An "academic" discussion...

FlashFire82 said:
But I didn't SAY that the Wing Commander movie wasn't related. I did however, state that the possibility exists that Roberts et al. decided to create the movie from a stance that would stand on it's own two feet, without requiring much "background" from the games. This way those who were not fans or had no WC knowledge, could watch and enjoy without feeling left out. And this might have required parting from the established video game plot a little.

My point exactly. Whether or not Chris had complete control, the idea was a stand-alone media. It's hard to extract the best of the entire series and squeeze it into an hour and a half movie. There are certain concepts that they felt audiences would've preferred seeing, like Blair and Maniac being friends when in reality they were rivals from day one, Blair and Angel getting romantically involved at the end when it didn't actually happen till over ten years later, and many of the other ideas that have been rehashed and re-rehashed in this thread and others.
 
LOAF, is the SM2 card the first metion of Towlyn?

Yes. Tolwyn was created by Ellen Guon for WC2... and then Secret Missions 2 was written as a 'bridge' between the original game and Wing Commander 2.

Despite what some might think, I don't think there's an actual WC "canon." That would imply something official and definitive, which is certainly something we don't have. There's so many disparate elements we have to piece together, calling something "canon" is sort of misleading

I disagree -- there's a reason why you have things like the Wing Commander movie novel and False Colors working so hard to tie in to a million previously established sources (often blatantly so). There's a reason why you have Prophecy spend time in it's manual explaining why X, Y and Z concept from the novels isn't relevant to its storyline (what percentage of Prophecy's audience cares about the Double Helix, Mantu and Steltek?). There has always been a conscious attempt to tie in the previous sources in Wing Commander.

My point exactly. Whether or not Chris had complete control, the idea was a stand-alone media. It's hard to extract the best of the entire series and squeeze it into an hour and a half movie. There are certain concepts that they felt audiences would've preferred seeing, like Blair and Maniac being friends when in reality they were rivals from day one, Blair and Angel getting romantically involved at the end when it didn't actually happen till over ten years later, and many of the other ideas that have been rehashed and re-rehashed in this thread and others.

I don't understand where people get this. The idea of Maniac and Blair going to the Academy together is by no means some sort of retroactive continuity on the part of the movie.

It's a key element of the Wing Commander I & II guide, it's the basis of the Wing Commander Academy animated series, it's referenced over and over in both of the Blair novels... the Wing Commander movie did not invent the idea that Maniac and Blair went to the Academy together.

It disagrees with something you could possibly have argued in 1990 -- but it isn't anything that was changed for the story of the movie.

(And the idea that the fact that add retroactive continuity discredits the movie is silly enough - look at Wing Commander IV and the Border Worlds. Blair's parents having a religion and Paladin having the wrong accennt is *nothing* compared to the incredible alteration in the shape of the Wing Commader universe that occured when we decided that most of the systems we fought in in the war games were actually a special separate country. What's the difference? You enjoyed Wing Commander IV.)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I disagree -- there's a reason why you have things like the Wing Commander movie novel and False Colors working so hard to tie in to a million previously established sources (often blatantly so). There's a reason why you have Prophecy spend time in it's manual explaining why X, Y and Z concept from the novels isn't relevant to its storyline (what percentage of Prophecy's audience cares about the Double Helix, Mantu and Steltek?). There has always been a conscious attempt to tie in the previous sources in Wing Commander.

Eh, you've got a point, man.
 
Yes, the novels did make a good attempt in trying to tie up loose ends. I don't consider systems being in the Border Worlds as a comparative contradiction at all...it never was an issue we thought about when playing the old WC games; until WCP came out we didn't have a defined WC universe map, so border and system designations were up in the air.
 
... as opposed to Blair's parents religion, which was always at the center of our minds when playing the original games?

(The original Wing Commander actually did come with a map of the Vega Sector -- it's in the back of Claw Marks.)
 
look at Wing Commander IV and the Border Worlds. Blair's parents having a religion and Paladin having the wrong accennt is *nothing* compared to the incredible alteration in the shape of the Wing Commader universe that occured when we decided that most of the systems we fought in in the war games were actually a special separate country. What's the difference? You enjoyed Wing Commander IV.)
But the UBW wasn't formed until the time covered in wc4... It was 100% part of confed in the previous games. Not that it makes any difference for the rest of this debate.
 
Well, That's between Loaf and I... :) and he is not always automatically right, you know. We've been debating for at least around 6 years... The agwc times were fun. Gene Tang was terrible.
 
Edfilho said:
But the UBW wasn't formed until the time covered in wc4... It was 100% part of confed in the previous games. Not that it makes any difference for the rest of this debate.

... which is exactly how we explain the situation, because we like Wing Commander IV. It's kind of messy, isn't it? The very same colonies we were fighting to defend onboard the flagship of the Confederation are the ones that Vagabond describes like this: "All I know is that the Border Worlds have always been Confed’s stepchild. They fought the Kilrathi, too. But what’d they get for it? Any time Confed needs a dumping ground for anything from toxins to prisoners, the Border Worlds is the place."

We certainly saw absolutely no sign of any of that, ever.
 
Well... you've got Dakota, the system the Tiger's Claw broke off the offesive to escort medical transports to and from.

You've got Repleetah -- Confed certainly had an interest there.

There's Kurasawa, which is only part of the Confederation because of a bloody amphibious invasion.

Loki, which Confed ended up blowing the most expensive tool in its arsenal to capture.

Torgo, the home of Confed's Third Fleet for the end of the war.

Epsilon Prime, referenced as an important conflict at several points in the original game.

And so forth - we served at these places, our friends died keeping them part of the Confederation... and our bartenders gave us the local rumors.

It isn't a contradiction that the Border Worlds came to exist, but it is as out of left field as anything introduced by the movie.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It isn't a contradiction that the Border Worlds came to exist, but it is as out of left field as anything introduced by the movie.

Actually the differentiation between Confed and BW surfaced during the Battle of Earth (Kruger: "Oh, solidarity of race against the Cats, is that it?"). The BW have *always* been around, nothing left field about it....the war, of course, was a unifying factor but after the war, just like during the lull after the false armistice, separation starts to formulate.

The adding of the Pilgrim subplot/the religion of Blair's parents is not a contradiction, I just felt it could've been left out. Everything else I mentioned *are* contradictions, but that's just my opinion.
 
The novels go on to make clear that the Landreich and the Border Worlds *aren't* the same thing.

Edit: Although they're another great retcon. It's Confederation vs. Kilrathi for several games... and then suddenly Fleet Action says there's a whole separate human government that's *cooler*.
 
Landreich is significantly older than the UBW...IMSC they secceded sometime in 2630-1 (?)....40 years back from FC
 
Bandit LOAF said:
... which is exactly how we explain the situation, because we like Wing Commander IV. It's kind of messy, isn't it? The very same colonies we were fighting to defend onboard the flagship of the Confederation are the ones that Vagabond describes like this: "All I know is that the Border Worlds have always been Confed’s stepchild. They fought the Kilrathi, too. But what’d they get for it? Any time Confed needs a dumping ground for anything from toxins to prisoners, the Border Worlds is the place."

We certainly saw absolutely no sign of any of that, ever.

Well, people love to complain... and it's a lot easier to whine after the war is over. not to mention that hotshot fighter pilots don't usually have anything to do with toxic waste barges and prisioner ships (with the exception of jazz's).

I personally didn't fell that the UBW was tacked on or "ideologically" conflicting with anything. but i was indeed botherd by this whole war and human subspecie and Blair's secret past (because it is untrue that all that the movie added was Blair's parents religion).

I do not argue this anymore because you have shown us that technically it is possible to fit it all together without major problems - and so the unified history fo the WCU is now a fact.

But as a reader/player/movie goer I'm no very keen on the whole pilgrim stuff. But that is my personal problem, isn't it? It's not an issue that I will debate, because, as I said aboved, you proved that it is all canon and it all fits.
 
Well, those colonies were indeed part of Confed until they declared independence. Their value was, perhaps, strategic location. Looking at the jump point map, it's a nice corridor between Sol and Kilrah.

Once the war was over, they lost their importance.
 
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