapt to the 'expansion' of the WC universe. Just like BW was a WC4 expansion of previously small points, I could have accepted Pilgrims as an expansion of the BW. I particularly would have liked the tie-in to WC4 points as LOAF mentioned.
 
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