Here's a scan to brighten your day: a newly aquired VidPro card for the SNES port of Wing Commander. These were the 'cards' that you would pick up to purchase a video game at stores like Toys R Us. They're a minor collectible today and we're hoping to complete the set of Wing Commander ones!
We previously shared this earlier type of SNES VidPro card. There may also be a 'horizontal' version... if we find more, we'll share them!
Venerable space sandbox No Man's Sky has recently turned its eye to starships with a brand new, free expansion called Voyagers. Voyagers allows players to create their own "corvettes", massive capital ships that can be customized to their liking in endless ways. Shaggy immediately took up the challenge… and he took it pleasantly literally, creating a Kilrathi Kamrani-class corvette and a human Venture-class in the game!
For those that don't know No Man's Sky just added the ability to build custom corvettes in the game. So what was the first thing I did? I built a Venture class and then a Kamrani. I took some artistic license with the Venture, because even the blueprint images out there are kind of simple, and the Kamrani runs right up to the complexity limit in the game, so I couldn't dress it up with antennae or other little greebles and the angular shape makes it hard to plug gaps with the parts available. I haven't fully dressed out the insides yet, I'm working on maxing out the Venture first, then I'll focus on the Kamrani. My next build might be a Thunderbolt but so far you can't store corvettes in the games "deep freeze" so they take up spots in your active ships, which makes it less efficient to scrap ships, which has been the fastest way to get storage augmentations for me.
The Wing Commander movie club has charted the evolution of man all the way to the distant future of 2001… and it's obvious why this is such an important film both for cinema and science fiction. Next week we've voted to continue the story going with a VERY different sequel: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). It's a case of a different filmmaker picking up the toy box and doing something different in just about every way. I can't wait to share it! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
2010 is a little bit like Wing Commander Prophecy: the same world but adapted by a different director once the creator was wholly gone. And it makes a lot of the same choices! But the real connection to Wing Commander is the Soviet spaceship Leonov which appears in Wing Commander Secret Ops in the form of a Murphy-class destroyer. What's more, the Leonov was designed by Syd Mead… the mind behind Wing Commander Prophecy's aliens (and a frequent contributor to the films in this series)!
The Leonov shows up in Ella 4 alongside two other capital ships named after cosmonauts: the Murphy-class Kuznetsova and the Plunkett-class Tereshkova. If you're interested in the naming of all the Murphies and Plunetts, I put together a quick spreadsheet to cover it.
As with 2001, we get another nod to the Leonov in the Secret Ops passwords. Here it's the winning password given after Episode 4 ("Triangle").
Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?
2010: The Year We Make Contact is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on Blu-ray in 2009 and remains in print around the world. It is also currently streaming on Turner Classic Movies in the United States. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.
How do we watch the movie together?
It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!
How can I help pick future movie club movies?
The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.
Mac (of Mac's Lore) is back with some more... let's say unusual Wing Commander renderings. They mash up stunning models of Wing Commander spacecraft with characters from "Girls Frontline 2: Exilium". I don't know Girls Frontline 2: Exilium so I'm not in on the whole joke… but those starfighters are pretty sexy!
Wing Commander X Girls Frontline 2: Sharkry (ArtStation)
A imaginary crossover between the ships of Wing Commander and the T-Dolls from Girls Frontline 2: Exilium.
When the Border Worlds started getting Rapiers for their Space Forces, many pilots nicknamed them XCRs due to the BW's fascination of an ancient Earth trend called "Weebery".
The meaning of XCR was "eXtremely Cute Rapier".
Wing Commander X Girls Frontline 2: Klukai (ArtStation)
A imaginary crossover between the ships of Wing Commander and the T-Dolls from Girls Frontline 2: Exilium.
Klukai x Hellcat V
The popular phrase "She is all I need", was a response from an unknown Hellcat V pilot who took down a Fralthi-II Cruiser. When asked why he didn't retreat and call in reinforcements he simply said:
"She (The Hellcat) is all I need."
Sad news to report today: French actor Emmanuel Karsen passed away on Thursday. M. Karsen had a lengthy list of film credits but he is best known for his voice work, which included performing the French dubbing for actors Sean Penn and Norman Reedus. You can find an obituary here.
Wing Commander fans–French ones, at least–knew him for his work on Wing Commander III as the voice of "Radio" Rollins. Rollins is actually one of the biggest roles in the game since he appears in unique videos at the end of nearly every mission! Here's a sample of M. Karsen's work, the start of Rollins' first one-on-one with Colonel Blair outside the elevator:
Thank you to Sergorn for reporting this news.
This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
The Wing Commander movie club enjoyed True Lies! It holds up very well, although a lot of what we remember as having been ridiculous action actually seems pretty mild compared to the average blockbuster today. We already talked about the music in the intro post but we did notice one interesting Wing Commander connection in the opening credits: the film's production designer was Peter Lamont. James Cameron would famously tap him again for Titanic… and then he would go on to work for Chris Roberts on the Wing Commander movie! You can read more about his work (and watch an interview) in our memorial post.
Sully didn't appreciate the little black dress; that's his look all the time!
Foxhound noticed a neat Wing Commander nod in a recent PC Gamer preview of an upcoming game called MENACE. The game is a turn based strategy from Overhype Studio in the vein of Jagged Alliance. But as this screenshot shows, its briefing room has a familiar inspiration!
To learn more about MENACE you can check out its Steam page.
Creative Labs is… back? It looks like the legendary sound card company is preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign for… something. The description made available so far is incredibly vague: "Sound Blaster RE:Imagine is built for creators, gamers, audiophiles, and tinkerers. It's a bold reimagining of a classic. Designed to adapt, expand, and evolve with you." It's hard to imagine what any of this could be as sound cards are no longer a key separate component of PCs like they were when Creative was powering Wing Commander II's speech accessory pack.
What is interesting, though, is that they are using the original Wing Commander in their ad campaign. A BlueSky post provided a screenshot from an email promoting the project that features a screenshot directly from the Enyo System:
Further search discovered a video version complete with Wing Commander-specific ad copy posted by the project's product manager to Instagram. Apparently we can look forward to our "wingman in sound" returning!
We aren't sure what any of this means but Creative and Wing Commander go way, way back. In fact, the company has previously cited Wing Commander II's speech feature as one of the reasons their sound card became the industry standard in the early 90s. But the partnership actually goes back even earlier: Creative started using Wing Commander screenshots on their packaging in 1991 with the Sound Blaster 2.0. You can find a history of the partnership here… or perhaps just the partnership so far?
You can sign up to be notified when the campaign launches here.
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