Super Wing Commander cinematics

C

Caveman

Spaceman
Hi there

Is there any source where I can see the cutscenes from Super Wing Commander? I realy don't want to buy the game and an old Mac or 3DO (tried without much luck two years ago) and the emulated stuff has many graphic errors.

So far, I just found the Intro and some other, minor scenes. But I would like to see the plot-driving scenes and what they made out of them. I still remember the original ones... I wounder how the birdy-aliens look like in SWC.

Thanks for any hint
 
Some time back I worked up a mac emulator and played through swc, mostly to record the cutscenes and enjoy the missions of SM1.5 - I can upload those videos if you'd like?

To be honest though, SegaCD's speech puts it all to shame!
 
Madman said:
Some time back I worked up a mac emulator and played through swc, mostly to record the cutscenes and enjoy the missions of SM1.5 - I can upload those videos if you'd like?

To be honest though, SegaCD's speech puts it all to shame!
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Hells yes you can!

Those will be great for WCPedia!
 
Man, those would be wonderful to see for folks like me that have no way of ever playing SWC!

Please do so!
 
SWC Secret Missions 1.5

Caveman said:
I wounder how the birdy-aliens look like in SWC.
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Sadly, there are no Firekkans in SWC - instead of Secret Missions 2, it has "Secret Missions 1.5". The SM1.5 missions cover most SM2 plot points and add some foreshadowing about stealth technology, but lack the new aliens. SWC was made during the move towards live actors in WC3, so I'm wondering if there was a vague plan to retcon the Firekkans out of existence. If such a plan existed, it was brief - while the FMV game plotlines conveniently never feature one, the manuals and novels clearly state that Firekkans exist and survived the war, right up to Star*Soldier.

This has been mentioned many times, but while you can't see the SM1.5 cutscenes, you can read the text. The CIC has the SM1.5 script.

FekLeyrTarg said:
Here's the assault on the Venice star post and the ending cutscene:
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Hey, it's Baktosh Redclaw flying a Gratha! Does he always do that?
 
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SWC was made during the move towards live actors in WC3, so I'm wondering if there was a vague plan to retcon the Firekkans out of existence. If such a plan existed, it was brief - while the FMV game plotlines conveniently never feature one, the manuals and novels clearly state that Firekkans exist and survived the war, right up to Star*Soldier.
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There was a conscious effort not to see the Firekkans again--but it was more of a 'don't show them anymore' than a plan to remove them entirely. The powers that be circa 1991-2 were never especially happy with the Firekkans, which is why they don't ever play a major role again... plans for a Firekkan wingman in Wing Commander II were cut and the followup novel to Freedom Flight was canned. They were sort of resigned to the dustbin of Wing Commander continuity, only to be referenced occasionally in the background stuff.

(Basically what happened is that Chris Roberts and company weren't amused by the immediate running joke that Wing Commander's aliens were all just animals made big. Speaking for everyone who had to sit through ten thousand comments about how Wing Commander III would feature the 'Dograthi', I can confirm that the joke did get old fast.)

Secret Missions 1.5 was supposed to fulfill the same role as Secret Missions 2--and set the player up for a theoretical Super Wing Commander II which would have been done in the same style.
 
The 3DO version of SWC seems to feature some cutscenes that aren't in the mac version. I'm not entirely sure, since my mac run of the game went for about 3 years, so my memory could have failed me.
All the cutscenes in the 3DO are accessible by cheat by the way, which would make recording them via emulator or something much easier.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
They were sort of resigned to the dustbin of Wing Commander continuity, only to be referenced occasionally in the background stuff.
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This happens with about every science fiction or fantasy continuity that is shot in live action. Recurring Alien races to confront always consist of english speaking bipeds(be it with the help of a translation device). To have cats(which for the most are pretty smart animals) as enemies, was at least more original then giant lizards, and more entertaining then flying squids.
 
Creative aliens

Bandit LOAF said:
There was a conscious effort not to see the Firekkans again--but it was more of a 'don't show them anymore' than a plan to remove them entirely. The powers that be circa 1991-2 were never especially happy with the Firekkans, which is why they don't ever play a major role again...
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Thanks for clarifying that, since it's left me wondering for 15 years. Aliens are tough in any medium; they need to be accessible to newcomers, without becoming stereotypes. I used to complain about insufficiently creative aliens, until I played Master of Orion 3. The aliens there are so creative, they're impossible to empathise with. It doesn't help that most diplomatic communications are threats... without specifying what you're doing that upsets them!

Science fiction snobs may complain about the Kzin - Kilrathi resemblance, and the stereotypical cat behavior, but at least they're accessible.

Mace said:
To have cats (which for the most are pretty smart animals) as enemies, was at least more original than giant lizards, and more entertaining then flying squids.
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How can a flying squid not be entertaining? On the other hand, they already exist, which shows just how hard it is to create a truly alien lifeform.
 
hehe.. Master of Orion 3.

one of the production leads (Rantz) was so dead set on getting rid of the humans in rubber suit aliens that he made a specific effort to kill them off in favor of new 'starfish' aliens.

then after making the intro cinematic where it deals with the destruction of the mrrshans (his least favorite race of space cats ever) he was distraught to find out that he'd have to devote more time to them than any other race in the entire game..

way to shoot yourself in the foot, bud.
 
I would love to see the CIC post the cinematics from both SWC and WC: Sega CD.

The voices I have heard from the CD sound fantastic but I've only heard Halcyon, Shotglass, Paladin, Angel (one line) and Spirit's communication. Would love to see the rest.
 
interesting, i have a copy of SWC for 3DO..never played it because i dont have a 3DO console..recently i picked up WC3DO..again thinking that one day i will pick up the console on ebay..
so..if anyone is interested in assisting me on how to collect the images from the cd's, i am game...
or if there is a way to copy the cd's i can always forward to someone who wants to do it...
can a 3do cd be copied to a dvd..or cd?
 
J "Phantom" D said:
I would love to see the CIC post the cinematics from both SWC and WC: Sega CD.

The voices I have heard from the CD sound fantastic but I've only heard Halcyon, Shotglass, Paladin, Angel (one line) and Spirit's communication. Would love to see the rest.
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Well then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XylGryxWxcs - Briefing from SWC's SM1.5 1st mission
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34gr84I7MT4 - Briefing from SegaCD's 1st mission

Hope that encourages you to never ever seek to see the SWC cinematics ;)
 
Science fiction snobs may complain about the Kzin - Kilrathi resemblance, and the stereotypical cat behavior, but at least they're accessible.
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Is that a coincidence? I always just assumed that the Kilrathi were directly and shamelessly derived from Niven's Kzinti, as an homage, so to speak, to sci-fi that had gone before (along with naming a planet "Niven" in WC2).

Regarding the Firekkans, couldn't it have been possible to just "de-birdify" them a bit and keep them in the continuity? IN the WC movie, the Kilrathi look less cat-like, probably for the same reason (aliens = big, anthropromorphized animals is kind of cartoony and campy). It would have been easy to move the Firekkans to a bipedal race capable of flight that nonetheless did not resemble birds with human features.
 
Farbourne said:
Is that a coincidence? I always just assumed that the Kilrathi were directly and shamelessly derived from Niven's Kzinti, as an homage, so to speak, to sci-fi that had gone before (along with naming a planet "Niven" in WC2).
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Never noticed this on Star Trek:TAS, which is there only animated appearance, but on the cover of the books... Well, that might just as well be Thrakhath and Khasra onthere...
Mkwars3.jpg
 
Regarding the Firekkans, couldn't it have been possible to just "de-birdify" them a bit and keep them in the continuity? IN the WC movie, the Kilrathi look less cat-like, probably for the same reason (aliens = big, anthropromorphized animals is kind of cartoony and campy). It would have been easy to move the Firekkans to a bipedal race capable of flight that nonetheless did not resemble birds with human features.
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I guess it's worth saying that those responsible for the de-Firekkanization have been sacked. :) You do find them showing up in all sorts of post-Roberts proposals: Privateer Online was to have a Firekkan faction, Wing Commander Arena even had concept art of a Firekkan pilot for their aborted storyline mode... and so forth!

(I should stress that they are still *in* the continuity, we just weren't ever going to see them in a 1990s Wing Commander game. Rikik shows up in Fleet Action, Kilrathi are eating Firekkans in the Arena manual, they're on the WCU Map and so on...)

The Kilrathi in the Wing Commander movie weren't actually supposed to make them less cat-like. Roberts believed that the furry puppets in Wing Commander III and IV never looked right and he was trying to get something that would work well on screen (the general look was supposed to be feline, but armored like a samauri to try to avoid fake looking fur)... unfortunately they spent so much money on the movie costumes that they ended up with no options once they'd been constructed.

Never noticed this on Star Trek:TAS, which is there only animated appearance, but on the cover of the books... Well, that might just as well be Thrakhath and Khasra onthere...
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No question, the Kilrathi are derived from the Kzinti... but it should also be said that the Kzinti weren't so *big* when the Kilrathi borrowed from them in 1989. There were a character here and there in Larry Niven's Known Space books, they showed up on Star Trek once and so on. Baen's massively popular Man-Kzin series which ran through Wing Commander's great days may owe as much to WC as it does Ringworld.

I would love to see the CIC post the cinematics from both SWC and WC: Sega CD.
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I would very much like to do that! I've been operating off of a little netbook for a while now... I need to set up a Wing Commander news building rig!
 
Loaf, I do have all the winning track videos from segacd and as i said before, all the cinematics from sm1.5 if you want. see above for the quality
 
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