Wing Commander Movie Like It's 1991

This is a special treat. In the past we've explored earlier drafts of the Wing Commander movie -- the pitch to Sony, the first, second, third and shooting scripts. We've followed the original through Chris Roberts' and Kevin Droney's rewrites and revealed how it became the movie we saw in 1999. But what if we told you there was a Wing Commander movie pitch before all that?

In late 1991, Origin worked on an internal Wing Commander movie project. The idea was that a team at the company could do a demo version to be shown to investors at CES. A script for the demo was written by G.P. Austin and a longer treatment for the entire movie that could be done with investment money was included.

If you've ever wondered if the Wing Commander movie would have been better without "Pilgrims" and done at Origin, the answer here seems to be... no. It's incredibly fascinating but it isn't a very good story: it tells about Blair's first missions on the Tiger's Claw and his quest to punish Prince Thrakhath for murdering his parents. In the end, he learns the true meaning of revenge.

Very little of this version survives to the 1999 film, but there is a little bit... especially, the name Forbes for a fellow Tiger's Claw pilot.

Download the treatment here (PDF)