More Memories of David Warner & Extended Wing Commander Scenes
I'm saddened to hear of the passing of David Warner. He may have had no more than 5.5 min of screen time in Wing Commander (if you count the disk audio), but it was memorable and added a touch of class. In his honor, enjoy a couple brief extended scenes...
First up, his call with Blair:
The additions there regarding Blair's mother are nice echos to the also-deleted credits voice-over. It helps to sell that Blair has a bit of a chip on his shoulder regarding his heritage. It also resonates a bit with the other scene below. Belegarde's objections are kind of left over from an earlier draft. There was a medal ceremony ending at one point they cut and never shot probably because making everyone wear dress uniforms (while awesome) for one scene would have been expensive.Also, Tolwyn comes across as kind to Blair in the theatrical cut. The scripted ceremony would have had Tolwyn admit he had pretty much sent Blair and the Claw as sacrificial pawns and tell Blair he expected him to hate him, possibly setting up a rivalry for future sequels.
About Blair's parents: part of the main heart of the shooting script is Blair's accepting his heritage, and the realization that he's not fated to be terrorist simply because of who his ancestors were. It's a interesting thought exercise to imagine the reception of an uncut movie (hopefully with a better budget) being released two years later post 9/11.
Which brings us to the last scene of the movie. Blair returns Tolwyn's ring to him and their brief exchange is a nice little bow on Blair's journey through the movie, and again, note Tolwyn's mention of Blair's parents:
All in all, Warner probably wasn't on set for more than a day, and these are more or less the extent of his "deleted" scenes. There's one line of dialogue that shows up in a trailer that was leaked online in 1999, but it's really more of an alternate take than anything deleted. The final scene would have been the only one Freddie Prinze Jr. and David would have shared together on set. The comm message on the Diligent was done with someone reading the lines to FPJ off camera.I'm not much of a poet, but I will add that while we knew David Warner from his work, his family knew him and loved his as a person, father and more. My sincere condolences to his family and friends.
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