An "academic" discussion...

I think you're missing my point - I'm not saying that Wing Commander IV is contradictory... I'm just saying that it was as big if not a bigger change in the shape of the Wing Commander universe than the movie. You can argue about Wing Commander IV in the same way as you can argue about the movie -- with the same sort of rhetoric about how it changes the universe, how it's different from the games, etc...

I *wouldn't* claim any of these things -- for the same reason I wouldn't claim them about the movie.
 
One of the great thing in stories is that they're always based on the narrator - and WC doesn't make any difference in that. In the games, the player has the main character's perspective - and you simply don't see more or hear more than he (or they) do. Blair doesn't seem to be interested in politics - as a soldier, strategy and tactics are obviously closer to him than monitoring the treatment of civilians on planets on Confed's border.

The novels have different personalities leading the storyline and therefore dragging the narration after them, but most are military types too. Only rarely the story jumps to other scenes and gives glimpses of political scenarios and civilian perspectives (I really loved the references to the press's behavior..).
So the picture is also incomplete; the authors patch plots where it is necessary for continuity, but they're not interested in presenting the whole picture either.

Same goes with the movie: Someone wants to tell a new story, so he shows things that weren't yet in the awareness of the audience - or even in the characters' bios that we think we know so much about.

All that is maybe hard to understand for an audience that is used to be pampered, but it is more realistic that way. In every story, you can always find an angle that no one knew about and that makes it hard to fit in with the rest.

The question always is: What is the reason for the difference?

It usually is easy to find reasons: Blair lost his faith; the Border Worlds are a product of someone's quick-acting political agenda, the cartoon series academy is an advanced class after the real academy... - and so on.

The whole trick in the process is NOT to give reasons. Why do get people interested in things? Why do people still search for Atlantis, dig around in WWII history, run around the beach with metal detectors? Because there is no simple reason that presents itself for all to see.

Because there is mystery, and loose ends, and unsolved questions.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I think you're missing my point - I'm not saying that Wing Commander IV is contradictory... I'm just saying that it was as big if not a bigger change in the shape of the Wing Commander universe than the movie. You can argue about Wing Commander IV in the same way as you can argue about the movie -- with the same sort of rhetoric about how it changes the universe, how it's different from the games, etc...

I *wouldn't* claim any of these things -- for the same reason I wouldn't claim them about the movie.

Oh, I did get your point... it's just that I personally think that the BW things were less of an impact than the pilgrim history of wars and stuff... But my point is that this impact issue ("WCXYZ changed everything, I hate it!") is rather personal. I granted that both the movie and WC4 are equally official, but the impact they had on the WCU was different for each person.
 
I'd have to agree with Edfilho here. When I played WC4, the existence of the UBW didn't bother me. When I first saw the movie, I was like... huh? Not saying my experience is shared by everybody, but it seems to be common.
 
But remember! I'm NOT disputing the validity of the Movie nor its status as part of the WCU continuity!
 
Dralthi5 said:
I'd have to agree with Edfilho here. When I played WC4, the existence of the UBW didn't bother me. When I first saw the movie, I was like... huh? Not saying my experience is shared by everybody, but it seems to be common.

Which, again, is exactly my point - people liked Wing Commander IV and completely ignored the huge retcon... and now are happy to defend it when it's brought up. People didn't like the movie as much, and so the retcon is a huge issue.
 
I suppose, but I enjoyed the movie immensely, and while I'll defend the changes and the existence of Pilgrims and whatnot, it's still a much bigger retcon than the Border Worlds...
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Which, again, is exactly my point - people liked Wing Commander IV and completely ignored the huge retcon... and now are happy to defend it when it's brought up. People didn't like the movie as much, and so the retcon is a huge issue.

I always thought that the UBW was the Landreich?
 
Nope. The WC4 novel has Sosa mentioning Adm. Richards (from Fleet Action) and the Landreich giving aid to the UBW. So, they're different.
 
Kruger sends some ships and fighters to aid the UBW's cause IIRC. Vance Richards is still serving the Landreich Navy after the events of FC...but his timeline is a whole different threads worth of debate entirely.
 
There no explaining away the following : in the movie, Paladin is already flying the Bonnie Heather and undercover, while in WC1, he is a fighter pilot on the Tiger's Claw until he retires in SM2 ! :rolleyes:
For the movie, Chris Roberts simply took pieces from the different games and mixed them together :
From WC1 : Blair getting assigned to the Tiger's Claw just after graduating from the Academy
From WC2 : Paladin with the Bonnie Heather, the Concordia, his relationship with Angel and even Blair being treated as an outcast (in the game for the destruction of the Claw, in the movie for being a Pilgrim's son)
From WC3 : Skipper missiles
 
Valid points, but...

In the movie, Paladin is flying the Diligent, a completely different ship. We've come to understand, that Paladin was transferred to Covert Ops by Tolwyn to investigate Pilgrim sabotage of the Confed war effort, hence his position at the start of the WC movie. The events of the movie and the subsequent tie-in novels occur, then WC1, at which point, Paladin returns to flight status, until he goes over to Covert Ops full time in SM2/Freedom Flight.

As for Blair coming to the Claw... Yes, yes, in WC1 it seems like he's meeting everyone for the first time. But this is more for the player than anything important to the storyline. In 1990, a first-time WC player had no idea who all these people were, and thus introductions were necessary. We have to remember, there was no Christopher Blair at this point. He had no identity or history. He was just "Player." He was you. It wasn't until WC3 that he became a real character. For all intents and purposes, in the movie Blair is seen going to the Claw after his graduation from the Academy. It's just that the events of WC1 don't occur until a few months later.

Concerning his relationship with Angel. It's clear the seeds of their romance began here, but didn't develop as the Vega compaign began to take a toll on everyone. It strengthens their relationship in WC2, I think, that they had a past together.

Skipper missile: As has been explained many times before, the Skipper seen in the movie is different than the Skipper seen in WC3, the WC3 variety being an upgrade. Hence, Eisen's dialogue: "The Kilrathi are using a new type of cloaked missile." As LOAF says, this seems to suggest there was an old type.
 
Didn't we just have a giant thread about this? Do we *really* have to do it again?

(Though, I'll admit, "the movie can't be part of the Wing Commander continuity... it's full of things from the Wing Commander continuity!" is a uniquely weird take on the situation.)
 
Dundradal said:
Kruger sends some ships and fighters to aid the UBW's cause IIRC. Vance Richards is still serving the Landreich Navy after the events of FC...but his timeline is a whole different threads worth of debate entirely.

Didn't Admiral Richards perished at the end of FC when his cruiser got fried after been caute on a stationary position near the Baka-Kar jump point leading (eventually) back to landreich space, when the Kilrathi fleet jumped in, chasing Mojallinor?

also:
Bandit LOAF said:
Well... you've got Dakota, the system the Tiger's Claw broke off the offesive to escort medical transports to and from.

You've got Repleetah -- Confed certainly had an interest there.

There's Kurasawa, which is only part of the Confederation because of a bloody amphibious invasion.

Loki, which Confed ended up blowing the most expensive tool in its arsenal to capture.

Torgo, the home of Confed's Third Fleet for the end of the war.

Epsilon Prime, referenced as an important conflict at several points in the original game.

How convinient that all the big battles of the, with the exception of the Battle of Earth, took place almost only one BW space - that might even explain the resentment of the UBW against confed - "we took most of the crap and as soon as the war's over, confed bully's us again, just like old times."
 
Didn't Admiral Richards perished at the end of FC when his cruiser got fried after been caute on a stationary position near the Baka-Kar jump point leading (eventually) back to landreich space, when the Kilrathi fleet jumped in, chasing Mojallinor?

The plan was that Richards', the covert operative, planned the whole thing and was acting as the 'anti Tolwyn' of sorts. Keith planned a pair of followup stories to False Colors, which would have lead up to TPOF.

How convinient that all the big battles of the, with the exception of the Battle of Earth, took place almost only one BW space - that might even explain the resentment of the UBW against confed - "we took most of the crap and as soon as the war's over, confed bully's us again, just like old times."

Yes, what a shock that the battles with the Kilrathi took place on the *border* with the Kilrathi (except for the ones that didn't).

(That said, there's dozens and dozens of systems on the map in which terrible battles were fought -- that *didn't* become part of the UBW).
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yes, what a shock that the battles with the Kilrathi took place on the *border* with the Kilrathi (except for the ones that didn't).

(That said, there's dozens and dozens of systems on the map in which terrible battles were fought -- that *didn't* become part of the UBW).

:D
and for that they say:
"Ask a stupied question, get a stupid answer..."
 
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