Learning About the Bray Twins’ Real Life Counterparts Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Thanks for the background, friends. Of course, I was curious for Wing Commander-related reasons. Specifically, I was fascinated to see the names of the Kray twins because... of Privateer 2's Bray twins: Reggie Bray is the guy who is selling Uncle Kashumai's religious artifact. For that mission you have to look up their bio in the database and then find their business partner. There's also a Joe scene where he warns you to look out for the Brays. And you kind of have to wonder: why, since Reggie isn't any particular threat in the auction scene. And heck, why are there two of them anyway? Is it just for the (unknown to me until last night!) joke? In fact, it's a case of cut content! In the shooting script we see that the Brays were supposed to be the enemies in the Tamessa Ames cinematic mission and that Ronnie (the muscle, as in real life apparently!) was then supposed to continue trying to hunt you down. All of the unique NPC encounters with conversations were dropped during development... but it happened late enough that you can still find the VDU graphics for both Brays in the game's files! Reggie Bray was played by British actor Tim Pearce who unfortunately passed away in 2017. I don't believe they recorded any audio for his brother but they do just double up his photo from the Uncle Kashumai cutscene for the in-game database. I guess they are twins! If you find the whole story intriguing and would like to know more, Tom Hardy starred as the Krays in 2015's movie Legend. And I guess the last time Tom Hardy played an identical twin he had Seether’s knife.
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Exploring Kilrathi Emblems Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

A lot of people (one guy on Discord) have been asking what the correct emblem for the Empire of Kilrah is. So let’s have a thread and find out! Wing Commander I has matching emblems for factions on every ship. The Kilrathi have a red cat skull which we get to see close up thanks to the beautiful box shot of a high resolution Dralthi wing. The ships are so low resolution that they’re just dots in flight, but you can pick them out every time. You can see the skull very clearly on the WC2 demo Bloodfang, which is its last appearance. And there’s a black one on the Imperial Guard troops in The Secret Missions 2! As an aside, we NEVER got a high res version of the WC1 Confed roundel. You can see it twice on the Drayman here. It looks like a TNG comm badge or maybe three ships orbiting a sun? Now, this is the broad answer to the question. This is the emblem of the empire itself, the grouping of all eight clans. It was introduced for Wing Commander III and used widely beyond. This emblem is also claimed by factions of the Kilrathi civil war (see Arena). Technicality number one is that Super Wing Commander had its own takes (Kilrah and Confed, respectively) which aren’t seen too often. The movie also had its own version derived from the font created for the Kilrathi text there. You can see it very clearly on the Confed kill markings! Your next question: what about this, which was introduced with Armada and has been used often since? This is the specific emblem of the ruling Kiranka clan. I should also note that Kiranka translates literally to red claw; hence Baron Baktosh Redclaw and the red claw clan insignia. What about the other seven ruling clans? You can see them here on the throne set from Wing Commander III! The WC3 lore also claims that the red markings on spacecraft represent which clan constructed them. That wouldn’t be limited to just the eight, though! The movie had these cool clan flag props that would hang on the backs of warriors’ armor. They aren’t too visible in the final version. More on clan banners from The Confederation Handbook! Finally, this is the emblem of the Kilrathi Assembly of Clans which is the political entity Confed recognizes after the war.
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Battle of the Armada Introductions Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we have a jazzed up version of the Armada intro from Retrobear Diskette Quest. There's a little bit of DOSBox scaling happening that supposedly makes it look better at higher resolutions, but the visuals aren't the draw here. It also has some "Roland MT-32 emulation" turned on, and I do hear the extra notes associated with that! Armada is a wonderful game that doesn't get as much time in the spotlight as it deserves, so take this as a plug to fire the game up this weekend!
How do you think the video above compares to the version that FekLeyrTarg rebuilt from scratch with Origin model assets? They both have their particular charms!

The Nephilim Manta: From Concept to Execution Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Aligned Peoples’ Manta-class heavy fighter. Initial concept by Mark Vearrier, finished concept sketch by Syd Mead... Initial mesh blockout and then Alias "cinematic" model renders... Final in-game assets for both the standard fighter and the deadly "red Manta" bomber variant! Shout out to the OG.
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Check out These Collectible Portuguese WC Games Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Dominus of Exult has some more cool collectibles to show off! He's managed to track down a pair of Wing Commander games localized in Portuguese. These rare copies of WC4 and Privateer 2 have a bit of warping and tearing damage, but it's still wonderful that they were saved. I'm still poring over the minute differences here despite not speaking the language! These should look great alongside his Portuguese copy of Privateer 1.
Got some new rarities. Portuguese Wing Commander IV and Privateer 2. Unfortunately the seller stored them in a very humid place. Trying to open the IV he destroyed the slide cover.
LOAF: Are they localized at all?

Dominus: Boxes and documents all in Portuguese. At least the intro has no subtitles. Look like the standard UK CDs. Even the quadruple CD case inlays are the UK ones and not translated (manual etc. are translated).

Wing Commander at 25 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The somewhat amorphous length of a generation is, give or take, about twenty-five years. This means that as of today, the Wing Commander movie is a generation old… and, it follows, so are those of us that once eagerly anticipated its coming. I've written extensively about whether or not it was good (it was not) and what it means to me (I love it dearly) and I don't need to relitigate any of that today. In fact, the war movie cliches about old soldiers are more accurate than ever: the guns have stopped, we're the old men, all quiet on the western front and alike. The bickerings and debates and once-so-important battles of our youth have passed us by as gracefully as such things ever do. No one in 2024 could conceive, for instance, of caring about the Tiger Claw's missing possessive or what the Ralari /really/ looks like or even particularly to complain about Freddie Prinze Jr.'s casting.

If anything, the Wing Commander movie has settled into an interesting little niche we didn't see coming: people kind of like it. It's not the second coming of George Lucas (sorry, Chris Roberts)... but it's also not really trash anymore, either. Every time it's mentioned on social media you get an inevitable host of people who view it as a guilty pleasure or a fun escape or a movie they thought deserved more attention. And that's kind of neat! Much of that is the sheer uncaring numbers of it: many, many more people can (fondly?) remember seeing Wing Commander the movie on DVD or cable TV than ever considered playing Wing Commander the game. Some frustrating old fictions remain–like the idea that including the Star Wars trailer printed money for the project (Wing Commander was a giant box office flop!) or the endless incorrect claim that the movie thinks the characters need to be quiet in space to escape the Kilrathi (thank you, Mr. Ebert)--but they're occasional bits of interest to politely point out instead of life-or-death challenges to nerd battle. The Wing Commander movie has improbably, probably done better for itself than anyone could ever have anticipated.

Instead, today I'd like to answer a question I'm asked regularly: why study Wing Commander today? On the surface there's not necessarily anything there. We aren't going to cure any diseases or change any minds or break open the universe in some shocking way. If we're lucky we might play a new game someday and that's about it. Even in the realm of liberal arts, there clearly aren't deep meanings or ideas to uncover. So why spend my time, say, charting out all the battles from the movie to make an accurate kill score, or tracking down all the background characters, or contacting costume makers to help identify illegible name tags? Why do these things that don't seem to add up to any satisfying whole?

It's because loving something this way is where the journey starts and not where it goes. We aren't celebrating Wing Commander because Wing Commander is the greatest movie or the best game or the most perfect story… we're celebrating it because it's ours and from the understanding we have of it we form connections to each other and to new ideas. We learn new things in every conceivable field because we take a harder look at some piece of Wing Commander. It's a compass or a Rosetta Stone: from considering the movie we come to new things we never could've considered otherwise. Whether that's diving into some piece of source material the movie references or learning how the game worked its magic under the hood, we start from loving Wing Commander and we come to know and think about other things. I've experienced art and music and political thought and ideas and an understanding of how other people create because I started from trying to understand Wing Commander. And that's even more important because the biggest lesson I've taken in three decades of fandom is that it is deeply important to surround yourself with people who love things regardless of what those things are.

The connections we've made over Wing Commander have made us better, more whole people and they've given us such important relationships. I did not feel like writing this update today. I've been having a bad time lately and I frankly would have rather hid in a hole somewhere. I was content to let the anniversary pass with the lazy man's option (some tweets). But my dear friend Chris Reid, who I have enjoyed Wing Commander with for all these years (including the movie on this day way back then!), messaged me and asked me if I could write a few words. He said he thought I would do a good job of capturing the anniversary. And immediately I was excited to contribute: to help my friend and to say something that someone seemed to want to hear. And when I can't manage to make anything else work right in this universe, I can still fall back on Wing Commander. And I know Chris BECAUSE of Wing Commander and we've come to have lives and families and dreams and hopes and all that bullshit together BECAUSE Wing Commander has been our lingua franca. And I remain so excited to find new ways to speak it and to see all the new places that will take me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm needed at the edge of the universe. You see, all hell is about to break loose.

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Examining the Colors of Academy Pilots and Their Ships Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

I have watched Wing Commander Academy hundreds of times but I somehow never noticed that the pilot helmets are color coded. They nominally match the Scimitars: blue for Maverick, red for Maniac, purple for Archer, etc. It looks like they're forgotten or wrong a LOT... just like the ship colors. Hmm, maybe this is the kind of thing that needs a spreadsheet on a lazy Sunday afternoon... Well I said I was going to do this and for some reason I did. I tracked every Scimitar that appears in the show (by sortie) and noted its pilot, color and fate. There are 150 and 25 are destroyed (or stolen by the Warrior King)! Here are what seem to be the intended colors for the hero characters. Colors are repeated for extras (or are not visible). There are a couple of exceptions: the trainers in episode one are all either red or blue, per the story... and The Last One Left gives Blair and Maniac black and a never repeated lime green, respectively: Also if I had to see these goofy off model Scimitars then so do you:
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A Closer Look at the Original 12 Cadets of Wing Commander Academy Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The Wing Commander Academy press kit says that there were twelve cadets transferred to the Tiger's Claw. Can you name them all? Alright, let's see if we can find them! We're looking for the original twelve cadets transferred to the Tiger's Claw's command school. So Victoria/Viking here and the veteran replacements from the Trafalgar who are added after Chain of Command don't count. First up, the three leads. Christopher "Maverick" Blair played by Mark Hamill and designed from his live action appearances in Wing Commander III and IV (minus 19 years). Bios are from the series' press kit: Todd "Maniac" Marshall voiced by Tom Wilson and also designed from his WC3 and 4 appearances (though a little bit more The Real Ghostbustersy). And new character Gwen "Archer" Bowman played by Dana Delany! She voiced Louis Lane on Superman that same season and it sure feels like both character designs were influenced by the actress in slightly different ways. Next: the secondary cast who show up pretty consistently through the show and occasionally get to be the focus of an episode. First is Hector "Grunt" Paz, the former Confed marine (voiced by Pat Fraley). In the show's original formulation he was Vaquero from WC3. Lindsay "Payback" Price stars in Expendable and generally shows up as a foil for Archer. Performed by Lauri Hendler. The character was originally intended to be Cobra in the initial "WC3 babies" concept. Last of the series regulars: Yulan "Hyena" Chang voiced by Kevin Schon. He survives the show... and his weird secret is that he's supposed to be Vagabond's brother! Now the ones that show up as kind of 'guest stars'. They get mentioned on the PA and occasionally seen in crowds but generally have one moment. Alan "Blizzard" Getz (also voiced by Pat Fraley) is the show's first casualty in 'The Most Delicate Instrument'. This is Emil "Easy" Zoharian. He's in the background a fair amount and is ultimately killed in 'Invisible Enemy', the first victim of the Strakha. He looks kind of like a larger, softer Maniac. "Jazzman" is a weird one because he is a major part of the first episode but then doesn't appear again until he pops up in the finale (where he's killed in the attack on the dreadnought). Ved "Pitchfork" Patel is cadet #10. He shows up in group shots eventually but you never really get a good look at his face. He's killed early in Chain of Command (prompting Pitchfork to swear revenge on the Kilrathi). That's ten, two to go--these are the tough ones! This cool '90s-looking female pilot never speaks but she shows up in a LOT of background and group shots. According to internal materials her name is BULLDOG. And here's the last one: WEASEL. He shows up only in group shots. He's yet another nod to WC3, though: Weasel is the redshirt who dies as you're taking off in the Tamayo scramble mission!
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