Dos Secret Missions 1.5

Well I can only think they didn't cast Mark Hamill or his contemporaries because he was too old for the timeline of the story they were trying to tell.

Maybe some of the other cast members pay grades had risen beyond what the studio would cover (the movie already had some other budget issues iirc? Or were busy with other projects?

But ya absolutely love the cast in Wing Commander 4-5.

Ya the cloaked fighters subplot that thing starts really early in Super Wing Commander from the first or second mission of the main story. It's one of the first things Shotglass mentions rumors about, and then Maniac and Hunter talking about it too. Then during the briefing Halycion mentions it and tells people not to talk about it since it's classified and anyone caught talking about will me military disciplined.

There is a whole side story about that that builds up throughout Super Wing Commander along with additional "new cutscenes" related to it as well. 1.5's additions to that probably seem really out of place without understanding about the "extended" content relating around that subplot.

But otherwise 99% of the dialogue from 1.5 is just stripped down version of SM2 diaologue (stripped only of the Firekkan references).

The issues with the cloaking device also occurs in Roberts Wing Commander Academy series too. That series used Mark Hamil, Thomas Wilson, and Malcom McDowell from the tv show as well.
 
On a side note IIRC the cloaking device/fighter subplot was actually added in away to foreshadow events leading up to WC2, but only noticeable if you play it in order and get all those references from the subplot in context. It's one of those things that's "only rumors" and no one on the ship ever confirms from what I've been able to glean from scripts and what little I've seen.

There is a cutscenes with a Kilrathi escaping in one of the cloaked ships as well iirc. But it's only something we as outside viewers see, not something that people on board the Claw experience.
 
Well, of course Hamill was too old to play the young Blair, but why did they have to be young? In true "Captain Hindsight" ways; I so wonder what might have been if they stuck with what they already knew worked. This cast worked with the games, racked you up over a million in sales at a time when computer games very rarely reached such sales... They may not have been "hot" in terms of newer movies people would know them from, but come on, anytime a bunch of well known old actors get together for some movie, people take notice. That film Space Dogs I think? Eastwood and James Garner, Tommy Lee Jones... More than that... Late 90's, none of them hot off success, that movie did great at the box office and it was pretty damn silly I have to say. At the very least, those Star Wars nerds would have sat through more than the preview if the first billed star was Mark Hamill, ya know? If the movie had been successful, who knows? Then you get your chance to do the prequel or start at the beginning with a new cast. What was the budget for the movie again? Does anyone know off hand how that compares with Wing3? I know Wing4 was like 8 million or something? Most expensive game ever at the time, hell, that still has to be an expensive game to this day. But I'm sure Wing3, using videotape, still CGI sets, 3 million sound about right? While some of the "effects" in the movie looked damn awesome for the time, those ships...ahhhh.... Each ship had such a personality in all the games.... Look what they turned the Rapier into for the movie... I mean, yeah, it's part a physical prop, but where's the style that Wing3 managed to put in with far less money? The Kilrathi themselves... Yeah, I understand muppets aren't exactly everyone's "thing". You sort of love them or hate them... I love them... Thrakhath, the Emperor, Mellik, they were genuinely scary and awesome looking to me... Of course Wing4 kept the muppets but lost the style... Poor, poor Mellik, why?! Didn't look like him, and that was not Tim Curry in Wing4... I do have to say the movie did keep me in genuine suspense with all the hiding they did with the Kilrathi.

I've read that was a last minute editing thing? They were originally going to show them much more but after they saw how bad the CG cats were they kind of kept them in the shadows for most of the movie? I can remember watching that movie in the theater and getting teased, super excited to see them revealed... emmm... Of course I understand it's a movie, the catering budget is probably 2 million alone... Film... Sets... Effects... When you consider the budget, it's top quality "B" movie material.... Which I guess that's all the studio wanted... I guess Robert's was unable to sell the studio on his idea quite like he sold it to all those actors.

Oh, I do have to say, Safron Burrows as Angel? I love her so much... I liked her before that movie though... hahha... I mean everyone, even back then, they kind of made fun of Freddie Prince for his "one face" acting style... Lillard, over the top comedy... Not a terrible young Maniac... Not sure Prince was a great choice for young Blair though... I know they tried to get Malcolm McDowell, he was busy... I remember my father and I talking about why couldn't they even get him? Toylwin is one of those people that's always old, ya know? At least I came to find out they tried. But Burrows... Unfortunately Angel is the one character in Wing3 you don't really get to know well... She's there, a kissing scene in a flashback, the death scene... It's utterly reliant on you playing the previous games to understand what a gut wrenching punch that death is. But because she's not a part of the story you don't get to see how good that Angel was, I don't even know her name. But I thought Burrows was a great choice for her... I mean I utterly hated the "they never existed" bit when someone died... Again, how iconic are the Wing Commander funerals to all of us fans? Just why did they to change it up so much from what they knew worked? I mean it's not a bad scene when Blair/Maniac kind of say no to that crap and say yes they did exist... But, ehh, I don't feel it needed to be there, even if it does make some sort of sense in terms of it's a war, people are dying... Yeah, but even the bloodiest of wars both sides usually had respect for the dead.

I mentioned in the video that the dialogue is mostly the same as Secret Missions 2. I was having deja vu the whole time. Which is so confusing... I shut off the game thinking I didn't install the patch right because I was getting the same speeches I remember... But I installed it right! But I'm saying, when there was new dialogue, that is some of the worst written stuff I've ever seen. Most certainly in terms of Wing Commander but it's just bad out right... My end opinion on it was this patch, while awesome in terms of technicalities behind it, in terms of the story and gameplay offered... It's mostly the same game as SM2, the things that have changed? Well, I said the way I play these games is usually in order, not always, but usually. Wing 1, SM1,SM2, Wing2, SO1, SO2, Wing3, etc... I said this patch won't change that. You're not going to play SM1 and then want to put this patch on for 1.5, and then play 2. You'll like 2 more I'm pretty sure, and then, maybe once in a great while you'll mess with the files and try out 1.5 - Because, when it's not destroying the timeline, like with the stealth fighters... It's so bad it's good, in terms of the dialogue... It's a trip for sure... And what you're saying about the actual Super Wing Commander game is making me quite curious to see how the real thing handles all of this stuff... Am I blind, has anyone else found a full complete playthrough or a quality in-depth review of it? I can only find people making fun of it or non commented gameplay of maybe the first couple missions.

I realize you can probably weave the timeline around the mention of stealth fighters in 1.5, rumors and all... But still... "Your ridiculous claims about a Kilrathi cloaking device!" - I never did like Tolywin in the games, 10 years of our life wasted.... Who knows what adventures we could have had... But at least I was going into that understanding that as true as it might be, nobody else has ever heard of this stealth fighter crap. With 1.5? Oh yeah, they've heard of it, might be rumors, but we're raiding bases to make sure that stuff does not happen... Well... If there's enough quality information to say raid that base because of possible cloaking fighters, Blair's claims are not longer exactly "ridiculous". You could say he's passing the blame on magical events... Trying to get out of it... But you can't exactly act as if you never heard of stealth fighters before. 10 years, Lt. Col, decorated beyond belief... It was a patrol mission... You patrol to find bad guys... How much space is out there? I feel he should have been able to lie and say he just didn't see anything, and ya know what? Look what he's done, we'll give this one. Without him that carrier would have exploded countless times before that. hahah, ya know? I'm just having fun with that talking about that though, made for a great story and a redeeming one. But it's hard for me to be okay with what Origin were thinking with 1.5 there... I mean for the cartoon? I mean to me that's a different timeline. I might not enjoy the movie too much, but as long as the creators and fans are not trying to say that the games and the movie and the books and the cartoon all happened, all were reality... I'm perfectly fine. To me the books have their timeline, games their own, movie its own, and yeah, the cartoon? What a little quality Saturday morning gem we had there. In that universe, things are a little different, but, hopefully in that timeline Blair does not get sentenced to 10 years of communications duty. haha. And yeah, in the end, this is just us being super anal giving a crap about timelines... Look at the Zelda timeline... But then again, look how pissed off fans get at the Zelda timeline. Fans, not casual players, the people that love it the most. I can't say the movie and the whole Pilgrim thing was my idea of a good plot, it was sort of intriguing, but ehhh...

Not that racism is not going to exist in the future but for it to be that obvious... And for what? They feel jump points... Okay, that might not be scientific, but we're obviously a scientific group of people now with carriers in space, science might not always understanding something, but they're not going to deny what obviously works. This is not your star sign, not a horoscope, these people are able to plot jump points... It just does not make sense that this space fairing people of ours would hate a group of their own that much, and they did not paint around the picture...In my mind, as a kid, I was watching the way Blair was getting treated and I was thinking of the white man thinking blacks are inferior. It was so racist, and I never got that kind of impression that people were thinking like that in Wing Commander, not toward humans anyone... Yeah, the Kilrathi at times, but humans that are helping? I was 14 when the movie came out, it was insulting my intelligence at the time with that Pilgrim subplot.

Back to the patch though. That patch is awesome, and from I remember, he did not have access to any kind of source code or anything. So theoretically, the whole changing of the missions and dialogue, ya know, that's possible for others to do. I'd love to see that! Destroy the timeline all you want friends! It's cool with me as long as its done in the name of fun and from fans, not official. Newer secret missions as far as the eye can see! Maybe Angel and Blair start up a little thing BEFORE Wing2? I'm pretty sure many of us are capable of writing dialogue that's a little bit better than the quality of the newer stuff from 1.5 -
 
Some of the additional lines from the early part of the game can be found here, these are 'supposed' to weave into this alternate WC1 plot leading up to "WC2" as we know it.
http://wingcommander.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Wing_Commander_transcript

Notice Halcyon's talk about 'rumors' and being classified and then if anyone continues to talk about they will be 'punished'. Unfortunately "Blair" (or "Armstrong" in this case) got the full end of that 'punishment' for speaking out about something he wasn't supposed to talk about (they needed a 'scape goat', ya its not very nice outcome for "Our Hero"), when something that's not supposed to exist destroyed the pride of the fleet Tiger's claw... At least from that game's alternate timeline's perspective, and 'forshadowing'. I wonder if they ever had a plan for a 'Super Wing Commander II'?

What is more interesting is that apparently during that period the various teams wanted to get rid of Firekkans altogether for whatever reason... They thought they were unrealistic? Who knows?

Here is a little more about it I guess...
I can shed some light on "Secret Missions 1.5"; first, that's just a name fans came up with... in Super Wing Commander it's not distinct from the other two campaigns, you just play straight through from Enyo to Goddard to it.

For all the talk of it being a 'lost' expansion I think people might be a little bit disappointed when they actually see it. It is all new missions and it has plenty of new dialog... but it was also written as a REPLACEMENT for Secret Missions 2 (supposedly because they didn't want Firekkans in the game.) As such, there's a lot of repetition wherever Secret Missions 2 needed to set things up for WC2 -- you still have Hobbes' defection, Bossman's death, Paladin's retirement, Spirit's fiancee's capture and so on. They're all told a little differently, but much of it is very familiar.
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/secret-missions-1-5.25860

I think there is more stuff about our Hero being made a scapegoat in some of the manuals and strategy guides as well. Tolwyn punishing the hero so he could avoid being being punished himself. That is also reflected on in the TV series as well, that he is more concerned with his own promotions he'd betray anyone around him to get to the top... Machiavellian in action.
 
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"I've read that was a last minute editing thing? They were originally going to show them much more but after they saw how bad the CG cats were they kind of kept them in the shadows for most of the movie?"

I thought the cats in the movie were puppets? Their redesign was apparently the fault of Chris Roberts himself. He wasn't happy with how they looked in the games, and then 'tinkered' with them further, and then later didn't like how the new movie animatronics looked... They were apparently too large for the sets, and too bulky to move about, so they had to 'hunch' over for most of the movie.

Not sure how accurate the Wikipedia explanation is, but it does include some links to Chris Roberts himself discussing how he would like to try CGI for the Kilrathi in a 'future' project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander_(film)#Relations_to_other_Wing_Commander_works
 
Doinga google search;

Space Cowboys had:

65 million USD budget.

Wing Commander film had;

30 million USD


I'm not a movie maker, nor a game maker. So I don't know what the differences in how you pay caste, crew, use technology etc, is used. The film did use a lot more physical props though than the games, IIRC.
 
I can't remember it might be something added to Goddard material of Super Wing Commander that shows the Gilkarg or someone else escaping in a cloaked fighter.

Apparently there is an additional scene at Brimstone "of a kilrathi Baron Gorkath (sp?) testing a cloak on a Lumbari transport ship, and flying to some planet."
 
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I might not enjoy the movie too much, but as long as the creators and fans are not trying to say that the games and the movie and the books and the cartoon all happened, all were reality... I'm perfectly fine.

It actually was the creators trying to say they all happened in one time line as strange as that sounds! Check out the bibles! Check out Star*Soldier and Arena.

What fans 'think' is pretty much irrelevant, yours or mine, etc.

Here is the most current timeline from Wing Commander Arena game's "Star*Soldier' game manual:


http://images.ea.com/ea/arcade/draft2cRGB.pdf

More so than any other era in history, the 27th century was defined by warfare. In forty
years of fighting the Kilrathi, more Terrans lost their lives than in all previous recorded
wars combined… a terrifying record that was almost immediately shattered by the arrival
of the Nephilim. In honor of our first issues of the 2700s, StarHSoldier is cataloging
these conflicts by reprinting excerpts from Dr. Guthrig Andropolos’ seminal Official
Terran Confederation Navy History. As we continue the fight to keep the universe free,
it is imperative that we remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to our
cause…
2615
The Terran Confederation begins the initial
exploration of the Vega Sector.
2629.105
Iason encounters a spacecraft of unknown
origin. Commander Jedora Andropolos
on board Iason transmits a
wide-band, non-verbal greeting and
waits for a response. Less than twenty
minutes later, the still-unidentified ship
opens fire with full lasers, completely
destroying Iason and its crew. Although
the identity of the attacking ship is never
definitively established, Confederation
deep space tracking computers point
to a possible point of origin from a previously
unexplored planet, soon to be
known by its native name, Kilrah.
2630-2634
The Terran Confederation receives numerous
reports of unwarranted assault,
space piracy, kidnapping and interplanetary
plundering, all taking place at an
increasingly expanding distance from
the planet Kilrah. Frequent attempts to
meet with Kilrathi High Command are
rejected without explanation. In retaliation,
the Terran Confederation Congress
votes unanimously to enforce a strict
non-aggression policy by the Kilrathi.
The leaders of Kilrah are warned that
their next transgression could lead to
military reprisals.
2631-2635
The Confederation and the Pilgrim Alliance,
a McDanielist splinter group,
fight a civil war. Though the twelve-system
conflict is minor in comparison to
those fought later in the century, it is the
bloodiest space war ever fought to this
point. The conflict ends with a series of
extended sieges leading to the complete
dissolution of the Alliance.
2634.186
The Anna Magdelena, a refitted transport
ship ferrying orphans to their new
homes on Dieno, is openly attacked by a
pair of Kilrathi fighters. No one survives.
In retaliation for this and the five-year
string of equally heinous abuses of all
known laws of civility, the Terran Confederation
officially declares war on the
Empire of Kilrah.
2634.228
TCN cryptographer Ches M. Penney intercepts
and decodes a stray Kilrathi cipher
implying that a strike will soon be
launched against the planet McAuliffe
and its orbiting space station, Alexandria.
Confederation High Command orders a
counteroffensive twice the size of the anticipated
fleet, hoping to reach McAuliffe
first and ambush the attackers.
2634.235
After a tense rush to McAuliffe, the Confederation
fleet establishes a formidable
defensive position around the planet.
When the Kilrathi fleet arrives, however,
it is quadruple the expected size. Several
days of bloody fighting all but obliterate
the defensive forces.
2634.239
The McAuliffe Ambush ends. Though the
Confederation fleet is completely annihilated
it manages to destroy the enemy
flagship, causing a disruption in the
Kilrathi chain of command and forcing a
retreat.
2639.033
Kilrathi occupation forces land on Enyo
and McAuliffe and hold a quarter of a
million Terrans hostage, reinforced by
orbital guns.
2639.036
The Confederation regroups under the
leadership of then-Captain Geoffrey Tolwyn
and brings in an attack force of Raptor-
class heavy fighters.
2639.038
Simultaneously, TCN fighters drop porcupine
mines in regions of space near the
colonies where principal jump points are
located.’ Kilrathi ships stay clear of the
mined region, allowing the inception of
Phase Two of the operation in which a
scrambled radio signal detonates certain
specially modified mines. This clears the
way for the arrival of a sizable Terran reinforcement
fleet through the jump point.
Terran forces make an immediate strike
against the gunships, threatening the
population centers. The mines split the
gunships and the fleet units assigned to
intercept the Raptors, allowing the two
Confederation forces to form a final pincer
around the enemy fleet.
2639.040
After a pounding match which lasts only
two days, the Enyo Engagement ends
with the Kilrathi in full retreat. Casualties
are nearly identical.
2642.082
The two sides settle into a long and unending
stalemate, creating tension along
the frontier. Several Terran worlds declare
independence from the Confederation
as a prelude to declaring neutrality
in the conflict.
2644
The newly-launched TCS Tiger’s Claw, on
its shakedown cruise, carrying a minimal
spacecrew and an under-experienced
command, finds itself in the path of a
surprise Kilrathi invasion force. The ship’s
unexpected presence along the Kilrathi
flight plan, clever tactics on the part of
the command crew, and performance
above and beyond the call of duty by
the spacecrews rout the superior Kilrathi
force. Shortly thereafter, Tiger’s Claw is
given permanent assignment in Vega
Sector.
2645-2653
Abandoning their effort to penetrate the
Terran front lines in the central sectors
of the border worlds, the Kilrathi switch
the focus of their attack to the [[Pleiades Sector]]. After initial Kilrathi success, Terran
defenses hold. This front, too, settles
down to a stalemate.
2646.005
Beginning with Baird’s Star, seven systems
declare independence from the
Terran Confederation. Confed attempts
to break the stalemate and prevent other
worlds from seceding by changing their
strategic aims from direct engagement
to intelligence and particularly cryptography.
2648.305
The Confederation succeeds in breaking
the Kilrathi encryption code. In order to
prevent a repeat of the McAuliffe debacle,
Confed takes pains to ensure their
interpretation of the code is accurate.
2649.189
Terran Command, using information on
Kilrathi fleets and deployments gained
through their breaking of encryption
methods, assembles a force consisting
of 60% of the Vega Sector Fleet aimed
at invading and occupying Kilrah itself.
Given the overwhelming superiority in
force and information as well as strategy,
a victory seems well in hand.
2649.205
Terran ground forces launch an attack
on a fortified Kilrathi colony, only to be
routed by unexpected Kilrathi fighter
support. The TCS Tiger’s Claw is detached
from its previous station and assigned
to intercept the pursuing fighters in a
delaying action eventually known as
Custer’s Carnival. Swarmed and badly
damaged by Kilrathi fighters, the carrier
distracts Kilrathi forces long enough for
the Terran fleet to reach safety.
Despite the fact that three-fourths of its
engines are destroyed and half its pilots
are listed as casualties, the heroic efforts
of the Claw’s crew allow the carrier to
make it back into Terran space. Two Gold
Stars and numerous other medals - many
of them posthumous - are awarded to
the ship’s personnel. The carrier itself
spends six months in spacedock for repairs
and refitting.
2653
Because of recent heavy losses in battle
against the Kilrathi, the 201st Plebe
class of the Confederation’s Space Naval
Academy replaces the regular flight
crew aboard the refurbished Tiger’s
Claw, Commodore Geoffrey Tolwyn
commanding. The cadets are supposed
to complete their course of instruction
while performing routine patrols and
flight training. But, in war, anything can
happen...
2654.074
Aided by Pilgrim terrorists, a Kilrathi
fleet destroys the Confederation’s Pegasus
Station and secures a path straight
to Earth. Human ships rush from the
front line to defend the homeworld. The
Tiger’s Claw, the only ship between the
Kilrathi fleet and Sol, fights desperately
to delay the enemy advance. Using intelligence
gathered by the Tiger’s Claw,
Commodore Tolwyn turns the tables on
the Kilrathi, surprising them and eliminating
the entire fleet as it arrives in the
Sol System.
2654.079
Pilgrim traitors, frustrated by the failure
of the recent invasion, mutiny and capture
the Olympus, a Confederation cruiser
carrying an experimental weapon. Human
and Kilrathi forces both race against
time to stop the Olympus and capture its
technology for themselves. The weapon
is ultimately disabled, but the Olympus
and her crew escape.
2654.130
Pilgrim explorers thought lost for generations
return to known space to collect
their descendants. They briefly make war
on both Terrans and Kilrathi before leaving
from the galaxy and virtually eliminating
the Pilgrim religion.
2654.131
Prince Thrakhath abandons his live-andlet-
die policy towards border pirates by
destroying Base Tortuga in a massive
show of force.
2654.162
The Kilrathi begin a lend-lease program
with non-spacefaring races along the
frontier. The primitive natives of the Dioscuri
system are armed with surplus
Dralthi and ordered to make war against
the Confederation.
2654.176
Admiral Rhea Bergstrom attempts to
trap a Kilrathi fleet in the Seti Beta system
using the Tiger’s Claw as bait. Prince
Thrakhath turns the tables, catching the
Trafalgar battlegroup in a pincer. Bergstrom’s
carrier and her escorts are destroyed.
2654.184
The Empire its first stealth fighter, a specially
modified Sartha with radar-reflective
paint and a low-emission drive. It is
code-named Strakha, meaning ‘hidden
striker’. Confederation pilots working in
pairs manage to trap and destroy the
fighter.
2654.185
The KIS Naoukeric attacks Oasis, shattering
a two-decade long neutrality agreement
regarding the planet. The Kilrathi
carrier is destroyed under mysterious
circumstances.
2654.190
Dr. Bronwyn Sing, head researcher on
Greenhouse, attempts to illegally infect a
captured Kilrathi pilot with a bio-agent.
The Kil is shot down before he can spread
the disease to the rest of the army.
2654.287
Terran Intelligence reports that the Kilrathi
High Command is directing war
efforts from Venice System. Reconnaissance
patrols identify Kilrathi ships and
boldly give chase, uncovering an Imperial
starbase. Terran patrols are lost, but
not before relaying their coordinates
back to HQ.
A small Terran fleet of elite fighters is
dispatched to the Imperial starbase. The
Kilrathi launch a significant resistance,
but are eventually overpowered. Badly
beaten, the Kilrathi move their central
military command back to their homeworld
of Kilrah.
Simultaneously, on the far side of the
galaxy, the celebrated Battle of Repleetah
unfolds. The small research planet of
Repleetah has long been home to dedicated
researchers from various corners
of the universe. Once the declaration of
war against the Kilrathi makes its way
to this distant outpost, Terran scientists
vote to pay a visit to a Kilrathi research
facility. The goal of the Terran scientists is
to reaffirm their dedication to the unfettered
pursuit of knowledge and to offer
a peaceful co-existence with their fellow
scientists.
Instead, the Terrans are exterminated in a
surprise biological attack by the Kilrathi.
Marines from both sides of the Terran-Kilrathi
conflict rush to Repleetah and engage
in the most sustained land-based
fighting of the entire war. In trench warfare
reminiscent of Earth’s ancient World
War I, each side fights with dogged determination
and in full bio-resistant suits.
Meager gains are bought with hundreds
of lives, only to be lost to the next counter-
attack.
Since Repleetah quickly loses any strategic
significance it might have had, it
comes to represent what each side can
win with as little investment as possible.
Neither side is willing to commit anything
more than ground troops, even
though a single, thorough space strike
could end the battle victoriously. The
bloodshed continues unabated.
2654.293
Seeing an opportunity to prove himself
after his disasterous involvement in the
Olympus affair, Commodore Tolwyn deploys
Tiger’s Claw pilots infiltrate and
disrupt the annual Sivar-Eshrad ceremony
in the Dolos System. The plan is a success,
delivering a heavy blow to Kilrathi
morale and earning Tolwyn a promotion
to Rear Admiral.
2654.326
Shortly after intelligence reports indicate
that Kilrathi engineers have developed a
new super weapon to use against inhabited
planets, all radio contact is lost with
the Goddard Colony. Fighter wings from
the Tiger’s Claw rush to Goddard and
forge a path for transports and corvettes,
only to discover that a quarter-million
human lives have already been sacrificed
by the Kilrathi.
Deeply angered by the tragedy, the crew
of the Tiger’s Claw pursues the Kilrathi
strike force into enemy territory, where
they are ambushed by a captured Confederation
Exeter-class ship. Reconnaissance
ships eventually locate the dreadnought
ship suspected of carrying the
prototype weapon. The Claw follows,
and in a stunning display of deep space
logistics and fighting skill, eliminates this
Sivar dreadnought.
2655
The Tiger’s Claw again travels behind
enemy lines, this time as part of a battle
group charged with destroying the laboratories
and shipyards which produced
the Sivar weapon. Using captured enemy
fighters to sneak behind fortified enemy
lines, the carrier’s pilots cripple the Kilrathi
bases in the Jakarta System.
2653-2655
The Confederation pledges to protect
a newly discovered bird-like race called
the Firekkans, who plan to unite with the
Terran alliance. In the interim, a huge Kilrathi
battle fleet commanded by Prince
Thrakhath and his Drakhai (Kilrathi Imperial
Guard) moves into the Firekkan system.
The fleet’s intent is unknown until
the Kilrathi defector Ralgha nar Hhallas
exposes a plan to use Firekka for a religious
ritual in which warriors rededicate
themselves to Sivar, the Kilrathi god of
war.
The Confederation decides to disrupt the
religious ceremony in hopes of breaking
enemy morale. Marine troopships
jump into the system and stage an assault
on the Kilrathi priestesses. The mission
is successful, and the Claw retreats
to Terran-controlled space under heavy
Kilrathi pursuit. In short order, Firekkan
natives revolt and force the remaining
Kilrathi forces to withdraw. Another crisis
has been averted.
Meanwhile, the Battle of Repleetah
grinds into its third year, with neither
side gaining a significant advantage. Despite
heavy losses on both sides and the
tolls taken by the extraordinarily bitter
weather of the research outpost, Kilrathi
and Terran Marines refuse to yield.
2656-2667
Over the next eleven years, Confederation
forces attempt to remove the Kilrathi
from Enigma Sector, where strategic
jump nodes lead directly to human
homeworlds. An attack on the Kilrathi
headquarters at K’Tithrak Mang falls
short when the renowned Tiger’s Claw
is ambushed and destroyed by Kilrathi
stealth fighters. Still, Confederation forces
are able to successfully defend Olympus
Station - a Terran starbase established for
the rebel Kilrathi world of Ghorah Khar
- from Kilrathi assault. Finally, in 2667,
Terran forces daringly jump behind enemy
lines and destroy the Kilrathi sector
headquarters of K’Tithrak Mang.
During these years, the focus of the Intergalactic
War drifts away from the
decade-long Battle of Repleetah. Supply
ships and reinforcements have long
since ceased to visit the research planet.
Finally, by late 2664, only a handful of
troops remain on either side. The sole
surviving Terran officer, Lieutenant Miles
D’Arby, leads his men in a last ditch effort
to overrun the Kilrathi position. No one
lives through this last action on either
side. The Battle of Repleetah has finally
come to an end.
2667
Confederation forces dispel a Kilrathi attack
on Pembroke Station, the gateway
system between Enigma and Vega Sectors.
These same forces then attend to
a mutiny aboard Rigel Supply Depot,
where mutineers split into two factions.
The pirated ship is eventually gunned
down.
The Kilrathi unsuccessfully attempt to
quell rebelling planets in Ghorah Khar
System, and an Imperial leader tries to
assassinate Prince Thrakhath. Thrakhath
is captured and brought aboard the
Bonnie Heather, but eludes his captors
through a daringly engineered escape.
Finally, a desperate attack against Olympus
Station in Ghorah Khar is thwarted,
saving the rebel Kilrathi planet.
A massive Kilrathi invasion of the Deneb
Sector eliminates the Confederation’s
6th Fleet in a matter of hours. The tattered
remnants of the fleet escape to the
Enigma Sector.
The Concordia begins testing the new
Morningstar heavy fighter, a powerful
new ship which carries a nuclear missile.
Society of Mandarin traitors, lead by
Zachary Colson, interrupt the tests and
steal a prototype Morningstar. Special
Operations responds by locating the Society’s
main base of operations. A team
sneaks behind enemy lines in a captured
freighter to destroy the base and the stolen
fighter.
Hoping to reverse recent setbacks in the
Deneb Sector, the Confederation plots a
trap for the Empire. Human escort carriers
launch an amphibious invasion of
Vukar Tag, a planet considered sacred by
the Kilrathi. Their warrior culture forces
the Kilrathi to respond in force, deploying
their entire home fleet to retake the
planet – where a large Confederation
force is waiting to spring the trap.
In order to divide the Kilrathi fleet, the
Tarawa is sent through a newly discovered
jump point to threaten Kilrah itself.
What is planned as a suicide mission
succeeds beyond anyone’s expectations
– Tarawa pilots destroy carrier construction
yards on Kilrah’s moon, significantly
damaging the enemy war effort.
2668
Terran Fleets strike hard against Kilrathi
Forces on the front lines, eliminating
nine carriers under construction and
crippling dozens of transports and four
shipyards. Running low on combat ships,
the Kilrathi military appears on the verge
of retreating for supplies.
As the pendulum of war swings toward
the Terrans, a peace accord is unexpectedly
offered by Kilrah. All fleets are withdrawn,
even those in the midst of combat.
In the following months, several frontier
colonies refuse to abide by the armistice
rulings, investing both forces and ships
in an attempt to search out suspected
active shipyards on the far side of the
Kilrathi Empire. Using captured stealth
equipment, private forces intercept a
HoloVid of the rumored facility along
with a message that Kilrathi forces are
embarking to attack Earth. The armistice
is renounced, and a hastily assembled
force of still-intact Confederation ships
prepare to defend against the attack,
bolstered by private ships and carriers.
The first hits result in total radiation-warhead
warhead
destruction of Warsaw, Gilead and
Sirius Prime. Front line Marines land on
the Imperial flagship carrier where a few
brave volunteers place mines in suicide
missions. The volunteers destroy three
of the super carriers, but the remainder
of the fleet reaches striking distance. The
Kilrathi successfully launch anti-matter
rockets on crucial defense cities - Chicago,
Pittsburgh, Boston, Miami, Quebec,
Berlin, Paris, Kiev and others - then retreat
to friendlier space.
2669
Following the attack on Earth, the Terran
Intelligence Agency deploys a top secret,
tactical search party through a previously
uncharted Kilrathi jump point. The TCS
Lexington is equipped with self-sustaining
recycling systems, mining apparatus,
and a 62 person Special Operations
team. This unit leaves Goddard Transfer
Station on 2669.011 and passes through
a newly discovered jump point. Its mission
- to search out and destroy Kilrathi
forces, sector by sector. Though the Special
Operations team reached Kilrah, the
Lexington was never recovered.
A rogue Steltek Drone, an unmanned
fighter belonging to a precursor civilization,
begins terrorizing the Gemini
Sector. Meanwhile, Dr. Lemuel Monkhouse
discovers a mysterious map on
Mars, leading to another cache of Steltek
technology. Mercenaries, explorers and
Kilrathi race to find this unexplored star
system. Grayson Burrows, a Privateer,
finds the treasure, a powerful new type
of gun, and uses it to defeat the deadly
drone fighter.
2669.221
Dr. Forbin, a prominent scientist aboard
the solar shadow ring station La Belle
Dame Sans Merci, reports gravitometric
disturbances in the Tanhauser Nebula.
This radiation is determined to be consistent
with that emitted during jump point
formation. In the midst of investigating
what might have been the first ever observations
of a jump point formation, the
solar shadow ring station was viciously
attack by a raiding party of Kilrathi light
attack fighters that were apparently us
ing the nebula as camouflage. Despite its
total lack of military value, all aboard the
defenseless station were slaughtered,
many of them inexplicably tortured to
death. This marks the eighteenth such
occurrence that has been reported in
the last two years. Forbin’s discovery later
leads to a peacetime TCN task force designed
solely for the purpose of observing
and analyzing jump points.
2669.233
The Trafalgar Outerworlds report a devastating
outbreak of disease that eradicates
in excess of four percent of the
system’s population. The disease vector
is proven to be human blood, most commonly
found in the world’s contaminated
blood supply. Trafalgar Disease Control
halts the mortality rate at 23 deaths per
day and identifies biochemical weaponry
as the guilty carrier.
Simultaneously, the Kilrathi mount a constant
series of similar bioweapons attacks
in Locanda and Delius systems. The presence
of the Victory spared all but one of
the Locanda worlds, but several colonies
in Delius were eliminated before Confed
forces could respond to the attacks. The
accountable death toll was last reported
at 2,867.
Linguistics specialists at the University
of Hawaii on Earth make marked progress
in deciphering the intricacies of the
Kilrathi language and begin publishing
their research in leading journals. Civilian
research to these discoveries becomes
sharply restricted after this news causes
Kilrathi forces to adopt another encryption
scheme.
2669.242
Confed forces liberate the enslaved population
of Cabrea System. But the TCN
Human Relations Agency clamps down
on all vid-transmissions from the system,
citing “the interests of Confed-security.”
Reports emerge that horrific conditions
exist within the system. A psychological
assistance team en route to counsel survivors
and deliver supplies is obliterated
in a surprise attack as they pass through
a normally peaceful asteroid belt. Transmissions
Transmissions
from the cargo ship indicate
that the Kilrathi have developed a new
fighter that is nearly indistinguishable
from a small asteroid chunk.
TCN headquarters orders a strategic
withdrawal from outlying Confederation
sectors as part of a larger operation
to give up sectors of minor importance.
It is hoped that the Kilrathi will spread
themselves too thinly across the galaxy.
Military strategists receive great criticism
from those who claim that the withdrawals
are only an improvised response to
the advance of the enemy. The criticism
lessens, however, with the advent of the
new Excalibur fighter and with successful
pushes into Ariel System.
2669.247
Confed Intel tests its new secret weapon,
the Behemoth super gun, on a Kilrathi
colonial planet. Humanists argue against
its use to no avail, and the test run disintegrates
an entire planet in just under
five seconds. Approximately 1,500 Kilrathi
settlers are eradicated, raising critical
judgments from the Terran Diplomatic
Association. An internal security leak
reveals design information to Kilrathi
forces, who intercept and eliminate the
prize offensive weapon.
Several weeks later, Victory squadrons
support a Marine-led effort to liberate
Dr. Philip Severin from a Kilrathi prison
planet. A key player in TCN detonation
technology, he immediately begins research
on another weapon, the Temblor
bomb.
TCN military police fighters squelch a civilian
attack on Rampart military station
in Enyo System, where organized protesters
attempted to damage communication
facilities and 27 fighters parked for
repairs. The leader of the protest, Alexander
Romorin, was killed by one of his
own followers during the hand-to-hand
melee as he struggled with minimally
armed personnel. Participants are questioned
and sent to a minimum security
holding moon. This event marks a swelling
current of civilian unrest after forty
years of the Terran-Kilrathi conflict.
2669.262
Confederation forces break through Kilrathi
lines into Freya and Hyperion Sectors,
where they meet heavy Kilrathi resistance.
Facing an imminent homeworld
invasion, the enemy boosts its forces
here and eases up attacks on outlying
colonial worlds. Construction begins on
temporary bases, and Confed transmissions
in and out of the area are encoded
with the newly discovered UUENSX-17
encryption system. The conflict index
reaches 10.2, the highest average posted
in the war’s history. Galaxy Red Cross
troops run medical supplies, food and
fuel dangerously close to the front lines,
losing approximately 1/3 of their transports
to ambushes. The Civilian Pilot’s
Association volunteers troop and supply
transport runs as the war progresses
closer and closer to the Kilrathi sector.
The Temblor test project enters the completion
stage and the prototype model
is successfully detonated on a seismographic
fault in Hyperion System. Dr. Severin
is subsequently named an honorary
captain in the Terran Navy and awarded
a research bonus of 1.2 million credits.
2669.267
The President and the Scientific Warfare
panel approve the use of the Temblor
bomb in six instances, including that of
attacking the aggressive Kilrathi home
planet. Having expected this decision,
the Victory pushes into the far region
of Hyperion sector. Col. Christopher
Blair, Maj. Todd Marshall, 2nd Lt. Winston
Chang and 2nd Lt. Robin Peters launch
from the carrier at 0545 hours. With the
aid of covert fuel depots, they penetrate
Kilrah’s atmosphere and launch the Temblor
into the V’rakath fault.
In a devastating tectonic blast, the bomb
rips Kilrah along its three major faults,
killing millions of inhabitants. Aboard
the Hvar’kann, Kal Shintahr Melek nar
Kilra’hra formally surrenders to TCN officials.
After decades of loss, 4.2 quadrillion
credits’ worth of war materials, and a
total count of 9,500,012,432,187 deaths,
the Terran-Kilrathi war is finally over...
2669.322
In the ensuing months, a P.O.W. exchange
is implemented and sectorial diplomats
begin negotiations with Kilrathi colonial
settlers. Eighty-six new bills are introduced
in the 1,234th Confederation Congress,
all of which pertain to the rights of
Kilrathi survivors. Riots driven by racism
among Terran colonies peak, paralleling
the integration of the early 20th century.
M’ragrakath nar Hhallas is appointed
as the main Kilrathi spokesperson and
is assassinated during an international
conference on Alliance Rights on Venus.
Following his death, an overwhelming
percentage of Kilrathi survivors commit
Zu’kara, a popular form of ritual suicide.
In an effort to ease tensions, the Terran
Diplomatic Association sets up eighteen
reservation worlds and fights to incorporate
them into the Alliance.
The Terran Navy concentrates peace efforts
on outer worlds, where renegade
forces stage brutal attacks on the Kilrathi
colonial worlds. Many of the rebels are
from Sol System, where unemployment
has skyrocketed to 22.3 percent since
three-quarters of the TCN enlistees were
decommissioned.
Analysts predict that recovering from
half a century of warfare will be a long,
consuming task that requires at least
two decades of economic and social adjustment
in every facet of life...
The Terran Confederation assigns eighteen
reserve marine units to civilian trade
bases in Gemini Sector, where reports
filter in concerning contraband activity.
Gemini has long been a problem area for
patrolling forces due to the large number
of Kilrathi inhabitants and the localized
Free Trade Agreement. The move sparks
unrest among the Merchant’s Guild after
over half the trading force relocates
across enemy lines. Military officials step
up patrols along the Kilrathi lines as attacks
on civilian merchant ships reach an
all time high.
A team of sociologists and archeologists
en route to Gemini Sector are captured
2669.322
In the ensuing months, a P.O.W. exchange
is implemented and sectorial diplomats
begin negotiations with Kilrathi colonial
settlers. Eighty-six new bills are introduced
in the 1,234th Confederation Congress,
all of which pertain to the rights of
Kilrathi survivors. Riots driven by racism
among Terran colonies peak, paralleling
the integration of the early 20th century.
M’ragrakath nar Hhallas is appointed
as the main Kilrathi spokesperson and
is assassinated during an international
conference on Alliance Rights on Venus.
Following his death, an overwhelming
percentage of Kilrathi survivors commit
Zu’kara, a popular form of ritual suicide.
In an effort to ease tensions, the Terran
Diplomatic Association sets up eighteen
reservation worlds and fights to incorporate
them into the Alliance.
The Terran Navy concentrates peace efforts
on outer worlds, where renegade
forces stage brutal attacks on the Kilrathi
colonial worlds. Many of the rebels are
from Sol System, where unemployment
has skyrocketed to 22.3 percent since
three-quarters of the TCN enlistees were
decommissioned.
Analysts predict that recovering from
half a century of warfare will be a long,
consuming task that requires at least
two decades of economic and social adjustment
in every facet of life...
The Terran Confederation assigns eighteen
reserve marine units to civilian trade
bases in Gemini Sector, where reports
filter in concerning contraband activity.
Gemini has long been a problem area for
patrolling forces due to the large number
of Kilrathi inhabitants and the localized
Free Trade Agreement. The move sparks
unrest among the Merchant’s Guild after
over half the trading force relocates
across enemy lines. Military officials step
up patrols along the Kilrathi lines as attacks
on civilian merchant ships reach an
all time high.
A team of sociologists and archeologists
en route to Gemini Sector are captured
Jason
Bondarevsky takes command of
the Landreich’s escort carrier fleet, ultimately
ending the conflict in a strategic
draw with the help of Vance Richards,
who comes out of hiding. President H.
Maximilian Kruger’s hold over the government
begins to slip as a result of the
affair.
2672
A rare Steltek weapon is discovered on
Challenger. As the conflict in the border
worlds heats up, Joe Turner and Marc
Lassiter race against time to stop Phillip
Rickman’s crime syndicate from aquiring
it. In the process the pair involve themselves
in a Church of Man plot to destroy
Perry Naval Base and an SRA scheme to
reappropriate munitions from the Gemini
Sector fleet for Admiral Tolwyn’s black
ops division.
2673.219
The galaxy’s peace is interrupted once
again as pirate raids against peacetime
shipping become more and more common.
Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, having
descended into madness in the years
following the war, has recruited a secret
team of pilots to instigate a new war between
the Terran Confederation and the
newly formed Union of Border Worlds.
Believing that the human race needs to
be genetically purified before it faces another
threat like the Kilrathi, Tolwyn begins
secretly eliminating massive populations
using biological weapons. As civil
war breaks out, pilots on both sides rush
to prove to the Senate who is responsible
for the attacks. The final battle takes place
on the floor of the legislature, where Colonel
Christopher Blair confronts Tolwyn
into implicating himself.
2675
Murragh Cakg dai Nokhtak leads the FRLS
Karga into Kilrathi space in a bid to take
the Kiranka throne for himself. However,
expected support from the Landreich
Navy never materializes and Murragh’s
coup falls apart short of the planned invasion
of Pasqual. Murragh fights an epic
retreat, pursued by Chancellor Melek’s
police forces. He returns to the Landreich
to live in exile.
2680
The Confederation in conjunction with
Hurston Dynamics begins field-testing
chain ion or “cloud burst” weapons technology
at Krieger Starbase.
Influence of Kilrathi culture on fashion
and entertainment begins to spread outside
of the Border Worlds. Some systems
put a ban on the import of all imitation
Kilrathi weaponry and human-styled armor/
clothing wear. This only increases
the value of the items on the market.
Border Worlds Kilrathi TPFs (temporary
placement facilities) are reduced to only
three planetary locations (as opposed to
50 a decade earlier) as another displaced
clan is relocated to a system within Kilrathi
space. These facilities, nothing more
than reservations for the Kilrathi, were
beginning to come under the scrutiny of
several Sentient Rights groups. Charges
of neglect and cruel treatment go unheard
at the General Assembly. Governor
Cavazos, then head of the General Assembly,
publicly states that the remaining Kilrathi
will be relocated in under five years.
His statements are almost drowned out
by representatives of the Border Worlds
calling for faster action.
Rein Ertrobs releases the fourth book in
his wildly popular series of fantasy novels
set within the Darkening universe. The
book, entitled Lev’s Pact, forces the publisher
to restructure its flat-scan transmit
hub in order to accommodate the over
one billion requests.
2681
The Nephilim, a race of insect-like creatures
from outside our galaxy, terrorizes
remote Confederation installations. Their
motives are unknown, but Confed reacts
in force, sending out the newly commissioned
“Super Carrier” Midway to assist
in quelling the threat. After intensive
engagements over the course of several
months the Nephilim are defeated in the
Kilrah System.
Leonard Styles, staff photojournalist
for ISDN (Intersystem Daily News) takes
the first shots of the Nephilim in action
against a transport convoy fleeing the
Kilrah Sector after the official evacuation
order was given. His stark images
of a Nephilim destroyer slicing through
a civilian transport with a plasma beam
put an image to the threat most remote
sector citizens had dismissed.
A joint Hurston/Bartok Industries and
Confederation research program develops
the “dust cannon”, a mass-driver
variant using “dust-cull” technology to
recycle power plant waste matter into a
limitless ammunition supply.
Robert Brindle’s novel, Clipped, about
conditions at Kilrathi placement facilities
is criticized by veterans and administrators
as both inaccurate and inflammatory.
The publicity generated causes
thirty system representatives to call for a
committee to be formed on placement
conditions.
The TCS Cerberus a new “quick strike”
cruiser is unveiled by the Confederation.’
Constructed by Bartok Industries,
the Cerberus is quickly put on a secret
assignment by the TCIS to investigate
reported straggler Nephilim within Sol
Sector.
As the galaxy mourns the loss of Christopher
Blair and begins to repair its
wounds, a larger Nephilim strike force
emerges. At the same time, a deadly virus
released by the alien ships begins
causing even greater casualties. Intelligence
believes that the Nephilim are
searching for something — or someone.
The Cerberus fights through the alien
hoards to capture their new wormhole
in the Proxima System. While the Confederation
prepares to use its newly captured
wormhole to strike back against
the Nephilim, three more open — in the
K’sktag System, the Hhallas System and
the Valgard System...
This feature concludes next month with a 2681-2700 timeline of the Nephilim War,
starting with the first Confederation counter-attacks on Reef 68C-Delta.


You can read over the designers bible here, and see the developer's ideas for the games and how they also extended to the novels, and other materials etc.

https://www.wcnews.com/archives/

Also pay attention to The Kilrathi Saga manual as that also ties into the novels as well.

http://download.wcnews.com/files/manuals/Kilrathi Saga Manual.pdf
 
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Not that racism is not going to exist in the future but for it to be that obvious... And for what? They feel jump points... Okay, that might not be scientific, but we're obviously a scientific group of people now with carriers in space, science might not always understanding something, but they're not going to deny what obviously works. This is not your star sign, not a horoscope, these people are able to plot jump points... It just does not make sense that this space fairing people of ours would hate a group of their own that much, and they did not paint around the picture...In my mind, as a kid, I was watching the way Blair was getting treated and I was thinking of the white man thinking blacks are inferior. It was so racist, and I never got that kind of impression that people were thinking like that in Wing Commander, not toward humans anyone... Yeah, the Kilrathi at times, but humans that are helping? I was 14 when the movie came out, it was insulting my intelligence at the time with that Pilgrim subplot.

I think there is actually a interview where the concept of the Pilgrims sort of arose out of the Border Worlds civil war ideas from WC4, where Confederation wasn't honoring the Border World's rights (many who had colonized the Border Worlds before there was even a Confederation) and treating them as second class bumpkins... Along with Tolwyn's suplot of trying to create a space 'super race', that looked down upon regular humans. Hence a human vs human war, rather than human vs. monster ("Kilrathi") Humans are monster enough.
 
Apologies in advance for the random order of these quotes. It's been a while since I've had a real, fun message board conversation and I'm super excited to chat Wing Commander with new folks. It is, after all, my first, best destiny :)

Plus it gave the impression that it was the early Rapier F-44A, while what we see later in the games is the F-44A Rapier II model, which I think gave some 'evolution' between the novels and the games. Pilgrim Truth sort of put the CF-117b as intermediate design between Rapier (I) and the Rapier II.

This one specifically bugged me! It's internally consistent for the two novels (sort of) but it makes the games a bit problematic and it's not really how ship designations have worked before or since. Still, it's there!


Maybe he felt the story was done, but I can't believe the games would have been left abandoned for this long had Robert's remained in that industry. With the success of Wing3 and 4 who knows who they might have gotten to come aboard before the death of the interactive movie. To tell the truth I wish the new game was being filmed, if a story you want, there's nothing like seeing the real faces to bring you in. It's too bad it went out with such a whimper, interactive movies.

One big thing people don't understand is that Chris never really set out to be the Wing Commander guy. Before Wing Commander, he would build totally distinct games that interested him. You had Times of Lore as his take on the massive RPG, Bad Blood, an action game, Stryker's Run, a side scrolling arcade title... he even did a soccer game! Heck, before they knew Wing Commander was going to be the biggest thing since Mario, he was planning to follow it up with a car game. Then when WC *was* a huge hit and he had the time and budget to do something that interested him... his creative impulse was to parlay that into doing an incredibly detailed F-16 simulator mated with a 1980s action movie rather than more WC.

He was in the same position with the FMV games... Wing Commander III let him do something totally different creatively and he put everything he could into that. But then EA wanted him to keep turning out Wing Commanders every year when what he wanted to do was try new things (he had a project called Silverheart based on a Michael Moorcock outline which he first announced at Origin and then brought to DA and beyond. So I think his end goal was never just to keep telling Wing Commander stories, he wanted to do completely new things whether they involved Wing Commander as an IP or not.)

Ugh... I imagine the filmed portion of Wing4 was simply the original acting and the bare sets. I doubt they edited CG onto the actual film itself, so I mean, we'd of course be missing out on a lot... But what a piece of history it would be, to restore the 35mm print, it would look amazing!

I've been chatting with some folks doing preservation at Electronic Arts; the good news is they still have this vaulted and are going to look at a proper transfer!

The whole mentioning of Stealth Fighters thing, this base is "developing and refining stealth fighter technology".... I gasped when I read that... It broke my heart to see this official piece of Wing Commander destroy the entire foundation that Wing2 was built upon...

Do not feel too badly about this! They actually added the stealth fighter stuff to some of the original bar conversations in the Wing Commander I/Secret Missions section of Super Wing Commander specifically to set up for an abandoned Super Wing Commander II... so you follow it through the game and it's a bit more nuanced: Colonel Halcyon believes stealth fighters could exist and Admiral Tolwyn absolutely refuses to. The added layer was going to be 'someone DID believe Blair... and he's dead and can't defend him.'

(As for SWC2: The hope at the time was that the 3DO was going to be the Next Big Thing(tm) and they would immediately move on to Super Wing Commander II with a similar adaptation. When the numbers came back, it was cheaper to port Wing Commander III and put the team on a project designed to take better advantage of the platform (which was a mech game called Prowler.) And then of course the 3DO didn't exactly light the world on fire and Super Wing Commander II became a distant napkin concept.

Let me apologize for any harsh words pointed this way or at Ben in the videos. Having not felt welcome all those years ago, yet still loving the site for information, it was easy to find things to point at and criticize.

Absolutely no apology needed! Frankly, I'm honored you found the site useful despite not having a great experience because of me... having something useful for Wing Commander fans is all I ever really wanted!

I love the spirit of your channel, too. It's something I'd really like to do myself! Would be great to have the creative freedom to just do videos about whatever I think is interesting (my wife and I have started doing Periscopes just chatting about cool stuff we find... would be need to make more of a production out of it.)

I'd really love to see all of what Super Wing Commander has to offer, but the last time I checked there was nothing but a few short mystery science theater 3000 type videos on it.

I'd be willing to stream the whole thing! I imagine we can output my 3DO card and share it that way. It's a strange, strange game (especially the cutscenes!) but I'd love for people to be able to see more of it.

Well I can only think they didn't cast Mark Hamill or his contemporaries because he was too old for the timeline of the story they were trying to tell.

Maybe some of the other cast members pay grades had risen beyond what the studio would cover (the movie already had some other budget issues iirc? Or were busy with other projects?

Unfortunately, making a movie isn't ever as easy as the director deciding the best actors for the roles and then hiring them. One of the biggest concerns we don't think about is financing; it's not as easy as FOX saying 'we'll make Wing Commander, here's $27 million, go do it'... the part people don't see is that the producers have to start off by building a coalition of investors. You might sell off individual rights to different parties: FOX provides $10 million and they get the domestic theatrical release and home video, Universal provides $5 million and they get international distribution, Nokia will pay $500,000 if we feature their logo prominently and so on (none of these numbers are accurate, although those were some of the parties involved in Wing Commander!)

Your very first job is finding these groups and convincing them you're a good investment. And that means you have to promise them something they can bank on. That's why you often hear that a name is 'attached' to a movie... what that means is that so and so talent has signed on in order to help the movie secure financing. So you can go to a financier and say "hey, we've got an incredible script, we've got Tom Hanks and we can do it for X dollars." They run the numbers and they say okay, Tom Hanks has this impact on the box office, so-and-so screenwriter has this impact and so we can reasonably expect the movie to make this much money for us.

You have to go in explaining exactly why your project is going to appeal to young adults age 18-35 and how you'll make X, Y and Z amount of money in whatever revenue streams. And unfortunately in this case "our movie stars Mark Hamill, the top box office draw of 1977!" wouldn't have sold the film. (In the very specific case of Wing Commander, it was not that they went in with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard attached; instead the agreement was to allow FOX to have a say in casting the leads.)

I will note that I think a lot of the furor way back when was from the perception that Chris Roberts had left the actors that made the FMV games out to dry, that he'd sort of betrayed them by going with a younger cast. I can confirm that's absolutely not the case, all parties involved knew it was how the process works... and of course Chris went back to Mark and John and folks when he had the creative freedom to do that on Squadron! (In fact, some of the top talent in Wing Commander III and IV were sold on those projects by recieving 'points' in the franchise (a percentage of profits)... so had the movie been a financial success, folks like Mark Hamill would have made a bunch of money without doing any work. As Shot mentioned, Mark Hamill has said in interviews he made a whole lot more money off of Wing Commander than he did Star Wars for exactly that reason. I'm sure that's no longer accurate because I'm sure he got a percentage and a dump truck full of cash for the new trilogy, but it's interesting to think about.)

I thought the cats in the movie were puppets? Their redesign was apparently the fault of Chris Roberts himself. He wasn't happy with how they looked in the games, and then 'tinkered' with them further, and then later didn't like how the new movie animatronics looked... They were apparently too large for the sets, and too bulky to move about, so they had to 'hunch' over for most of the movie.

The desire to redesign the Kilrathi was Chris', but the decision to go with practical effects was a call made by the studio producer. Chris spent much of the project hoping he'd secure additional financing to do them as CGI... and it sadly just didn't work out. (Reading through some of the back and forth late in the project is absolutely heartbreaking; Chris tried very hard to secure money to have the Kilrathi redone and to go back to the original intro of the film and it just fell on deaf ears...)

I'm not a movie maker, nor a game maker. So I don't know what the differences in how you pay caste, crew, use technology etc, is used. The film did use a lot more physical props though than the games, IIRC.

Wing Commander was INSANELY cheap as movies go; no one was making movies like that for $27 million (today that gets you a mid-range romcom!) And you know, forgetting the 'it doesn't look like the games' aspect man does the cinematography ever hold up. Wing Commander looks like a $75 million picture today, when Phantom Menace with five times the budget and a direct line into the heart of cutting edge VFX looks like a lousy video game when you see it today.

I think there is actually a interview where the concept of the Pilgrims sort of arose out of the Border Worlds civil war ideas from WC4, where Confederation wasn't honoring the Border World's rights (many who had colonized the Border Worlds before there was even a Confederation) and treating them as second class bumpkins... Along with Tolwyn's suplot of trying to create a space 'super race', that looked down upon regular humans. Hence a human vs human war, rather than human vs. monster ("Kilrathi") Humans are monster enough.

That's right, in the original script the Pilgrims were the 'Border Worlds'... got changed as the script evolved, but the concept remained the same.

The Pilgrims are a good example of how I like the pieces of the movie more than I do the whole. I think there's a lot of really neat continuity there. I LIKE there being a future equivalent of the Mexican-American War that sort of cuts the teeth of all the older characters who end up running the Kilrathi War... I like the idea of introducing a fictional religion, I love all the work done to fill out humanity's expansion to the stars... I just don't necessarily love how it came together. (Specifically, I am NOT a huge fan of the Pilgrim powers from the novels; I think they're totally silly and a missed opportunity to tell a more interesting story. But you can't win them all!)


Well, of course Hamill was too old to play the young Blair, but why did they have to be young?

I think this is another Hollywood thing; if your movie isn't attracting 18-34 year olds then you aren't getting any money. (But I guess it also makes sense; if only every single person who bought Wing Commander III and made it the best selling PC game to that point then went to see the Wing Commander movie opening weekend... it would have made far less money. It sucks for hardcore fans to think about, but they needed a script that introduced the world to Wing Commander in order to make it work financially.)

Does anyone know off hand how that compares with Wing3? I know Wing4 was like 8 million or something? Most expensive game ever at the time, hell, that still has to be an expensive game to this day. But I'm sure Wing3, using videotape, still CGI sets, 3 million sound about right?

Four million for Wing Commander III. A crazy risk at the time for EA, but one that paid off!

What is more interesting is that apparently during that period the various teams wanted to get rid of Firekkans altogether for whatever reason... They thought they were unrealistic? Who knows?

There was a feeling among some folks that they were too goofy for a cross-media franchise; that aliens in the Wing Commander world needed to be more than just anthropomorphic Earth animals.
 
Do not feel too badly about this! They actually added the stealth fighter stuff to some of the original bar conversations in the Wing Commander I/Secret Missions section of Super Wing Commander specifically to set up for an abandoned Super Wing Commander II... so you follow it through the game and it's a bit more nuanced: Colonel Halcyon believes stealth fighters could exist and Admiral Tolwyn absolutely refuses to. The added layer was going to be 'someone DID believe Blair... and he's dead and can't defend him.'

(As for SWC2: The hope at the time was that the 3DO was going to be the Next Big Thing(tm) and they would immediately move on to Super Wing Commander II with a similar adaptation. When the numbers came back, it was cheaper to port Wing Commander III and put the team on a project designed to take better advantage of the platform (which was a mech game called Prowler.) And then of course the 3DO didn't exactly light the world on fire and Super Wing Commander II became a distant napkin concept.

I had a feeling there was a Super Wing Commander II somewhere ther in the history of the Super Wing Commander story.

We really do need a the complete script for that game to see all the additions and new plot in context. I've tried to emulate but have only gotten so far as its kind of difficult to get controllers working properly.

Also as to cast of Wing Commander Movie didn't Mark Hamil do the voice of some of the cockpit computer AI? "Merlin" most of that material was cut but there is one or two lines in the film.
 
Specifically, I am NOT a huge fan of the Pilgrim powers from the novels; I think they're totally silly and a missed opportunity to tell a more interesting story. But you can't win them all!)

Ya some of that is at least in part foreshadowed in Confederation handbook. Dead not necessarily being dead but accending via the Tanque Dimension.

Then the novels added astral projection and dopplegangers to the mix. Killing off a doppelgänger may or may not kill off the Pilgrim projecting the clone. It was all kinda of confusing too.
 
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Back to the patch though. That patch is awesome, and from I remember, he did not have access to any kind of source code or anything. So theoretically, the whole changing of the missions and dialogue, ya know, that's possible for others to do.
The question is more how did they do it? Is it simply a matter of changing a few file names? Like if Super Wing Commander uses more or less same engine as Wing Commander 1/Secret Missions then maybe all they did was just change the file names to match the file names of SM2 to to trick the game into loading those files instead.

That's completely different than building Missions from scratch, or tweaking dialogue files directly. Is it possible to open up and change text in the files without knowledge of the sourcecode or some other hacks? Who knows would be interesting to learn from the designer of the pack how they managed to do it.

However maybe someone did figure out how to actually make original missions without need of the source code or pulling in files from another origin game. Looks like there are two fan mission packs for WC1 here:
https://www.wcnews.com/missions/#wc1

Also on that page links to fan mission packs for WC2 and later games in the series as well.

Also some more stuff for Wing Commander Academy.
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/12980
 
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It didn't require any source code. What they're doing is altering the data files Secret Missions 2 reads from so that they match the ones that were used by Super Wing Commander. Think of it like literally copying and pasting the script (and the mission layouts and a few other things) into Wing Commander I.

I haven't played through it, but I suspect there are a bunch of points where it doesn't quite work. Wing Commander I is very rigid: briefing->mission->debriefing->(optional transfer)->(optional medal)->(optional cutscene) while SWC had some additional gameflow options, so they could (for instance) hold a briefing in Halcyon's office or have a character who didn't appear in a mission show up in the debriefing (Ralgha, at one point!)
 
When the movie came out I was fully expecting those names to be in it. At the time I didn't really have anything against Freddie Prince Jr or Lillard... They were okay, I didn't consider them "stars" by any means... I feel it was such a missed opportunity to have so many new fans of Wing Commander come to the party if it had been Hamill in the movie, which so many Star Wars fans went to "see" because of the preview... I will say this for the Wing Commander movie... It is less of a betrayal to Wing Commander than the prequels to Star Wars were.

The whole mentioning of Stealth Fighters thing, this base is "developing and refining stealth fighter technology".... I gasped when I read that... It broke my heart to see this official piece of Wing Commander destroy the entire foundation that Wing2 was built upon... You are disgraced, sent away to the corner of the galaxy, never to fly a fighter again... Because Tolywin KNOWS the destruction of the Tiger's Claw was OUR fault. "Your ridiculous claims about a Kilrathi cloaking device!" - I might not love the movie, but I'm able to keep it separate from my opinions of the games.

It may not have been impossible, but it definitely would have been harder to set up a "new" film franchise and set it later in the WC timeline. There really had to be an in for people not familiar with the games. And even for those who were fans, it still likely would have meant going back to the Kilrathi war for the film (which had already ended in the game time line).


Ya the cloaked fighters subplot that thing starts really early in Super Wing Commander from the first or second mission of the main story. It's one of the first things Shotglass mentions rumors about, and then Maniac and Hunter talking about it too. Then during the briefing Halycion mentions it and tells people not to talk about it since it's classified and anyone caught talking about will me military disciplined...

The issues with the cloaking device also occurs in Roberts Wing Commander Academy series too. That series used Mark Hamil, Thomas Wilson, and Malcom McDowell from the tv show as well.

In a way, WC2 (and specifically Tolwyn) is the outlier when it comes to stealth tech. If you do look at the timeline as a whole, the Kilrathi have fully working stealth tech at the *beginning* of WC2, which happens not long after WC1 and SM2. The main part of WC2 is 10 years later but the tech is working and takes out the Claw not long after WC1-SM2 ends. The appearance of a stealth ship in WCA-TV that doesn't have a full cloaking ability shouldn't be that much of a stretch. And neither should Skipper missiles that are blind while cloaked (an inferior cloaking tech to that on the Strakha fighters). The issues here become "what does Eisen mean by 'New' skipper missiles", and "why is Tolwyn so dead set on not believing Blair."

I guess I should add here that WC2 is my favorite of all the WC games, but anyway, there's an underlying theme though of some distrust and bad blood between Blair and Tolwyn that Chris Roberts seemed eager to explore. The end of WCA-TV goes to great legnths to give Tolwyn a reason to resent Blair. The movie also tried to explore this a bit and again those elements ended up on the chopping block at different points in the development. Early drafts of the script ended with a typical dress uniform medal ceremony after which Tolwyn admits to Blair that he was fully expecting that the Claw was being a sacrificial pawn and that it wouldn't survive the delaying action... basically that when Tolwyn asked Blair to carry the orders to the Claw he was aware he was sending Blair to his death. That scene more or less got cut for budget costs as they couldn't justify making dress uniforms for the whole cast for a single scene. An earlier scene did survive the rewrites and was shot where Belegard tells Tolwyn (after the comm message to Blair on the Diligent) that he doesn't agree with using Blair.

...Look what they turned the Rapier into for the movie... I mean, yeah, it's part a physical prop, but where's the style that Wing3 managed to put in with far less money? The Kilrathi themselves... Yeah, I understand muppets aren't exactly everyone's "thing". You sort of love them or hate them... I love them... Thrakhath, the Emperor, Mellik, they were genuinely scary and awesome looking to me... Of course Wing4 kept the muppets but lost the style... Poor, poor Mellik, why?! Didn't look like him, and that was not Tim Curry in Wing4... I do have to say the movie did keep me in genuine suspense with all the hiding they did with the Kilrathi.

I've read that was a last minute editing thing? They were originally going to show them much more but after they saw how bad the CG cats were they kind of kept them in the shadows for most of the movie? I can remember watching that movie in the theater and getting teased, super excited to see them revealed... emmm... Of course I understand it's a movie, the catering budget is probably 2 million alone... Film... Sets... Effects... When you consider the budget, it's top quality "B" movie material.... Which I guess that's all the studio wanted... I guess Robert's was unable to sell the studio on his idea quite like he sold it to all those actors.

The rapier Cockpit interiors look fantastic. The real cockpit interiors lend a look of credibility. I don't care for the exterior of the rapiers much but I don't outright hate it. It has a cheeky retro look that I kind of think fits the WW2-in-space motif of the production design. However for fans (and probably others too) even CR admits they probably took it too far. Basically WC has always been thematically pacific theater WW2 in space. So under the suggestion of the producers they decided they should just go all out in that aspect and not reference the game designs, despite the team having done test footage with game designs... you may have even seen the pic we dug of of that test Rapier... The team studied the aerial and naval footage from classic war movies for inspiration. The same movies were used as jumping off points for elements of the soundtrack. This is where things like the fighters dipping of the end of the runway comes from. They are things we can come away with explanations for why it works that way but ultimately the reason is because it's quite literally transposing "an old submarine movie" (as my in-laws described it) into outer space, depth charges and all.

As for the Kilrathi, they did edit them out of the movie where possible, but not to the degree you might be thinking. I think I outlined in my previous posts why that is. The majority of the cut Kilrathi scenes were minor (and short) scenes where the Kilrathi Admiral is talking to the Pilgrim Traitor about whatever the Claw is doing. They aren't much different than the scenes of the Kilrathi we do get near the end of the movie when the Snakier is chasing Blair's fighter. The other deleted scene of Kilrathi is on the Concom where the Concom captain activates the self destruct button so that it's ready to go should the need arise. Most of the action scenes on board the Kilrathi Concom that involve the Kilrathi are still in the theatrical cut. There's some shooting when the Marines storm the ship, there's another hallway shootout where Angel has to rescue a fallen marine after he's shot in the leg, and there's the scene where Blair fights a couple of Kilrathi outside the Bridge. The first two of those are more or less in tact, though there was more originally of the Marines storming out of the Diligent's umbilical. This scene got hacked up to add Blair to the mix, who originally *was not* part of their Contingent. He was on the diligent as the Turret gunner and sneaks onto the Concom later. The Hallway scene didn't change much though the editing of the action makes it harder to tell what the Kilrathi are doing, But Blair fighting near the bridge is the scene that lost the most. The Kilrathi that knocks Blair to the ground originally lifts Blair off the ground and then Blair stabs it with his Pilgrim cross. Another Kilrathi on the bridge is attempting to scuttle the ship and Blair shoots that one just in time (a really awful example of the bad creature suits). There was some minor stuff shot for the Pegasus raid that got cut too of guards fighting Kilrathi marines that didn't make it into the movie.

Just to clarify though, the Kilrathi in the movie are animatronic heads and shoulders sitting on top of stunt performers. There was some very fundamental issues with the way this type of setup works for why the effects were bad. The movie team used CG to touch up the eyes and mouths of the Kilrathi so that they weren't quite as bad...

I think over the years we've talked up how much deleted Kilrathi content there was, but the vast majority of the deleted scenes involve the Pilgrim plot.

Oh, I do have to say, Safron Burrows as Angel? I love her so much... I liked her before that movie though... hahha... I mean everyone, even back then, they kind of made fun of Freddie Prince for his "one face" acting style... Lillard, over the top comedy... Not a terrible young Maniac... Not sure Prince was a great choice for young Blair though...

I utterly hated the "they never existed" bit when someone died... Again, how iconic are the Wing Commander funerals to all of us fans? Just why did they to change it up so much from what they knew worked? I mean it's not a bad scene when Blair/Maniac kind of say no to that crap and say yes they did exist... But, ehh, I don't feel it needed to be there, even if it does make some sort of sense in terms of it's a war, people are dying... Yeah, but even the bloodiest of wars both sides usually had respect for the dead.
Prinze wasn't great but I know I read several reviews that describe him as 'likeable'. He was pretty much an unknown at the time of filming. He made it big before the movie came out with the release of She's all that (also with some scenes with Lillard). She's all that came out before WC but was actually shot after WC. Prinze and Lillard met on WC, so one thing you can actually blame the WC movie for legitimately is starting the trend of movies with the Prinze/Lillard duo in it.

I actually don't mind him in the movie though, I just would have preffered someone else in the role. The editing of the movie to shreds doesn't help us any in this area though since his anger doesn't register correctly, and losing many Merlin scenes mean half the time he's stating the obvious or talking to himself. Ultimately it would have been better to give the movie another rewrite to write out Merlin rather than to shoot all those scenes and then try and fudge the editing to make the story work without him.

The editing also gives the "never existed" stuff more prominence than it really needs. In the absence of the traitor plots the only real character themes in the movie revolve around what it means to be in command. Angel has to make all the tough choices, even if it means sacrificing her friends to allow other pilots to live. Without Blair's story the never existed stuff gets promoted to prime time. I don't care for this subplot either but it gets more emphasis than it needs in theatrical cut. It's real main purpose in the mess hall scene was supposed to be for Hunter to reveal he is a pilgrim to everyone and make Blair feel like an outsider from the Pilot family. Another cut line from Angel's lecture in the hall also had a line about her telling Blair that he was "a pawn in someone else's game..." a line that doesn't get it's call back without the closing medal ceremony I mentioned above.

I can't say the movie and the whole Pilgrim thing was my idea of a good plot, it was sort of intriguing, but ehhh... Not that racism is not going to exist in the future but for it to be that obvious... And for what? They feel jump points... Okay, that might not be scientific, but we're obviously a scientific group of people now with carriers in space, science might not always understanding something, but they're not going to deny what obviously works. This is not your star sign, not a horoscope, these people are able to plot jump points... It just does not make sense that this space fairing people of ours would hate a group of their own that much, and they did not paint around the picture...In my mind, as a kid, I was watching the way Blair was getting treated and I was thinking of the white man thinking blacks are inferior. It was so racist, and I never got that kind of impression that people were thinking like that in Wing Commander, not toward humans anyone... Yeah, the Kilrathi at times, but humans that are helping? I was 14 when the movie came out, it was insulting my intelligence at the time with that Pilgrim subplot.

Ultimately, I agree that the movie probably shouldn't have been about Pilgrims. However for what it is (or rather was supposed to be) I do find the basic story interesting.

The movie definitely doesn't do enough to explain why everyone hates Pilgrims. Paladin's lines about the pilgrims feeling superior and being arrogant doesn't explain the whole picture. There was at one point supposed to be an opening monologue by Blair about how the Pilgrim wars left billions dead. Blair also calls it a 'Civil War'. Other scenes would have explained that the Pilgrims thought they were basically "chosen" because of their genetic difference to inherit the stars... that regular people should just stay on Earth. There's more to it than that but basically that led to a lot of atrocities on both sides. Since the end of the Pilgrim war, many of the remaining Pilgrims are running a terrorist insurgency and sabotaging Confeds efforts against the Kilrathi. The movie never really explains what the Peron massacre was either. It just sounds bad. There was a scene too where Blair and Merlin talk about how Confed has ordered records of what happened wiped from all computers and harddrives etc... suggesting that Confed's own hands probably weren't that clean. And for that, the Confed Handbook is invaluable since it fills in much of the details.

The Pilgrims are a good example of how I like the pieces of the movie more than I do the whole. I think there's a lot of really neat continuity there. I LIKE there being a future equivalent of the Mexican-American War that sort of cuts the teeth of all the older characters who end up running the Kilrathi War... I like the idea of introducing a fictional religion, I love all the work done to fill out humanity's expansion to the stars... I just don't necessarily love how it came together. (Specifically, I am NOT a huge fan of the Pilgrim powers from the novels; I think they're totally silly and a missed opportunity to tell a more interesting story. But you can't win them all!)

I don't mind Blair's 'powers' in the film. I'm not okay with the other Pilgrim powers mentioned in the books. Blairs navigational abilities actually do make some scientific sense. We already know that certain animals on earth today are sensitive to electromagnetic fields. There's a cut line from the movie where Paladin explains that it was genetic mutation that made the Pilgrims sensitive to minute changes in gravity and electromagnetism. The idea that people living mainly in space might develop sensitivities to such things is plausible, but in reality it would probably take a lot longer than a couple of hundred years. The big issue with pilgrims though is that, especially for fans of the games, the movie really doesn't do enough to explain where they came from or what the deal is with them.


Also as to cast of Wing Commander Movie didn't Mark Hamil do the voice of some of the cockpit computer AI? "Merlin" most of that material was cut but there is one or two lines in the film.

There's more than a few. There's a bunch of Merlin lines when Blair and Angel first meet the Concom, and then there's a number while Blair is making the jump to Sol, and when he's drawing the Snakier into Scylla's grasp. Most of them are variations on lines Merlin would have used had he been a character other than the Rapier computer.

There's actually another interesting thing in the development of the film... There's actually several AI characters in the first draft. Tolwyn had his own version for example. And even in the final shooting script the Tiger Claw AI has several more lines. Both Merlin and the Claw computer seem obsessed with probability. Merlin is always telling Blair his chances of survival for example. Another scene had Gerald ask the Claw what the chances of the Kilrathi overrunning Pegasus were. Sansky asks the claw AI at another point whether the signal Blair claims to have detected came from the Claw.... Anyway, if you want to hear the Tiger Claw AI you can hear it during the Jump into the Ulysses corridor. I'm kind of curious who they got to voice the Claw's AI.
 
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Interesting point about the Claw's AI since Super Wing Commander has similar AI to announce doorways and stuff as you move about the ship. And more silly things like Save Spots in the barracks.
 
Hah, I think that was more of an external narrator. Because the 3DO version would be played on TVs that could be two decades old, they tried to have audio over text that might be hard to read.
 
I don't mind Blair's 'powers' in the film. I'm not okay with the other Pilgrim powers mentioned in the books. Blairs navigational abilities actually do make some scientific sense. We already know that certain animals on earth today are sensitive to electromagnetic fields. There's a cut line from the movie where Paladin explains that it was genetic mutation that made the Pilgrims sensitive to minute changes in gravity and electromagnetism. The idea that people living mainly in space might develop sensitivities to such things is plausible, but in reality it would probably take a lot longer than a couple of hundred years. The big issue with pilgrims though is that, especially for fans of the games, the movie really doesn't do enough to explain where they came from or what the deal is with them.
I honestly think that the Pilgrim powers are one of the worst, if not the worst, mistakes made by the film. We can talk here about how Pilgrim powers are really very limited, and how they make sense, and how they have nothing at all in common with Jedi powers in Star Wars... but to a casual audience, you've got a sci-fi film set in space, and there are people with special powers, and it all sounds too close to Star Wars. And while I couldn't point to anything in particular (it has been close to two decades), I do vaguely recall various reviewers pointing out this connection. Pilgrim powers contributed nothing to the film (every single instance of Pilgrim powers being used in the film could be made to work without Pilgrim powers, to no detriment for the plot), but they unnecessarily evoked an uncomfortable similarity to Star Wars, just at the time when The Phantom Menace was coming out.

I should add, by having the Pilgrim powers conveyed through genetics, the movie made the exact same mistake as The Phantom Menace did: it destroyed the "everyman" feel of its main character. Originally, Star Wars was about a farm boy who masters these special powers that (potentially) anyone else could master, and goes on to save the universe - a fantasy plot where anyone could identify with being Luke. Originally, Wing Commander was about a character-less player character who barely even speaks a word, so that the player is able to pour their own personality and background into him. In Wing Commander the game, Blair wasn't special because he was a Pilgrim, Blair was special because the player is amazing. Then, 1999 comes along, and we get The Phantom Menace coming along and telling us that actually, Luke was special because he had a high midichlorian count, and no, you really shouldn't be identifying with him. And the Wing Commander movie, which tells us that actually, Blair was marked as special from the start, because he's got these special Pilgrim powers. I think that hits at an almost subconscious level, where it's really impossible to have a rational discussion about how actually, Blair's navigational powers didn't have to make him a great fighter pilot, so if he's a great fighter pilot it's still because the player is amazing. And you could see this in the discussions of the time, there was a lot of anger about Blair's special powers, and no amount of explaining that actually, Blair can just do maths very quickly, helped. The player was being depreciated.

Ultimately, the movie should have gone in the opposite direction as far as it possibly could. Blair should have been as "normal" as humanly possible. An everyman, who's being constantly told that his life expectancy on the frontline is three weeks or something, and being constantly told that he's not up to the task - and then proving himself in an amazing way. This would have worked just fine for a character arc in an air combat film, it's been done before - and it would have felt so much better for the fans in the audience.
 
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