Cinescape Questions Roberts

3 Questions With Chris Roberts Believe it or not, you actually might have a reason to stick around for the feature after you're done watching the new Star Wars trailer this month. That's because 20th Century Fox most likely will tie the Episode One preview to prints of Wing Commander, a sci-fi actioner starring Freddie Prinze Jr. that's based on the best-selling computer game series. The game was the brainchild of British-born designer Chris Roberts, who also was given the opportunity to direct the relatively low-budget $27 million film. CINESCAPE recently caught up with Roberts to ask what moviegoers can expect from the film:

Q: How would you describe Wing Commander?

For me, it's sort of like a classic, nautical World War II movie, taking elements of Das Boot, or Tora! Tora! Tora! and sort of updating it and putting it in a science-fiction universe. It's sort of a World War II movie with a sci-fi spin.

Q: Why did you want to give it that World War II-feel?

The original game was sort of based on the war of the Pacific, but it was put in space because putting it in space is more fun. No one can say, 'No that's not the way the plane flies.' In the future you get to create things and take all the good bits and not worry about all the bad bits. That was the original inspiration for the game. But I'm a huge fan of World War II movies anyway and I thought it would be really great to take that concept onto the screen. So in the actual design of the picture, when you're on the ships or you're seeing the fighters flying around they're meant to be very evocative of submarines or World War II battleships or fighters. In the future that's probably not what space ships are going to look like but it was a definite style we wanted to go with to try to set the movie apart from other things like Star Wars. Obviously its a bit difficult to compete with that movie since it's the grandaddy of them all.

Q: You scored a bit of a coup by casting Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard as your leads, because they just had a hit with She's All That. Were they familiar with the game?

Oh, yeah. Freddie is a game player and Matt plays a fair amount of games as well, so that aspect made it a lot of fun.