New Wing Commander Game?

The thing people need to remember about how the movie affects the series continutity is that it doesn't... at least not much. Basically Blair and Maniac helped repel an invasion fleet when they first got to the Tiger's Claw... That's about it. Oh, and there was a civil war before the Kilrathi war. Other than that, there really isn't much else that a writer of future WC stories need pay attention to, which is the purpose of continuity.
 
They way I look at it the Wing Commander movie was the movie that Blair was payed royalty's for by Digital Holovid. (See KS manual page 54 I think it's mentioned in the WC 1&2 guide as well.) As we know movies based on books don't always have much to do with the original book.

The check is, indeed, a reference to the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide--"A Treacherous Hero" was a book about Blair's betraying the Tiger's Claw at K'Tithrak Mang. (I've always wondered if the check in WCKS is another one of those points where someone didn't get the message that Blair and Bear Bondarevsky were different characters... that comes up a few times in the tie-ins. Bear already had a tabloid holovid made about him, mentioned in Fleet Action...)

But the movie does show up in the Star*soldier timeline, so it's a thing that happened in the Wing Commander world.

The thing people need to remember about how the movie affects the series continutity is that it doesn't... at least not much. Basically Blair and Maniac helped repel an invasion fleet when they first got to the Tiger's Claw... That's about it. Oh, and there was a civil war before the Kilrathi war. Other than that, there really isn't much else that a writer of future WC stories need pay attention to, which is the purpose of continuity.

You're right--this has always been one of those message board red flags for me... sort of a 'well I'm taking the kids!' bitter rage. 'I hate the movie!' isn't the same thing as the movie being part of the Wing Commander story. It's a little three day story that counts for almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. No one is thinking it's not part of the timeline because it causes some sort of epic contradiction--they just don't like it.

(It's like one series of a game--Blair flies... three missions, total? One of which doesn't actually involve combat.)

Now, if someone wants to argue about the movie tie-in novels...
 
I'd like to see a new game that is somewhat of a mix of SW: Battlefront and WC Armada.

Basically you start off at Earth or Kilrah depending on what side you choose, with a lone carrier and 1 squadron. Then you move out "colonizing" planets which give you resources to build more fighters, carriers, cruisers, starbases etc. This is the strategy portion of the game.

The action portion of the game takes place in the cockpit. When you encounter an enemy fleet or base, the game allows you to choose what fighter to fly and puts you into the action. This could be done in either Arena stlye (top down) or in 1st person cockpit view. The battle ends when you destroy the enemy completely, or reach enough points to force the enemy to retreat.

The game is won when you capture the enemy's home system. Map sizes can vary depending on how long you want the game to last.

Each side would have a superweapon. The Kilrathi would get the Sivar Dreadnought and the Confederation would get Behemoth.

I think this would be a good way to attempt to revive the franchise much in the same way Arena tried. A fairly basic console based action/strategy game that could introduce new players to elements of the franchise.

The only downside is there wouldn't be a story or plot. It's basically just all out war.
 
What do you mean by that?

Fitting 'Pilgrim Stars' into the Wing Commander I time period is a lot more problematic than the movie itself--but no one cares, since there's no angry we-hate-this-book crowd (... and maybe there should be...:)).

(Wing Commander Academy is a bit more awkward than the film, too--it ends with distrupting a Sivar ceremony a year before the one in Secret Missions 2 which at the time seemed like it was a new discovery? The difference is that people really like WCA as a stand alone entity and give it a lot more slack in terms of how it alters the known history.)
 
No one is thinking it's not part of the timeline because it causes some sort of epic contradiction--they just don't like it.

Of course the movie has contradictions: (if you place it into the same timeline as the games)

Blair's from Earth in the games. (at least that's what one cutscene in WC II told me)

Blair's first assignment to the Tiger's Claw was in WC1, that's where and when he met Maniac.

The Kilrathi must have mutated from giant naked moles to hairy space tigers in just a few years.

Not to forget all the different designs of the space crafts. It works only as a stand alone entry.
 
Of course the movie has contradictions: (if you place it into the same timeline as the games)

Blair's from Earth in the games. (at least that's what one cutscene in WC II told me).
Nope.

Blair's first assignment to the Tiger's Claw was in WC1, that's where and when he met Maniac.
Wrong again. WC academy as well as the various guides indicate they went to the academy together. The only thing suggesting otherwise is an offhand introduction by Maniac in WC1.

The Kilrathi must have mutated from giant naked moles to hairy space tigers in just a few years.

Not to forget all the different designs of the space crafts. It works only as a stand alone entry.

Both the Kilrathi and the Ships have changed shapes and looks in the past. I really don't know why we need to go over all this again in this thread. Compare the SWC tiger's Claw to WC1 for example. That said, the fighters aren't actually the same models we see in the game. The movie handbook points this out, though I can see where a casual viewer would assume otherwise.

the Kilrathi between WC1,2,3,4... they change subtly between each game. The apparent hairlessness of them isn't much different than the way Mark Hamil looks nothing like Bluehair (Blair) from WC1. Granted it's a more jarring difference, but here's the main point: The physical look of entities has nothing to do with continuity when we can already establish that there really is no hard and fast visual continuity in the WC series per se.
 
Of course the movie has contradictions:

It *has* contradictions, but they aren't any more egregious than going from one game to another. People pay it special attention because they don't like it--Wing Commander III, for instance, reboots the Wing Commander setting to the same degree if not more.

Well, Blair's from earth in the games. (at least that's what one cut scene in WC II told me)

The scene you're thinking of is in Special Operations 1, where he tells Stingray he's going home (to Earth) to visit. Here's the exact line (per Wedge): "Just back to Earth for a few weeks. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. I need some time to relax, after everything that’s happened here."

I would first make several (increasingly pedantic!) arguments:

- Maybe he lives there in 2667--ie, Blair's town house is on Earth and it's been a long time since he has gone to catch up on his holotiVo. I imagine a sailor on an aircraft carrier today who 'goes home' to visit is heading to wherever their house is (or their family lives now)--not the specific place they were born decades earlier.

- Maybe it doesn't mean anything at all, since we already know it's just his cover story to use while he's off saving Ghorah Khar from a Kilrathi invasion (which was a secret for some reason).

- We don't know what 'home' means to humans in a 27th century society that has spread over more than a thousand worlds. I can imagine a scenario where you 'go home' to Earth in the broadest sense because that's the cradle of humanity--all of our ancestral homes (in the same way that if I'm in Europe and going to Chicago I might say I'm going home because I'm headed back to the US even though I'm from an entirely different city).

Then I would point out...

- The movie doesn't say he's not from Earth! In fact, at the beginning of the movie he's on his way from Earth to his first assignment on the Tiger's Claw! You're thinking of Wing Commander Prophecy's official guide, which created the backstory that he was from Nephele (which derived that from his farm being there in Wing Commander IV). The movie material (the novel, the handbook) do repeat that, but it isn't in the film--the movie just says he's the son of a (loyal) human and a 'Pilgrim'.

(I will note that earlier drafts of the movie do give him a home--in the earliest version he's a "Border Worlder" instead of half-Pilgrim and in another his parents are still alive and living on a particular named planet. That's all gone in the shooting script.)

(And finally I will say that we do know from the broad Wing Commander continuity that Blair spent /some/ of his childhood on Earth in the care of his aunt before returning to Nephele--and that in Wing Commander III he listed it as his home in the Victory Streak interview.)

Blair's first assignment to the Tiger's Claw was in WC1, that's where and when he met Maniac.

I can't pin that on the movie--if they didn't have that backstory in mind when the first game came out (and I really think they did!) it was in place by 1991, when it's the spine of the Wing Commander I and II Ultimate Strategy Guide's narrative. Blair and Maniac being together at the ACademy is referenced throughout the tie-ins and is the basis for the 1996 TV show. Not something the movie decided. :)

The Kilrathi must have mutated from giant naked moles to hairy space tigers in just a few years.

Can't argue with that. I think if we get everyone in the world who likes the look of the Kilrathi to raise their hand we will get... no hands.

... but compare *one particular Kilrathi*, Melek, between Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. kilrathi--even individuals--suddenly looking awful isn't anything the movie invented. :)

Not to forget all the different designs of the space crafts. It works only as a stand alone entry.

wc1dralthi.jpg


Good old flying pancake, of course that's a Dralthi!

p1dralthi.jpg


Well, it's circular and it has a weird bar and extra guns and it needs a tan, but I guess it's a Dralthi...

armadadralthi.jpg


Well, okay, somebody saw Stargate, but it's still a Dralthi, y'know? The soul is still there, big round wings, that brown...

wc3dralthi.png


Okay, now it's completely different but of course that's a Dralthi! Wide and angular with weird spikes under it! Just like in Batman! Certainly a Dralthi!

wcmdralthi.jpg


AHH! NO! THIS IS TERRIBLE! HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO THE DRALTHI? IT'S ALL... hmm.
 
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Wrong again. WC academy as well as the various guides indicate they went to the academy together. The only thing suggesting otherwise is an offhand introduction by Maniac in WC1.

It was pretty clear to me that WC1 intended the meeting on the Tiger's Claw to be the first meeting of "Bluehair" and Maniac.

However, WCA, the Movie, et al simply re-imagined Blair and Maniac's relationship. That relationship was re-imagined several times during the series...there was a pretty interesting thread here on that a while back.

Actually, this just caused something interesting to occur to me... a lot of the complaints about the movie versus WC1 relate to the movie contradicting stuff established in WC1. But, due to its dynamic nature, WC1 has things that occur that certainly aren't canon...you can lose the Vega campaign (not canon), you can get any or all of the Claw's pilots KIA (not canon), you can destroy the Claw (not canon), you can fly with a callsign other than "Maverick" (not canon). And the main character is never even called "Christopher Blair". In fact, if I recall correctly, the missions that we fly in WC1 aren't even all flown by Blair according to the canon.

Maybe a better way of thinking of WC1 isn't as an absolute telling of the WC1 story...but rather the story that would have occurred if Christopher Blair of the canon story had been replaced by ourselves, as manifested by our avatar Bluehair.

Maniac knew "Maverick" Blair from his time at the academy. But he really was meeting "Farbourne" or "Gunslinger" or "BanditLOAF" for the first time. :)


Both the Kilrathi and the Ships have changed shapes and looks in the past. I really don't know why we need to go over all this again in this thread. Compare the SWC tiger's Claw to WC1 for example. That said, the fighters aren't actually the same models we see in the game. The movie handbook points this out, though I can see where a casual viewer would assume otherwise.

I know the Rapier is a different craft in the movie than in the game, but isn't the movie Broadsword supposed to be the same craft as the game Broadsword, just re-imagined?

Never understood why...you went to all the trouble to make the two Rapiers be separate; why not make the two Broadswords separate as well? But that's what I've heard.
 
Nope.

Wrong again. WC academy as well as the various guides indicate they went to the academy together. The only thing suggesting otherwise is an offhand introduction by Maniac in WC1.



Both the Kilrathi and the Ships have changed shapes and looks in the past. I really don't know why we need to go over all this again in this thread. Compare the SWC tiger's Claw to WC1 for example. That said, the fighters aren't actually the same models we see in the game. The movie handbook points this out, though I can see where a casual viewer would assume otherwise.

the Kilrathi between WC1,2,3,4... they change subtly between each game. The apparent hairlessness of them isn't much different than the way Mark Hamil looks nothing like Bluehair (Blair) from WC1. Granted it's a more jarring difference, but here's the main point: The physical look of entities has nothing to do with continuity when we can already establish that there really is no hard and fast visual continuity in the WC series per se.


I admit, I haven't played much WC IV and Prophecy, but in WCII Blair's saying that Earth is his "home".

Maybe they changed it later that his birthplace was another planet.


Is WC Academy canon?

The hair issue is actually quite important. In the games, the Kilrathi made always a big fuss about humans being "hairless apes", "furless freaks" and so on. They were obviously very proud about their furry appearance, it was their trademark.

That they got shaved in the movie disregards a big part of their culture that has been established in the games.
 
There was a joke about that in Star*Soldier--about how breathing the green atmosphere goop (also from the movie) causes fur loss.
 
Can't argue with that. I think if we get everyone in the world who likes the look of the Kilrathi to raise their hand we will get... no hands.

*Tentatively raises hand* Along LOAF's lines, I want to point out that the only part of the Kilarthi you really see in the movie is their HEADS. It's not like it's somehow implied that the rest of their bodies are suddenly hairless.

And on another note - can we get a show of hands of people who are tired of another stupid thread about why the movie doesn't count as continuity?

I liked the movie. There. I said it. I liked it from the first moment I got into the theater. Not only that, I liked it when I saw the previews, and the movie posters, and before I knew what it was. I liked it after it was over. I had no problems with the continuity gaps - as has been pointed out they weren't any worse then any of the content that had come before.

In fact I liked it so much I saw it more then eight times in theaters. But I can't count beyond that because the rest of the ticket stubs are shreds and I'm not sure that they aren't part of the same ticket.

I thought it was a GREAT movie. It stands on it's own (though the subplots would have made it betteR) AND it stands as part of the Wing Commander universe. That's a tricky and delicate line to walk, but I think the movie managed it well. I own two copies of the DVD (The first one wore out) and I plan to pick up another sometime (maybe on blu-ray!) because I like it so much.

Also, I like the Dralthi look from the movie. I thought it fit in perfectly with the style of the games. So there.
 
I, for one, love this thread. I like thinking about this stuff, no matter how pointless it probably is.
 
It was pretty clear to me that WC1 intended the meeting on the Tiger's Claw to be the first meeting of "Bluehair" and Maniac.

However, WCA, the Movie, et al simply re-imagined Blair and Maniac's relationship. That relationship was re-imagined several times during the series...there was a pretty interesting thread here on that a while back.



Let's forget the Blair-Maniac relationship - what about Paladin? That's where the movie completely departs from WC1.

In WC1 Paladin was just a fighter pilot on the brink to retirement and he was a Major.

In the movie he was.. what was it? Commodore? Not only that, movie-taggart is already a bigwig in the confed intel.
 
From what I get, Maniac and Maverick met on the Tiger's Claw (as seen in WC1). Let's face it: alternative media (novels, cartoons, and a horrid movie) have forced a whole ton of retcons and possible alternate and merging timelines.

Personally, I go by the games (The ones for PC, I might add) and the games only (which don't give a TON of information, but are a lot more enjoyable for me). If I want extended universes I'll go back to reading Star Wars novels.
 
From what I get, Maniac and Maverick met on the Tiger's Claw (as seen in WC1). Let's face it: alternative media (novels, cartoons, and a horrid movie) have forced a whole ton of retcons and possible alternate and merging timelines.

Personally, I go by the games (The ones for PC, I might add) and the games only (which don't give a TON of information, but are a lot more enjoyable for me). If I want extended universes I'll go back to reading Star Wars novels.

As I'm sure LOAF is apt to point out, the Wing Commander universe (though being admittedly smaller) has gone through great strives to ensure maximum continuity between the different products that have been put out.
 
From what I get, Maniac and Maverick met on the Tiger's Claw (as seen in WC1). Let's face it: alternative media (novels, cartoons, and a horrid movie) have forced a whole ton of retcons and possible alternate and merging timelines.

Personally, I go by the games (The ones for PC, I might add) and the games only (which don't give a TON of information, but are a lot more enjoyable for me). If I want extended universes I'll go back to reading Star Wars novels.

This guy, meet the thread you're posting to. Thread you're posting to, meet this guy. You two should get to know each other better.

Let's forget the Blair-Maniac relationship - what about Paladin? That's where the movie completely departs from WC1.

Paladin is also the part that bugs me most about the movie--although I suppose he fulfills the same mentor role for Blair and in the end all he does is fly missions off the Tiger's Claw.

I believe they had already suggested that Paladin was an intelligence asset before Secret Missions 2--it was something he'd been involved with for years, not a case of retiring and suddenly findng himself a spymaster with his own super-transport (the WCIV novel goes so far as to say his heavy accent in those years was a put-on).
 
The movie fits perfectly with the WC timeline and the fact that WC1 starts with Maniac already having some kills works beautifully too.

The fact that Blair was introduced to Maniac in WC1 is no real issue for me as this was the first game and it was more an introduction for us the player.

The biggest problem was always the fact that they incorporated elements of various games story and shoved them into the movie. Paladin and his merchant trader ship, Bossman being dead, the rapier already being out. There are more but those are most glaring ones to me.

The fact that they didn’t even TRY to make ships look like the style used in the games was extremely annoying as well, except for the dralthi. That looks like it would fit beautifully with the Kilrathi style.

The hairless Kilrathi. Mmmm Yes, that was a bit annoying to me at first too. But then I though about it, people shave their head and body for various reasons so why could this not be a Kilrathi marines thing?

Of course the biggest thing for me is was the whole “Use the force Luke” of the Pilgrim abilities.

So if you cut that out and just about everything else and left it with only the attack. It’s fits perfectly and the movie is not too bad.

As for the Academy… UGH ! The show was fine but don’t get me into all the inconsistencies there.
 
The thing that got me about Academy was that Blair and Maniac served under Tolwyn, not Halcyon. This made me confuse Halcyon and Tolwyn for the longest time.

If memory serves me, we never actually meet the captain of the Claw in the game. We only see Halcyon who is more of a Carrier Air Wing commander rather than a ship's captain.

The Irish lady in the show reminds me of the mechanic from WC2, and many of the ship designs on both sides span from WC1 to WC3. Finally, it seems like Blair is shot down in almost EVERY episode (without being given the Golden Sun or the speech about how Confed's fighters are expensive, etc.). I loved the show (infinitely more than the movie), but these inconsistencies and anachronisms threw me off too.
 
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