Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Im sorry this is kinda off topic... but Ive felt this rant coming for a while. lol
Nothing about Wing Commander is off-topic in this 'zone.
Even if I excuse the awful versipn of the used dialogue, why did they have to say things like ..."Tally ho!"... which is possibily the stupidest thing I read. (Did they even say that kind of stuff in Wing 1 or 2?)
Erm, the "stupidest thing you've ever read" is a military term meaning you have a friendly target in sight.
How many times did they have to tell us Blair was slugglish after a jump? Yes, we know that they first time you told us....
As best I can tell from skimming and searching for the word jumpshock, it comes up twice -- once to introduce the concept, and the second time referencing the fact that Blair had to fight to get over it when he was jumping alone at the end of the book.
How many times did they say, "Attack Attack Attack!""Targets Targets Targets!" that got a bit old...
Once and twice, respectively -- and the latter is, again, proper military jargon.
And yes I KNOW Rachel calls Blair "skipper" a few times, and I KNOW Hobbs calls Blair "my friend/old friend" but the novel just uses these words ALL THE TIME.
A full text search of the novel finds 'old friend' used by Hobbes four times:
"It is good to see you, old friend,"
"Then I shall try not to disappoint you, old friend."
"Is that you. . . old friend?"
"Kilrathi do not surrender, my old friend"
... and a full text search of the shooting script finds it *six* times:
"Welcome aboard, old friend."
"I shall try not to disappoint you, old friend."
"Ah, my old friend. As I foresaw, we meet again "
"You have doubts about my loyalty, old friend?"
"Congratulations, old friend."
"I’m very sorry, old friend. I let you down."
And it just seems lazy to kill off ALL the main wingmen. Maniac, Vagabond... everyone! Sure, he didnt know they would make another game but it still seemed kinda silly even so.
This wasn't Mr. Keith's choice, though -- it's in the games script. You will always lose one wingman per mission in the 'Kilrah' series at the end of the game... if it doesn't happen naturally, the game respawns Strakha over and over until you're the only person left.
I agree with that of course, but at least in the context they use the word "Confleet", where it seemed to be "ConFed". At no time (that I can remember) did Wing 3 or 4 ever use the word Confleet. And Im making a guess here but did Wing 1 or 2 ever do it either?--- And in case Im wrong on both these counts, did they EVER use the word in THAT context?(ie, the novel's)
The two uses in the HotT novel are "ConFleet can't afford to throw away ships on meaningless gestures" and "He'd love it if he could lead the ConFleet to victory" -- they're both situations where the goal is to refer specifically to the fleet rather than the nation. (The contraction originates in End Run or Fleet Action -- but it had certainly entered the mainstream and appeared in things like Voices of War by the time the HotT novel was written.)
??? But... we are talking about Wing Commander not Star Trek.... if it was "becoming the trend" and Wing 3 decided to stay with "The Victory" why did all the way up to Prophecy stick stay the same, ie. "The TCS Midway"? Heck, I think even Freelancer used "The" in the same way. Now correct me if Im wrong, but was Wing 1 or 2 different? If not... then it realy makes no sence to me why the novel decided to change it for no reason, and so it wouldnt make much sence the early scripts would have done it different either.
I was refering to the grammar used with actual spacecraft, though... the novel uses *both* fairly commonly, but someone with a more formal grasp of the language would naturally tend to drop the DA. (The games have used both, too -- 'Concordia' and 'the Concordia', etc.)
My bet is that it's an attempt on the part of the author to fix a percieved wrong in the writing of the script -- like how Ohlander made sure to add the "Mt." to the name of the TCS St. Helens...
I mean you really think thats how they wrote it in the the script, even an early one? You think they did that for John Rys Davis' character in LOTR too? Of course not. And why try and write_exactly_the same way someone speaks? Most actors in this are American, and he had to know that so why doesnt he write the way they speak as well? I know he is Scottish but its not necessary to make it stupidly hard for the readers.
No, I think what I said -- that the script probably instructed them to cast someone with a Scottish accent. The novel is probably written that way because that's how Paladin's dialogue was written in the games available to Mr. Keith (WC and WC2).
From his very first appearance in the original game: "Och, laddie, take a seat an’ tilt a glass with ol’ Paladin."
(The novel also describes Paladin as being fair haired -- because, again, when writing the HotT novel, the only source for visual and vocal queues was the original games.)