Initial reaction to WC movie in '99

Jacob

Jacob

Rear Admiral
I was just wondering since I wasn't here in '99, what were your initial reactions to the Wing Commander movie? Did you feel the same about it as you did now, or were you like "Holy crap that was great!" and then a few months later "Eh...there were a bunch of problems."?

Just rather curious about the whole thing.
 
I was pretty giddy with excitement. When Maniac first mentioned not seeing any of the Hornets they'd flown earlier, LOAF and I high-fived in our theater seats. We ended up seeing it again together half a dozen times during opening weekend. Man, that was great.
 
Honestly, I felt disappointed. Not that I haven't reevaluated the movie since. I've come to feel since then that in many ways it is a good movie. And today it's fun for me to watch every now and then. But the kid in me that grew up playing the Wing Commander games just felt disoriented.

I think one thing that made it harder on me was that I went with some friends that had never heard of Wing Commander. So no one really understood what was so special about it for me. And as we were walking out they couldn't stop talking about how bad it sucked. But those particular friends really don't like any computer games or science fiction stuff either. So even though I didn't think it sucked, but was disappointed, I still defended it just because it was Wing Commander.
 
I think most WC fans had a similar experience in some way or another, only in my case I couldn't bring myself to defend the thing just because it was Wing Commander. In fact I feel just the opposite - because it's Wing Commander it should have been made with higher standards.
 
I was very excited about the concept before seeing it. But, to be honest I was dissapointed with it then, and it hasn't really grown on me since then. Sorry guys, that's just the way it is for me. I'm glad there are those of you enjoyed it or who have learned to enjoy it, though.
 
The first time I saw it was on a very cheap ugly bootleg, with some amateur translator got all the subtitles wrong.
A few months later I acquired a VCD with better quality.

I later purchased the DVD from Amazon.com.

Storyline... was really far from the original WC1 I played years ago.

Then I read the novel, then I began to understand "so that's how the story goes," and watched the movie again.

I pretty much enjoyed it, but really feel that the movie had many cuts left out. Wish they produced the longer undeleted version for DVD.

Still, I find it a bit funny thinking how this movie made me purchased the Movie Soundtrack, the Novelization and Pilgrim Stars, plus The Confederation Handbook (sans Confed Oath of Service) and to top things of all, the Pilgrim Cross.
 
I remember being so stoked that a WC movie was actually made. I guess I never thought WC had a broad appeal outside of gaming circles, so I was really surprised to see it on the big screen. When I went I wanted to see TPM trailer too, but I certainly would have gone to a WC film regardless. My first impression has stayed with me over the years: I thought it was a decent movie, as good as most other films based on video games, and satisfactory Sci-Fi overall. I didn't fancy all of the changes from the gaming series to the movie, but I could deal with them easily enough. Yeah, I had a good time.
 
Well, the local crappy theater her didnt get it for ages. So it was a few months after its initial release that I got to see it in theaters. I was visiting here for a while then, and was pretty excited. So I was already expecting it to be flawed by the time I did see it.

I went with a few friends and they all though it wasn't too bad. There were a few things that I found confusing but they were cleared up when I got the DVD. (Plus then I realized that the cheap theater must have been skimping on projector bulbs) It was so much better with the 5.1 sound and being able to actually see the space battles. Plus (save for one horrible cut/fadeout possibly from a missing scene) the whole Rosie crash sequence was still outstanding.

One thing was for sure... While flawed, It certainly wasnt as horrible as a lot of people were making it out to be.

If your interested in looking, theres a lot of little details that, as is remain insignificant, but echo a lot of the missing subplot. (a picture here, a ring and pilgrim cross there...)
 
AD said:
(Plus then I realized that the cheap theater must have been skimping on projector bulbs)
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That's a not-uncommon thing in US theaters (even the non-cheap ones), to run the projector bulbs at less than their maximum output to extend the time between bulb changes.
 
disapointment...

because it wasn't on in UK cinemas :(

I picked it up on VHS some time during 2000-1 and on DVD earlier this year. Still an enjoyable movie.
 
The treatment the movie got in the UK was really unfair and perplexing. It's really wonderful that the movie finally got a proper UK DVD this year.
 
ChrisReid said:
The treatment the movie got in the UK was really unfair and perplexing. It's really wonderful that the movie finally got a proper UK DVD this year.
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Just like that UK gaming magazine that had a "review" of prophecy advance that was entirely negative... but apeared in the magazine months (and I'm not exagerating) before the game was even released and had wrong and misleading info . Not only did the person write stuff basically from memory of the PC wc3,4... (maybe even of watching a friend play it once), the screen shots were all from "star giants," a 2D wc inspired game that was the begining of the development for Prophecy advance. I can't believe it got past the Editor. Maybe he's related to that guy who wrote for the times: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/07/60minutes/main552819.shtml
 
Having heard all of the disappointment from the US release and the fact that it wasn't even in UK cinemas made me have really low expectations. But when I watched it on VHS I still thoroughly enjoyed it, probably because I was expecting to see a load of rubbish, but ended up seeing something pretty decent. The interesting thing is that I watched it before I played WC1 for the first time so I couldn't really compare the atmospheres of the movie and game. Watching this was what made me finally go and find a copy of WC1.
 
I was interested. I didn't try to ruin the movie for myself, but purchased the Confed Handbook anyway. I loved the first half of the movie but once Paladin dropped his payload of torpedos into the Kilrathi capital ship, the movie seemed to lag terribly. I remember being fairly disappointed after that point but I still like the movie a bunch.
 
WC movie wasn’t shown in the cinemas here so I had to wait until a VHS version got to the video club. By the time I rented it I already knew it was a disappointment to many but even so I wanted to see it and so I did.
I was very disappointed with the Kilrathi look; to me the WC3 versions were much better. Another thing that disappointed me was the lack of story development around the Kilrathi, especially around the Emperor and Prince Thrakath. And not to mention the ships design, in my opinion their design could (should) be much closer to the games’.

Unfortunately I’m still waiting for a DVD version with Portuguese subtitles around here, until that happens (if ever will) I can only hope that one of the TV channels around here decides to show it again.
 
I hated the movie

I was more excited than a fat kid with a giant chocolate bunny when i first heard the movie was coming out. I could not believe it. I had just finished reading Fleet Action and I pictured giant space battles the likes of which I had only imagined. I thought that dogfighting would be the focus of the movie, the drama unfolding in a cockpit. When I walked out of the theatre I hated Chris Roberts. What the frig is a pilgrim, and since when does Christopher Blair's superb flying technique center on his keyboard (not joysitck). The movie appealed to the lowest common denomenator instead of the WC fans...the battles were hokey and distant, not the in-your-face, adrenaline-pumping, spectacle I had dreamed of. The movie was such a disappointment when I first saw it. There is no bigger WC fan than me, but I didn't see this movie again for years. I must admit when i did see it for the second time I did enjoy it more because my expecations were not been strangled to death that time, so I could enjoy the few good aspects of the movie that time. I think WC died after that movie. WCP 2 was never made, and I think that movie killed it. I have been coming to CIC since before it was called CIC even back then, and I thank god you people are around to keep WC alive today. I just finished Unknown Enemy today, and between it and standoff (and the other fan games in progress) I have never been happier in my life. :cool:
 
FleeBalls said:
I was more excited than a fat kid with a giant chocolate bunny when i first heard the movie was coming out. I could not believe it. I had just finished reading Fleet Action and I pictured giant space battles the likes of which I had only imagined.
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That's the problem right there. If you hype anything up too much in your head, there's no way to not be disappointed. This is repeated again and again in every big movie (not just Wing Commander) thread.

FleeBalls said:
There is no bigger WC fan than me, but I didn't see this movie again for years. I must admit when i did see it for the second time I did enjoy it more because my expecations were not been strangled to death that time, so I could enjoy the few good aspects of the movie that time. I think WC died after that movie. WCP 2 was never made, and I think that movie killed it.
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That's not true. WC game production continued long after the movie was released, and a variety of complex factors resulted in various games' cancellations.

FleeBalls said:
I have been coming to CIC since before it was called CIC even back then, and I thank god you people are around to keep WC alive today. I just finished Unknown Enemy today, and between it and standoff (and the other fan games in progress) I have never been happier in my life. :cool:
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Yeah, this is a great time to be a Wing Commander fan.
 
LeHah said:
I was interested. I didn't try to ruin the movie for myself, but purchased the Confed Handbook anyway. I loved the first half of the movie but once Paladin dropped his payload of torpedos into the Kilrathi capital ship, the movie seemed to lag terribly. I remember being fairly disappointed after that point but I still like the movie a bunch.
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IIRC it's shortly after that point in the movie that the Traitor stuff is supposed to come to a head. I remember thinking the same thing when I saw it first... that It was racing ahead and all the sudden the tension is gone. The whole end became kinda anticlimactic with the focus being on the confed fleet shooting the kilrathi like fish in a barrel, rather than what was probably a pretty great knife fight between blair and .... what's his name again? on the Command and Communications ship. Instead, after maniac saves Blair during the decompression it slows down immensly.

In all I liked the movie. I would love there to be a new dvd release with both an anamorphic region 1 version of the theatrical version, and also the same of a special restored working version from before they started hacking out traitor subplots and bad looking kilrathi. My Ideal version (a dream really) would have them redo the music to fit with the new scenes and possibly also have them go back and clean up a few of the effects shots (like that one of the group of fighters... You know which one I mean) and have them rotoscope the kilrathi to overlay some cg kilrathi onto the scenes (even if it's just to touch up their faces)

However, I would settle for a version that simply has the scenes in some kind of "branching" version that lets you watch the scenes either by themselves or in context where they were originaly found in the film.
 
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