Penny-Arcade and WC Movie

[Nomad Terror]

I've never known a Jedi to be good at math

 

[Viper61]

Also, Angel and Blair's original plan does not anticipate the need for Super Navigational powers. They are supposed to fly together, make a simple jump, and warn the waiting Confed fleet that the Kilrathi are coming to town. She is conveniently removed from the situation before Blair is called into action. Yes Merlin stays on, but Blair ignores its coordinates, he doesn't need them afterall, he has a super calculator stuck in his brain.

And you'll pardon me if I avoid overly crediting the words and wisdom of Todd "Maniac" Marshall.

So how does Angel and Blair's original plan change after she is taken out by the skipper? If it wasn't going to take Phenominal Cosmic Pilgrim Powers before, why exactly does it take those powers to make the jump 5 minutes later?

Also, Merlin never feeds Blair coordinates in the movie. Merlin tells Blair that his jump vector or whatever is drifting, afterwards Blair makes corrections. Merlin actually tells him to make the changes, which Blair then follows this advice.

C-ya

 

[Nomad Terror]

I imagined that Angel would follow Blair and do whatever he did to make the jump

 

[Viper61]

I imagined that Angel would follow Blair and do whatever he did to make the jump

hehehe, now Angel's telepathic . Everything Blair did he did on the fly. I think I remember he was still entering coordinates right up to the actual jump moment.

Actually I think your partially right. I think I remember Paladin telling Angel to 'follow Blair's lead' or something along those lines to go through the jump. I don't know how thats possible unless she actually had a basic knowledge of how to do the jump in the first place.

C-ya

 

[Exarch]

OK, I't always wanted to know, just how can the WC Movie be related to the games?

First off the pilgrims. They were never mentioned in the games, so where did they come from? They didn't play a necessary role in the movie, why just suddenly make them up for the movie.

The ships: what were they thinking? These things look nothing like Rapiers. Instead, they looked like WWII Corsairs with a giant chaingun on the front. And speaking of chainguns, where are the lasers, mass drivers, and neutron guns used since the beginning of the war? The Dralthi looked good at least, and is definitely acceptable as a Kilrathi ship. But the Confed ships look like they modified WWII fighters for space, which is horrible.

The Tiger's Claw: Why the drastic difference? And why is it called Tiger Claw?

Paladin: Since when did he become Commodorre? Where's Halcyon? And why is he so hard-nosed, unlike the Paladin we all know and love?

Various odd parts in the movie. Since when can fighters fall off a flight deck in space? And how exactly does sonar work in space?

Since when did Confed fighters have those weird computers called Merlin?

And finally, Maniac never gets a girl! That ruins continuity right there!

 

[Nomad Terror]

Well most or all of these things have been explained already.

Pilgrims: Why not? It was neat for Roberts to flesh out more of the Wing Commander universe's history. It was also kind of tragic as being another civil war.

Ships: These are recognized as being Rapier I fighters, whereas the Rapiers you are used to are Raiper II fighters.

Tiger Claw: The name mixup happened during script revisions.

Paladin: It was implied in the later games that Paladin always had some secret Confed association outside of just the space forces.

Gravity in space: Just a goof. It happens in movies. It was a lot more tragic and final than just seeing it float slowly away.

Sonar: There is no SONAR. The beeping you hear is not SONAR. Get over it.

Merlin: Maybe just a neat idea. This is several hundred years in the future. Why not?

Maniac: He gets a girl only because she is a lot like him. This was before he really gained his fame and tried to use that to pick up girls. Besides I couldn't imagine someone like Maniac having the courage to confront women as he does had he been single his whole life.

 

[MamiyaOtaru]

I remember reading somewhere (Victory Streak, probably) that while Blair had the highest number of victories against Kilrathi aces, some other pilots of the war did score more kills overall. So was that not accurate?

IIRC, Blair was 14th in number of kills (or was that maniac?) but al the pilots with more kills served in earlier portions of the war when kat ships were even more cannon fodder like. Thus LOAF is correct in saying he had more kills than all his peers - he had more kills than anyone who served at the same time he did - and tat book is correct in saying that other pilots had more kills.

 

[Delance]

Oh, yes, thank you, Delance, for pointing this out. Because I had never realized that Jazz wasn't a giant cat. I'm so glad you finally brought this to my attention, because *clearly* it had been causing me problems.

Oh, you're welcome, LOAF. It's a good thing neither one of us was being sarcastic.

(Nor is this a valid complaint about how the English language works. Origin's own Wing Commander IV timeline calls Jazz a 'Kilrathi traitor'... because he's a traitor who helped the Kilrathi. Like how a "Russian agent" would usually be an American who was paid by the Russians.)

Strange, because it would seem that a Russian Agent is an American Traitor and vice-versa. Jazz was a Kilrathi agent and a traitor of the confederation, what should make him a confed traitor. But hey, if the game said otherwise, it's just fine.

I'm talking about the invasion attempts in 2665 and 2667 - Blair had absolutely nothing to do with the initial rebellion (which may or may not have been allowed to continue on purpose by Thrakhath - though I doubt it).

It's just a somewhat curious part of the game plot, because Hobbes was important on the Ghora Khar thing, and he was "planted" by Thrakkath. But opening cutscene on WC2 suggests it was not something Thrakkath had planned nor was happy about.

 

[Exarch]

Pilgrims: Why not? It was neat for Roberts to flesh out more of the Wing Commander universe's history. It was also kind of tragic as being another civil war.

It was already fleshed out in my opinion. This didn't flesh out the history, since it explained nothing, but only made the movie seem even more different from the games.

Ships: These are recognized as being Rapier I fighters, whereas the Rapiers you are used to are Raiper II fighters.

Weren't the WC2 Rapiers called Rapier IIs? And it still doesn't explain why they look like Corsairs.

Tiger Claw: The name mixup happened during script revisions.

That's understandable at least. I figured that was the problem. (Like the "Towlyn" incident.)

Paladin: It was implied in the later games that Paladin always had some secret Confed association outside of just the space forces.

Being the Commodorre of the best carrier in the fleet isn't exactly a secret assignment, not to mention the fact that it is definitely associated with the space forces. Besides, like I said, that was Halcyon's position, not Paladin's.

Gravity in space: Just a goof. It happens in movies. It was a lot more tragic and final than just seeing it float slowly away.

I'd disagree. I think it would've been more tragic to watch it drifting as the deck crew watched.

Sonar: There is no SONAR. The beeping you hear is not SONAR. Get over it.

Just something I read on IMDB. I've only seen the movie once, so I can't remember where they got that part. But with the other strange parts in the movie, I just believed them.

Merlin: Maybe just a neat idea. This is several hundred years in the future. Why not?

Because it was never used in the games. But whatever, I could live with it if that was the only problem with the movie.

Maniac: He gets a girl only because she is a lot like him. This was before he really gained his fame and tried to use that to pick up girls. Besides I couldn't imagine someone like Maniac having the courage to confront women as he does had he been single his whole life.

I could imagine someone like that. Heh, I've MET people like that. Get a big enough ego, think you're the best ever to grace the earth, and you'll think you can do anything, even if you haven't done it before.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Man, the December movie thread is just getting good as I leave for vacation. I'm going to have to ask Chris to pinch hit for me while I'm on the road.

First off the pilgrims. They were never mentioned in the games, so where did they come from? They didn't play a necessary role in the movie, why just suddenly make them up for the movie.

There's several points relevant to this question.

First: Can you think of *any* shared universe which is based *entirely* on concepts introduced in whatever its first entry is? Is every Star Trek story a variation on the plot and history established in 'The Cage'? Of course not - Wing Commander must introduce new elements to tell new stories... that's just common sense, and it's nothing new.

Consider Wing Commander IV in this respect. It's 1996; the success of the story involves investing the player in the conflict between the Confederation and the Border Worlds. But wait... what the heck are the "Border Worlds"? The Wing Commander universe has been around for years now, and we've *never* heard of them -- and now we're told that they've always been a major part of the Kilrathi War's backstory! It's not a problem for a simple reason... lack of references to something is not in and of itself. In order to have an issue with new ("retconned") material, it needs to pose a substantial conflict with information already known. If we'd had a previous story about how Blair's mother was Catholic, then yes, there would be a contradiction that we could debate (however minor)... but the truth is that Blair's past, his history and, heck, most of the timeline were a void before the movie filled in some of that information.

And yes, "fanon" often runs into the idea that newly established material affects their prejudices about the universe. Look at all the mythos that Trekkies created about their series in the seventies -- the vast majority of which was very quickly contradicted by the modern shows. (Heck, here's a Wing Commander example -- after Wing 3, the big online group at the time (the Aces Club) somehow decided that Origin wouldn't dare follow up the most succesful video game of all time and preceded to kill off the main characters in their fiction. A year later and, surprise, surprise, Colonel Blair *didn't* die ramming the Victory into an alien ship. Wing Commander IV wasn't under any obligation to follow 'popular assumption'... and neither is the movie.

Second: Where did they come from and why make them up? Dramatically, they come from the need to create character conflict involving the main character. In the games, Blair is 'you' -- in the original, his lines are limited to nodding and occasionally agreeing with Colonel Halcyon. You feel he's a "real" person because he's *you*. That's great for video games, and it worked well through even the FMV stuff (Mark Hamill was a great choice for a character with no distinct personality.) You'll notice that the direct spinoff stuff from that era kind of falls flat dramatically -- Blair is the amazing top gun pilot who follows all the rules. I hope somebody thought to wash the cookie cutters after that one.

In the movie, though, you need Blair to be a character rather than 'you'. No one watches the movie thinking "that's me! Oh! Yes! That is *so* what I'd do!". It's a different sort of experience -- and so they needed to give him something to play with. As a "Pilgrim", you introduce all sorts of potential storylines that science fiction loves to play with. (Side note -- in the original script outline for the movie, the "Pilgrims" are "Border Worlders"... complete with the same background (and 'power'), just with a 'familiar' name. Aren't you glad they changed that?)

Third: Their role in the movie. You are correct that the 'Pilgrim' aspect of the movie is very limited in the version of the film released. As *filmed*, however, there was a major plot involving a Pilgrim traitor and Blair's coming to terms with his heritage. Here's how it would have gone:

The "Admiral" at the beginning of the movie was a traitor. There were several scenes early on with a space suited human wearing a Pilgrim Cross plotting with the Kilrathi (ie, the movie would cut to the Snakeir where the Kilrathi captain and admiral are talking to a masked Pilgrim traitor.)

About mid-way through the movie, we see that Captain Sansky has a picture of himself and Admiral Wilson (the asteroid base commander) on his table (this scene appears in the final movie!) -- to suggest that they know eachother and to remind the audience that Wilson exists.

Later in the movie, the marines board the Kilrathi ComCon. Blair disobeys orders and goes onboard after Merlin (see below -- I'll deal with this later in my response) detects a human comm signal talking to the Tiger's Claw. He fights his way to the Kilrathi control room where he finds... Admiral Wilson, communicating with the Tiger's Claw!

Commander Gerald, the Tiger's Claw's first officer who was prejudiced against Blair shows up. Blair and Gerald both think the other is the traitor, and there's a knife fight (Blair with his Pilgrim Cross, Gerald with the hunting knife that appears in WC3 and Prophecy). At the last minute, Blair throws his knife into Wilson's throat. Gerald realizes that Blair is a good guy afterall, and they head to the Tiger's Claw to find that Captain Sansky has killed himself -- he was the other traitor.

There's a few things left of this that you may notice in the movie. One is that Sansky disappears. He falls down on the bridge during one of the battles and then isn't seen or referenced again. The other big one is Paladin giving Blair his cross at the end of the movie -- this is, of course, because Blair left his own cross from earlier in the movie embedded in Wilson's neck.

... and now you know 'the rest of the story'. This isn't lost forever -- because the movie novelization was based on the shooting script, all of this plot appears there. The book ie excellent, and has fantastic references to the original Wing Commander throughout. One of the eight action figures produced for the movie is a man in a space suit -- the Pilgrim traitor, cut from the final movie (he also appears on the DVD box art in many of the region 2 releases, go figure)!

The ships: what were they thinking? These things look nothing like Rapiers. Instead, they looked like WWII Corsairs with a giant chaingun on the front. And speaking of chainguns, where are the lasers, mass drivers, and neutron guns used since the beginning of the war? The Dralthi looked good at least, and is definitely acceptable as a Kilrathi ship. But the Confed ships look like they modified WWII fighters for space, which is horrible.

Well, you pretty much nailed the 'real' explanation for the fighters right there -- the object was to create a ship that 'felt' like a World War II fighter in space. This has pretty much *always* been the theme of Wing Commander... the Kilrathi war has consistently been the Pacific War... in space! in both the games and the novels (*especially* the novels... look at all the Pearl Harbor references in Action Stations!). They were also limited by the fact that they used real fighter fuselages for the Confed ships -- British Lightning jets.

Historically, in the Wing Commander sense, remember that the movie is nominally a prequel. The Rapiers we see in Wing Commander 1 and 2 have not entered service yet (remember that we 'test fly' the combat prototypes mid-way through WC1, and then recieve the first squadron of them towards the end). The Kilrathi Saga manual helps by referencing the F-44 Rapier as the "Rapier II"... meaning that there must have been an earlier Rapier in the Wing Commander universe, regardless of the movie. And the movie tells us that that fighter was the CF-117b Rapier.

As for armament and its relevance compared to later fighters, the Confederation Handbook claims that the "chaingun" is a Rotating Neutron Gun... and that the two energy guns mounted on the wingtips are lasers.

The Tiger's Claw: Why the drastic difference? And why is it called Tiger Claw?

Eh, it's no different from any of the other reimaginings of the same ship. The fact was that, ultimately, 10 by 5 pixel green blobs didn't hold up to even 1994's SVGA remake of the game... so it's not hard to imagine why they didn't get reused on the 'big screen'.

The lack of an s is something you can chart by looking at old scripts. The original version of the script (first draft) properly calls the ship "Tiger's Claw" throughout. The error is introduced in the second rewrite, and both names appear (Mr. Roberts' version, I believe). The person responsible for the third draft/shooting script realized the error, but not the original reference... and so went with the more proper-sounding Tiger Claw (there's still one "Tiger's Claw" in the third script, though!).

Paladin: Since when did he become Commodorre? Where's Halcyon? And why is he so hard-nosed, unlike the Paladin we all know and love?

The Wing Commander IV novelization was the first to establish that Paladin had been a covert operative even during his time as a pilot on the Tiger's Claw -- so it's not a new idea made up for the movie (and yeah, Paladin clearly became a lot softer (and fatter) after he became a general officer with a desk job... but he's still failry lean and hard in the original game).

Halcyon is on the carrier, serving as Wing Commander... he shows up in passing in the novelization of the movie.

Various odd parts in the movie. Since when can fighters fall off a flight deck in space? And how exactly does sonar work in space?

I'm not sure what you mean by SONAR... I don't think there's anything in the movie that is any different from the 'radar' we use for targetting in all of the Wing Commander games. (None the less, there is a a very common conceit that science fiction uses to reference 'SONAR' in space to create a 'naval' feel -- *LIDAR*! Wing Commander was certainly going for that feel, but I don't think either technology is mentioned.)

(Continued in next post, since it maxes out the character limit.)

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Since when did Confed fighters have those weird computers called Merlin?

This is actually another victim of the cutting room floor (well, it's more of a budget/sanity issue). (Let me preface this with the 'in universe' reference -- of course fighters can have talking computers. We have talking computers *today*.)

The movie was shot with the idea that "Merlin" would be a small holographic wizard that Blair talks to (and exchanges awful, C3PO-in-TPM style jokes with)... scenes were filmed with a little doll over whom would be put a CGI Mark Hamill wizardy character. Budget cuts and the fact that it was a really, really dumb idea meant that Merlin was removed from the final cut of the movie...

... except he was an essential 'plot device' at a few points. Blair needed to speak with him at the end to let the audience know about the Kilrathi ship, and he needed to detect the unusual signatures earlier in the movie... so they made him the 'computer voice'. It was great after-the-fact movie making. Chris Roberts deserves a job *editing* movies, if not writing them.

And finally, Maniac never gets a girl! That ruins continuity right there!

I know you're kidding, but there is a precedent -- the Wing Commander Prophecy Official Guide reveals that Maniac has been married twice.

IIRC, Blair was 14th in number of kills (or was that maniac?) but al the pilots with more kills served in earlier portions of the war when kat ships were even more cannon fodder like. Thus LOAF is correct in saying he had more kills than all his peers - he had more kills than anyone who served at the same time he did - and tat book is correct in saying that other pilots had more kills.

That's correct (except that Blair was 11th -- Maniac was 14th). As someone else also noted, Blair also held the record for enemy aces killed, regardless of time period.

It's just a somewhat curious part of the game plot, because Hobbes was important on the Ghora Khar thing, and he was "planted" by Thrakkath. But opening cutscene on WC2 suggests it was not something Thrakkath had planned nor was happy about.

It is a good question, it just doesn't have anything to do with Blair's history. Thrakhath (spelled with an 'h') was certainly *not* planning to 'give' Ghorah Khar to the Confederation... it was a major planet and it was where his stealth fighters were being built. Consider that he both:

* Knew about the rebellion -- because he *either* specifically had Hassa ask Ralgha to defect (almost certainly the case) *or* he had her arrested just after he left.

* Knew that Ralgha was going to defect -- go read the first part of 'Freedom Flight' again. It's very, very suspicious in the light of later facts. Thrakhath himself shows up to free Ralgha after he's arrested by a Ghorah Kharran security officer.

It was already fleshed out in my opinion. This didn't flesh out the history, since it explained nothing, but only made the movie seem even more different from the games.

Well, ask yourself -- what did you know about Blair's parents' religion *before* 1999? There's your litmus test.

Weren't the WC2 Rapiers called Rapier IIs? And it still doesn't explain why they look like Corsairs.

The roman numeral after a fighter's name signifies that it is a wholly distinct design. The easiest modern example is the P-47 Thunderbolt and the A-10 Thunderbolt II. Different variations on the same design are designated by letters after the number... P-47A, P-47B, P-47C and so forth. The fighter seen in Wing Commander I was the F-44A Rapier II (and the YF-44A when it was a prototype!)... and the one seen in Wing Commander II is the F-44G Rapier II.

Being the Commodorre of the best carrier in the fleet isn't exactly a secret assignment, not to mention the fact that it is definitely associated with the space forces. Besides, like I said, that was Halcyon's position, not Paladin's.

'Commodore' is a rank (first one after 'Captain' in the Navy -- often replaced by Rear Admiral Lower Half in modern navies), not a position -- Taggart wasn't assigned to the Tiger's Claw, it was just where his career asa a spy took him. He was not part of its chain of command (though he uses his rank to take command after Sansky is incapacitated). Halcyon was the *Wing Commander* of the Tiger's Claw, which has nothing to do with being a Commodore.

(As for Space Forces versus Navy... wasn't a certain Commodore Blair a Space Forces officer for most of his career? Switching occurs often in Wing Commander.)

 

[Exarch]

Ok, that explains alot. If they had ever made a director's cut of the movie, it sounds like it would've been alot better.

But again, about Paladin, he wasn't a Commodore during WC1 if I remember right. Why the change in rank?

 

[Haesslich]

Ok, that explains alot. If they had ever made a director's cut of the movie, it sounds like it would've been alot better.

But again, about Paladin, he wasn't a Commodore during WC1 if I remember right. Why the change in rank?

No, Paladin was a Major in WC1, though he retired at the end of SM1 in order to transfer back into Intelligence.

 

[Nomad Terror]

I agree that a director's cut edition of the movie would be fantastic and I might prefer that over a second movie.

 

[Deadeye79]

They exercised alot of artistic freedoms in making the movie. Much was inaccurate and they pushed about 30 years worth of stuff into one movie. of course we the WC fans were not really the target audience either

 

[BenoitBrunet2]

I agree that a director's cut edition of the movie would be fantastic and I might prefer that over a second movie.

There isn't any chance they'd actually make a second movie, is there? I ask this honestly, I have no idea of how well the movie sold at the boxoffice (though I suspect mediocre to not well) and I assume the fine folks at CIC would have dug something up by now if it were in the works at all.

 

[Deadeye79]

They bombed at the box it is highly unlikely there will be a second movie

 

[Exarch]

Let's put it this way: People bought tickets, watched the trailer for Star Wars: Episode 1, and then walked out.

 

[Nomad Terror]

There isn't much chance of a director's cut of the movie either is there? :-P

I was speaking hypothetically

 

[LeHah]

Yes and no.

Early in-house Digital Anvil trailers for the movie had extra footage.