Inspectorate THIS!
Look at this Wing Commander movie prop AD found. I can't believe how cool this is.
Look at this Wing Commander movie prop AD found. I can't believe how cool this is.
Greetings all. I just got back from Salt Lake City after a wonderfully successful day of recording the choir parts to the Wing Commander Volume 2 project. The singers were great, the engineer was spot on, and the conductor and fellow composer/orchestrator Philip Klein kept everything moving with artistry and finesse. Here are a few shots from the day's work as well as a link to hear a rough mix with the choir of a mission piece from Wing Commander 3 (same one I posted earlier with just orchestra). Bear in mind what you hear is just a mix of the reference track I gave the choir to hear and a rough mix of their performance. Once Bruce Botnick adds his ears and genius to the mix in early January I'm sure it will be quite stunning!Thank you all again for helping make my dreams come true once more!
Musically yours,
George
Last month we took a close look at the various spacecraft weapons identifiable in the Wing Commander movie. The resulting field guide helped show me the incredible level of detail and consistency that went into the background of the world… and of course it's pretty neat to catalog more of the Wing Commander universe, too! With that in mind, I decided to take a similarly close look at the weapons of Wing Commander Academy. Like movies, TV shows have a detailed preproduction process where style sheets showing the characters, vehicles, props and sets would look. These would then inform writers, storyboard artists and the animation production companies at all stages of making the show. Coming through all thirteen episodes has let us take a sort of 'space telescope' look backwards in time to learn more about what those style guides must have included!
PART ONE: GUNS
Laser Cannon
As in the original game it prequels, the simple laser cannon is by far the most common weapon seen on Wing Commander Academy. Laser cannon blasts are typically portrayed as rectangular bolts of varying lengths, more like their appearance in Privateer and later games. Our most interesting discovery about lasers concerns their colors. Some episodes have Confederation and Kilrathi lasers distinct colors: human weapons are light blue tinted while the Kilrathi ones are yellow. However, several episodes make all lasers an orange color that is maybe closer to the games themselves. A little research revealed exactly what's going on here: it's different style guides for different animation outsource companies! The nine episodes produced by Madhouse use the GI Joe-style faction colors while the four episodes produced by Koko have orange lasers (while Invisible Enemy is credited to Madhouse, it's actually a co-production). In addition to fixed lasers on fighters, capital ships use a variety of different laser turrets including barbettes, point defense emplacements and then single and dual mount turrets.
Particle Cannon
The Broadsword mounts two rear-firing particle cannons which are seen fired in The Last One Left. Unlike laser bolts, they fire smaller balls of energy.
Plasma Gun
Plasma guns are identified in dialogue on the Broadsword but they are never seen fired. The "wing plasma guns" mentioned by Maya refers to the single mount turrets above and below the Broadsword.
Flak Gun
The same flak guns seen in the early Wing Commander games appear sporadically on Wing Commander Academy. They are seen active defending the Tiger's Claw, the Agon'Ra'Sivar and a Dorkir. As in the games, we do not ever see their specific firing site.
Anti-Matter Gun
Large capital ships on Wing Commander Academy also mount more powerful Anti-Matter Gun batteries like those introduced in Wing Commander II. The Tiger's Claw has six of these weapons and others appear on the Dorkar, Kamar, Ralar and Naukar shared-style Kilrathi ships. Dual and triple mount versions are seen.
Tractor Beam
Multiple ships on Academy are seen using tractor beams in a variety of colors. The Scimitar, Broadsword and Kilrathi Salvage Tug have glowing yellow tractors while the Tiger's Claw has a pair of large scale green ones and a Grikath is seen with a pair of darker orange beams.
PART TWO: MISSILES
We've identified what we classify as eleven different missile types over the course of the show. That seems like a lot, but they're actually pretty consistent and different types match their equivalents from the game! For our purposes we've numbered the types in order of appearance (a spreadsheet linked below identifies each firing).
Type 1 - Heat Seeker
The standard Heat Seeker is by far the most common missile to appear on Wing Commander Academy with a very consistent look in almost every episode. It seems to be the animator's go to missile and it very consistently matches dogfights that involve a rear aspect lock.
Type 2 - Dumb Fire
Dumb Fire missiles are seen mounted on the wingtips of the Epees and fired by the Broadsword's centerline missile tube.
Type 3 - Image Recognition
More advanced Image Recognition missiles, identifiable by their fins and red warhead cones, occasionally appear including fired by Epees and the secret Strakha.
Type 8 - Friend or Foe
The Friend or Foe missile doesn't appear frequently but it does make a few cameos throughout the series.
Specialty Missiles
These four missile types are seen only as more specialized weapons system. Type 4 are the munitions for Kilrathi jump buoys, which fire multiple rockets at once. Type 5 is an all red missile seen (but never fired) turreted aboard Achilles-class ships. Type 6 is a capship missile fired by the Kamekh. Type 7 is a Kilrathi MIRV fired by the Strakha and capable of targeting multiple capital ships at once.
Torpedoes
Wing Commander Academy's Broadswords routinely fire torpedoes but the design is not as consistent as the missiles. In some cases, the torpedoes use the Heat Seeker or the Image Recognition missile models while other episodes introduce two unique blunted-nose torpedoes for a total of four distinct classses.
The Confederation also has a MIRV torpedo seen only in the finale: it splits into three submunitions as it approaches the target.
Decoys
Scimitars and Ferrets both drop decoys at various points in the show and they're typically represented as starbusts of chaff.
In Word of Honor we get a good look at the decoys being fired: Blair's Scimitar launches two projectiles that then ignite into the decoy's flare.
Appendix A: Ship Specifications & Appearances
As part of the research for this article we created a spreadsheet of ship appearances and identifiable weapons! Images of both are available below or you can access the original Google Sheet here which includes pages on the different weapon uses observed.
Appendix B: Dialogue Mentions
We picked out references to weapons spoken in the show's dialogue to help discern what is intended to be what. Here are the lines we picked out and the ships they're discussing:
Scimitar: "Hey, aren't those lasers supposed to be quarter strength?" (Red and Blue) Epee: "Don't worry, I got mine when Hyena's laser shorted out my cockpit circuits." (The Most Delicate Instrument) Broadsword: "These control the wing plasma guns and the quad lasers linked to your heads up computer. Now this is your real firing particle cannon. That sets your dumb fire and image recog missiles." (Expendable) Sartha: "That last laser hit took out our life support." (Expendable) Kamekh: "The laser turret's offline." (Walking Wounded) Strakha: "I'm getting laser fire but no…" (Invisible Enemy) Naukar: "Watch out for those laser turrets." (Price of Victory)
Appendix C: Visual Guide to Turrets
Mini Turret
Dual Particle Turret
Plasma Turret
Barbette
Point Defense Turret
Single Turret Turret
Ball Turret
Dual Laser Turret
Quad Laser Turret
Missile Turret
Double Battery
Triple Battery
Quick, what's that missile? I was studying Wing Commander Prophecy recently and realized I had never taken a good look at the alien missile graphics. Missiles are visible for perhaps a few frames at most so it's hard to get an idea of how they look in the game… but it turns out there was a lot of effort put into distinct missile textures, especially in Wing Commander Prophecy! Not only do the unusual alien weapons all have unique, organic graphics but almost every single Confederation missile and torpedo has a unique design. More, even, than were included in the high resolution renders in the manual and official guide!
From there I decided to look at the other games where I found lots of interesting missiles! I put together the following charts so that everyone can enjoy taking a longer look at the different objects than is usually possible. It also includes several cut weapons that you can't see in the game including Prophecy's leech missile, the null-g bomblets and the two torpedoes intended for use in Wing Commander Armada. Check back in the future, we are hoping to add the console ports (where different) to another iteration of these charts.
This effort also got me curious about the guns in Wing Commander Prophecy; by Wing Commander III, my brain starts blanking on what the different color bolts mean… so I made a quick and dirty chart to help! Then I checked Secret Ops, which adds a number of new guns and replaces the bolts for several of the alien guns.
The magazine also included a double-sided centerfold with some pretty interesting Wing Commander concept art (and a chart of guns that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the movie). Here they are arranged as they appeared:
You can also download an archive of the scanned pages here (1G). Previously:
In the lead-up to the Wing Commander movie, Starlog magazine covered the film extensively. After Starlog shut down in 2009, the powers that be offered scans of the entire run of their flagship magazine. This included a Wing Commander cover story and three feature articles which we reported at the time. What they did not include in their archival efforts, however, were two spinoffs that covered Wing Commander: a cover story in Sci-Fi Teen (#5, March 1999) and their dedicated Wing Commander Movie Official Magazine. Today we're adding the former to the collection! Sci-Fi Teen was a short-lived spinoff of Starlog aimed at a younger audience that was starting to take an interest in increasingly popular science fiction media like X-Files and Star Trek Voyager. Here's the Wing Commander material:
We have also scanned the individual pages of the centerfold 'pin-up' poster. Perfect for your locker!
More reference saves for the collection! We've played through both Armada campaigns and saved a game at the start of each sector. Want to explore unfamiliar regions of the Wing Commander universe or maybe see the ending cutscenes without playing a full evening of Armada? Here's your ticket! Drop these in your Armada folder (but be sure to make a backup copy of your saves first as these will replace them). Because Armada only has eight save 'slots' per game mode, we've divided this archive into three sets. Pick the one you want and go save the galaxy!
Stay tuned for additional packages! Privateer and Privateer 2 are coming soon. Previous releases:
The promised Wing Commander III saved game reference pack is here! As with our previous releases we've tried to include a saved game after each mission with multiple variants wherever alternate cutscenes are available. It's a great excuse to explode some of the game that you may never have seen before... or a nice quick way to track down a screenshot in a hurry! If you are playing the GOG version, drop these in the "cloud_saves/WC3" folder (but be sure to make a backup copy of your saves first as these will replace them).
One that we know is missing is a version of Hyperion 2 where cutscene N0BARFHS plays with the 'low morale' version. The scene requires that Flash be alive to discuss the Kilrah mission and theoretically has a 'bad' version where he isn't hopeful. As far as we can tell there's no way to have Flash's morale actually be low at this point in the game! Let us know if you've encountered this one and we'll keep experimenting.
Stay tuned for additional packages; we're working on Privateer, Privateer 2 and Armada right now! Previous releases:
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