I still stand by the fact that "Mr. Knight"'s helmet has KNIGHT displayed on it, so as far as I'm concerned this is another pilot whose last name is Knight.
While I appreciate the explanation, this doesn't float from either an intent or a greater continuity perspective. In the latter case, we need look no further than the movie novelization or the Confederation Handbook to find that he's Joseph "Knight" Khumelo (sic).
There's nothing especially damning about his helmet, either - look instead at the nose art, where everyone uses their callsign (even those not mentioned in the movie, Rosie and Polanski - Sister Sassy and Bishop). "Knight" and "Hunter" are used here.
This isn't specific to the movie though. WC3 and 4 also fluctuate between having callsigns and proper names on uniforms for example.. (maniac being a prime example that is actually fixed in the movie... his helmet says Marshal)
There's an obvious movie-specific reason for this - he wears his helmet *before* the scene where he 'gets' his callsign (I know, I know, not in the greater continuity...). Anyway, I sit not five feet from a helmet with HOBBES stenciled on it, so there's no overarching requirement that a last name be on a helmet... in fact, the WC3 novel suggests that pilots paint their helmets themselves (Maniac had some art on his in the book, IIRC).
I really don't understand why we can't all just agree that this is an instance of retroactive continuity, rather than pretending that, "hey, playername. I’m Maniac. Glad to meetcha," means anything other than the obvious. There certainly wasn't an overarching vision for Wing Commander as a franchise when the original game's dialogue was written, much less the possibility of a major motion picture and animated series.
That's an oddly knowing tone for someone who has exactly the same information as everyone else. The fact of the matter is that *all* we have is the impliication in Claw Marks - there's no one saying what the team did or did not plan out for the characters in 1990. More importantly, you're forgetting that the actual 'origin' of the Academy background came well before an animated series or a motion picture dared sully your vision - it enters the 'canon' with the 1991 Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide and also shows up in the licensed writers material created around this time (ultimately making it to print in a reference in the Wing Commander III novelization).
Yes, Bossmans fighter says Lt. Commander Charles Chen on it too.
I seem to recall that there were set photographs of *all* the Rapiers with names and nose-art painted on them. Few if any of that made it into the actual movie, but it may be in the WCHS archive somewhere (the nose art itself all gets reproduced in the Handbook, which also uses the sometimes-wrong pilot names from the set... Khumelo instead of Khumalo, Deveraux instead of Devereaux and Charles Chen instead of Chen Kien).
Still, the Academy years aren't THAT important.
For the future relations between Chris and Todd their time on the 'Claw wouldn't be more than enough?
From a dramatic standpoint I think it adds something important. If Blair and Maniac are competitors because they met on the Tiger's Claw, that's ultimately a very *dark* relationship... they're trained killers having a killing contest. If they're wet-behind-the-ears students who started competing over girls and swimming races, then it's a much more likeable story.
I'd be reluctant to say that sharing a graduating year is proof positive that the two characters knew each other during their academy years until such time as there was actual backstory developed about it. Sure, it's easy to look back with the clarity of hindsight and say that it must be so, but Blair, the character, didn't even exist until Wing Commander III. He was a cardboard cutout with no history or personality of his own. Up to that point, he was the blue-haired protagonist with no greater purpose than to represent the player.
An aside, but we actually recently dug up a pre-WC2 Origin internal newsletter that names him "Arturo Blair" (Our Hero Blue Hair)... in the context of looking for a better name for the licensing bible. We like to think that WC1 was a garage fluke like Ultima, but it was actually very serious - it was by far the most expensive game developed to that point... and it was followed (if not even preceded) by all sorts of licensing concepts.
Or it could be the case of game was made first, and manual was made afterwards, but I prefer your explanation.
The manuals are usually finalized several weeks before the games themselves because of the amount of time it takes to send them off to the printers. This is what leads to problems with ship specifications, as the ships are rebalanced right up until the game itself goes to duplication.
Since when do they put your callsign on your dogtags? However I do believe that Hunter is supposed to be the hunter from the games.
Worth quoting, because it gets at the idea of intent instead of continuity. I don't think there's any question of intent here - they're supposed to be Hunter and Knight from the games. Their descriptions are something like 'Australian guy' and 'big African guy'... that's Ian St. John and Joseph Khumalo boiled down.
Whether it was with the furvor of a fan grasping his Claw Marks or someone who remembers that there was a character named Knight in the original game, it would be hard to argue that the original idea was for this to be a 'different' big African Tiger's Claw pilot named Knight (this is actually a serious thing to remember - *we* all know that 'Knight' is Joseph Khumalo because we've all memorized Claw Marks... someone looking at WC1 casually will be hard pressed to find the name mentioned outside of a funeral scene. WC1 refers to the characters by their callsigns 99% of the time).
What the OP wants is to figure out a way so that intent can differ from actual continuity (like Maniac's callsign) -- and that runs aground because there's a Handbook page with a picture of 'Movie Knight' with his name under it.
Also when Hunter rips Blair's flight suit open and sees his cross, you can also glimpse Blair's dogtag which clearly states "BLAIR" in very large letters.
Remember that from a stand-alone-movie standpoint, Blair has no callsign (for obvious reasons - 'Maverick' wouldn't fly with the general movie-going audience...). There's a close(r) up photo of his dogtag on the first page of the Handbook. (Before anyone jumps on this - he's 'Maverick' in the novelization...)