Well, my friends, I offer you up the update of updates! HarperCollins's catalog for the next quarter has been added to their website, along with lengthy descriptions (and a picture!) of two of their three upcoming Wing Commander products... to read their articles is to learn of release dates, merchandise, and exciting details relating to the Wing Commander Movie and its companion books... check out the Fact Book cover too, it's a lot like the novel cover...
Wing Commander
by Peter Telep
Galaxy-spanning space action and intrigue, as human space pilots fight a hostile alien force bent on destroying Earth. Based on the blockbuster movie Wing Commander.
Fresh from training, two young officers join the ranks of a combat squadron--just as hostilities break out with a terrifying alien species. Experiencing real combat for the first time would be tough enough, but the officers face problems that could destroy the squad from within. The crew is increasingly divided on cultural lines, and the evidence mounts that someone in the unit is a traitor. As a climactic battle approaches, the officers must find the traitor and unify their crew--or see Earth be destroyed! Based on the new hit film Wing Commander, and on the five-million-selling CD-ROM Wing Commander games.
The Wing Commander game has gone through five versions, with ever-increasing sales. Wing Commander V has sold more than 2,000,000 copies to date.
The film, starring Freddie Prinze, Jr., and Matthew Lillard, will have a major toy merchandise program, as well as extensive media support from the Sci-Fi Channel and Starlog magazine.
HarperPrism will also publish the Wing Commander Junior in a young reader digest-size paperback and the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook in trade paperback simultaneously with the Wing Commander Novelization in March 1999.
Includes a four-color photo insert.
Peter Telep has published several SF and Fantasy novels, including two Space: Above and Beyond novels, and is working on a series of novels based on the space action game Descent.
Other Wing Commander books:
Wing Commander Confederation Handbook 0-06-107553-1 (pb)
Wing Commander Junior 0-06-106556-0
HarperEntertainment. ISBN 0061059854
$5.99/$7.99(Can.)
And now the fact book (now titled 'Confederation Handbook')...
Wing Commander Confederation Handbook
by Chris McCubbin et al.
A detailed blueprint of the Wing Commander universe--from uniforms to starships--straight from the blockbuster movie!
A must for fans of the wildly popular CD-ROM game and the smash movie Wing Commander, the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook is a complete guide to all aspects of the universe of Wing Commander. Heavily illustrated, the book examines the spacecraft, uniforms, weapons, badges, and all other equipment used by members of the Wing Commander military units, with special nuts-and-bolts details readers will find nowhere else!
The Wing Commander game has gone through five versions
HarperEntertainment will publish the Wing Commander Novelization in mass market paperback and the Wing Commander Junior Novelization in digest-size paperback simultaneously with the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook in March 1999.
Chris McCubbin works for IMGS, Inc., and has worked on several previous Wing Commander game books.
HarperEntertainment. ISBN 0061075531
$17.00/$25.00(Can.)
Just last night my brother and I were arguing about which online bookstore is the best... Borders, he insisted, was best because they had low shipping rates and no annoying ad campaigns. I couldn't agree -- there's just something I can't stand about real Borders stores. So, this morning I decided to check out the Borders online store... imagine my surprise when I found a... thumbnail of the Wing Commander movie novelization's cover! Check it out... (unfortunately it doesn't really get much bigger).
Ignore what I said in that last update... Digital Anvil is DEFINATLY starting to promote the movie... check out the below article, about a press conference with Chris Roberts grabbed from Cinescape.
Roberts Talks 'Wing Commander'
During a press conference earlier this week, director and game developer Chris Roberts showed off the trailer and selected FX sequences from his forthcoming Wing Commander movie. "We're quite proud of [the movie]," Roberts told the Austin-American Statesman. "I think people will be quite impressed with the film even though it doesn't have the biggest budget for a science-fiction film."The director likened the tone of the Wing Commander plot to Das Boot and other World War II movies. The film draws heavily from the successful game series which pits humans against an empire of alien creatures known as Kilrathi. The movie promises to focus heavily on space battle sequences using FX footage created by Roberts' in-house studio Digital Anvil.
Looks like Digital Anvil is finally ready to start promoting the movie of next-year! Ali Mattu was kind enough to send me this extract from EON Magazine. It's an interview with Freddie Prinze discussing the movie...
THE PRINCE OF WING COMMANDERSFreddie Prinze, jr. who plays Chris "Maverick" Blair in the big screen movie WING COMMANDER told EON NEWS, "WING COMMANDER combined two of my dreams in one. My dreams for making films were as follows: a western, which I haven't done yet, a war movie, and a sci-fi movie. WING COMMANDER handled two of those. It's huge! It's World War Two, seven hundred years in the future. That's what it is."
The film co-stars Matthew Lillard as Todd "Maniac" Marshall (the role BACK TO THE FUTURE's Tom Wilson played in the video games), Saffron Burrows as Jeanette "Angel" Devereaux, Jurgen Prochnow as Commander Gerald, Tcheky Kayro as Commander James "Paladin" Taggart, with David Warner as Admiral Tolwyn and David Suchet as Captain Sansky.
Prinze admitted to EON NEWS, "When I got the script, I thought, wait a minute, is this a computer game? But it was a feature script, and it's amazing. It talks about how this war starts affecting all these characters on a personal level. And some of them are able to step up to the challenge, and others are dying. They die. Characters that you love, you've had time to love them, and then they're gone. It's so real. Remember THE BIG RED ONE, that Samuel Fuller movie? The new guys would come in and they wouldn't even talk to them, because they were like, 'you're going to be dead in a week, man!' And that's how it was! In WING COMMANDER, we [Prinze and Lillard] get called 'Nuggets', because we're like the rookies on the ship."
Directed by Chris Roberts from a script by Kevin Droney and Mike Finch based on the popular computer game, the film has been rated PG-13 (for sexual references and sci-fi action/violence).
Prinze explains, "The basic plot is that Earth is now joined together, we're called the Confederation. There's this other race, called the Kilrathi, who have been trying to take over our galaxy now for a while. The only reason we've been able to resist them is because we have something they don't: a Navcom navigational computer. It helps you chart your way through black holes and quasars. It saves space travel like forty years, like you can go that far in two minutes, because you're warping through a star. So the Kilrathi get one of these Navcoms, and they have the coordinates to get into Earth's space. They'll be here in forty hours. The Confederation ships can't get back to Earth for forty-two hours. There's one ship between the Korathi and this jump point, the Diligent, and me and Matt are flying in that ship. So it's this last big stand for the Earth, against the Kilrathi, and it's the ingenuity of these pilots that has them defeat this warrior race. So it's really sick. It's cool."
Look for WING COMMANDER and the Kilrathi to attack a theater near you early next year.
The ultra-cool SpaceDust 4 was kind enough to copy this article from the latest PC Gamer for everyone. It's from a larger article talking about the 40 best games of 1998 -- naturally Prophecy was in there...
Ever since the original Wing Commander hit store shelves in 1991, Origin has captivated gamers with its cinematic space combat series- but in recent years, many fans have felt the series has become less like a game and more like a movie.For Wing Commander: Prophecy, Origin chose a back to basics approach that restores the fast, engaging dogfights fans have been asking for, while cutting back on the FMV fluff. The result is one of the long established series' finest hours.
With the Kilrathi eliminated and the revolution put to rest, Wing Commander: Prophecy's story casts you as a new recruit assigned to the newly designed Mega Carrier TCS Midway for some non combat space trials. But your quickly called into action as a sinister new race of aliens begins its hostile pish into Confederation space. From here you're in a frantic fight against the alien horde, using your wits and your reflexes to keep the aliens from devestating everything in their path. Brought to life with a gorgeous new graphics engine, Wing COmmander Prophecy delivers fast, brutal action as you pitch anf wheel above large Capital Ships and battle sleek alien craft throughout dozens of missions.
Once again, you'll need a high end machine to get the best out of the experience but Prephecy's vell balanced mix of intense space battles and captivating cinematics makes this a far more engaging ecperience then the inevitably banal holiday T.V line-up
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