In hindsight, the Wing Commander movie was a masterpiece.

boringnickname

Rear Admiral
I was very negative towards the Wing Commander movie, but recently watching it again.. let me just say I am way more favourable to it.

I think "Transformers" is what changed my mind. Boy, Transformers 3 has the third most successful opening of all time.

Fuck me. OK, I haven't seen it, but I've seen first part. That movie was one of the biggest trash heaps I've ever seen. And this from someone who collected the toys as a kid.

You know, I like a good action flick as as as everybody else, but Transformers lacked exactly that. it was full of ridonkulus American Pie style humour (pissing robots, jokes about masturbation.. heya!) RIDICULOUS drama at the dumbest moments - the music when Bumblebee was captured - God, one would think you're watching a movie about the Nanking massacre or something.

And again, man, was the humour bad in Transformers. That special agent was just beyond annoying, as was the fat hacker ("Wolverine! You got that, ha ha, Wolverine!") Ugh. Who writes this crap? At this moment I was just ashamed for the film makers themselves. You know the sinking feeling in your belly? There is this great German word "fremdschämen" for this, look it up. This is exactly how I felt.

Not to mention their very own Jar Jar Binks - I am talking about that annoying small "cute" Decepticon robot who hacked into the government computers.

You know, the movie would have been good if it were just robots fighting each other for two hours straight. Pure action and nothing else. I would be fine with it. But no, they had to spice it up with trash humour of the lowest kind and some very bad acted drama. There wasn't actually much action in this, and when it was on screen, the scenes were pretty bad. Many times I couldn't tell what robot did what, because they just looked like giant trash cans when they fought. I swear, the sequence where Michael Jackson transforms into a robot in "Moonwalker" (1988!) was a lot "cleaner" and looked better.

I just can't understand for the life of me why this dreck is so successful.

Oh and have I mentioned that I almost puked watching this film? Literally. The cuts were so hectic I thought I would badly mess up the carpet. This from someone who can play most first person shooters without a hitch. And I watched it on a 14 inch CRT TV! How can people leave the cinemas alive after watching Transformers?!

There is a great review on IMDB about this:

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There have been a lot of bad movies out there, but this one goes above and beyond. It's almost as if they had made a study out of what kind of visual and aural stimuli would create the most unpleasant direct effect in the viewer's brain and put it on the screen.

So it's not bad because the plot is dumb, or the acting is wooden, or whatever. It's bad in the same way certain sounds grate on you, or the way that flashing lights can induce seizures in some people.

Say what you want about Bay, he's invented an entirely new category of bad film. It couldn't have been easy. It's not simply a movie you dislike, or a movie that seems stupid or that offends your taste. It actually makes you feel physically ill.

Someday someone will make a worse movie, but it probably won't be possible until we learn more about how the brain works.
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Source

Man, I want the 80s and 90s back. The action films of these decades were pure masterpieces compared to this dreck. Something like "Red Sonja" is high art compared to today's movies. Hell, Missing in Action with Chuck Norris is more intelligent entertainment than all the Transformers movie combined.

.. ehm, ok, sorry for the rant, it had to be done. Anyway, recent movies made me look at the WC movie with a different eye. I realize now that it could be a lot alot worse.

Oh and you know what? Dark Knight (yes, the holy one) sucked too. (for entirely different reasons though) Give me Burton's films any day of the week. Maybe I will tear it apart later. Let's just say if I want to watch a Michael Mann film, I would watch a Michael Mann film and not Batman.
 
I actually also rewatched Wing Commander yesterday. There are still certain things that grate on me - the actors aren't perfectly meshed into their parts (except for David Suchet as Sansky and David Warner as Tolwyn - those two did excellent jobs). The fact that she is the Tiger Claw and now Tiger's Claw. But for someone who was very disappointing with the movie when I first saw it, I think its a much better film now. It has an average plot, it has good special effects, it has fantastic music. It could of been a great movie with maybe a little bit more development and having someone other than Freddie Prince Jr playing Blair. But I am much happier with the movie now than when I originally saw it. I'm proud that its part of our universe. Its certainly better than 95% of the video game movies ever made.
 
Oh and you know what? Dark Knight (yes, the holy one) sucked too. (for entirely different reasons though) Give me Burton's films any day of the week. Maybe I will tear it apart later. Let's just say if I want to watch a Michael Mann film, I would watch a Michael Mann film and not Batman.

I cannot agree more, I really disliked Dark Knight, it took everything that was good about Batman Begins and got rid of it, and replaced it with the sort of dross we expected when George Clooney was wearing the cowl.
Bring back Burton!
 
I will always defend the WC movie. Not because its a great movie, but for what it represents. A largely unproven director (not forgetting his successful roles as producer) takes a risk and spends an amazing amount of time and effort to bring his dream to the big screen. If anything, the accomplishment of having the film actually MADE and released is a great achievement when you consider how many films never make it that far.

When we have the 7th iteration of the Saw films on offer, plus films like Transformers and Green Lantern, it makes you look at films like Wing Commander in a different light.

Hey, remember Space Truckers with Dennis Hopper? There is another example of a terrible film that, in retrospect, was a whole load of awesome. And hey, just wait until they make more twilight saga crap. THEN we will have brains dribbling out our noses.

I do wonder what a directors cut of Wing Commander would be like, with the missing scenes re-inserted etc. etc. I know Freddy Prinze & Matthew Lillard were on the 'suck' end of the acting scale (I actually thought Lillard made an ok Maniac - closer to WC2 style) but if you think of many recent films, its the supporting actors that often make the film - and boy did WC have some greats in there - Suchet & Warner as mentioned, but lets not forget Jurgen P., Tcheky Karyo, Hugh Quarshie, even Saffron Burrows. I've gone on about the movie on other threads, so will stop now. But glad to know I'm not alone in appreciation of the film.

And I'm not at all angry about the change in style of the spacecraft.

M.
 
First lets address transformers... the 2nd was definitely hard to take. I can't argue with you there. But I did watch the newest one on Saturday and I will say that some of your complaints were adressed in the newest movie. However if you really hate the first one then you'll probably still won't care for this one either. Being shot in 3D does mean that the editing pace is actually slowed down quite a bit. It enjoyed the action quite a bit, myself. Plus if all you want is robots fighting then the last hour is pretty much for you. However you do still have to sit through the first hour+ to get there. But thankfully there arent any peeing jokes or fart jokes etc. There's still some stupid humor but it's been toned down quite a bit.


Mahak said:
I do wonder what a directors cut of Wing Commander would be like, with the missing scenes re-inserted etc. etc. I know Freddy Prinze & Matthew Lillard were on the 'suck' end of the acting scale (I actually thought Lillard made an ok Maniac - closer to WC2 style) but if you think of many recent films, its the supporting actors that often make the film - and boy did WC have some greats in there - Suchet & Warner as mentioned, but lets not forget Jurgen P., Tcheky Karyo, Hugh Quarshie, even Saffron Burrows.

I've done some experimenting with the Rough cut and the theatrical cut from the DVD. I hope that someday everyone gets to see the film they set out to make. I can't say that my experiment is exactly that but it was interesting to see what potential was there, and I'll argue any day that a much better version of the movie exists in a vault somewhere waiting for Chris Roberts to decide to re-edit the film.

It's funny that you mention the acting. One thing that impressed me with the workprint is how much better I thought Lillards performance was. I can't place my finger on it but I think it's a combination of the film being trimmed up for running time and ADR. His dubbed lines come off a lot more over-the-top than his actual performance on set, besides the fact that trimming for time doesn't really allow scenes to breath, and a lot of emotion is in body language which disappears in edit.

I had the exact opposite reaction to Freddie Prinze Jr. I found his performance worse. I think it was a combination of inexperience, not very good dialogue, and... I don't know. Anyway. His character actually gets more depth the more he keeps his mouth shut. A bunch of his 'self-naration' was because he was supposed to be having a conversation with Merlin, but many of the akward moments could have been solved with some judicious editing to make him more reflective and less brash and annoying...

We've had several discussions in #wingnut about what exactly is the problems with the film. Some of them are hinted at in the workprint.... lack of establishing shots of either fleet is one big one. They're somewhat present in the workprint in rough form, but presumably were cut to save on the CG budget. As a result it's never entirely clear the size and extent of the Kilrathi threat nor do we get a feel for where the Claw is in relation to the Kilrathi or the Jump point.
 
Interesting... I imagine with today's advances in cgi techniques (particularly how much easier its getting) one could almost patch together some of the missing shots. Would be interesting to see what could be done with the Kilrathi in this respect - I remember reading somewhere that even the film versions didn't live up to expectations.

To me this is highlighted by the production sketch of the kilrathi general, compared to how they looked in the film. The sketch had an almost samurai-like feel, which didn't carry at all into the plastic space-suited versions we see. Sad.
 
Interesting... I imagine with today's advances in cgi techniques (particularly how much easier its getting) one could almost patch together some of the missing shots. Would be interesting to see what could be done with the Kilrathi in this respect - I remember reading somewhere that even the film versions didn't live up to expectations.

To me this is highlighted by the production sketch of the kilrathi general, compared to how they looked in the film. The sketch had an almost samurai-like feel, which didn't carry at all into the plastic space-suited versions we see. Sad.

If you've read the novelization or the shooting script then all of that was pretty much filmed. Most of that in varying levels of finish is in the workprint with the exception of anything to do with Merlin. By the time of the workprint they were already trying to remove him from the movie. I don't really know why. Pretty much the entire reason they cut the traitor stuff is because they couldn't make it work without Merlin in the end... Was it money (not wanting to pay to finish the effects on a minor character)? Did they just not like the character? Maybe a bit of both?

There are several extra scenes with the Kilrathi Admiral and the Pilgrim traitor that would have been throughout the film. the earliest would have shown up just shortly after blair gets the message from Tolwyn while on the Diligent.

I don't think the problem was entirely the design or even the look of the Kilrathi though. We really never get a good look at their armor. The problem was with the choice to do full sized suits with actors in them... the design of the Kilrathi boots and bulk of the head animatronic made them move clumsily. Plus they couldn't get the mouths right... They even spent extra CG dollars trying to hide the akwardness of the mouth movements...

Once the decision to remove the traitor was made, it was an easy choice to make to cut the kilrathi scenes to as little screen time as possible. The result is we never really see their behaviour/customs or even really glimpse their full armor... at least not long enough to get a sense of the design ethic. There's a sivar idol on the bridge for example... Also how many of you noticed the clan/family/unit flags on the Kilrathi Admiral's back in the theatrical cut? They're there, but I know I didn't notice them until I actually looked for it.

Relatively speaking, it won't be too terribly expensive to redo or finish the various CG scenes and elements that aren't done in the deleted scenes. The big money is two-fold. First, Chris Roberts won't want to release the extended version without fully redoing the Kilrathi, probably with CG... Don't know what he intends there. I have no idea if he just wants to make them more agile and move more fluidly, or if he wants to redo the design.

The second issue is that while there are several completely deleted scenes, the majority of the horrible editing botch job done to the film in post affects nearly every scene throughout the movie. So while it's easy to say 'just finish the missing scenes' it just isn't that easy. Scenes would need rearanged, little bits would need put back into many different scenes and then the effects would need matched and the score would need reorchestrated and on and on.

But he does want to put out a version that's closer to the movie he wanted to make. The rights on the theatrical cut don't revert back to Chris Roberts for another two year (2014), though, so not only will we not see movement until then, Chris is busy on a different project right now and until that's out of the way I don't see him spending time or money on this (last estimate I heard was that it would probably cost 1 to 5 million).

Untill we hear otherwise we can't release the deleted scenes or anything but we can from time to time show the workprint and my hybrid edits in private settings and some CIC events. In the meantime you can check out this page which runs through some of the stuff that's in the workprint and not in the theatrical cut.
 
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Wing commander 3 they looked to much like muppets, Wing 4 they looked too cuddly, and in the movie they looked like chihuahuas.... Wing 3 is still my favorite look, espially Thrakhath.

I was watching Star Trek IV- the voyage home yesterday, and I freeze-framed it a few times when I noticed the "Caitian" Admiral. It suited well with the high-qulity make-up of the other aliens... And this movie is more then a decade older then the WC movie.. It can be done decently, and while creating an alien being it will always look dumb in the eyes of the creator.

I'll watch the movie again tonight and find the more plausible parts that were like the games, first thing off my mind is the Hangar Deck.
 
Good post.

I mainly agree on Transformers. The fact that the CGI-generated robots were better and more emotive actors than the human characters says volumes. And the low-brow humor simply didn't work at all...


On the WC movie, my main complaint (other than Freddie Prinze Jr.) is that it was a series of *almost*'s . It almost was a really good movie. Had they taken a little more time and cleaned up some of the dialog, done better editing, sealed up some of the plot holes (that either were opened by bad editing, last-minute cuts, or just oversights in the script), it could have been an excellent movie.

Granted, it's been a while since I've seen it, but the main things (from a movie perspective) about it that grated on me were things that shouldn't doom a movie but so often do... Little things that could have been fixed by a tweak of dialog here, a cleaner edit there, not removing massive portions of plot-critical information elsewhere...

When I saw it I was really impressed by Lilliard's potrayal of Maniac, and I couldn't figure out why he was so reviled by critics and fans. On the other hand, Freddie Prinze couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and is possibly the second worse casting I've ever seen in a sci-fi move (Hayden Christensen't Anakin Skywalker has that honor locked up for all time, I think).
 
@farbourne,

It is impossible to play a character that was "you" once, even Mark Hamill's play could be guided by yourself. That is the advantage an interactive movie has over a normal movie.

As for the starwars reference, just be glad they did not cast Leonardo DiCaprio.
 
@Mace

That's true, and a good point. However, I don't think that is what is really guiding my dislike of Prinze. To be honest, I never thought of "me" as "Christopher Blair". I always thought of Christopher Blair as the canonical character that took the place of "me" in the canonically accepted story.

To put it another way, Blair didn't do all the things we did flying in WC1 -2 (and even 3 and 4). Blair spared the Lexington, I didn't. Blair only flew about half the missions (I think...) that we fly in WC1. Blair picks Rachel (doesn't he?), whereas we may or may not. And Blair was part Pilgrim and had all kind of angsty things go on with him...I never did. So to an extent, I never thought of Prinze as playing "me"...but rather as playing one character in the Wing Commander lore that did a lot of the same things that I did.

To your other point...after seeing some of his more recent movies, I'm not convinced DiCaprio would have been worse than Christensen... Some of DiCaprio's recent movies have been pretty good. Have you seen Shutter Island?
 
@farbourne.

I specifically played, without intentional reruns all according to story.

- I finished the vega sector with success, and the add-ons(only recall of myself accidentilly diverting from this path was a lost mission, that required me and my wingman to bring in a pilot in a hornet, het name was vixen or something...
- In wing commander II, I deliberately had to lose some missions to get to the losing ending and the other confrontation with jazz, that issues some numbers.
- I picked Rachel over Flint in WC3, in a replay I did vice-versa and got her killed and flew in the shuttle alone. The blonde is nicer to look at anyways. I had no internet back in the day, and I spend a lot of sorties trying to save the behemoth, and replaying because I died because of pulling crazy stunts and ramming the bombers..
- In WC4, i made all the right decisions AFAIK, and never flew a bearcat. I did not spare the lexington, because of the choices that Eisen offered to me. In hindsight I could have disabled her. And why in your right mind bomb Ella?

There is no character migration in WC3 and onwards, maybe you would get a complete other setting then(also in SM1 everyone was alive again! Imagine WC4 without maniac...) and taking all that into contect, the game would have spanned lots more of CD's.. and costed many more millions to put on film.

In wing commander, "you" are the guy at the flightstick, and the guy making the decisions in the later games, combining to some outcome. the choices are pretty forehand for me(ooh maybe I should have played blair :cool: ) In my personal opinion, the storyline was best ended in WC3. WC4 is a better and more complex game, but as john rambo said "my war is over". A worthy sequal is difficult, but not impossible.

And dicaprio is a good actor, i saw that in the aviator and gangs of new york... I just don't like the guy since if I cut my hair short I could be his stunt double, and after "stringfellow hawke", and "80's He-man" I have a grudge against famous fictional guys who bear some resemblence to me.
 
I've kind of changed in thought about the movie. After it first came out (I was in my mid-teens) I loved it, then a few years later I started to dislike it, a couple years ago I started to be okay with it.

I actually thought Prinze and Lillard did a good job in their roles. And while I wish somehow Malcolm McDowell could have come back as Tolwyn, Warner did a good job. Paladin's actor did an awesome job too.

While I don't agree with everything on Spoony's infamous review that was posted here, I agree with him on the minor point: it's not a huge thing, but I wish the spelling errors that were there were corrected (in addition I wish they would have called the ship the Tiger's Claw). I also didn't care for the 'look' of the ships/fighters or the Kilrathi, nor did I like the Pilgrims.

All in all, while my preference for a WC movie would have been End Run or Fleet Action (with a major budget I could imagine Fleet Action as a summer blockbuster type of movie possibly) and I certainly didn't find the Wing Commander movie flawless, it's a decent movie in and of itself.
 
Coincidentally I also rewatched the Wing Commander movie the other day as part of my summer tradition of playing through all the Wing Commander games. I also wanted to show it to my girlfriend who liked Maniac and Paladin but hated the rest of the film.

As for Transformers... it's utter crap. I think Something Awful's recent review said it best, that Michael Bay has the mindset of his 13 year old audience and that these are not our Transformers and we are too old for this crap. I really don't have much else to say about that movie franchise in general because I can't think of anything redeemable.

As for Wing Commander my opinion on it hasn't really changed. It's always been pretty lukewarm. It's not the worst movie ever made but it's certainly not a good one. Ignoring all of the inconsistencies and Wing Commander fanboyism that makes me love/hate it and viewing strictly as a movie fan it's a fairly boring and by-the-numbers science fiction film with passable special effects excepting the Kilrathi who are downright awful.

The action scenes really aren't very interesting. The casting is extremely hit and miss (as I said, not taking into account the video game counterparts of the characters here in which case the casting is even stranger) and I honestly do not believe that the traitor subplot would've made much an improvement in the generic plot. Also our protagonist Blair is so devoid of any interesting character traits that I really didn't find myself caring what happened to him at all and the romance with Angel was rushed and unbelievable not that it's an uncommon thing for a hollywood film. The NEVER EXISTED game was really annoying, I'll go as far as saying it was downright stupid and was only there so we could have some lame scene showing how enlightened Blair is or some-such nonsense . It really only helped me dislike everybody on the ship and hope the Kilrathi would speed them along to non-existence.

Then there's the Force... uhm... I mean Pilgrim thing because if we don't make it look more like Star Wars nobody will like it right?

All that said it's still a guilty pleasure for me, it's still Wing Commander if only just barely. It had its heart in the right place and the most frustrating thing about watching the movie is feeling if they had more time and money they could've produced something so much more.

Wing Commander and Transformers are sort of apples and oranges though. Transformers makes more money because it has a famous toyline (read: popular with the kids) and is a much larger franchise with a much larger fanbase. Its success has a lot less to do with the quality of the movies and a lot more to do with that.
 
The action scenes really aren't very interesting. The casting is extremely hit and miss (as I said, not taking into account the video game counterparts of the characters here in which case the casting is even stranger) and I honestly do not believe that the traitor subplot would've made much an improvement in the generic plot. Also our protagonist Blair is so devoid of any interesting character traits that I really didn't find myself caring what happened to him at all and the romance with Angel was rushed and unbelievable not that it's an uncommon thing for a hollywood film. The NEVER EXISTED game was really annoying, I'll go as far as saying it was downright stupid and was only there so we could have some lame scene showing how enlightened Blair is or some-such nonsense . It really only helped me dislike everybody on the ship and hope the Kilrathi would speed them along to non-existence.

I'd go with you part way on the plot issues except the idea of a kilrathi sneak attack isn't inherently horrible. There's definitely some structure issues going on here. Deleting the traitor subplots mean that the film really meanders for the first half of the movie with the character introductions and antics. It also means all the racism stuff is just plain pointless to the point where the scenes themselves lose context. Why do people seem to be overreacting? Because the stuff they're reacting to was cut out of the movie. It goes on an on. Scenes are moved around, sometimes even within the scene itself.

The original script still meanders though in the first half but at least we get reminded of the kilrathi threat from time to time with the traitor scenes and whatnot. Otherwise we forget what in the world they were supposed to be doing... oh yeah! Aren't they supposed to be heading to earth? Anyway, to some degree providing context and establishing the scenes better goes a long way towards making a plot either make sense or be believable.

Same goes for some of the other elements. While I don't particularly care for the never existed stuff either, allowing scenes to breathe rather than over-editing helps some. It's like what I mentioned earlier about body language. But still, I can see why people hate this element of the movie. It really isn't necessary for the overall plot. It's almost editable out of the movie but it's too forced to do so.

The romance... well, I didn't care it either mostly because the scene with the ejection pod is, the dialogue is eithe badly written, or it's Prinze's delivery.... (LIKE I CARE!). It can be made more believeable with some editing an post work but as is... Anyway, did you know that they don't actually kiss at the end in the shooting script? I'm curious if they actually shot it both ways. Because I think the medic stopping blair from kissing her at the end would have been better.

Then there's the Force... uhm... I mean Pilgrim thing because if we don't make it look more like Star Wars nobody will like it right?

Now, I don't hate the pilgrim stuff, but I feel the name Pilgim is stupid in itself and kind of evokes negative connotations. It seems like some wierd John Wayne joke.

That said, the pilgrims really aren't like the force at all. It's not space magic. THere's a few lines in the workprint I really wish they left in where Paladin mentions that it's a genetic mutation. later in the movie it comes back when he tells blair "it's not faith, it's genetics." Just like in the news a gene lets them see magnetic fields and allows them to compute nav coordinates from it really fast. That's it. The problem with the scenes are that the explanation from paladin makes it seem more mystical.

Take a look at the first draft. When Paladin talks Blair through the first jump it's as if he's channeling Obi-Wan Kenobi.
 
You did see this thread, with the article about geomagnetism? I have decided that this explains Pilgrims 'magical' stuff. Yep. Done. (covers ears, puts head in sand)

http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=26921&highlight=pilgrim

I do wonder where it came from though. Doesn't seem like Roberts writing to me - more like something that another producer or someone said 'you need some magical force stuff in there cos its so hot right now'.
 
Yah, comparing a dog turd to a horse turd doesn't suddenly make it gorgonzola.

The WC movie is a failure and will always be a huge disappointment for me. I had such high hopes for it when I heard there was going to be a movie. Not saying they didn't try to do something different with the WWII/Das Boat thing, but that they failed miserably.
(Although I wonder, how can it be all that different when every space adventure film ever made, with the possible exception of Star Trek has copied WWII aerial combat and footage, but oh well that's not the problem with the movie)


As for Transformers, as far as I'm concerned it's DOA. What a stupid premise.... Ok fine for a Saturday kids cartoon in the 80's but Cinema?!?! And I've only seen the first film, and that was commercial schlock, plain and simple. From what I heard the rest of them weren't any better and I have no desire to see them. Even worse, if that is possible...
 
You did see this thread, with the article about geomagnetism? I have decided that this explains Pilgrims 'magical' stuff. Yep. Done. (covers ears, puts head in sand)

http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=26921&highlight=pilgrim

I do wonder where it came from though. Doesn't seem like Roberts writing to me - more like something that another producer or someone said 'you need some magical force stuff in there cos its so hot right now'.

Yup! It's stuff like this that makes me wish the movie worked harder to demystify Blair's "powers."

Yah, comparing a dog turd to a horse turd doesn't suddenly make it gorgonzola.
So WC isn't stinky cheese? Hmmm.


The WC movie is a failure and will always be a huge disappointment for me. I had such high hopes for it when I heard there was going to be a movie. Not saying they didn't try to do something different with the WWII/Das Boat thing, but that they failed miserably.
(Although I wonder, how can it be all that different when every space adventure film ever made, with the possible exception of Star Trek has copied WWII aerial combat and footage, but oh well that's not the problem with the movie)


I get that people have strong feelings about the film. But that's all old-hat. I'm honestly pretty proud at how most everyone is this thread has been able to straightforwardl, and civil. I enjoy it when people are able to constructively express what they feel are issues the film has with specificity and reasonableness. Let's try to avoid posts who's sole purpose is to say "A or B is Poo or Pee and you should have the same opinion as me."

So that said, lets address the fact that the WC movie was intended to be a WW2 movie in space. I actually enjoy most of the set design and overall idea behind this. But I do feel they took it too far. Most of the stuff doesn't bother me but I would have prefered it had they not gone all out with the WW2 inspirations. While I understand Paladin's reasoning for shushing the bridge crew... and I get how space sensors might work in the future, the average audience that only heard half the dialogue is going to say "hey, sonar doesn't work in space, duhh."

There are several reasons why the ship's crew might be looking around. Those explosions were close. I would guess they would hear it when the shockwaves etc from the explosions connected with the ship's hull.

Stuff like the fighter dips are easily explainable too. That's not a huge problem, but for people that would rather pick stuff appart and create problems where there really isn't any, this is an easy target. Ditto for pushing the wreckage to the side of the deck... It DOES NOT fall into space. Would I have prefered it done differently? Sure, but they certainly don't ruin the movie.

Both of these are examples of things where they took the WW2 references too far. I think we're at a stage in history where we've been going to space for so long that people have a pretty solid notion of how the *think* spaceflight should work, so While I enjoy the WW2 aspect I agree that it would have been prudent to use restraint in some areas where referencing WW2 carrier footage.

As for Transformers, as far as I'm concerned it's DOA. What a stupid premise.... Ok fine for a Saturday kids cartoon in the 80's but Cinema?!?! And I've only seen the first film, and that was commercial schlock, plain and simple. From what I heard the rest of them weren't any better and I have no desire to see them. Even worse, if that is possible...

Unless people have something interesting to say and have actually seen the latest one, can we just leave the Transformers discussion alone please?
 
You misunderstand me a little. I'm not knocking the WWII thing which is why I mentioned it, just that they aren't the only space adventure to use imagry of WWII. The turrets of the Millennium Falcon are reminiscent of the turrets in a B-17 for instance. Combat in the New Battlestar Galactica, as with most Scifi series and movies, is filled with WWII tactics in dogfighting as that is what people expect to see on camera.

My main problem with the movie is simply the silly screenwriting and the silly characters, that's it. Story and Character, the two things that made the video games so great. And lets face it, If it weren't for the fact it's brought up on this site, every year, I'd have forgotten it completely. And had untill I saw this site 6 years ago. And that is its main disappointment. The original poster of this thread made comments that watching Transformers 3 this year made him appreciate WC. I simply don't understand it. It's also suggesting that movies are so much worse now. Well there are worse movies then too. In fact, Id wager there are more bad movies in the past then there are in the present. ;)

So WC isn't stinky cheese? Hmmm.
Either way it stinks, just one is palatable. ;) Granted I take it a little far. Again It's just a completely unremarkable movie.
 
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