Is Blair's arrival to the Tiger's Claw in the movie really his first time?

NinjaLA said:
nope.

and I quote "Hey, Maverick. I’m Maniac. Glad to meetcha"

pulled from the wc1 script here

Given maniacs charming personality, I suppose you could take it as if he was being sarcastic. Because everyone else is inroducing themselves, he makes a smartass comment.
 
Yeah, Maniac reintroducing himself to Blair is sort of odd, but within the scope of his character. Though I'm for placing the cartoon in 2653, another possibility did occur to me:
Perhaps, all Academy episodes (except the 1st one) could be crammed into the weeks between the movie and WC1. The absence of WC1 characters on the show could be explained to their taking a leave of absence, and the whole cartoon would be a grueling 2-week crash course for the 2nd lieutenants by Tolwyn. The cartoon would end just before WC1 when the veteran pilots return and Tolwyn leaves.

One change here would have to be that the Kilrathi ceremony at the end of the cartoon would not be the same type as that in SM2, since the date would not be the same. I'm still for placing the cartoon in 2653, but this theory might also work to explain the absence of Halcyon and others during important events of the cartoon. I'm still unsure about Tolwyn's shifts in status, though. He seems to wield much more influence in the movie than he does in the cartoon, which is another reason I currently prefer an earlier cartoon date.
 
Plus there's the matter of "The man who successfully won the First Battle of Earth by ambushing the Kilrathi at the jump point" would not be looked down upon by Adm. Bergstrom and the rest of HQ as much as seen in the TV series. However, "The Man who nearly got his carrier destroyed in the Custer's Carnival debacle" would be.
 
Ijuin said:
Plus there's the matter of "The man who successfully won the First Battle of Earth by ambushing the Kilrathi at the jump point" would not be looked down upon by Adm. Bergstrom and the rest of HQ as much as seen in the TV series. However, "The Man who nearly got his carrier destroyed in the Custer's Carnival debacle" would be.
I don't think anybody regarded Custer's Carnival as a debacle - quite the opposite, it was an outstanding success for the Tiger's Claw.
 
Yeah, but there are always those at HQ who measure success in terms of friendly losses, through which lens any action that results in the near-loss of a carrier is a disaster.
 
Yeah, but there are always those at HQ who measure success in terms of friendly losses, through which lens any action that results in the near-loss of a carrier is a disaster.

I don't think I've ever heard Custer's Carnival referred to in anything but an extremely positive light. It's not some case of military adventurism... it's the Tiger's Claw fighting an impossible delaying action because it was necessary.

I would think that Tolwyn's declining position in WCA is a result of Pilgrim Stars -- he's set to take the fall for quite a few things at the end of that story.

Another point on the '2654+' column -- as of Enyo 1, the WC1/2 Guide says "...other than the six months spend in spacedock for repairs... the Tiger's Claw had been in the Vega Sector for 10 years."


Perhaps, all Academy episodes (except the 1st one) could be crammed into the weeks between the movie and WC1. The absence of WC1 characters on the show could be explained to their taking a leave of absence, and the whole cartoon would be a grueling 2-week crash course for the 2nd lieutenants by Tolwyn. The cartoon would end just before WC1 when the veteran pilots return and Tolwyn leaves.

I don't think this is an issue at all... because we see, what, ten or so of the carrier's 100+ pilots on the show?

One change here would have to be that the Kilrathi ceremony at the end of the cartoon would not be the same type as that in SM2, since the date would not be the same. I'm still for placing the cartoon in 2653, but this theory might also work to explain the absence of Halcyon and others during important events of the cartoon. I'm still unsure about Tolwyn's shifts in status, though. He seems to wield much more influence in the movie than he does in the cartoon, which is another reason I currently prefer an earlier cartoon date.

Again, though, the carrier must have a Wing Commander... we just don't see him.
 
Ijuin said:
Yeah, but there are always those at HQ who measure success in terms of friendly losses, through which lens any action that results in the near-loss of a carrier is a disaster.
Not if it means the salvation of an entire invasion force. There is no way whatsoever that anybody could consider the Tiger's Claw mission a disaster - it was ordered to fight off the enemy until the transports got to safety, and it achieved this, apparently against superior odds. In terms of friendly losses, this operation saved thousands of lives, and an unknown number of transports (with probably some escort capships as well).

Edit: seems LOAF beat me to it.
 
Quarto said:
Not if it means the salvation of an entire invasion force. There is no way whatsoever that anybody could consider the Tiger's Claw mission a disaster - it was ordered to fight off the enemy until the transports got to safety, and it achieved this, apparently against superior odds. In terms of friendly losses, this operation saved thousands of lives, and an unknown number of transports (with probably some escort capships as well).

On the other hand, the Tiger's Claw herself (and her complement) was more valuable than the ships that she ended up rescuing, so losing the Tiger's Claw and saving the transports would have been worse than sacrificing the transports and leaving the Tiger's Claw undamaged.
 
Are you confusing Custer's Carnival with the 'Tolwyn takes over' event mentioned in the Heart of the Tiger novelization? Custer's Carnival wasn't Tolwyn (or someone) disobeying orders and throwing away the carrier... sacraficing the Tiger's Claw to delay the Marine retreat was what the operation was all about. Everyone was amazed that it survived at all. It's the reason the Tiger's Claw is famous when you get there in WC1, because it saved the Confederation from a real disaster by protecting that retreat. It's not a case of losing a great resource to save a lesser one.
 
It still seems odd that after arguably helping save Earth from the Kilrathi in the movie, though, Tolwyn is still mistrusted by HQ in the cartoon--going by a 2654 cartoon timeline. There is even one cartoon episode where an admiral asks Blair to spy on Tolwyn for her. Why would Tolwyn be pushed off the frontlines in the cartoon if he's a hero in the movie? What happened in Pilgrim Stars (which I haven't read) to make Tolwyn mistrusted by HQ?
 
He held a bunch of civilian worlds under siege and threat of orbital bombardment in order to get a rogue ship to surrender.
 
It's been over a year since I've started this thread, but look at p. 42 of the new Wing Commander Arena manual under the year 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.

Doesn't this indicate the Wing Commander Academy cartoon takes place in 2653, as I conjectured at the beginning of this thread?
 
Read a little bit further - the timeline has entries for all the individual WCA episodes later in 2654 (after the entry for the movie).
 
The movie really makes no sense, as they have skipper missiles in the movie. Yet in Wing Commander 2 they didn't believe there wasn't any Cloaked ships, or believed anything had stealth technology until the Kilrathi revealed it. And Blair was framed for it.

So I really don't think they followed the storyline of the games in the movie. Plus the fact Maniac and Blair weren't "bestest friends" out of the Academy. They hated each other up until 3, or the end of three. Plus Rapier's were not introduced until well into the war, especially while Blair was serving on board. They weren't immediately available, as soon as Blair and Maniac came on, and they were still in prototype according to Wing Commander 1.

I wish they would just stick to the game storyline in the movie, it would of made it better. Where did Maniac's girlfriend come from? And why did Angel have such an attitude, did not remember that from the game. Especially to Blair. She was always sweet to Blair.

Where did this "They die, and we forget about them" stuff come from.
 
The movie really makes no sense, as they have skipper missiles in the movie. Yet in Wing Commander 2 they didn't believe there wasn't any Cloaked ships, or believed anything had stealth technology until the Kilrathi revealed it. And Blair was framed for it.

Actually, the dialogue in Wing Commander II refers only to a stealth fighter - you're creating a more broad interpretation in order to find fault with the movie... and that sort of sucks. There's clearly a difference between a missile that can cloak *blind* for a couple of seconds at a time and fighters that would need some sort of extended 'two way' cloak.

Beyond that, it's become clear in many post-WC2 stories that stealth fighters weren't considered an impossibility... by anyone but Tolwyn. Super Wing Commander, for example, adds a subplot to WC1 where Halcyon insists to Tolwyn that the Kilrathi are building them - and Tolwyn refuses to accept that. In the 'Invisible Enemy' episode of Wing Commander Academy, the Kilrathi deploy a Shroud-style cloak fighter in 2654 that Tolwyn refuses to acknowledge because of his "pride". The Confederation Handbook actually cites the existence of a 2654 Confederation intelligence report regarding the Kilrathi stealth fighter programme - at the end of a similar report analyzing the Skipper (which Teleps novel also confirms is a newly developed prototype).

So I really don't think they followed the storyline of the games in the movie.

The movie *precedes* the story of the game. It's (obviously) the story of Blair and Maniac's *first* missionon the Tiger's Claw, while Wing Commander I opens with Blair already aboard.

Plus the fact Maniac and Blair weren't "bestest friends" out of the Academy. They hated each other up until 3, or the end of three.

That isn't true - the idea that Blair and Maniac are 'friendly rivals' comes from the 1991 Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide (written in prose format, it's essentially a Wing Commander novel) and was the *centerpiece* to the Wing Commander Academy TV series (which took place around the events of the movie).

Plus Rapier's were not introduced until well into the war, especially while Blair was serving on board. They weren't immediately available, as soon as Blair and Maniac came on, and they were still in prototype according to Wing Commander 1.

The ships introduced in Wing Commander I (later in 2654) are the F-44 Rapier II. The ones flown in the movie are a much, much (much) older ship - the unrelated CF-117 Rapier. They aren't related at all - any moreso than the P-47 Thunderbolt and the A-10 Thunderbolt II are today.

I wish they would just stick to the game storyline in the movie, it would of made it better. Where did Maniac's girlfriend come from?

Did she need to come from somewhere? She dies in the film, well before WC1 starts... and even in that game we see only a few of the Tiger's Claw's 104 fighter pilots. Did you assume that Maniac went his whole life without meeting a woman? According to Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy, he was actually married twice...

And why did Angel have such an attitude, did not remember that from the game. Especially to Blair. She was always sweet to Blair.

Where did this "They die, and we forget about them" stuff come from.

This one is entirely you misremembering - this was always Angel's character, a cold and unemotional comrade-in-arms. Her plot arc in the original Wing Commander was the same as the movie - falling apart and being forced to show some emotion when faced with the death of Bossman.
 
Don't forget that stealth fighters destroy the Claw at the *start* of wc2 which is not too long after WC1. That's at most 2 years after the WC movie. Why is it such a leap to go from a skipper missile that cloaks blind and needs to uncloak to keep on targer to fully functional fighters that can ambush a Confed carrier.
 
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