Squadron 42 Cast Revealed; Hamill & Rhys-Davis Again Voicing Space Sim Characters (October 10, 2015)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
There's big news coming out of the UK today at Cloud Imperium Game's third annual Citizen Con. A stellar cast for Star Citizen's storyline campaign, Squadron 42, has been revealed. Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Rhona Mitra, Mark Strong and Gillian Anderson will all be voicing characters in the game next year. This certainly fulfills the team's 2012 commitment to add "Celebrity voice-acting for Squadron 42; we will bring back at least one favorite from Wing Commander!" for achieving their first $5 million stretch goal milestone. A storyline trailer that's reminiscent of Admiral Tolwyn's WC4 speech to the Confederation Senate has been released starring Gary Oldman. Additional behind-the-scenes videos have also been posted that shows most of the cast during their motion capture sessions. Chris Roberts describes it all as advancing the art of cinematic storytelling in games similar to what he did in the '90s with Wing Commander. Check out the action below!

--
Original update published on October 10, 2015
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Senate Scene Looks like a Tribute to WC4.

senate.jpg
And Mark is maybe a Pilot - Blair? :D
sq42.jpg

And if you missed it - the Wing Commander 3 ähm SQ42 Start...

Min 2:20
 
Sooo..... we got
- Davos Seaworth, a.k.a. the Onion Knight
- Gollum
- Zorg
- Agent Scully
- Gimli
- Lord Henry Blackwood
and also Luke Skywalker (or The Joker if you prefer).

Looks pretty good so far IMO.
 
I haven't watched the videos yet but would it be fair to say that the speculation made nearly five months ago has finally been confirmed? Regardless, this seems like fun. I'm pleased to see Maverick and Paladin in the project, even if they will be in less-familiar roles.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Never mind, I missed the in-line link reference in the original post.

Watched the videos. Pretty nice to see so many famous faces mingling with everyone on set and in their respective performances. Interesting open-jacket uniform design for the admiral.

I get the impression shooting for the Squadron 42 story has finished, or is mostly complete (don't think they would announce this prematurely otherwise). I know there's a lot of further work to do, let alone getting the game itself done, but those glimpses of the performances are a very interesting peek into the story segments.
 
Well everything is cyclical. I remember having to sink cash into my PC when WCs 1&2 came out to get it up to snuff. After watching the video it looks like I must do so again for S42...CURSE YOU ROBERTS!!! :D
 
I watched the video. I'm somewhat at a loss for words, because I don't want to spout too much negativity. Well, I suppose if I start off by pointing out the positives, that will help...

So... positives. There are indeed many. The character animation, facial details, lipsync, all this stuff is utterly great. And done in-game, I presume? Magnificent. And amazing, too, when you think about the fact that it really wasn't so long ago that top-quality films, harnessing all the power that pre-rendering provides, and working on budgets that far outshine Star Citizen, were just about able to provide this kind of quality.

Now, the negatives - just a couple of them, really, though they have fairly big weight in the reception of the scene overall. It goes without saying, anything I write here is subjective. These are things I didn't like. They might not bother others.

Firstly, the camerawork. I hated it with a passion. It's like we're back in 1997, the era of WCP, where the camera just had to spin circles around a fighter landing on the Midway, BECAUSE WE CAN!!!!!! The camerawork in this video has all the hallmarks of that kind of early infatuation with the possibilities granted by CGI. I think it's terrible. There is so much motion that just serves no purpose other than to irritate the viewer by constant business. It also reeks of unnaturality. Generally, a good way to shoot a scene, I would argue, is to shoot in such a way that even if a scene doesn't reflect anyone's particular POV, each of the takes is conceivably someone's (or something's, like a ceiling camera's) POV. If the camera is going to suddenly start moving about freely, there should be a strong reason for it. The movement should be conveying some additional meaning, or imparting a particular feeling. Obviously, for all I know, that could well have been the intention here - it certainly may be that Chris Roberts knows exactly why the camera is moving all the time, and changing views and stuff. But I cannot see any purpose to it. As far as I can see, the movement is meaningless, and to me, therefore, it is terrible and distracting.

Secondly, Admiral Bishop. This point is even more subjective, to the extreme. He seems so completely wrong in this scene. Evidently an esteemed military leader, rallying the senate for war... while looking and sounding like a doddering old man straight out of a retirement village. How old is the guy, eighty? Why isn't he out to pasture, replaced by somebody who can actually sound strong.... and why is this doddering old guy able to rouse so many people, when his very voice makes him sound like the very last person who should be allowed to conduct war? I mean, hearing this guy speak, I find myself wondering: are we going to lose a battle, because this great leader forgot where he put his glasses or something? It just seems like a bad choice of characterisation. This guy's got nothing on Tolwyn. But hey, maybe that's the point? Maybe all of the above is exactly the impression I'm supposed to walk away with, and maybe this pays off further down the track?

But enough complaining from me - I'm not a paying Star Citizen customer, so my opinion isn't that important in the scheme of things :).
 
I'd be surprised if the camera work is final at this stage.

As for the admiral, there I'll agree with you. He certainly doesn't look that old, but isn't it Gary Oldman despite only being 57 sounds a lot older than I remember.
 
Final or not, it takes a lot less effort to arrange the camera properly, with a few stable shots, than it does to arrange all that frenetic movement we see in the scene at the moment - so clearly, at least at this point in time, that's the direction the game is taking. Oh, well. Maybe other people like it.
 
Quarto said:
And done in-game, I presume? Magnificent.
Click to expand...
I think just about everything that RSI puts out is done with in-game rendering. That's one of the selling points, I believe.

Quarto said:
Firstly, the camerawork. I hated it with a passion.
Click to expand...
Always the negatives with you! Well, I suppose someone has to. ;) I watched it again trying to focus on the camera angles, but as before this didn't seem to bother me. There were even hover-cams shown in the clip, which I suppose could imply the freedom of movement you see. I suppose everyone has their opinion on directing styles, but honestly this wasn't one that stood out to me much, good or bad.

Quarto said:
Admiral Bishop... Evidently an esteemed military leader, rallying the senate for war... while looking and sounding like a doddering old man straight out of a retirement village.
Click to expand...
It sounds like the UEE government is operating under the (misguided) belief it is in peacetime. Perhaps, with such a mind-set, 'old fogeys' like Bishop can remain in service. Who knows? As for me, I actually thought he was quite firm with his tone and words. Maybe Oldman's direction was to give Bishop the voice of an old man, but he really didn't come across as doddering nor from a retirement village to me. The reaction from the UEE Senate did seem over the top to me, but the whole things seems to play to me like (one of) the opening scenes of the Squadron 42 story campaign, so it feels more as though it's addressing the player rather than the Senate.

Oh well, as you say, you're not a paying customer (at the moment, anyway) so you're not going to be disappointed. ;)
 
I didn't want to be the first to post something negative, and I didn't have the time either.
Now that Quarto was here to take the fire , I'd like to add some stuff:
- I like Gary Oldman, really, but I also thought his voice was a bit too weak there.
- I didn't mind the camerawork, but I rarely do, even when it is strange (looking at you, BSG!).

But... I kind of disliked the speech itself. It sounds really cheesy to me. Please excuse me that I say it that way, my american friends, but in Germany many people call that kind of speech a "typical american speech" and dislike it a lot.
I remember having a discussion back in the Saga days, when we talked about the voiceovers of one of the trailers.
Some team members didn't mind, but to me for example that trailer sounded so ridiculously over the top that it was cringe-worthy.
Tolwyn realized that especially europeans could dislike it, and toned it down quite a bit. The result looked pretty good IMO.
When talking about movies the same thing happens to me regularly.
Examples:
- "Independence Day"
- "Avatar"
- "Armageddon"
I am of course aware that many people don't mind at all.
In fact talking to people on the web and in person I noticed that a considerable number of people - most of them americans as far as I can tell - actually like that kind of speech.
The speech in that trailer is very close to being cringe-worthy. To me it sounds very cheesy.
 
Camera movement? I kinda hate the Michael Bay style where the camera never sits still for even an instant, but this was far from that level. The only shot that I found odd was one of the first ones where Bishop approaches the mic, but that was such a low level non issue overall.

This speech taken on it's own though lacks a lot of context (inluding a bunch of lore that has been shown on the RSI site over the last 3 years). These are politicians that want to cut the military spending, and pad their bottom line rather than defend the border worlds. Bishop is calling them out on their inaction.

I *did* find the audio mix a bit off on my first listen, but honestly it's grown on me with subsequent viewings (especially with the full 1080p 60FPS). I think part of it is that it lacks the proper reverb to reflect he's trying to project in a large space. Instead it comes off as if he's straining (At the start).

Overall though, I like it more with every time I watch it.
 
Aginor you know we discuss this several times. Maybe a few europeans did not like such Kind of speech. I DO!

Why?

Bishop is as far as I know some Kind of Admiral Tolwyn and Commander Cain mix. A Military Genius with hate against the Vanduul. I don't want to Spoiler too much.
But he has eggs! Not like our european poilitics with "Ah no, we want no war with the ISIS! We take several millions refuges but don't know where they can sleep, eat, work" I say yes to help the refuges but WAR against the ISIS is the only Option! They not deal with diplomatics, well then how about some bombs?!

In his case, several UEE worlds are under attack and the Military do just Little foodsteps and retreat, retreat. But they can't give up and give the Vanduuls any more ground! That why the UEE is at WAR! We, the guys from Operation Pitchfork are at WAR! We free Orion at any costs! Meanwhile my own ships are all the way - AEGIS - Gladius, Sabre, Vanguard, Retaliator - maybe soon Idris!

I say at the end of the third campaign the war with the Vanduul is over - and we have another genoside! If the Vanduul like this way - then well - Punch it!
 
Stating the facts is one thing.
The way you try to pursuade people to follow you is another.
I actually agree with what he says. But I don't agree because of emotional speeches, but because of proper strategies.
He wants to battle the Vanduul. I would have expected a list of what they did, how he plans to prevent it to happen in the future, and what he needs to do it.
He is an admiral, he should do the military thing to do.
...but then I am not a politician...

(of course we don't know the exact context except what we have seen and read at rsi.com, but if politicians in the senate agree or disagree based on that speech they are a poor bunch of paper-pushers. :D )
 
The Confeds were faster

2529-2534 until they declared War to the Kilrathi with destroying the Iason and some short attacks
The UEE fighting the Vanduuls for 200 years and lost over 4 worlds until they declared War!

I want Imperator Messer back ;) But no! I am the new Emperor in SC!!! :teach: :ugly:

944x531.jpg

Our dream at Galactic Starfleet of Pinbordia - 3 Idris and escort fleet.
 
Last edited:
Quarto said:
Secondly, Admiral Bishop. This point is even more subjective, to the extreme. He seems so completely wrong in this scene. Evidently an esteemed military leader, rallying the senate for war... while looking and sounding like a doddering old man straight out of a retirement village. How old is the guy, eighty? Why isn't he out to pasture, replaced by somebody who can actually sound strong.... and why is this doddering old guy able to rouse so many people, when his very voice makes him sound like the very last person who should be allowed to conduct war? I mean, hearing this guy speak, I find myself wondering: are we going to lose a battle, because this great leader forgot where he put his glasses or something? It just seems like a bad choice of characterisation. This guy's got nothing on Tolwyn. But hey, maybe that's the point? Maybe all of the above is exactly the impression I'm supposed to walk away with, and maybe this pays off further down the track?
Click to expand...

U.S. General George S. Patton had this squeaky nasal voice too, so I'm wondering if they aren't deliberately trying to invoke that.

Also, I thought I had heard that Tom Wilson was in on Star Citizen? He doesn't seem to be listed in the top-ranked cast members (though of course this is not an exhaustive list of all voice cast, but I would have thought he would make the top dozen if he was in it).
 
Ijuin said:
U.S. General George S. Patton had this squeaky nasal voice too, so I'm wondering if they aren't deliberately trying to invoke that.
Click to expand...
I read at another forum that apparently there was some confusion, with Oldman recording his lines while under the impression that his character is much older, while the art team was working to make a younger character. I don't know if this is true, because the person who said it didn't point to where he got the notion from.
 
Quarto said:
I read at another forum that apparently there was some confusion, with Oldman recording his lines while under the impression that his character is much older, while the art team was working to make a younger character. I don't know if this is true, because the person who said it didn't point to where he got the notion from.
Click to expand...
Yeah... no idea... His character has to be old enough to be Gillian Anderson's dad though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top