Apollo 13 is essentially a flawless movie, so much so that it almost feels too slick to be real. But breaking it down into component parts–like the score, used in part to temp track Wing Commander–you begin to appreciate the sheer amount of artistry that went into every part of the thing. There's not a lot to share in this report; you can find the music used in the Wing Commander temp score in the initial post.
We were also curious about the scale of the Apollo spacecraft compared to familiar Wing Commander ships. I made this quick-and-dirty chart which mostly just highlights how poorly scaled the Wing Commander III ships are.
Sully can make a round cat fit into a square box like nobody's business.
I can't 100 percent say it was directly inspired by Apollo 12, but there's a handful of shots that definitely feel reminicent of the show. At one point in Apollo 13 the crew are dealing with the interior getting cold and moisture condensing on the surfaces of everything. At least one of the shots starts with a slow pan over the instruments panels covered in water droplets. In a 'deleted' scene from one of the Wing Commander movie workprints, Angel is adrift in a pod that is quickly cooling. The short scene starts with a slow pan over the Rapier instrument panels all covered in frost. The type of shot and camera movement is very similar.
The purpose of the scene is to kinda show Angel's time is running out. She's getting chilled and is worried about getting left behind by the claw and perhaps getting picked up by the Kilrathi instead so she's contemplating scuttling the lifepod if it should come to that. It's also supposed to raise the stakes a bit for the final scene since the audience should be wondering if Angel actually made it, though in the end I don't think the scene was totally successful on that front (though it's hard for me to judge since I can't watch it cold without already knowing the end)
One (minor) connection: in one scene Jim Lovell talks about how being lost over the ocean in his airplane. That plane: the McDonnell F2H Banshee, which of course shares its name with several Wing Commander ships. In real life it's better known as the plane in the novel The Bridges of Toko-Ri (the novel, not the book: the planes in the movie were Panthers!)
