Wing Commander Movie Night: Star Wars

The Wing Commander movie club has faced the enemy at Midway and returned (relatively) unscathed. Now we're going to make the jump to hyperspace to watch a movie that was absolutely foundational for pretty much every aspect of Wing Commander: the original 1977 Star Wars (aka A New Hope). And we're going to watch the original version in order to understand exactly what Chris Roberts grew up wanting to turn into a game! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

We probably don't have to expend too many pixels explaining what Star Wars is. George Lucas' unexpected masterpiece combined the pulpy sci-fi serials of the 1930s with the most modern filmmaking technologies available. The result has become both modern mythology and a major basis for how and why movies are made.

We also probably don't have to spend much time pointing out the Wing Commander connections: from the very start of the series, the fantasy the games have tried to accomplish is letting the player experience an interactive version of Star Wars. And over the releases that connection only became more and more obvious, until you literally had Mark Hamill as the series' lead (complete with a pretty shameless flight down a deadly enemy trench…)! But we've collected some quotes and a few notes to get everyone stated–there should be a lot to talk about this time!

The Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide's comprehensive history of the making of those games starts with Chris Roberts' love of Star Wars:

Roberts had always been fascinated by science fiction movies and television shows, especially those like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Return of the Jedi. He liked the action elements of space combat, the dazzling special effects, and the variety of characters the creators had imagined in future worlds. He wanted to bring those elements to the computer.

And that love was still present when he was making the movie. Here's Chris discussing his connection to Star Wars in the March 1999 issue of Sci-Fi Teen:

"Basically, I think every kid wants to be Luke Skywalker," reveals writer/director Chris Roberts, answering the oft-asked question: What inspired him to create Wing Commander, one of the most successful interactive video games in history, and now a movie scheduled to open this winter/spring?

"I grew up like every other kid," he recalls, "loving movies like Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica on TV and science fiction in general. I originally created Wing Commander to give me the same experience and feeling I got when watching those films and TV shows, but while playing a game instead."

Generation XBox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood used Chris' lifelong love of Star Wars as the through line to tell the story of his making the Wing Commander movie:

A long time ago, in a galaxy not that far away lived a young boy called Chris Roberts. Chris wasn't just a Star Wars fan. He was the kind of Jedi geek who could tell you the difference between a tauntaun and a bantha in torturous detail. Born in California in 1968, he grew up in Manchester, England in the 1970s. When he was eight-years-old, he went to the cinema to see George Lucas's space opera. It changed his life. The moment he got back home he started building X-Wing fighters and Tie-fighters out of his Lego set. "That whole sense of being transported to another world had a big impact on me," he says. "Everything I've done has been about creating worlds that you can escape into." When he wasn't talking about Tie-Fighters, Roberts was busy tapping away at the red and black keys of his school's BBC Micro computers. He dreamed of making games that could capture the magic of Lucas's universe. If you'd told his younger self that one day he'd be living in California, running his own software company and directing Luke Skywalker - destroyer of the Death Star and the last of the illustrious Jedi Knights, aka actor Mark Hamill - he probably would have shat his pants.

Chris even listed Star Wars in the #1 slot on a list of his favorite movies in a December 1991 Point of Origin:

And indeed, the movie's original treatment does discuss Star Wars as an inspiration:

Like Star Wars, which was a heroic myth with a futuristic spin, this fundamental approach to the basic story touches on familiar chords in the audience's experience. After all, who didn't grow up with at least some exposure to the classic war movies? Wing Commander: The Movie will provide a similar experience, yet in a new and unique setting. In other words, it's something quite familiar and something quite different at the same time.

This was a balance, though, especially after Wing Commander III was so blatant about what it was borrowing. The movie's production notes point out the balance needed too make Wing Commander's film less obviously Star Wars-inspired:

"It's a hardcore war movie set in space, which has more in common with MIDWAY and THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN than with STAR WARS," he concludes. "It's a sci-fi movie with lots of fighting and battles, but with deep characters. I've made the movie I wanted to see."

Maniac was a still fan, though! The DVD liner notes:

A close friend of co -star freddie Prinze Jr., Lillard enjoyed playing The character of Maniac. "I loved Maniacs obsession with adrenaline - of needing that 'rush' to challenge the odds. And since I grew up with Star Wars, it was a dream to do a science fiction film."

The May 1999 Starlog confirms that Blair felt the same way:

Always an SF fan, Prinze also read many comic books growing up. He cites Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, an SF epic lent him by Wing Commander co-star Matt Lillard. for particular merit. "I had read it before, and Matt gave it to me in Luxembourg, so I got to read it again. I barely remembered the book, so it was like reading it for the first time. It's amazing. I always liked both Star Wars and Star Trek, so getting to be in Wing Commander and flying my own jet in outer space was a great deal of fun."

There are countless nods throughout the games and other media, though. The press release announcing Wing Commander Academy also noted the inspiration:

The first title boasted finely detailed, breathtaking graphics and cinematic sequences, with high-tech starfighters engaging in action inspired by the classic space battle films such as Star Wars. Set in the 27th century, the game finds mankind locked in a grueling war with the daring pilots of the Terran Confederation fending off the Kilrathi, a vicious, militaristic alien race. In the game, the player must employ cunning tactics and expert marksmanship to battle Kilrathi aces in heated deep-space dogfights to save the future of the world.

The April 1999 issue of Mix magazine has George Oldziey remembering his charge to do Star Wars style music for the games:

Meanwhile, score composer George Oldziey had been working with a VHS tape of the original Avid cut, with time-code. Roberts had specified a "sort of an orchestral 'Star Wars'-type soundtrack," says Oldziey, a requirement that would have been hard to meet using the technology that Oldziey had available on Wing Commander III, which he also scored.

Wing Commander IV's Nephele starport looks pretty familiar, too... this was the last CG shot added to the game, replacing another one which looked far less like Tattooine!

Here's an example of how things created for this movie have become shorthand. The request for this Privateer manual piece read "Interior bar scene: people making deals / Star Wars bar with no aliens":

And the Privateer team borrowed the Millennium Falcon extensively, filling in for the player ships in storyboards drawn before the designs were finished!

But Star Wars is everywhere and it has touched everyone who has worked on Wing Commander. Here's novelist Peter Telep from an article titled How Becoming a Professional Star Wars Sandtrooper Changed My Life!

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

We're going to try something slightly different this time around! We are going to be watching the 'despecialized' version of Star Wars which will most closely match the one that would've inspired Chris Roberts and the Wing Commander development teams. This means that the current version available on home video and streaming won't sync up. So please download version 1.7 of Harmy's Despecialized Edition if you want to watch along! You can read about the release here. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing for a download link.

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!

Learn Your Masers!

We often remember Wing Commander Prophecy and Secret Ops as being almost the same game; we tend to think of Secret Ops as almost an expansion, reusing Prophecy's assets almost exclusively. But one place Secret Ops didn't settle for the status quo was guns: it replaced five of the player guns with new, experimental options and it completely redid the VFX for four of the alien bolts!

Gun bolts fly by so quickly and after Wing Commander Academy or so there are so many to keep track of in your head... so we thought we'd show off the jump from WCP to WCSO AND provide an easy reference chart for anyone who wants to learn their lasers by sight. Enjoy!

Wing Commander Album Distribution Details

Last week we reported on the new Wing Commander II and Wing Commander Academy albums from Xeen Music. The albums are absolutely wonderful, including newly uncovered versions of tracks that no one has heard in almost 35 years! We've noticed some confusion about the different albums and versions currently available, so we've put together a quick cheat sheet and a master index to purchase or stream each version where available. Here's a quick cheat sheet:

Wing One - Music from Wing Commander I (27 tracks): This is The Fatman's 2016 release of the Wing Commander I music recorded from an authentic MT-32. This is NOT the release put together by Xeen Music.

Wing Commander I - Complete Original Soundtrack - MT​-​32 Archival Edition (55 tracks): This is the 2022 Xeen Music release of the Wing Commander I score. It is offered by The Fatman directly on some services. Every release listed below has the same music.

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi: MT-32/CM-32L Version (60 tracks): This is the standard version of the new Xeen Music Wing Commander II album available on most streaming services and for purchase via iTunes.

Wing Commander Academy+Bonus Tracks: MT-32/CM-32L (29 tracks): This is the standard version of the new Xeen Music Wing Commander Academy album available on most streaming services and for purchase via iTunes.

Wing Commander II​/​Academy Soundtrack (MT​-​32​/​CM​-​32L) (102 tracks): This is the combined version available on Bandcamp that includes both the Wing Commander II and Academy albums and bonus tracks.

Wing Commander II + Academy Original Soundtrack (Roland MT-32/CM-32L) (107 tracks): This is the combined version available on Patreon that includes both the Wing Commander II and Academy albums and (even more) bonus tracks.

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi + Wing Commander: Academy “Just the FAT” Edition (44 tracks): This version is sold by The Fatman directly and only includes the Wing Commander II tracks that his team worked on.

If you are curious which specific tracks are included with each release we have created a spreadsheet comparing them.

If you are interested in purchasing the albums outright, the best option is the combined Wing Commander II/Academy release available on the Xeen Music Patreon which, as noted above, has several additional tracks. The Xeen Music Patreon has some additional surprises for Wing Commander fans: it has also posted four 'bonus albums' which are beautifully archived copies of the FM Towns and Kilrathi Saga music for Wing Commander I and II. These are available for download at the $10/monthly level. This level also includes access to download the Wing Commander I - Complete Original Soundtrack - MT​-​32 Archival Edition, so it's absolutely worth your while to subscribe for at least a month! Here are links directly to the bonus albums:

• Wing Commander I (FM-Towns digital CD-DA version) (43 tracks)
• Wing Commander I: The Kilrathi Saga (22kHz digital) (41 tracks)
• Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (FM-Towns digital CD-DA version) (41 tracks)
• Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi: Kilrathi Saga (22hz digital) (53 tracks)

The Patreon releases of the Wing Commander I and II albums include all of the liner notes. They will also be updated if new music is recovered. The other major difference between the Bandcamp versions is that the Patreon albums are posted in FLAC and MP3 format while Bandcamp offers a variety of more obscure options (MP3 V0, MP3 320, FLAC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, ALAC, WAV and AIFF). Here's a page from the Wing Commander II liner notes to show you how well researched these are:

 - iTunes
 - Spotify
 - Apple Music
 - Amazon Music
 - Deezer
 - iHeart
 - Pandora

 - Bandcamp
 - Spotify
 - Amazon Music
 - Deezer

 - Patreon (102 tracks)
 - Bandcamp (107 tracks)
 - iTunes (60 tracks)
 - Spotify
 - Apple Music
 - Amazon Music
 - Deezer
 - iHeart
 - Tidal
 - Pandora

 - Bandcamp

 - iTunes
 - Spotify
 - Apple Music
 - Amazon Music
 - Deezer
 - iHeart
 - Tidal
 - Pandora
 - Audiomack

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Midway (1976), a movie with both creative and historical ties to Wing Commander. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST (with a bit of pre-show starting 30 minutes earlier), but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: The Fifth Element

Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club is ready to turn in our collective multipass! We watched The Fifth Element last week and it's just as strange and beautiful an experience as many of us remember from our youths. It represents such a fascinating moment in our culture when such a strange, not-like-anything-else film could get a blockbuster budget and a huge theatrical release. Whether you're interested in discussing deeper meanings or if you just want a completely unique audiovisual experience it's one heck of a film.

We loved the movie but there aren't many Wing Commander connections to report! We talked all about the cinematography of Thierry Arbogast and his team in the intro post and it was certainly on full display here. There's no question that his incredible talents are what made this movie look so incredible… and they're a significant reason why Wing Commander remains so appealing, too! Here's Korben Dallas' taxi, which was shot using the same rig and crew as the Rapiers in Wing Commander… and also made of the same mix of CG and physical taxi set.

Here's a featurette that covers the creation of the cab chase… with a focus on the gimbal!

The spectacular taxi rescue sequence (and the general out there European science fiction world) reminded us a lot of Privateer 2. It turns out both projects were shot at Pinewood Studios in London, one after the other! The traffic scenes, which drew from the comic work of French artist Jean-Claude Mézières, are especially similar to the Anhur and Hermes transition shots that show similar masses of hovercars, trucks and buses.

We did find one more fun incidental Wing Commander connection: a brief appearance by the famous Double Shadow knife. The Double Shadow is a two-bladed knife which often appears in science fiction productions; Wing Commander know it as Seether's knife from Wing Commander IV. In The Fifth Element, Korben's neighbor is using it to shave when the police show up to arrest him!

Alas, Babylon 5

Well, everyone knows Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. What this update presupposes is... maybe it wasn't. The Confederation starbase seen here should be pretty familiar: it's Blackmane Base, which appears in Wing Commander III. Depending on your performance in the game, you will either fight to resupply or to evacuate the base relatively early in the game. Canonically, the latter missions are flown and the base is disassembled.

What may surprise you is that there's a nerdy reference hidden deep in the bowels of the game: internally, the station is stored as BAB6… for Babylon 6, a clear nod to the television series that surely inspired its design:

And while the mesh is named BAB6 in the PC version of Wing Commander III the 3DO release makes the reference even more clear by storing the station's textures as BABYLON6.TXM (accessible via the game's debug mode):

In fact, the 3DO release even adds some related text to the station itself; right below the entrance to the flight deck reads STATION 6:

The reference is all the more impressive because Babylon 5 wasn't a cult classic when Wing Commander III was being made… in fact, it had barely started! The game released shortly after the sixth episode aired and the filename for the station must've been chosen much earlier. In spite of this, we have a pretty likely suspect for the reference. Art director Chris Douglas specifically talks about Babylon 5 in Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander III:

Chris has decked his door with "Dilbert” comic strips that he downloaded from the Internet, and his walls are hung with Maxfield Parrish posters. Compared to the other people on the Wing 3 team, however, the interior of his office is fairly uncluttered. Besides his PC and SGI there is only the black television that he uses to play tapes from his collection of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comfortable chair, two strings of blue and purple origami cranes and thirty-four miniature Star Trek spaceships. "When I was a kid, I would have given anything for some of the toys they have out now,” he confides. "I’m pretty bitter about how empty my childhood was when today kids can get all sorts of neat stuff. . . now I just wish they’d come out with some Babylon 5 ships.”

Chris would get his wish, by the way: Galoob would release six sets of Babylon 5 spaceships within the year! Hope he managed to pick them up.

Intel Poster Preservation

Here's a short but fascinating followup to our article on the partnership between Origin and Intel: st3lt3k added that an Internet Archive contributor named Star Raider has uploaded beautiful scans of all five of the 1994 CES posters! Origin wasn't promoting Wing Commander at the time but these is artwork worth studying nonetheless...

Very Stupid Calendar for Sale

Welcome to 2025, where retro gaming is "hip". And when something becomes popular it can start to generate a lot of useless, hastily assembled money-grabbing crap. Case in point is this 2025 "Retro Games Classic Gaming Calendar" from Red Rock Publishing:

The ultimate gaming calendar for all gamers, whether young or old! Here, the most legendary games of all time are brought back to life, whether for PC, Amiga, SEGA, PlayStation, XBOX, or other platforms - all through the new year!

Classics like WarCraft, Doom 3D, Monkey Island, Pacman, StarCraft, Super Mario, Quake, Diablo or Dune: In this calendar, the unforgettable giants of gaming history will accompany you throughout the new year, 365 days in a row.

Including a fold-out mega poster, all public and religious holidays as well as plenty of space to add your own notes, birthdays, etc. Format: Large Wall Dimensions: 59cm x 29.5cm

Sounds great, except… take a close look at February! The game of the month is supposed to be Elite but it's represented by a Wing Commander I screenshot!

Want your own very stupid calendar? If you're in Europe, you're in luck! Copies are currently available on Amazon UK and other European Amazon storefronts. The MSRP is £12.99. If you're looking to track down a copy elsewhere, the ISBN is ‎ 979-8893610666. For the record, we bought one!

Wing Commander Movie Night: Midway

The Wing Commander movie club watched The Fifth Element on Friday and it certainly wasn't Boron! (everyone laugh) Next up, we're going back to World War II… but in the Pacific this time! We're going to be watching the 1976 film Midway and you can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Midway is a star-studded, big budget war movie about the 1942 Battle of Midway, a naval engagement that changed the direction of World War 2 in the Pacific and which enshrined the aircraft carrier as the centerpiece of naval doctrine. Midway attempts to tell the story of the battle, a challenging thing for a conflict where the two sides rarely encountered each other.

Wing Commander's Kilrathi War has always been patterned after World War II in the Pacific so it's not a surprise that there are some clear connections to look out for! We'll talk about some connections to the real battle shortly, but first the 1976 film specifically was used as referenced during the making of the Wing Commander movie. In a March 1999 Salon interview, Chris Roberts credits Midway as a major inspiration: “‘Das Boot’ heavily influenced the film in terms of its look. Films like ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’ [and] ‘Midway’ -- I tried to make my film in a sort of old-fashioned World War II sense.” A similar quote from Roberts was included in both the DVD liner notes and on the movie's official website: "WING COMMANDER is a hard-core war movie set in space. In some ways, it has more in common with Midway and The Battle of Britain than with a science fiction film," he adds. "It has lots of effects and combat scenes, all of which serve the characters and story. I wanted to make a film about people under the incredible tension of battle." The April 1999 issue of Cinefex talks about how the VFX team watched the movie to prepare for the capital ship battle sequences:

Seeking inspiration for the movement of the juggernaut capital ships, Digital Anvil viewed documentary footage and studied the war films Tora! Tora! Tora! and Midway. "After viewing these films," Brown stated, "Chris Roberts was adamant about holding on shots of these big ships coming across screen for a long time. That was more daring an approach than I was at first comfortable with, but in the end these long-duration shots worked very well, and they went a long way toward establishing the necessary sense of spectacle." This sense of spectacle - in the best Victory at Sea tradition - is particularly well illustrated partway through the film, when Tiger Claw is led into a trap and badly damaged during the ensuing battle.

And let's go ahead and get the obvious one done with: Wing Commander Prophecy's megacarrier is, of course, named after the historic battle. That doesn't inform much about the movie… but it's a good indication of how the battle itself continues to capture our imagination generations on.

Wing Commander stories have borrowed from the battle itself several times... going all the way back to the original Claw Marks, which uses some of the setup for the McAuliffe Ambush. Here Ches M. Penney stands in for cryptographer Joseph Rochefort:

On 2634.228, Confederation cryptographer Ches M. Penney partially decodes the current Kilrathi cipher. The intercepted message refers to a punitive strike being launched against the Confederation, starting with the colony on McAuliffe and the space station Alexandria in orbit around it. Confederation High Command launches a couter-offensive twice the size of the anticipated enemy fleet; it is to reach McAuliffe first and ambush the attackers.

On 2634.235, the Kilrathi fleet reaches McAuliffe. It is four times the predicted size; the incomplete translation of the intercepted message had underestimated the size of the Kilrathi offensive. So begins the McAuliffe Ambush engagement.

When William Forstchen told the complete story of McAuliffe in Action Stations, he doubled down on the connection and had Penney responsible for exacty the same trick as Rochefort:

"It's from Lieutenant Ches Penney," Speedwell announced, "one of our better cryptologists out on the frontier. Here's the original burst signal."
First there was a sharp, high-pitched squeal, lasting barely a second, then it was replayed after decompression, a quavering tone nearly a dozen seconds in length.
"Long signal," Skip announced.
"Penney had damn little to go on. The Cats have been shifting codes at increasingly shorter intervals. Something in the initial part of the tone caught his attention. That's the signature message, which tells the receiver which coding system to use. Seems that they recycled an older code that we had partially cracked, and Penney remembered it. Anyhow, here it is in Kilrathi."
Speedwell pointed to the screen as page after page of text scrolled past in the strange, blocked pictographs of what Skip knew was Kilrathi.
"Even here, most of the message is filler, so he started to run random pattern searches and finally hit on it."
The translation in English now appeared. Skip read the text once and hit the stop button. Turning in his chair he refreshed his mug of coffee, then turned back to the screen, features pale, reading slowly.
"Target Vikyah?" he whispered, already sensing what the answer was.
"McAuliffe," Speedwell replied.
"How do we know that?"
"Because it reports our translight burst transmitter is down due to intense solar flares as reported from the Carlin system. There's only one Confed base offline at the moment, and that's McAuliffe, where we've been having problems with flares of late. This message reporting the signal problems was sent by one of their listening posts inward to Kilrah yesterday. Twelve hours later it was repeated back outwards, Skip, back outwards to an Admiral Nargth."
"McAuliffe," Skip whispered. "Damn it all, they're going for McAuliffe."
"Looks that way. There's a lot of holes in the message, Skip. Penney pulled this one out right from the very edge. It looks like we caught, at best, maybe a quarter of the message, but we know the code name for this Admiral Nargth's command, and their target is McAuliffe."

... except it turns out he'd already used the trick for a previous novel, Fleet Action. The Kilrathi need to stop falling for this!

Most of the message was untranslated but one line highlighted in red leaped out at him . . . "Remove target 2778A on moon of Nak'tara from primary strike list. Accident has destroyed target, . . ." there were several lines untranslated . . . "shortage in antimatter weapons produced from 2778A expected, will update."
Jason looked back up at Vance.
"They took the bait. We broadcast the false message on a code we knew they had already cracked. Their listening post, most likely right in their embassy office picked it up and passed it back to Kilrah. Nak'tara means Earth. It means that whatever it is they're preparing out there in Hari is being aimed for an attack straight at Earth. Damn it, the bastards are getting ready to strike."
...

"First of all, what the hell was this signal you had me send?"
As Geoff explained Banbridge's features lit up.
"Same trick we Americans once used against the Japanese at Midway with the fake report of a water distillery breaking down. The Japanese picked it up and reported to their fleet that 'target X' was short of water, and by that little trick we knew their next target was Midway. Vance always did know his history."

Action Stations also introduces the fact that Commander Turner is descended from the commander of Torpedo Squadron 8, who died during the battle. At the end of the book, Turner reflects on how their heroism is like that of the Confederation fighters defending McAuliffe.

Skip's gaze shifted to the other print, of a naval battle, back when fleets still sailed on water.
"You had an ancestor in that one, didn't you?"
"Squadron Leader, Torpedo Eight," Turner said proudly, even though he was speaking of someone dead nearly three quarters of a millennium.
"And they all got shot down, but not one of them wavered from the attack on the Japanese carriers. Their heroic sacrifice pulled the fighters down to sea level, allowing the dive-bombers to slip through. Damn, what guts they had then," Skip said, looking back at Turner who arched an eyebrow in surprise that his friend remembered the story from the Battle of Midway.

And would you like to play the battle itself? You can't do it in a Wing Commander game but you can do it in an extremely similar, related one: Origin's 1993 Pacific Strike allows you to play through the battle as a pilot aboard the USS Enterprise. The game uses Wing Commander III's RealSpace engine and the overall design of the game is adapted from Wing Commander I! Pacific Strike is as close to possible as the fictional concept of abandonware: Origin actually did abandon support for it and offer everyone who purchased the game refunds! In that light, it might be fair to pick up a copy on the Internet Archive.

Pre-Show!

We're going to try something new this week by including a pre-show, like how you might watch trailers, cartoons or newsreels before a movie! We'll post the preshow material here and you can watch it any time… or show up half an hour early and we'll do a group watch in the Discord chat!

During the actual 1942 Battle of Midway, acclaimed director John Ford was present and filmed footage of the action which he turned into an 18-minute propaganda film titled The Battle of Midway. Both the Wing Commander movie's production notes and the more recent book XBox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood claim that The Battle of Midway was influential to the film. Here's the complete film, which is in the public domain:

Internet Archive download

Inspired by the heroism of the torpedo pilots who gave their lives in the initial strike, Ford also cut an eight minute film about Torpedo Squadron 8 which shows the pilots and crews in the days before the battle. Given the connection to Action Stations, it's also worth a watch!

Internet Archive download

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Midway is currently available for rental or sale digitally at all storefronts. Please note that that you want the 1976 film and not the 2019 version of the story. A copy is also available for download from Archive.org. If you're interested in tracking down a physical copy, a BluRay version was released in 2013 and remains in print today. If you are unable to track down a copy please ping a member of the WCCIC staff on the Discord in advance of the watch.

There is a significantly extended TV cut of Midway available which we won't be covering. If you're interested, though, copies are available on the Internet Archive either with or without commercials!

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!

Goodbye Benoît Allemane

Sad news today: French voice actor Benoît Allemane passed away on Sunday. To say that M. Alleman was prolific would be an understatement; he performed the French voices for characters from Doctor Claw to Baloo and in the process dubbed countless film and genre roles over the years. He was likely best known as the official French voice of actor Morgan Freeman, who paid tribute to him on Instagram.

You can find an obituary here. He is best known to Wing Commander fans, however, as the French voice of Captain William Eisen in localized releases of Wing Commander III and IV. Here's a briefing from Wing Commander IV showing his dub work in action:

Our thoughts are with M. Allemane's family, friends and fans.

Thank you to Sergorn for reporting this news.