I'm pretty sure we already talked about the accents in this very thread.
... Yes, we did. And not the royal we, you and I specifically. You posted this already and I already responded. And then you didnt' reply.
I thought I had responded. I really have to stop ENDING my day by visiting the forum... or during periods of insomnia... my brain's a bit scrambled after only an hour's sleep.
Anyway, back on track. The actors used were good actors, just poorly chosen accent-wise(they could have at least trained someone to use the correct accent... it's done all the time in hollywood.). Nothing's going to change my stance on that one. Paladin with a french accent would be like a Mexican Hunter. (note: I have no bias against any race, creed, or culture. I'm just citing an example.) On a side note, I'm glad they did Hunter right... that crazy bastard was always a kick to fly with.
The design gripe was just a small part of it, listing an example. I'll go at length, I suppose... but I'm entering into fanboy-isms here, an area I don't like much... then again, I've been there since '95...
1.Sure, it can fly in the atmosphere... but can it ENTER it? At Wing Commander speeds, during combat? A craft like that wouldn't survive re-entry, I'd think. The wings would likely shear off... then again, most WC designs don't look like they'd survive re-entry. In fact, this is one thing I feel the WC games did very well...
2. Personal taste. This thing looks nothing like any design around it's own age, including the Scimitar. Also a moot point, I suppose, because they turned the Tiger's Claw into the Red October anyway... Now, I could see design schemes changing rather quickly, over the last 20 years airplanes/jets have evolved a great deal... but the design is simply inefficient and rediculous. (then again, we are talking about a sci-fi movie based around a sci-fi video game which started out in the days of 640x480 resolution, and revised to appeal to the masses and not cost a billion dollars to produce)
Quarto, you brought up some excellent points in WC canon, and some sensible points about the cockpit shots. (I would think it wouldn't be that expensive to have a bogus cockpit fabricated, in fact I'd think it would be cheaper than buying an entire airframe, but no use screaming about it) I suppose there are a great number of space-only fighters that exist in the fiction...
One thing that does confuse me, is the Gattling Mass Driver, when only six months later, they reveal static mass drivers with (at least) similar fire rates. I suppose they just needed something to cover what used to be the nose cone, but it's another slap in the original fiction's face... It was interesting to see, but the Rapier I design (not sure of it's conception date) had to be about as old as our favorite sluggish beast of a fighter... Why the lack of mass-driver gattlings in WC1? or the existance of other fighter-based energy weapons, which we don't see at all? (Neutron Guns come to mind, as well as the tried-and-true Laser)
One thing though... just for the record. I am not siding with anyone on liking, or disliking the Wing Commander Movie. I came to that conclusion on my own. (LOAF, I'm sure you recall that we've butted heads over this many times in the past, though the most we could manage was to agree to disagree)
Ah, well. moot point. Well, have fun lads, I'll be gone for the next week and a half on a visit to Texas. I'll be sure to try and visit the old Origin HQ, if it still exists... to pay my respects.
's... this above quote in combination with your exploding ship theory is probably about as solid a theory as can be made for this pathetic screenwriting mistake. So here it is: 
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