I never understood why Tolwyn hated Blair so much.

linkjoy123

Veteran Spaceman
Does their hatred for each other stem from The Enigma Sector incident with the Tiger's Claw? Tolwyn essentially made him a scapegoat for the accident. I don't think Blair every really forgave Tolwyn for that.

This furthers my thought where Tolwyn says to Blair at the end, talking about Seether "He is more of a warrior then you will ever be!". (The final court room scene.) Like basically insulting Blair, even though Blair is a god level pilot.

Was there details I missed? Because I feel like there is more to this rivalry.
 
Well, to be fully honest, WC2 is pretty weak when it comes to setup. Its like a reset-button, everything else was just constructed around that reset later.
The WC4 stuff on the other hand is more of a eugenics thing, of course Tolwyn's personal Uruk-Hai has to be a better warrior by definition because he was breed to be, that is the central belief of that character and thus his motivation right? Considering how disliked Tolwyn's "sudden" transformation into a master-race-nazi is in WC4, it sure feels like a reset-button was pressed half-way somewhere again ;)
Although the animosity between the two characters is certainly consistent in WC3 and 4, until he becomes space Hitler that is.
 
Well... maybe that was because in WC4 Tolwyn was set as the main villain acted by Mr. McDowell. So he was required to hate Blair the hero in the story.

There are some things that lack continuity in the series. You can even find that WC4's Melek looks and sounds completely different from WC3's.

In the WCA animation, we know that Blair questioned Tolwyn's decision more than once, and even publicly threw the honor wings awarded by Tolwyn into space at the end of this season (yeah, the next season was dropped). This may indicate that their conflicts were accumulating over time. But, given that it started broadcasting half a year after WC4 was released, I think this script was already based on the character setting of WC4 Tolwyn.
 
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Yeah, Tolwyn in Wing Commander II is a little more complex: he and Blair certainly hate each other (he blames Blair for the loss of the Tiger's Claw, Blair blames him for cashiering him). But the story shows us that it's specifically their relationship, not an indicator that one is good and the other is evil. There are multiple times where Blair tries to complain about what a hardass Tolwyn is (to Sparks, to Angel, etc.) and he's coincidentally shot down because to those characters Tolwyn is the fighting Admiral who has been leading them. I was just talking about this in an unrelated Twitter thread but the game's original script outline has a stronger end for Tolwyn where he punches out a reporter who is denigrating the war effort. This is all followed logically in the Special Operations disks which have a much rosier relationship between Tolwyn and Blair, post Jazz… and this was where, creatively, the novels spun off from the games, with Dr. Forstchen writing from the status quo as of Special Operations 1: Blair and Tolwyn are friends, Bear is a cool new hero, etc.

Wing Commander III gets some shit for casting generic bad guy Malcolm McDowell as Tolwyn, with folks saying it's inevitable that he was going to become a villain instead of an antagonist… but I do think the game actually treats Tolwyn okay. We specifically have a line referencing the end of WC2 when he arrives at Torgo: "I thought at long last we’d achieved a measure of respect for each other. Obviously I was wrong."

And the conflict in WC3 isn't too hard to figure out: Blair blames Tolwyn for Angel's disappearance ("she's on some damn covert op for Tolwyn") and for reassigning him to a second ringer carrier (she's no Concordia!) after a tour as Wing Commander on his flagship! Tolwyn, on the other hand, doesn't see either of these things: he knows he didn't actually send Angel to her death (Paladin did!) and he moved Blair to the Victory /specifically because he wanted his best pilot to protect the Behemoth./ And Blair does EXACTLY THE SAME THING as he did in WC2: he bitches to anybody who will listen about Tolwyn… except on the Victory there's no one to defend him, just a lot of people unhappy that he's sidelined Captain Eisen. And people read the ending wrong too: the idea isn't that Tolwyn was crazy to make the Behemoth… it ends up being exactly the same thing Blair has to do, destroy Kilrah and kill a zillion civilians in the process of ending the war. It's not a coincidence that Tolwyn comes back to active service to sign the surrender at the end!

Wing Commander IV obviously makes Tolwyn a crazy person (either ruined by war or by being Malcolm McDowell) but the relationship is still pretty complex before Blair knows that. Tolwyn is obviously unhappy that Blair, his man, is the face of the great victory over the Kilrathi… and Blair isn't happy to be called back to active service to hunt pirates (even though again, this is Tolwyn's plan within a plan and thinking he's rewarding his loyal officer; he thinks Blair will support his ideology and wants him to be part of what's coming). Part of that is also how fans lens these sorts of things… while the Special Operations stories (and the novels) are HUGE for us, they weren't really particularly special to the folks /making/ the later games. The mission disks were made with small, inexperienced teams in a matter of a few weeks while most of the development team moved on to the next game.

Wing Commander Academy adds some context, with the idea that Blair is morally opposed to Tolwyn because Tolwyn is willing to throw away lives to win the war (the intent being to prelude to the fact that Blair will someday have to make those exact same decisions). It also introduces the idea, furthered in the movie tie-in material, that Tolwyn was particularly influential in Blair's early career, with Tolwyn having served with Blair's father and making sure Chris got special treatment at the Academy and in his early assignment to the Tiger's Claw (none of which Blair appreciates).
 
To echo some of what LOAF eloquently stated above, I also found the Blair / Tolwyn relationship very rich through WC3. Though Tolwyn is antagonistic doesn't mean he's evil or wrong in how he is - simply that he's the admiral who sees the big picture while Blair/the player is only a soldier. But its also nothing like, say, the movie Paths Of Glory where the commanders are out of touch and the main character suffers on the front line. We are meant to dislike Tolwyn but we also understand why he is who he is and why he acts this way. (Its also very telling how much we dislike him in WC3 when he's in it for so little of the game.)

That said, I do think the character of Tolwyn suffered because they cast McDowell - because of his history playing a heavy (and had recently played the man who killed James Kirk in Star Trek Generations) that the "easy way out" of making a sequel to WC3 was to make him out to be a crazy space nazi jerkbag. That isn't to take away anything that the screenwriters made, simply that its likely not where they'd have gone if they had another actor in the role.
 
LOAF makes some good in-universe observations about Tolwyn's perspective, I viewed the initial question from a real-world perspective at first. My assumption was that, to contrast the player-centric feel of WC1 where Blair was never directly criticised even if the Vega campaign goes to pieces, the WC2 story writers wanted to go with putting as many character-based obstacles for the player within Confed as well as in the Kilrathi. Thus they wrote characters who both overtly (Tolwyn and Stingray) and covertly (Jazz) oppose Blair. WC3 and WC4, at least on the surface, just seemed to be extensions of that dislike and distrust between Tolwyn and Blair.
This is all followed logically in the Special Operations disks which have a much rosier relationship between Tolwyn and Blair, post Jazz… and this was where, creatively, the novels spun off from the games, with Dr. Forstchen writing from the status quo as of Special Operations 1: Blair and Tolwyn are friends, Bear is a cool new hero, etc.
WC2 was my first experience of all the WC games and I really liked that warming in the relationship between them in the Special Operations. There's even some (for the player, at least) levity when Tolwyn quips in relation to Taggart 'I expect you to obey his orders better than you’ve obeyed mine!'

We specifically have a line referencing the end of WC2 when he arrives at Torgo: "I thought at long last we’d achieved a measure of respect for each other. Obviously I was wrong."
On my first experience of WC3, I think I felt a bit disappointed that Blair and Tolwyn were back to being less-than-friendly towards each other, especially given that I recognised this line was in relation to the Special Operations. Honestly, I'm not sure I directly connected Blair's renewed dislike of Tolwyn with Angel's absence in spite of the 'damn covert op for Tolwyn' line - he asked Paladin about Angel too but I suppose he just attributed it to Tolwyn because he would be the one ultimately giving orders.

...Tolwyn's plan within a plan and thinking he's rewarding his loyal officer; he thinks Blair will support his ideology and wants him to be part of what's coming
The arc of Tolwyn and Blair's relationship in WC4 is basically the inverse of WC2. While WC2 starts hostile and warms significantly after K"Tithrak Mang, WC4 starts all warm and friendly (agreed with the idea that it's primarily to recruit Blair) and turns hostile with the revelation of the Black Lance.

It also introduces the idea, furthered in the movie tie-in material, that Tolwyn was particularly influential in Blair's early career, with Tolwyn having served with Blair's father and making sure Chris got special treatment at the Academy and in his early assignment to the Tiger's Claw (none of which Blair appreciates).
While I think it's nice that they subtly build on Tolwyn and Blair's relationship through Tolwyn's respect for Blair's father, I think it just makes Tolwyn's bias against Blair in WC2 less plausible. If he just thinks Blair is a traitor for destroying the Tiger's Claw, then the hostility is understandable. But if he gave him preferential treatment out of regard for Arnold, I would think it more plausible - upon hearing Blair's testimony about Kilrathi stealth fighters - that he would be prepared to at least consider the possibility that Blair was not responsible. Instead, he appears to summarily dismiss the claims (and yes, I do accept that the flight recorders disappeared but absence of proof is not proof of absence).

Again, I just put it down to differences in real-world writing causing inconsistencies in-universe ('it's a skipper missile!').
 
Tolwyn has some pretty good reasons to hate Blair at the beginning of 2. Tolwyn rightfully dismisses Blair's claim of stealth fighters. There were apparently no other reports of stealth fighters. With the events of Ghorah Khar, stealth fighters don't make a reappearance until ten years later during the events of WC2. I read in the wiki where it says he was made a scapegoat. Not really. He's the one making outlandish claims with no evidence and a missing flight recorder. He would likely have been found guilty in a modern court martial.

Little to no evidence, for ten years. Ten Years! It doesn't matter that Jazz was found out later on. That kind of burning hatred doesn't just evaporate. The sad thing is, that Tolwyn was right for what he did, and Blair knows it. With the facts available, Blair was a security risk at a minimum.
 
On my first experience of WC3, I think I felt a bit disappointed that Blair and Tolwyn were back to being less-than-friendly towards each other, especially given that I recognised this line was in relation to the Special Operations. Honestly, I'm not sure I directly connected Blair's renewed dislike of Tolwyn with Angel's absence in spite of the 'damn covert op for Tolwyn' line - he asked Paladin about Angel too but I suppose he just attributed it to Tolwyn because he would be the one ultimately giving orders.

In Blair's defense, Angel's holo message also claims she is "about to set out for a covert operation with Admiral Tolwyn". But we find out in the end that she was actually captured working on the logistics for Paladin's bomb (and that Paladin knew the whole time).

While I think it's nice that they subtly build on Tolwyn and Blair's relationship through Tolwyn's respect for Blair's father, I think it just makes Tolwyn's bias against Blair in WC2 less plausible. If he just thinks Blair is a traitor for destroying the Tiger's Claw, then the hostility is understandable. But if he gave him preferential treatment out of regard for Arnold, I would think it more plausible - upon hearing Blair's testimony about Kilrathi stealth fighters - that he would be prepared to at least consider the possibility that Blair was not responsible. Instead, he appears to summarily dismiss the claims (and yes, I do accept that the flight recorders disappeared but absence of proof is not proof of absence).

But take into account how Academy ends: Blair publicly attacking Tolwyn and his methods at the medal ceremony. I don't think there would've been any warm feelings when they meet again after the Tiger's Claw is destroyed (about 18 months later).
 
Yeah, Tolwyn in Wing Commander II is a little more complex: he and Blair certainly hate each other (he blames Blair for the loss of the Tiger's Claw, Blair blames him for cashiering him). But the story shows us that it's specifically their relationship, not an indicator that one is good and the other is evil. There are multiple times where Blair tries to complain about what a hardass Tolwyn is (to Sparks, to Angel, etc.) and he's coincidentally shot down because to those characters Tolwyn is the fighting Admiral who has been leading them. I was just talking about this in an unrelated Twitter thread but the game's original script outline has a stronger end for Tolwyn where he punches out a reporter who is denigrating the war effort. This is all followed logically in the Special Operations disks which have a much rosier relationship between Tolwyn and Blair, post Jazz… and this was where, creatively, the novels spun off from the games, with Dr. Forstchen writing from the status quo as of Special Operations 1: Blair and Tolwyn are friends, Bear is a cool new hero, etc.

Wing Commander III gets some shit for casting generic bad guy Malcolm McDowell as Tolwyn, with folks saying it's inevitable that he was going to become a villain instead of an antagonist… but I do think the game actually treats Tolwyn okay. We specifically have a line referencing the end of WC2 when he arrives at Torgo: "I thought at long last we’d achieved a measure of respect for each other. Obviously I was wrong."

And the conflict in WC3 isn't too hard to figure out: Blair blames Tolwyn for Angel's disappearance ("she's on some damn covert op for Tolwyn") and for reassigning him to a second ringer carrier (she's no Concordia!) after a tour as Wing Commander on his flagship! Tolwyn, on the other hand, doesn't see either of these things: he knows he didn't actually send Angel to her death (Paladin did!) and he moved Blair to the Victory /specifically because he wanted his best pilot to protect the Behemoth./ And Blair does EXACTLY THE SAME THING as he did in WC2: he bitches to anybody who will listen about Tolwyn… except on the Victory there's no one to defend him, just a lot of people unhappy that he's sidelined Captain Eisen. And people read the ending wrong too: the idea isn't that Tolwyn was crazy to make the Behemoth… it ends up being exactly the same thing Blair has to do, destroy Kilrah and kill a zillion civilians in the process of ending the war. It's not a coincidence that Tolwyn comes back to active service to sign the surrender at the end!

Wing Commander IV obviously makes Tolwyn a crazy person (either ruined by war or by being Malcolm McDowell) but the relationship is still pretty complex before Blair knows that. Tolwyn is obviously unhappy that Blair, his man, is the face of the great victory over the Kilrathi… and Blair isn't happy to be called back to active service to hunt pirates (even though again, this is Tolwyn's plan within a plan and thinking he's rewarding his loyal officer; he thinks Blair will support his ideology and wants him to be part of what's coming). Part of that is also how fans lens these sorts of things… while the Special Operations stories (and the novels) are HUGE for us, they weren't really particularly special to the folks /making/ the later games. The mission disks were made with small, inexperienced teams in a matter of a few weeks while most of the development team moved on to the next game.

Wing Commander Academy adds some context, with the idea that Blair is morally opposed to Tolwyn because Tolwyn is willing to throw away lives to win the war (the intent being to prelude to the fact that Blair will someday have to make those exact same decisions). It also introduces the idea, furthered in the movie tie-in material, that Tolwyn was particularly influential in Blair's early career, with Tolwyn having served with Blair's father and making sure Chris got special treatment at the Academy and in his early assignment to the Tiger's Claw (none of which Blair appreciates).

To me though, I still don't think Blair ever *truly* forgave Tolwyn for the Engima Incident. Since everything after that, Blair would now always have doubts on how Tolwyn handles different situations. It didn't help that Tolwyn basically forced Eisen out of command for a few missions. And he was so goal oriented, he didn't bother to do security checks for Hobbes leaking data. (This is also a plot hole/convenience with Royln though that always made me angry).

1. Tolwyn easily dismissed probably one the best, by the book, pilots in Confed. Him destroying a carrier, especially one he served on for so long, would make no sense.

2. Tolwyn single handedly caused Blair's name to be tarnished, and used Blair as a propaganda piece against the Kilrathi. "See look what the Kilrathi do to our pilots!"

3. Blair had to literally fight his way back up to dismiss the "Coward of K'Thrag Mag" title. And people being the way they are, could see some "truth" in that.

4. Blair is so loyal, even though people hated him he risked his life, and disobeyed orders several times in WC2 to save lives.

5. Any normal pilots Morale would be shot dealing with that, but Blair fought through that. (hence why I thought the "Heart of the Tiger" title was a genius move in the script. (I mean look at Dallas in WCP, he was scared even firing shots).

6. Even the negligence charge makes no sense, a surprise attack can go every which way in the situation.

To me it's just plain idiocy, that in the instances where he fought the stealth fighters, in every instance his flight recorder was damaged. Take a camera FFS. Any amateur detective can know, especially as someone as smart as Tolwyn, would say "okay I think something is up here."

Coupled with everything else you said, Blair will always have doubts in Tolwyn's decision making abilities after the Enigma Incident. This was further cemented when Tolwyn had obvious jealously for Blair delivering the killing blow to Kilrah.

Personally, if I worked my ass off as Blair did, and was a by the book pilot, and I got screwed because of an incident and something I didn't do, I could never forgive that person, for almost destroying my life as a pilot, and as a person. It makes it worse, since Tolwyn is an Admiral, and you have no choice to follow orders, so Blair was backed into a corner. If it wasn't for Jazz's slip up, Blair would have been screwed.
 
1. Tolwyn easily dismissed probably one the best, by the book, pilots in Confed. Him destroying a carrier, especially one he served on for so long, would make no sense.
Perhaps the Confederation was aware of the traitor at the time. Tolwyn was a very conceited person, so he still thought Blair could be the traitor.

Tolwyn was good at directing battles, or in larger scale, campaigns, but he was not good at directing a war, much less politics.

In general, this character has different specific characteristics in different works, and I think it is unnecessary to consider "Tolwyns" exactly the same character.
 
In Blair's defense, Angel's holo message also claims she is "about to set out for a covert operation with Admiral Tolwyn". But we find out in the end that she was actually captured working on the logistics for Paladin's bomb (and that Paladin knew the whole time).
Thanks for the reminder. It does appear the writers wanted Blair to pin his frustrations on Tolwyn, fuelling their disharmony.
But take into account how Academy ends: Blair publicly attacking Tolwyn and his methods at the medal ceremony. I don't think there would've been any warm feelings when they meet again after the Tiger's Claw is destroyed (about 18 months later).
Fair point. It is difficult to juggle all the various different media portrayals, published at different times and written by different people.

And he was so goal oriented, he didn't bother to do security checks for Hobbes leaking data.
Why specifically Hobbes? Personality overlay aside, he had demonstrated himself to be a loyal and useful soldier for many years. While it was after the fact, Tolwyn's 'leaky ship' gibe to Eisen suggests to me he considered the Victory as a whole to be suspect, not specifically Blair or Hobbes or anyone else in particular.

Blair had to literally fight his way back up to dismiss the "Coward of K'Thrag Mag" [sic] title.
I think that was the deliberate aim of WC2. Make this seemingly insurmountable obstacle for the player, and it feels all the more satisfying when it is resolved. As I said, WC2 was my first WC experience - Blair's reckless actions in attacking K'Tithrak Mang on his own made me a little uncomfortable as that's not something I would do in his situation, but the end-of-the-game result was fun.

Even the negligence charge makes no sense, a surprise attack can go every which way in the situation.
I understand naval captains in real life must give an account for the loss of their ship, no matter how reasonable a surprise attack or other circumstances. A negligence charge can seem grossly unfair, especially if one genuinely has fought with all their might against an adversary only to be outmanoeuvred, but it is a real-life thing, or so I understand.

To me it's just plain idiocy, that in the instances where he fought the stealth fighters, in every instance his flight recorder was damaged.
Yes, it was stupid and frustrating, but clearly the intent of the writers to drive up the stakes for the player, adding to dramatic tension.
 
Though Tolwyn is antagonistic doesn't mean he's evil or wrong in how he is - simply that he's the admiral who sees the big picture while Blair/the player is only a soldier. But its also nothing like, say, the movie Paths Of Glory where the commanders are out of touch and the main character suffers on the front line.
Tolwyn gets a lot more moments where we can see why he acts the way he does, even if it's only in retrospect. I wonder if we would feel differently about the Menjou character in that film if he had been developed in the same way; he's a jerkass and a politicker but he's also not Literal Space Hitler, and the novels were able to give Tolwyn nuance and some sympathy despite that.

That said, I do think the character of Tolwyn suffered because they cast McDowell - because of his history playing a heavy (and had recently played the man who killed James Kirk in Star Trek Generations) that the "easy way out" of making a sequel to WC3 was to make him out to be a crazy space nazi jerkbag. That isn't to take away anything that the screenwriters made, simply that its likely not where they'd have gone if they had another actor in the role.
With David Warner's recent death I was wondering how the games would have turned out if he had been cast instead of McDowell. Part of me feels not too different, but I think he does have a different image that might have influenced how the character was developed; the brief work did in the Movie feels different to how McDowell handled the role in Academy.

One thing I'm wondering: who exactly are Borst and de Palma? They were hugely responsible for developing the story and yet it seems we know less about them than we do for Guon or Forstchen or basically anyone else who was ever involved in writing.
 
I personally love McDowell in wing Commander 3 and especially in four. And like I always say two things can be true at the same time. Did tolwyn become a space Nazi of sorts most def yes, was he also proven to be right only 10 years later with a enemy coming out of nowhere stronger than the kilrathi also yes lol.
 
Thanks for the reminder. It does appear the writers wanted Blair to pin his frustrations on Tolwyn, fuelling their disharmony.

Fair point. It is difficult to juggle all the various different media portrayals, published at different times and written by different people.


Why specifically Hobbes? Personality overlay aside, he had demonstrated himself to be a loyal and useful soldier for many years. While it was after the fact, Tolwyn's 'leaky ship' gibe to Eisen suggests to me he considered the Victory as a whole to be suspect, not specifically Blair or Hobbes or anyone else in particular.


I think that was the deliberate aim of WC2. Make this seemingly insurmountable obstacle for the player, and it feels all the more satisfying when it is resolved. As I said, WC2 was my first WC experience - Blair's reckless actions in attacking K'Tithrak Mang on his own made me a little uncomfortable as that's not something I would do in his situation, but the end-of-the-game result was fun.


I understand naval captains in real life must give an account for the loss of their ship, no matter how reasonable a surprise attack or other circumstances. A negligence charge can seem grossly unfair, especially if one genuinely has fought with all their might against an adversary only to be outmanoeuvred, but it is a real-life thing, or so I understand.


Yes, it was stupid and frustrating, but clearly the intent of the writers to drive up the stakes for the player, adding to dramatic tension.
yeah that was my only problem with wing Commander 2's ending. Blair throws the book out the window and goes for personal Glory and it could have blown up completely in his face and really hurt confed. great fun Mission and gameplay but, from a story standpoint it kind of makes me roll my eyes. and once again makes me realize maybe why Tolwyn has issues with blair.
 
There is a huge dividing line between 1+2 and 3+4 story in many regards. And lines in between each game, but especially between 2+3. Technology, game design, story, characters. This is just one more example of that. And to be honest, I'm fine with that. We as fans love to twist ourselves in knots trying to tie multiple disparate projects into a cohesive whole (look no further then the back flips fans have had to do with the current Star Wars universe). But the fundamental truth is everything is always in service the needs of the current project, and there is going to be differences, especially when different people are involved. We tend to put to much on the shoulders of the director, Chris Robert's in this case, but such projects are a group effort. I think we can all agree its nice when there exists continuity between projects. It's fun to have a different universe to get involved with and I know, generally, a lot of effort is made to keep it so, but it doesn't always happen cleanly and that's the nature of it.

Personally I find I get annoyed when people try to force continuity that doesn't exist, (There is little evidence to belive that was the thought process they had when they made that decision, so stop making things up...) but that's just me. I was always more interested in the actual thought processes of the people who worked on a given project and the reasons for why they made the decisions. Such reasons are not always story based, and I want to hear those stories.

I think Malcolm McDowell certainly defines Tolwyn a certain way that is very enjoyable. Much the way Robert Downy Jr. has redefined Tony Stark from what existed before. It's clear the Tolwyn that exists in the later games has little bearing with WC2. Does it really matter? I don't believe so. I find that sort of thing happens a lot with many franchises... I try to keep an open mind and enjoy an individual project on its own merits.
 
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yeah that was my only problem with wing Commander 2's ending. Blair throws the book out the window and goes for personal Glory and it could have blown up completely in his face and really hurt confed. great fun Mission and gameplay but, from a story standpoint it kind of makes me roll my eyes.
After playing WC1 it also made me see just how much Blair had changed since those early days. Ten years is a long time, after all.
 
One thing I'm wondering: who exactly are Borst and de Palma? They were hugely responsible for developing the story and yet it seems we know less about them than we do for Guon or Forstchen or basically anyone else who was ever involved in writing.

That's probably because they weren't so directly connected to Origin; they were LA-based screenwriters who the woman Electronic Arts put in charge of managing the film shoot put Chris Roberts in contact with. At the time they were very succesful script doctors, who are the uncredited folks that productions bring in to quickly rework scripts that have looming production deadlines. So they had a long list of big budget movies they'd worked on which impressed Chris and they were very interested in getting into interactive design and a partnership was formed!

There is a huge dividing line between 1+2 and 3+4 story in many regards. And lines in between each game, but especially between 2+3. Technology, game design, story, characters. This is just one more example of that. And to be honest, I'm fine with that. We as fans love to twist ourselves in knots trying to tie multiple disparate projects into a cohesive whole (look no further then the back flips fans have had to do with the current Star Wars universe). But the fundamental truth is everything is always in service the needs of the current project, and there is going to be differences, especially when different people are involved. We tend to put to much on the shoulders of the director, Chris Robert's in this case, but such projects are a group effort. I think we can all agree its nice when there exists continuity between projects. It's fun to have a different universe to get involved with and I know, generally, a lot of effort is made to keep it so, but it doesn't always happen cleanly and that's the nature of it.

Wing Commander III's production wasn't a huge secret like a modern film, though... in fact, the major parties all walk you through the whole process in the interviews at the back of the official guide! Including exactly how Wing Commander II played into their story for the game. And if you ever look through the set photos, for instance, you can see WC2 screenshots stuck up right next to storyboards and costume designs... so it's a lot less /this didn't matter to them/ and more /this mattered in a different way to them than it does to me/.

(I was just thinking about this the other day, though, because I was playing through the start of the game and it hit me how odd it seems straight off that we need to spend time explaining that Hobbes was a pilot but now he's XO but now he's a pilot again... and that's purely to tie back to Wing Commander II in the player's mind, where Hobbes stuck up for Blair... and so you needed to set up this story with the reverse happening, even if it's done instantly. The game spends a LOT of time working backwards to tie itself to WC2.)
 
That's probably because they weren't so directly connected to Origin; they were LA-based screenwriters who the woman Electronic Arts put in charge of managing the film shoot put Chris Roberts in contact with. At the time they were very succesful script doctors, who are the uncredited folks that productions bring in to quickly rework scripts that have looming production deadlines. So they had a long list of big budget movies they'd worked on which impressed Chris and they were very interested in getting into interactive design and a partnership was formed!



Wing Commander III's production wasn't a huge secret like a modern film, though... in fact, the major parties all walk you through the whole process in the interviews at the back of the official guide! Including exactly how Wing Commander II played into their story for the game. And if you ever look through the set photos, for instance, you can see WC2 screenshots stuck up right next to storyboards and costume designs... so it's a lot less /this didn't matter to them/ and more /this mattered in a different way to them than it does to me/.

(I was just thinking about this the other day, though, because I was playing through the start of the game and it hit me how odd it seems straight off that we need to spend time explaining that Hobbes was a pilot but now he's XO but now he's a pilot again... and that's purely to tie back to Wing Commander II in the player's mind, where Hobbes stuck up for Blair... and so you needed to set up this story with the reverse happening, even if it's done instantly. The game spends a LOT of time working backwards to tie itself to WC2.)
We have talked about this before, but how hobbes was handled as a whole, was really a bad mish mash of ideas to me.
 
That's probably because they weren't so directly connected to Origin; they were LA-based screenwriters who the woman Electronic Arts put in charge of managing the film shoot put Chris Roberts in contact with. At the time they were very succesful script doctors, who are the uncredited folks that productions bring in to quickly rework scripts that have looming production deadlines. So they had a long list of big budget movies they'd worked on which impressed Chris and they were very interested in getting into interactive design and a partnership was formed!
So they weren't responsible for the initial draft of the script then? I thought it was interesting how well they managed the sci-fi jargon and feel of the story and universe which I wouldn't expect from any off-the-shelf script monkey.

It does appear the writers wanted Blair to pin his frustrations on Tolwyn, fuelling their disharmony.
Blair is a self-insert for the player, and having someone be a jerk to you and having your avatar go and bitch about it is an easy way to create engagement in an interactive medium (though I don't know if they thought of it exactly in those terms at the time). Maybe it's a cheap trick, but it's worked pretty well for 30 years!
 
So they weren't responsible for the initial draft of the script then? I thought it was interesting how well they managed the sci-fi jargon and feel of the story and universe which I wouldn't expect from any off-the-shelf script monkey.

They wrote the first draft of the script but I think the process would surprise people: like the original Wing Commander, the script came *after* the mission design. So Chris provided them with a general direction for how he imagined the story (which they've said explicitly included the Hobbes plot) and they went from there creating characters and all the interactivity. In fact one of the few things from the planned mission tree they wanted changed was moving the Skipper mission up to the start of the game... and you can see how doing that that broke the difficulty curve!

We have talked about this before, but how hobbes was handled as a whole, was really a bad mish mash of ideas to me.

I'm split on it overall. I do not particularly like the 'overlay' aspect of the story... and to Chris' credit, he removed it from the PC version of the game... I just think it never should've existed in the first place.

I do like the overall idea of having Hobbes betray you because that IS a real betrayal... and I think the game does a magnificent job of making you feel bad about your own actions over I'm not at all fond of the modern trend of deciding favorite characters are too precious to harm or to ever have bad aspects. Kill your darlings!

(A variant that would've worked better to my mind had they time and the ability to reshoot anything--which they didn't!--: have the 'test' site for the Behemoth be Hhallas. Blair gives Ralgha a knowing look at the briefing but he's lost in thought. The audience knows he's Ralgha nar Hhallas so this is important. Same betrayal happens and we end up getting a holo mail about how he respected Blair but he couldn't in good conscious destroy his home planet...)
 
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