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.