Thank you! I am curious, what happened and there had to be so extensive script changes? Budget constraints?
The biggest factor was definitely the budget, but it wasn't the only factor. Ultimately it could be described quite fittingly as "death by a thousand cuts." A large factor was a mismatch in vision between the main producer, who was a bean counter, Chris, and FOX. A larger part of the financing for Wing Commander - which in most respects is an indie film - was raised through presales for distribution rights. The deal with FOX had a number of concessions but overall was still a small part of the overall package and financing. But in general you could describe the FOX investment as small enough to not really care about the end product.
Going by memory here but I believe some of the financing did fall through a bit but regardless, part of the deal with fox meant they had to meet an October 98 deliverable, and that pushed them into production with barely 2 months of preproduction. With a reduced budget there were going to have to be compromises so there were some adjustments to the script and so on but producer Todd Moyer was also not really a "creative". He basically would say "yes you can have it all... for cheap" and so there was pressure to get a cheaper production team, lose certain sets and so on and lose other elements Chris felt were essential to make the movie work. Chris won the battle to get Peter Lamont but lost the choice for who to get the creature effects done by for example.
Some of the other trickle down results of short preproduction would be that normally you would have time to work out how to shoot complicated effects sequences and test run the creatures and so on, which was time they didn't have. When the Kilrathi showed up and didn't work properly, it was kind of too late and CHris basically had to move ahead with them and he did so with the idea that maybe he could fix them in post-production. The script itself should have also had another rewite to help simplify or focus the plot and write around certain elements that would later be cut anyway, but they really didn't budget or have time for that.
A smaller budget also meant fewer shooting days. Some scenes that you get a sense that the producers felt were less important just didn't have the converage needed. SO you had really limited takes, and at times the wide shots had continuity problems with the close up and medium shots making it difficult to edit into a version of the scene that flowed normally.
THe often talked about big decision that kind of snowballed the whole problem was losing the Merlin character. It wasn't really decided on to remove Merlin until probably part way into shooting. By losing Merlin they would remove the need for his holographic effects work and casting another actor in the role. They still shot the whole movie to allow for merlin but you can see in some scenes the actors doing multiple takes and doing alternate versions of the dialogue that both addressed and ignored Merlin. By the time they started putting together full workprints Merlin is already gone. Some of the early assembly cuts of scenes include Merlin but for the most part he's already relegated to be the Rapier computer voice early into Post Production. For the most part this wasn't the worst omission in theory but Merlin is present and necessary to make a handful of key scenes click.
Early edits also highlight that the editoral/producer side of production lack a clear understanding of the actual themes and intentions of the script. Key parts of Blair's own journey and subtle moments that sell those are gone from nearly every workprint.
Sometime around August 98 it becomes clear to Chris that he really should make an number of fixes. Chris would like to reshoot a few key things, and maybe replace the Kilrathi we already mentioned with CG. He feels the movie would really benefit from the larger Pearl Harbor beach opening they had scripted and lost due to the previously mentioned budget issues. Some of the current effects work by Digital Anvil is looking pretty good. The movie has a decent look to it overall especially given the budget. Chris feel that is FOX at least sees the movie's progress they will understand it's potential and be willing to invest in reshoots and so on. Early september 1998 FOX executives screen the movie and are somewhat pleased with the overall progress but in the end outright refuse any extra investment. The screening to FOX as well as for Digital Anvil employess leads to a lot of shortsighted feedback on the movie overall. FOX paid for a cheap action sci-fi film based on a video game. Chris' vision centered around a Das Boot style character drama accented with action scenes and capped off with a race to the finish ticking timebomb style ending.
Overall, the team tried diligently to salvage what was left of the movie. They worked on a version that included a traitor fairly late into the game. How that ended up looking morphed over time. People didn't like Tolwyn's ring, so they lost that at the end, then if you don't have the ring at the end you might as well lose the scene where Sansky asks Blair to return it to Tolwyn. There were other logistical issues with Having Wilson, the Admiral and commander of the Pegasus starbase being a traitor. It's clear that they figured out they could turn the traitor on the Kilrathi ship into a generic Pilgrim separate from Wilson. They shot CCTV monitor footage (present in this version of the intro) to solidify that idea. But once you've already lost Sansky as a traitor, Blair returning the ring and are missing other key elements of Blairs core arc, then it's not a stretch to just remove the traitor entirely. At Moyer's insistance Chris tries a version of the movie without the traitor plot and ultimately with their resources it's a version of the movie they can complete without extra cost considering they were already at the end of the budget with Chris pitching in some of his own money even. At that point it's just a matter of making everything happen quickly and keep it moving regardless of if it actually makes sense
A key issue with losing the traitor plot is that contrary to your instincts when watching the theatrical cut, the Pilgrim plot and story elements are central to every element in the story. The Kilrathi invasion plot is essentially set dressing, so what you're left over with is a bare bones story with no depth and other scenes out of context or trimmed so tightly that none of the performances have room to breath. So hopefully in this updated first few minutes of the movie you can see I tried to keep the focus from frame one on the key plot line. The extra newsreel audio also helps increase the spotlight on those history moments that shed some light on those same past events, but also establishes Blair's reason for having a chip on his shoulder right off the bat. I also agree with the idea of having a separate traitor from Wilson (or at least a co-conspirator) since seeing the cross on the monitor connects the Pilgrims to the loss of Pegasus right away. Having the traitor access the terminal remotely also makes the Confed crew seem less inept
