Did you like the Wing Commander movie?

Do you like the Wing Commander movie?

  • Yes

    Votes: 30 61.2%
  • No

    Votes: 19 38.8%

  • Total voters
    49
Another "gravity in space" moment is when Rosie's crashed Rapier is pushed off the runway and "falls" off the dock.

I got to stop. The movie while "bad" has an odd appeal to me.

The editing and cinematography is competent though. Just the script, ship design (fighter, capital), Kilrathi design, and Matthew Lilliard leave a lot to be desired.

My personal favorite moment is the guy at the Pegasus station trying to break the bullet proof glass.
 
Another "gravity in space" moment is when Rosie's crashed Rapier is pushed off the runway and "falls" off the dock.

I really don't get this complaint. I mean, it's not secifically you. This gets repeated and repeated, but it just doesn't happen. The bulldozer clearly is pushing the fighter off into a cavity on the side of the flight deck between where the deck itself is and the main hull. Why is this such a problem when we already accept that they have artificial gravity inside the ship and on most of the flight deck? It just *ISN'T* falling off the deck into space like so many people like to make it sound.

The problem with the scene really isn't what's happening with the fighter at all. It's the edit. For whatever reason (probably timing) they clipped the scene short and it cuts very quickly from the ship falling ackwardly to the next shot. I would have liked them to cut to a different angle of the fighter for when it falls, or have it pan around the fighter as it falls to give a better perspective on where the fighter is actually going.
 
I really don't get this complaint. I mean, it's not secifically you. This gets repeated and repeated, but it just doesn't happen. The bulldozer clearly is pushing the fighter off into a cavity on the side of the flight deck between where the deck itself is and the main hull. Why is this such a problem when we already accept that they have artificial gravity inside the ship and on most of the flight deck? It just *ISN'T* falling off the deck into space like so many people like to make it sound.
You know, I actually do have a big problem with this scene - and it's entirely different to what everyone else complains about. Namely, it just makes no sense. They have a big, fighter-sized ditch on either side of the deck - why not have a conveyor belt or something in that ditch that could be used to actually recover the wrecks? That scene always struck me as being very contrived - it's hard to imagine that they wouldn't have some solution that would allow them to at least recover the body, so you get the impression that it's all about setting up Maniac's story in a marginally more interesting (and totally unnecessary) way.
 
ATTN: Tiger Claw Flight Deck Supervisor,

We understand you recently lost a crew member clearing the exterior flight deck.

Conveyer belts for the sides of the deck are budgeted for next year's carrier. Retrofit belts are on back order and will arrive shortly.

In the meantime, please use your space-suited marine contingent to recover valuable personnel from the exterior flight deck.

Sincerely,
Confed Dept. Plot Device Management (shoehorn division)
 
You know, I actually do have a big problem with this scene - and it's entirely different to what everyone else complains about. Namely, it just makes no sense. They have a big, fighter-sized ditch on either side of the deck - why not have a conveyor belt or something in that ditch that could be used to actually recover the wrecks? That scene always struck me as being very contrived - it's hard to imagine that they wouldn't have some solution that would allow them to at least recover the body, so you get the impression that it's all about setting up Maniac's story in a marginally more interesting (and totally unnecessary) way.

They just don't address this at all. I don't see it as an issue because there's no reason that they don't actually recover the fighter later when they're not in so much of a rush. It would be nice to have everything explicitly stated, but stuff like that invariably gets cut out of the film for time anyway.

Speaking of which... aren't the funerals in WC1 one of the most memorable things about the game, whether they be yours or your wingman's? Why don't they have a funeral scene at the end?...
 
They just don't address this at all. I don't see it as an issue because there's no reason that they don't actually recover the fighter later when they're not in so much of a rush. It would be nice to have everything explicitly stated, but stuff like that invariably gets cut out of the film for time anyway.

The problem is that the scene is so crucial to Maniac's characte,and Angel's, too, probably to a greater extent. Why don't they make some effort to recover her? Why doesn't the tractor that pushes Rosie's fighter off the deck try to pull her back in? The fact that they're still on the run isn't clearly established until later; at that moment they've driven off the enemy. So why don't they at least check to see if one of their best fighter pilots is still alive?

The scene would make more sense if there were a greater sense of urgency; "bandits closing in!"or somesuch. All that scene has is Angel and Hunter talking about how they're running out of gas, so... maybe the Claw could stop or something? Worse case scenario, they have to eject and another ship can tractor them back; we don't learn until later just how badly mauled the Claw's fighters were. If they absolutely have to shoot Rosie's fighter into space, maybe they could send out an SAR ship to bring it back?

I have to wonder if part of the whole hangup over "gravity in space" is at least in part a subconscious reaction to the logic of the situation - then and there, at that point in the movie and no further. People can't articulate the absurdity of the situation - so they fixate on the most obvious, blatant one, a space-plane being pushed off the deck of a space-carrier.

And (...video on play again...) that scene is followed directly by the infamous "space sonar" scene. The people fixated on the Rosie sequence are given something else to turn their confusion on.



razgriz21 said:
My personal favorite moment is the guy at the Pegasus station trying to break the bullet proof glass.

You would have gotten more of him had the Pilgrim traitor subplot stayed intact - and it'd have given you your central villain. :)
 
My understanding is that Wing Commander's jump transition pre-dates The Matrix's bullet time. I think it's actually a fairly old technique (I recall seeing it used in advertisements in the 1990s), but it wasn't until The Matrix that it really became popular (and arguably thereafter, overused).

I think that until the Matrix, this effect was achieved by using still cameras, so when moving around the object, the object itself would not move but be "frozen" in place. With the Matrix, they used an array of high speed cameras instead of still cameras so they could revolve around the object while the object was still moving in slow motion (and the object's movement could be sped up or slowed down independent of the movement around the object).
 
The problem is that the scene is so crucial to Maniac's characte,and Angel's, too, probably to a greater extent. Why don't they make some effort to recover her? Why doesn't the tractor that pushes Rosie's fighter off the deck try to pull her back in? The fact that they're still on the run isn't clearly established until later; at that moment they've driven off the enemy. So why don't they at least check to see if one of their best fighter pilots is still alive?

I agree that the scene is important to Maniac's arc but I disagree about your reasoning somewhat because while important to maniac, the scene isn't really about Maniac, and this is partly what is lost in the edit.

Think about it this way... we have an entire film called "Wing Commander" in which the main Character is neither a Wing Commander, or even a Wing Leader in the film. What we do have though throughout the film is an extremely unclear subtext about the various pilot's sense of duty. Blair has to put aside his personal feelings and make the jump to sol. All the pilots are pushing on by trying not to think about the dead. Maniac needs to face up to a sense of responsibility... that when he flies, his friends lives are in his hands... All this though is wrapped around Angel's character, who shows up 15 minutes into the film or so depending on what cut were talking about. Each of those situations I mentioned revolve around Angel... ta da: The Wing Commander!

That brings us back to Angel having to face a last minute decision about whether to keep her pilots circling with perhaps not even enough fuel to land to allow for a rescue crew to retrieve Rosie - if she's even alive - or to clear the deck as quick as possible. It's her call. She even sheds a tear while making it. I don't know why they waited so long to refuel but it's very possible that earlier edits had this a longer scene. Acually I know it was - at least a little. But those extra seconds do make a difference. Having the various pilots radioing Angel about their urgent fuel needs and her procrastinating till the last second, trying to get Rosie on the Comm suffers from having even the few extra seconds there is in the work-print trimmed.

Now the fighter is a ways out on the flight deck so I guess it would have taken a lot longer to push it into the hangar than off to the side I guess. The not-prominent-enough-comm-messages indicate that they only had 15 to 20 seconds of fuel left. In fact they were supposed to be lining up to land in order of fuel needs before Manaic and rosie took off to shoot Dralthi on their own. There's even a quiet dubbed in line in the Theatrical version over Maniac and Rosie's conversation where Angel tells Paladin to Land fist followed by Blair (Hence why They're already on the flight deck... Originally Paladin was supposed to Eject - hence the blood on his head - and be picked up by Blair). Essentially, because of the emergency Maniac and rosie jump the landing queue and hence the reason why everyone is so urgently in need of landing to refuel.
 
I like the flick. I was sick at home last week and watched it for the first time in three years. Just hearing the music and watching the opening credits takes me back to being a 14-year-old Wing Commander fan.

The movie is by no means perfect. It has its painful moments (any interaction between Blair/Angel and Maniac/Forbes is particularly cringe-worthy; and Hunter's ultra-dickishness in the rec room scene bugs me), but also some pretty cool parts (the battles, the score, the set design and costumes--even if they deviate a whole bunch from the games--and David Warner). The rough editing detracts from it for sure, so we have scenes that just feel out of order, bad ADR lines, disappearing characters (bye, Sansky, nice knowing you), and sequences that feel far shorter than they should (wow, Blair found that NAVCOM quick), and a misspelled name that clearly should not have been overlooked. I really would like to see the movie the way it was intended to be made and I wonder if I ever will.

Per the usual criticisms: 1.) sound in space. Who cares? Zod and Ursa talk to each other on the moon in Superman II and no once slams that movie for it, but it seems to be one of the unforgivable sins in Wing Commander. Yeah, yeah, superhero movies are generally more fantastical than something like WC, but my point stands. Besides, it's never stated that they're scared of being heard by the Kilrathi. If that's the way it's widely interpreted, then maybe Chris Roberts could've filmed the scene differently, but hey, anyone would be tense if being hunted by alien demon-cats, and Paladin was right to tell them to shut the hell up. 2.) fighter dips. It's a brief stylistic flourish. The whole movie does not hinge upon the fact that the Rapiers dip while leaving the flight deck, so I don't understand why it should ruin the movie for anyone.

My two cents. Also, this is my first post in over five years. Egad.
 
I'd rather watch Wing Commander then Transformers 2 (and I used to like that movie until Inception came out).
 
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