Smudo Talks Wing Commander (January 10, 2015)

KrisV

KrisV

Administrator
Here's something from 2012 that we've only now come across. German Hip Hop artist Smudo (Die Fantastischen Vier / Fanta 4) was a speaker at the 2012 edition of LARA, a local awards event for videogames. Golem.de has some two minutes of footage in which the artist discusses his connection to Wing Commander. We've previously reported that Smudo was a background actor in Wing Commander Prophecy (pictures), something we only learned about this when our German readers spotted him in the Prophecy set photographs. You can watch the clip here. Perhaps one of our German visitors could provide a translated transcript?





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Original update published on January 10, 2015
 
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I can write a transcript, maybe tonight. Most probably next week though.

Here are the main points:
- He asks the audience who knows WC, lots of them do apparently
- He has been a huge WC fan for many years
- He describes how he was recruited for WCP, and how he hopped onto a plane to Burbank, was put into the uniform, shot the scene, met Tom Wilson, and flew right back.
- He also shares a memory how he went to see the WC movie with a few other WC fans, and when Angel was first referred to without mentioning her name in the film everyone around him was whispering her name.

BTW: I thought it was common knowledge among WC fans that Smudo was in WCP. I knew it from a preview article in the "PC Games" or "GameStar" magazine, they noticed and mentioned it, a few weeks before WCP was released. I think I still have that issue somewhere.
 
Aginor said:
BTW: I thought it was common knowledge among WC fans that Smudo was in WCP. I knew it from a preview article in the "PC Games" or "GameStar" magazine, they noticed and mentioned it, a few weeks before WCP was released. I think I still have that issue somewhere.
Click to expand...

It's kind of common knowledge among WC fans that visit this site regularly, but it's always been something the German speaking Wing Commander fans were more aware of since Smudo isn't really known in North America in a general sense at all.
 
Here's my transcript. It may not be perfect but I guess it gets the point across.


Behind me you can see a picture of the 34 year old Smudo who already liked playing video games back then.
Maybe I was even younger...
This is a very proud picture, you can tell by the battlefield injury and the A-1 sitting uniform on the TCS Tiger's Claw, ladies and gentleman, as a space cadet in Wing Commander five.
I had the honor to get a small - my first - background extra role.
It was very interesting, I was.... back then I just followed my crazes when they happened... offered a role in it by Electronic Arts.
Now I was such a big Wing Commander fan - who of you knows Wing Commander? (people cheering) Ah, so I don't have to explain it.
And I just couldn't say no. I had even watched the Wing Commander movie back in the days, with .... well, not many other people in the cinema. (people laughing)
And when Admiral Tolwyn said "I know a beautiful french fighter pilot who can help us" the five uf us in the cinema all whispered "Angel Deveraux".
And I had the opportunity.. I unfortunately didn't meet her, but on the set I met that buffoon that also played in 'Back to the Future'... (quoting Biff) 'Hello? Anybody home?'
Anyway, I flew to Burbank. I got a ticket and boarded the plane, and I knew I was going to America, but I didn't know what or where Burbank was, there was no Google Earth back then.
So I just flew off, for quite a while, and then I learned that Burbank is some one hundred kilometers from Los Angeles.
And then I arrived there, and straight away got put into my uniform and "bamm!" A photo was taken, and then for about a minute in the movie - the movie was a bout a minute and I was visible in about 30 frames.
I was playing some science fiction card game, and then I flew home. And now I am here.
Wing Commander. (applause)
We all remember, eight, or six, I don't know how much CD's it were. It were CDs, not DVDs, it were six or eight CDs!
Back then it was a big hit, nowadays that would be a browser game flop.



That's it! He got some things wrong (his character is not a cadet as far as I know, and it is the Midway, not the Claw, and I think the WC movie quote is also not quite right), but you can tell he has really fond memories of WC and his small role in it.
In that last sentence I think what he is trying to say is that with that content and graphical quality WCP could be a browser game today - and not even a very successful one compared to what you can do in browsers now.
 
He's wrong about where Burbank is, too... it's 16 kilometers from the center of Los Angeles (and generally considered part of LA.)

(I've got some continuity Polaroids of Smudo here; looks like he wore a flight suit without a name or a rank...)
 
How many kilometers from LAX airport to Burbank? Probably more than 16 but still much less than 100.
 
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