Haven't I seen that before? Movie edition

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Alright... We all know that the WC movie was intentionally done as a WW2 movie.. in Spaaaace! In fact it intentionally references Das Boot in style and casting. Anyway the cast and crew all put in a great effort to pay homage to War films of old. Here's a few examples to consider that are directly mentioned as influences in various interviews: Das Boot; Tora! Tora! Tora!; Midway; Hell in the Pacific; Top Gun; Star Trek 6.

""I wanted to have something that felt like Das Boot in space," says Roberts. "There were some scenes I wanted in the movie that were the equivalent of Das Boot's depth-charging scene. I was trying very much to make a classic World War II movie, but update it and set it in space, so things that you see will register with you on a subconscious level, but instead of destroyers at sea or a submarine stuck at the bottom of the ocean, it's all in space." "

SALON: What are some of the creative influences for the "Wing Commander" movie?
CR: "Das Boot" heavily influenced the film in terms of its look. Films like "Tora! Tora! Tora!" [and] "Midway" -- I tried to make my film in a sort of old-fashioned World War II sense.

"'I love the fact that the movie is inspired by war films and that era - I'm very fond of 1940s films and I think there's something very moving about the idea of going to war together.' She jokes that many of the cast brought their love of classic British war flicks into Wing Commander. 'David Suchet is playing our captain and he's doing an ode to Jack Hawkins!"

"While at first Paladin appears to be an outsider, the veteran pilot soon reveals a hidden side to his personality as the action unfolds. 'That (duality) is basically his essence. He's like Captain Nemo, like Admiral Nelson who was always sent on the very shady, difficult missions. People don't like him, and he's bold but also very alone. It's nice to be a little schizophrenic at times, to play a character on two levels.'"

"The classic war movie ambiance is something director Chris Roberts has stuck to from the beginning. ... Chris Brown compares the movie with Hell In The Pacific: "We've followed along those lines - the Rapiers are basically a gun with an engine. We used the traditional look of tracer fire, missiles and dogfight sequences."

"I grew up watching those old movies and it's given me a lot to go on. We also used Top Gun as a visual reference for matching the moves with the fighter cockpits, but it's still got that traditional feeling."

The bold, hand-held look of the live-action was carried through to the digital space exteriors. "Top Gun had some terrific aerial dynamics, which served as inspiration," said Brown. "We decided to let the smaller ships blow right into camera while adding camera shake, as if a shockwave of air has buffeted the camera operator. Of course, there's no air in space; but the visceral nature of this approach served the story best. Adding heat-ripple when a ship's engine passed close by was another thing we lifted from that film."

Another deliberate nod to the past took place whenever the Rapiers launched from the flight deck into space. "As they clear the deck, the fighters drop, making a little dip before flying off" noted digital artist John Ford. "This was reminiscent of the motion made by a plane after it's catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier. Then there's the clamshell maneuver Tiger Claw performs as these huge hinged sections of the ship fold over the runway flight decks - it's the deep-space equivalent to battening down the hatches and securing for battle."

Seeking inspiration for the movement of the juggernaut capital ships, Digital Anvil viewed documentary footage and studied the war films Tora! Tora! Tora! and Midway. "After viewing these films," Brown stated, "Chris Roberts was adamant about holding on shots of these big ships coming across screen for a long time. That was more daring an approach than I was at first comfortable with, but in the end these long-duration shots worked very well, and they went a long way toward establishing the necessary sense of spectacle." This sense of spectacle - in the best Victory at Sea tradition - is particularly well illustrated partway through the film, when Tiger Claw is led into a trap and badly damaged during the ensuing battle. This sequence, along with the action in the movie's climactic scenes, featured vessels firing broadsides into one another, thus requiring extensive pyrotechnics to capture the grandeur of mighty ships in combat.

...a lot of R&'D [for space explosions] went into developing an alternate look. But none of it worked for our traditional World War II kind of story. Our R&'D didn't go entirely to waste, however, since the digital shockwave accompanying the pyrotechnic blasts only came about because of it. The idea was to do something in the vein of Star Trek VI's exploding planet shockwave, but then supplement it with rippling effects that enhanced the scale,"

Other suggested titles by the article writers: Run Silent, Run deep; Silent Running; Star Wars; Battlestar Galactica

So, critiscm aside, can you think of a shot you feel directly references other WW2 movies not listed here? Is there any other movies you feel the movie borrows from visually?

I'll offer up one suggestion of my own: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9qoTO_gJq8 If you watch to the end you get a sense of where they were going with the 'Never Existed bits. It's also possible there's a few other older films that use this same idea. So it's your turn now.

 

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So here's a few more references to add to the list.

When I set out to make "Wing Commander," I en-visioned a classic World War II film as its model. Except that it was set in space, 500 years from now. This motif played strongly in the design and look of the picture. I also wanted it to play strongly in the score. I wanted the music to evoke some of the glorious old war film scores; full of heart, melody and heroic acts. "633 Squadron," "The Dam Busters" and other such classics came to my mind. When I first talked to David and Kevin about the score, they were in tune from step one.

 

[LeHah]

Not so much a WW2 reference but something thats always bugged me.

I've seen people complain about Paladin launching a broadside torpedo attack against a Kilrathi ship at the end of the movie. Yet nobody has a problem when Khan does the exact same thing in Star Trek 2. (Admittedly, Trek 2's sense of direction is based from Hornblower novels but ...)

 

[Wojo]

You'd think with guided torpedoes you could launch them from long distance, but I guess that means they can be intercepted, where a broadside at close range wouldn't be so easy huh? Hmmm. Maybe it isn't just pure movie-making scene-o-rifics!

What do people have a problem with? The act of a broadside in space? Or that its Paladin that orders it?

 

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You'd think with guided torpedoes you could launch them from long distance, but I guess that means they can be intercepted, where a broadside at close range wouldn't be so easy huh? Hmmm. Maybe it isn't just pure movie-making scene-o-rifics!

What do people have a problem with? The act of a broadside in space? Or that its Paladin that orders it?

They really don't mention much about anti-torp weaponry on capships in the movie. We certainly don't see them shooting down the torps in any of the long-range capship battles we see in the film.
We see Angel chase down a skipper missile, and we see a flakcannon barrage around a battleship (The confed handbook calls it a Sivar-class dreadnought) when Paladin and Knight are doing a torp run.

People who like to complain about the broadside scene are cringing at the simple idea of a broadside in space. There's never really a reason for capships to get that close to eachother in space. or that their sides would line up or that they would be on the same plane and on and on and on. Does it matter?

Still, what's happening in that scene is that Paladin is playing chicken with the Kilrathi cruiser. They're running at them on purpose hoping that the Kilrathi flinch. He's closing the distance so that they don't need to bother targeting the other ship. Just make sure the torps are armed and launch everything you have. Yes it is somewhat reminicent of Naval warfare. That was kind of the point of the film's art direction.

I think to a degree people are assuming Paladin saying to "give them a broadside" means that this is somehow standard capship warfare tactics in the WC movie universe... NO. It's a crazy move, which Gerald has reservations about...


Also, I already have Midway on the listof references but the DVD booklet thing also adds Battle of Britain.

"Wing Commander is a hard-core war movie set in space. In some ways, it has more in common with Midway and The Battle of Britain than with a science fiction film," says director Chris Roberts, who created Wing Commander in 1990 as a computer game. "I wanted to make a film about people under the incredible tension of battle."