?? - Q2 1998 - Final Spurt

Final Spurt

The shooting for Wing Commander is finished. The main actors Matthew Lillard and Freddie Prinze Jr. are freee for other projects and director Chris Roberts goes back to Texas for speeding up the work on the rendered space fights.

The shooting in Luxembourg is finished. Nevertheless Wing Commander will not hit the cinemas in america before January and perhaps two months later in germany. Already at our first visit in April it was obivous that Digital Anvil sees no need for hurry: "We want to create a unique movie, so we mustn't let ourselves being put under pressure. Besides, we are still fully on schedule" said Chris Roberts back then and this philosophy still remains.

At the moment, the completely computer generated space battles that shall set new standards are being worked on in Austin. Since Chris Roberts together with his brother Erin founded Digital Anvil two years ago, the team worked on setting up a division mainly used for developing graphics and animation. The team`s area of responsibility is not limited to "computer games only" or "movies only". They produce what is being needed and of course right now that is the missing scenes for the Wing Commander movie.

Besides some short passages the introduction is especially lavish. In about 60 seconds a Kilrathi attack on a confed base that is camouflaged as an asteroid is shown. At first, one can see only the shadows of the bombers, however their mission is being heralded announced by a dreadful pealing: Like a swarm of hornets they fall upon the terran base and a battle for survival starts. Close ups of single engagements take turn with panorama shots of the whole scene in fast cuts. This single pieces of the movie that do not seem to be in any relation can be seen at Digital Anvil only - no pictures are to leave the Digital Anvil complex yet. That's because the master himself is not quite satisfied: "All this scenes are not finished yet, we still have to work on them. The fine tuning is still missing."

If you take a look at the history, it becomes obvious that Digital Anvil should be able to bring new exciting effects to the big screen: Chris Roberts experimented with computer graphics the same time Roland Emmerich had the basic idea for "Moon 44". All this experience is now very important and perhaps the team will manage to leap into a higher league. The budget of 25 million dollars is just small enough to earn appreciation in the case of sucess. If there should be any new developments in the production of Wing Commaner, we will bring you the latest information.

(picture captions clockwise beginning in the upper left)

1. This is supposed to be a Kilrathi? Yes, because Chris Roberts decided to design the tiger-like aliens from scrach in order to depart from the game.

2. Matthew Lillard is wounded, Freddie Prinze Jr. takes care of his friend and comrade. Both actors have a good relationship besides the movie too.

3. The beautifull female fighter pilot breaks the hearts of the male crew.

4. Chris Roberts grew into his role as director. Here he explains to some experienced actors (left: Jürgen Prochnow) how he imagines the scene to look like.

5. The Kilrathi attack was devastating, the terrans have abandomed all hope.