Commander, Merchant Ship Diligent

March 15th, 2654 - Strange things have been happening lately. Just today, I was requisitioned to transport two recent Naval Academy graduates to their first flight assignments aboard the Confed carrier Tiger Claw. En route, however, these two rookies, pilots Christopher Blair and Todd Marshall, received a Code One secure communication from Geoffrey Tolwyn, Admiral of the whole damn Navy! Turns out that Tolwyn wants these two kids to personally deliver an encrypted comm chip directly to the Tiger Claw's commanding officer. Now, I've seen a lot of things during my time in space, but sending such a critical communication with two rookies...???

This milk run just got a little more interesting.

ABOUT THE FILM

Starship Troopers meets Top Gun in this no-holds-barred battle on the far reaches of space. A vicious alien race, the Kilrathi, has discovered the coordinates to Earth and is heading there with plans for total destruction. Now all that stands between Earth and this new breed of enemy are two young hotshot fighter pilots and their elite fighter squadron on the battleship Tiger Claw. It's an all-out race against time as they engage the Kilrathi in a final desperate attempt to prevent them from reaching Earth space - and obliterating all mankind.

See More Posters!

ALTERNATE VERSIONS

• workprint
  • A breakdown of the scenes missing from the theatrical cut with photos!
• deleted scenes
  • Image Gallery

International Versions

• Alternate Titles

• • Argentina = Wing Commander: Escuadrón espacial
  • Brazil = A Batalha Final
  • Bulgarian = Космически пилоти
  • Canada (French title) = Pilotes sans peur (?)
  • Chinese = 鐵翼司令 ; 星際戰爭─未來戰士
  • Greece = Oi frouroi tou diastimatos
  • Hungary = Wing Commander - Az ürkommandó
  • Italy = Attacco Alla Terra
  • Japanese = ウィング・コマンダー
  • Korean = 윙 커맨더
  • Portugal = Comandante de Esquadrilha
  • Romanian = Război interstelar (Interstellar War) ; Piloții intergalactici
  • Russia = Командир эскадрильи
  • Serbia = Komandant eskadrile
  • Thai = Wing Commander - ฝูงบินพิทักษ์ผ่าจักรวาล (Protection Squadron through the universe)
  • Turkey = Cesaret kanatlari

PRODUCTS

Books

• Movie Junior Novelization
• Movie Novelization
• Pilgrim Stars
• Pilgrim Truth
• Confederation Handbook

Music

• Wing Commander Movie Soundtrack [1]

Toys

Pilgrim Cross

Canceled

• Cutaway Poster
• Ship Toys
• Wing Commander - The Ride

WHERE TO WATCH

On-Demand Versions

HOME VIDEO

CLICK HERE to see details about the various DVD releases of the Wing Commander film

Wing Commander - Bluray
North American Region A
Language(s)	English
Studio	Anchor Bay Entertainment / Fox
Release Date	August 13th, 2013
Running time	100 min
Retail Price	Order from Amazon.com

Wing Commander - R1 DVD
North American Region 1 DVD
Language(s)	English
Studio	20th Century Fox
Release Date	July 6th, 1999
Running time	100 min
Retail Price	Buy on Amazon

BEHIND THE SCENES

Video

• Wing Commander Electronic Press Kit
  • WATCH: FEATURETTE: The making of Wing Commander
  • WATCH: Interviews with the cast
  • WATCH: Unedited B-roll
• Video - Behind the scenes: Creating the film's opening credits (4 min 11 secs, 17.9 MB)
• Brief behind-the-scenes clip of some effects work.
• Behind-the-scenes clip of the Kilrathi alien effects

Documents

• Scripts
  • First Draft - October 27, 1995
  • Second Draft - September 21, 1997
  • Third Draft - January 8th, 1998
  • Shooting Script - April 3rd, 1998

• Set Book
  • A collection of information about where and when filming took place
• Production Notes
  • Please note that this article originated in Spanish. The English on the page is a terrible google translation and assistance in doing a proper translation would be appreciated.
• Wing Commander Movie Style Book
• Magazine articles
• Pheonix Pictures Memo
• Starlog
• wcmovie.com website text
• FOX Theater Promotion Sheet
• Excerpt from the book Generation XBox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood
  • Chris Roberts' Response

Anecdotes

• Roger Simonsz, camera operator and second unit DP on the Wing Commander Movie, used his experiences on the set of the Wing Commander movie as an example in his presentation at the Showlight conference in 2005 (PDF Page 6). He specifically commented on the use of color lighting and how it worked with the Kilrathi. [2]

"One key point that Roger made in his talk was that - cinematic and tv lighting directors have the power to decide on the colour palette of the piece and to share that with the audience. He recounted his experience of working on the film 'Wing Commander' where the LD decided that the good guys would be lit in blue, battle scenes would be lit in red, and the aliens would be lit in ... you guessed it green."

"Roger spent two days filming in the green light and explained that contrary to what he'd been taught that green is a calming colour, he had found that he'd become more agitated the longer he'd spent immersed in green light only. LD's spend a lot of time looking at light and its effects but seldom spend time immersed in it."

• Retrograde

Both Wing Commander and Retrograde, a 2004 direct-to-video action movie starring Dolph Lundgren, were produced in Luxembourg by the Carousel Picture Company, which apparently decided to recycle some of Chris Roberts' sets and props--the Tiger's Claw flight deck, Rapiers, marine rifles and armor and so on--to decorate post-apocalyptic Los Angeles circa 2204.

CONCEPT ART

• 

  An early version of the Tiger Claw

• 

  The Kilrathi are like space Samurai

STORYBOARDS

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

• 

  Mirror universe

• 

  Hanging in there

• 

  I'm a fighter pilot in a war zone

• 

  On the outside looking in