Lt.Overload
Rear Admiral
I was confused about this. Knight dies in the WCM (or at least I think that's him, with Paladin in the bombing run), but then he's back in WC1?
Knight
- Thread starter Lt.Overload
- Start date
Kyle Maverick
Rear Admiral
Maybe for the same reason that Paulson calls Seether "Mr Seether" in the novelisation of WCIV, or he just didn't realise that Knight was his callsign not his name.
*Edit* Hey I made 2nd LT at long last
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Or better: Why do Hunter's dogtags in the movie say Mr. Hunter (when maniac reads them in the mess hall)... Explanation: Just an oversight in much the same way as people's uniforms in the game alternate between their name and callsign on their name tags.
Wait, pardon my ignorance but I was unaware the movie and the games took place in the same continuity.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Well... short answer is yes.
But wait! Before everyone gets their knickers in an knot, I'll tell you exactly how this should influence your view of the series: NOT ONE BIT. The movie is designed in just such a way that you can very well ignore if if you please.
So what does this have to do with continuity? We'll for future games, that means that the Tiger's Claw thwarted a sneak attack/invasion attempt shortly after Blair and Maniac shipped to the Claw... That's it.
Ship designs? Don't matter. Look of characters? Don't matter. Pilgrims? Well, I guess we know Blair's mother's religion now... but otherwise doesn't matter. They're written in a way that they basically disapear from the universe after the movie (per the books). Skipper missiles? Not as complicated as full cloak and we see full cloaks in the intro to WC2 only a year or so later... So don't matter.
Farbourne
Rear Admiral
If apparent continuity disagreements between the movie and the games bother you, I recommend doing what I do...consider the facts relayed in the movie and the facts relayed elsewhere to be different accounts from different sources of events in the same universe.
Try reading accounts of battles in WWII. You'll get accounts that are similar in main content, but that disagree quite prominently with regard to certain specific details. Even historians after the fact with access to all the different accounts have a hard time sometimes figuring out what *really* happened.
Heck, anyone who has served on a jury should know this...ten different eyewitnesses will tell ten similar but slightly different stories, and forensic evidence will sometimes present yet another (or more than one) different possible versions of the events.
If we can rarely find perfect continuity in different accounts of real life events, why should we demand it of a fictional universe?
Prometheus
Spaceman
Bossman and Knight are dead, Paladin already doesn't fly fighters anymore. For something that's supposed to happen prior to WC1 that doesn't sound like the same continuity at all.
Yes, Farbourne, you could look at it like that, but you would have reason to think that the movie is the much more distorted version of events, as it seems to grab different events form WC1 through WC3 and recombines them to a different story, and has them all happen in a much shorter time span.
That seems to be more the way Holy Books "evolve", not history books.
Yes, Farbourne, you could look at it like that, but you would have reason to think that the movie is the much more distorted version of events, as it seems to grab different events form WC1 through WC3 and recombines them to a different story, and has them all happen in a much shorter time span.
That seems to be more the way Holy Books "evolve", not history books.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Bossman and Knight are dead, Paladin already doesn't fly fighters anymore. For something that's supposed to happen prior to WC1 that doesn't sound like the same continuity at all.
Yes, Farbourne, you could look at it like that, but you would have reason to think that the movie is the much more distorted version of events, as it seems to grab different events form WC1 through WC3 and recombines them to a different story, and has them all happen in a much shorter time span.
That seems to be more the way Holy Books "evolve", not history books.
The movie events do leave the possibility that Bossman could be "rescued" or found alive somewhere between the film and where you meet him in WC1. Who says paladin doesn't transfer to regular combaty duty for a while?
Delance
Victory, you say?
When it comes to historical or real events, that is correct. In fact, during an investigation, if a lot of people come forward with the exact same story without variation, it's a sign they are probably making it up.
The point of the story is to show how Bossman’s death affected Angel – it is an important part of her character development. From a dramatic standpoint, it’s not relevant when it happened. But, when writing an article on the encyclopedia, it gets complicated.
If Bossman had a wife a daughter, was he having an affair with Angel? If the movie and SM2 both happened as descried, was he shot down and declared dead, only to to return to duty and get shot down again?
It's the same deal with Paladin's role on WC2 being used on the WCM, a bit earlier then expected, or the skipper missle. There's lots of those on WC. It's a little bit odd, but usually not impossible.
That seems to be more the way holy Books "evolve", not history books.
Books do not evolve or "evolve" at all, except new revised editions and translations. However, the process of understanding history is just as Farbourne described. Nobody knows for certain the number of soldiers involved on most decisive battles of the ancient world, since estimates given by contemporary authors were heavily influenced by a political agenda - not that it's any different today.
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Mace
Vice Admiral
Then fit in WCA animated series, and you need to come up with some pretty slick thinking to fit them all in.
Wasn't there a timeline created somewhere to fit all these things in? Since the Arena manual references to all these sources, it's pretty obvious it's Canon.
While we did see Knights ship lost, he did not get a funeral, or was declared lost, he may have Ejected, same goes for Bossman who might have drifted off somewhere and was recovered while the Tiger's claw was already out of reach and communications with the claw were impossible. And ofcourse with some pilots lost, it makes sense that Paladin who was on the ship anyway got put on the Roster, he could sure still fly as he was on the strike force.
Wasn't there a timeline created somewhere to fit all these things in? Since the Arena manual references to all these sources, it's pretty obvious it's Canon.
While we did see Knights ship lost, he did not get a funeral, or was declared lost, he may have Ejected, same goes for Bossman who might have drifted off somewhere and was recovered while the Tiger's claw was already out of reach and communications with the claw were impossible. And ofcourse with some pilots lost, it makes sense that Paladin who was on the ship anyway got put on the Roster, he could sure still fly as he was on the strike force.
Prometheus
Spaceman
What I meant was that in case of holy books they kinda "build upon each other." Like Christianity builds on Judaism, and Islam builds on Christianity.
Okay, maybe you're right, that's religions, not holy books - but: the Christian Bible is the same book as the Jewish Tora (?) plus some extra stuff, and about the Koran, I don't know enough about that. But there's propably stuff in it that's "ripped off" from the Bible, just as the Bible has lots of stuff ripped off from older religious texts or legends.
Hope I'm tripping no avalanches here
And also hope I made clear what I meant with "holy books evolve"...Oh, come to think of it, I could even try to argue how history books do indeed "evolve" in a even more literal sense, but well, unless someone asks, I will leave it at that. Cue: Think about the books' contents instead of their covers.
I think the animated series fits the games much better than the movie. But that aside, I also think it's either one or the other: You can argue the movie being the same continuity as the games, or the cartoon being the same continuity, but if you try to get them both in, well... let's say you've to be very creative.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Yes, Knight was the pilot of the other Broadsword.
The obvious retcon is that he ejecetd and we didn't see it; in fact, some years back someone actually did a frame-by-frame analysis to prove this was possible!
Another possibility, though, might be: maybe he didn't. Knight is in no way essential to Wing Commander I and is 'killable' from the first moment you fly with him. You can remove him from Wing Commander and the addons entirely with no change whatsoever, save a few empty seats and a couple of missions you fly alone (all of which the game is designed to adapt to).
Okay, I know this doesn't necessarily work in our post-production holistic take on the Wing Commander continuity, since he shows up in Freedom Flight and the Official Guide briefly... but it's an interesting thought experiment and is likely exactly why Chris Roberts decided it was 'okay' to kill him (that and the running joke that no one likes Knight).
The movie's supporting material (ie, the Confederation Handbook and the novelization) does refer to him by his full name (Joseph "Knight" Khumalo). Khumalo was also used in the on-set background material--it was painted on a Broadsword side prop that we never see, for example (and may actually be right on his dog tag prop, I can't vouch for that).
I know, right? The actors are completely different and nothing like the characters! The lead looks nothing like the Blair we know and love, you couldn't get farther from Paladin if you tried... and the ships--they look completely different! They aren't even different ships, they completely changed the design aesthetic... colors, shapes, everything. And with a few little nods they don't even mention things that happened in the earlier stories--it's like Chris Roberts 'went Hollywood' and forgot the game that made him famous.
I am speaking, of course, of Wing Commander III--a game which commits all the same "sins" as the film but which we (now) readily forgive since... well, we like it.
That said, I think you may be stretching the complaint a bit. I would be hard pressed to say the movie tells me Paladin doesn't fly fighters anymore... when he spends a chunk of the film in a Broadsword cockpit... and while I've heard talk about the movie being 'compressed events from the games', I can't put it together myself.
It's not a compressed story of the war or Blair's career or anything of the sort.. It seems incongruous because it has a bigger stake (Earth instead of some distant star system), but it's not retelling anything. (I could argue that it suffers from both sides on that account; it's neither a vehicle for the classic actors doing classic things nor a self-satisfying conclusion to war with the Kilrathi. In fact, I wonder how it comes off to ordinary folks with a story that neither begins nor ends its war.)
A historian isn't someone who keeps an ordered list of the past--he's someone who ties together multiple contradictory sources (or sometimes a complete *lack* of sources) and comes up with his singular, argued theory as to how things were. In a hundred years much of what we consider accepted history will be viewed completely differently.
That said, it's no small coincidence that science fiction shared universes borrow terminology like 'canon' from religion...
Angel's line in the movie ('got too close') taken on its own does suggest the possibility of an affair... but the novelization (or Pilgrim Stars? I can't remember for sure) gives us her inner monologue that confirms it was just a friendship.
Nah, that isn't so bad. Red and Blue ends with Blair and Maniac being assigned to the Tiger's Claw but doesn't show the actual transition--and the second show opens with them flying missions off the 'Claw. The movie (and Pilgrim Stars) simply happen between the first and second WCA episodes.
Presumably the Academy commandant orders them to the Tiger's Claw at the end of the first episode and then they head off to the Diligent for the transit to the Vega Sector. (In fact, the Confederation Handbook references the events of the first Academy episode--it includes the Flight School histories for Blair and Maniac which mentions their destruction of a Kilrathi blockade runner during training.)
In fact there is such a timeline in the Arena manual--it updates the 'Wing Commander III' timeline to add both the movie and Wing Commander Academy. (Those stories were all written after WC3 published the last version of that timeline.)
I think the important thing about Knight is that he wasn't declared anything--we just see a Broadsword blow up and assume that means he's dead. No one comments on it at all--which itself may be telling, since that mission is immediately followed by Blair using Rosie's death to argue with Angel. You'd think the /other/ member of her squadron who just died would have been worth a mention...
Bossman is much, much more complex because of the rather bizarre fact that they STILL HAVE HIS FIGHTER somehow. I am not sure how the script writers intended this to work, since it makes no obvious sense without an explanation they do not provide.
The Handbook tries to work it out and leave open the possibility that Bossman has been captured by including Angel's letter home which says they recovered the fighter without the body and that he was 'vaporized'... the subtext being that he may have been captured (per End Run, the letter home doesn't mention that possibility).
I believe it was established before the movie that Paladin may have been a spy during his time on the Tiger's Claw--it wasn't something he went off into retirement to start on.
QuailPilot
Spaceman
On Bossman's fighter: Now could have the fighter been heavily damaged in an engagement, and they couldn't repair it in time, for Bossman's next flight, so he flew a different fighter than his own?
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Any number of stories are possible, but none of them really explain themselves in the moment.
(Your theory isn't intention in the script, at least--I believe it specifies that you're supposed to notice that the writing is charred or damaged to suggest he has died somehow.)
frostytheplebe
Seventh Part of the Seal
I was always told he ejected, it's just impossible to see on camera... that said, who cares? He was a crap wingman anyway, I shoot him down first mission out usually... or order him back to base if I wanna be charitable.