Visual Guide Addendum: Pin-Ups (December 21, 2019)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Last week, we released a visual guide to propaganda posters in the Wing Commander movie which included a great deal of information. But readers were quick to point out one thing it did not include: the various pin-ups that also decorate the pilot's mess' walls. For this addendum, we've identified as many as possible and have also provided some history behind why they were included in the first place!






[*]There are two shirtless men to the left and a woman in a swimsuit with boxing gloves to the right as Blair and Maniac first enter the mess.
[*]On the pillar to Blair's left facing away from where he and Maniac enter. This one seems to be cutout of a woman in a red swimsuit.
[*]A collage of too-small-to-be-identified photos next to the "BE PREPARED" photo.
[*]A collection of rectangular photographs and a collage of photos that have been formed into a larger figure near the dart board. These are not seen clearly.
[*]An unspecified poster near the pinball machine. This one only appears in a few blurry frames during the quick pan before the jump; it may be a repeat of the boxing photo at the mess entrance.
[*]A cutout of a woman in a red swimsuit on a cabinet at the back of the room, best visible during the jump sequence (maybe he the same photo as the one on the pillar.)
[*]A black and white photo of a woman's butt which is visible in back of Maniac during the jump sequence time-slice.






The images themselves (at least those that are clearly visible) are most likely stock photographs from a license-free library available to the film's art department. It's quite possible that we will eventually be able to locate, for instance, the original photograph of the lady boxer. In fact, we've already found one! The rectangular butt photo visible in Maniac's is an art piece by the film's set photographer as found on his defunct MySpace gallery. In addition to maintaining continuity on the movie, Mr. Braun is a Luxembourg-based fetish photographer whose work has appeared regularly in galleries.





But why does the script specify including pin-ups in the first place? Like many small touches in the film, these pin-ups are a reference to the original Wing Commander. As the game's players began to examine what made the game especially immersive, seemingly minor details like the leaky pipe and the locker pin-ups in the Tiger's Claw's barracks gameflow screen were frequently identified. When Secret Missions 2 shipped in 1991 with an updated executable, programmers added the option to "check poster out" which loaded a larger image of the posters:





Perhaps in response to outcry on early bulletin board systems that adding cheesecake to the game was offensive, Strike Commander opted to offer both male and female pin-ups which could be selected from the Wildcats' headquarters.





Strike Commander's RealSpace engine follow-up, Pacific Strike, modified the system slightly and provided the pin-up as a player reward. If you are flying well, your crew chief will slip a small girly photo on your fighter's dashboard. Taking place during World War 2, there was less room for players to cry foul (or perhaps no one noticed over Pacific Strike's cacophony of other issues).





By 1994, sexy photos were out but the system was still being iterated upon. Wing Commander III featured a recurring gump in which clicking on Blair's locker triggered a video sequence. Depending on when in the game the locker was explored it could play a holographic message or cause Blair to reminisce about his vacation photos. These are the source photos digitized for the Premiere Edition calendar if you'd like to print your own!






Of course while Colonel Blair grew up in fifteen years of battling space cats, Maniac Marshall absolutely did not. He has a whole stack of pornographic magazines in his locker as seen in a famous Wing Commander III cutscene. You can read all about where it came from here!





Privateer may censor in-game copies of PlayThing(tm)... but artist Paul Steed (better known for his pioneering 3D texture work) was notorious for drawing pin-up girls in places they weren't wanted… like these Privateer storyboards intended to flesh out the designs for the game's different bases and ship modification screens!





Privateer 2: The Darkening features an AI pilot said to be a pin-up: Skecis Mk II wingman Vicksen Aureola's CCN biography reads, in part: "Pilot, Pin-Up and Philanderer, Aureola is a favourite with traders both in and out of the cockpit. Whereas her buxom charms have generated her a healthy income and wide-spread recognition across the Tri-System, it is as pilot of the fighter Bathukolpian that she chooses to devote her time." The game itself also brought in real life pin-up star Dani Behr to provide the voice of the player's ship AI. You can read more of her story here.





Finally, do you want a Wing Commander pin-up of your very own? We've got you covered: the March 1999 issue of Sci-Fi Teen magazine includes one of Blair in his marine armor! Copies are readily available on eBay.





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Original update published on December 21, 2019
 
I did a thing... Took some snapshots and ran them through a perspective fixer thing... I don't know if I got them quite right or not but this can at least help and maybe track down the originals
wcmposter_mess.png
wcmposter.png
 
Finally, do you want a Wing Commander pin-up of your very own? We've got you covered: the March 1999 issue of Sci-Fi Teen magazine includes one of Blair in his marine armor! Copies are readily available on eBay.

Looks an awfull lot like Saffron Burrow's face edited into the helmet.
 
That would be rather fancy for the late '90s. I think it's just a crop of one of the promotional press images.
 
Looks an awfull lot like Saffron Burrow's face edited into the helmet.

The cover image is Angel for sure. I don't know about the "pin-up" since I don't remember which picture is on it.

EDIT: The pinup is definitely Blair. Found a pic of it in our archives:

blair.gif
 
I recall Peter Telep asking me if I could think of a reason Angel would be going in with the marines, though it wasn’t clear at that point that she would be visible. We came up with the explanation in the book which was that she had once trained on a captured Dorkir transport (which we though would be the same class as the Dorkir since the Kilrathi comm ship in WC1 was one!)
 
so cool, I remember the ones from Strike Commander but missed Wing Commander 1 - secret missions 2, ten to one I never noted that you could click on the lockers...
 
I recall Peter Telep asking me if I could think of a reason Angel would be going in with the marines, though it wasn’t clear at that point that she would be visible. We came up with the explanation in the book which was that she had once trained on a captured Dorkir transport (which we though would be the same class as the Dorkir since the Kilrathi comm ship in WC1 was one!)

You reall don't get a good look at most of the marines in the theatrical cut. You can kind of tell that Angel is one of the marines that storm out of the Diligent but it's intercut so wierdly to make it look like Blair is among the group (he's not). It doesn't really register who's who. Angel's the one that helps the injured marine back to the door though. And you see her again finally once everything's over and everyone comes back to find Blair after he's found the Concom.

As for Angel, the script never really says why she's in charge of the Marine's boarding the Concom. It does seem like combat training is a regular part of the training the naval pilots receive. They're refered to marines and Blair doesn't seem to have any issues handling firearms. We see this in WCA too in the various planet based episodes. Blair's role makes sense in the script though. He's a turret gunner on the Diligent. Angel though has no such distinction and while a Wing Commander, it's hard to reason on why that means she would take command of a boarding raid on an enemy communications ship.

However the ultimate goal of the raid wasn't the concom but to get fuel cells. Paladin orders the marines to head for the bridge (ADRed into heading for the engine room) to keep them from scuttling the ship before they can retrieve the fuel cells. I would guess that means the compliment should include a few confed engineers that could safely remove the fuel cells. Paladin's original line to the marines before boarding was "As soon as you get in, go straight for the bridge. We've got to get control of that ship before they scuttle her. " So they needed to take control of the ship. Maybe it's a stretch but the reasoning could be that for the brief time that the marine's take control of the Concom, it's now Angel's ship/command and given the situation on the claw it's possible that there's not really anyone else suitable. (It's still a wierd take, sorry).
 
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