WC4 Novelization Complaints

D

Dragonslayer

Spaceman
I just bought and read the WC4 Novelization and I was very disappointed. Knowing the plot of the game and some of the missions from the game, I was very dissappointed with Forstchen's changes. Vagabond and Catscratch dont even figure into the novel. The battles between the Lexington and the Intrepid are different. Hawk and Panther arent fleshed out. Sosa and Blair's relationship is all wrong. THe Border Worlds dont even use the same fighters. I just didnt like this. Of course Forstchen as the author is allowed to trim the fat from the game's plot to provide a tight story but he butchered it. The confrontation with tolwyn lacks all the energy it had in the game. I loved his WC3 novel but that held closely to the major incidents in the game while adding nuances to them. Hell they didnt even have the Bearcat in the book.
 
This Novels-Games differences have been discussed before....
Thats it .....live with it :D
 
Ah... A thread about WCIV novel. Reuniting with and old friend... The thrill of Battle...

Not really.

According to common lore, Forstchen wasn't even the main author, the co-author did most of the writing.

** WARNING - OPINION **

I was also disappointed with the WCIV novelization. I liked the game/movie a lot, and I didn’t like the novel.

Anyway, here comes my personal bit of interpretation. Please notice that I am not debating what is "official" or not, just how I see it.

Tolwyn is in a lot of ways a tragic hero. There's his innocence, in the beginning. But he ends up quite a twisted person, in some ways because of the war around him and events that lead him up to what he became. On different circumstances, he probably would not do such evil actions like he did on WCIV. It’s a fantastic character when you think about it.

After reading Forstchen work on WC novels, I have the impression that he liked Tolwyn, and what Tolwyn stands for. Also that Forstchen didn't like Blair, or what Blair stands for. So it might have been difficult for him to write the WCIV novel, since the game/movie WCIV is about Blair being right and Tolwyn being wrong, and of Blair defeating Tolwyn in the end... It is a novel where the author is fighting with the story. He wants to story to go on a given way, but it must go the opposite way because he doesn't control the main events. So it ended up strange and twisted. That is MY point of view.

I know that LOAF and Chris disagree with a lot of this (as does LOAF's "merry guild of followers", to use a agwc reference). I do respect that. In fact, I'm very aware of their opinions, as they are aware of mine. Some “outsiders” didn’t agree with them either, and we have debated this endlessly on agwc. More often then not, it had a few knife-fights. There's no point in repeating that here. :) I am re-stating my opinion because you was not present at that time.

That’s the impression that I had by the way the novels were written. I could perceive that the author did in fact like Tolwyn and Bear a lot, just as he didn't like Blair at all. Of course this is very subjective, and a lot of people might think differently. That’s how reading novels are. Not everyone gets the same impressions.

As for specifics, yes the novel tell the story on a very different way and there's a lot of events that don't quite add up. It makes it really hard to put it all together on a single, unified universe without contradictions. But it’s not my job to debate the specifics of this. You either think game/novel can have contradictions that can't be resolved, or you think it's all good and contradictions cannot exist. But regardless of your choice, there's no point in debating it. If you really want to go into it, search some old newsgroup records from alt.games.wing-commander, if you can find them.
 
Forstchen faught to change Tolwyn's fate in the novel but to no avail. Is the WC4 book bad or wrong? Not at all. If you're picking up a 300 page novel, don't expect to find the game word-for-word in it. That would be boring and probably wouldn't sell.

The game is not at all about anyone being "right" or "wrong"; it's just you playing Mark Hamill trying to stop Malcolm McDowell from making a bad decision. It's not like Tolwyn was waking up every morning and eating his Wheaties while listening to the horrible screams of Telamon victims. He was more MacArthur or Patton than Hitler or Himmler. The word, which I think Delance was getting at, is 'hubris'.

Did Forstchen like Blair? Can't say. He didn't write a single WC novel with him in it. He just was a "ghost" while the other author did all the work.

All this "Tolwyn: Right Or Wrong" crap has been said and I'm sure will be said again.
 
Well.....I dont think that we should start now what real happened here and there ,and what events are right and which wrong....
As LOAF says "There is not now, nor has there ever been a grand design for the Wing Commander Universe. "

Just believe whatever you want to believe,accept whatever you want.Thats what I say :D
 
Originally posted by LeHah
The game is not at all about anyone being "right" or "wrong"; it's just you playing Mark Hamill trying to stop Malcolm McDowell from making a bad decision.
Click to expand...

Here is where I disagree. The story of WCIV is about right and wrong, much more than any other WC game. Just like Eisein said, it was easy when there was the Kilrathi. Things got complicated on WCIV. For some time, people wasn't so sure of what was right, and what was wrong.

I got the impression that Forstchen beleives Tolwyn is right, perhaps just misguided in his actions. But that his general beleif that mankind should be tinkered with to be a warrior race might be the "right" path. That's open for debate, given the universe of WC. But I do think that the Game/Movie let the impression this was wrong, while the Novel had a different tone.

Tolwyn like McArthur is something Forstchen was aiming for, yes. But as part as the way he tried to do his best to mitigate Tolwyn's actions. And it worked just fine, since for some there's no difference between them. However, not everyone thinks the same. For other people, it is not as relevant is Tolwyn LIKED to murder innocent people or not. Millions would die in the war. Billions would die if the gen-select weapon was to be deployed. That's genonice. If Tolwyn would cry for those people or he would laught, it's not that relevant. He would do it. He worked hard so it could be done. It's more serious then some people imagine. Confed do go around sentencing space marshal and war heros to death by crimes against humanity all the time.

If Tolwyn felt bad for the people murdered on Telamon, does it make it better? Does it make it worse? There's a good debate here. In fact, WCIV can be subject of several interesting debates... A very good and complex story.
 
WCIV wasn't complicated at all: There was a conspiracy against the Border Worlds to comit war. It turned out to be Tolwyn and Blair stopped him.

You are correct in stating that the game and the novel had different tones. I found all the books to be far more endearing to me since the characters were much more fleshed out by the authors.

As for the GenSelect Weapon, he planned on using it, yes. He also tested it. As horrible as it is, we can only surmise it's use in a war against the Border Worlds. He didn't work hard to kill people, he worked hard to keep surviving. Admittedly, it wasn't the most "humane" method, but still...
 
Originally posted by LeHah
WCIV wasn't complicated at all: There was a conspiracy against the Border Worlds to comit war. It turned out to be Tolwyn and Blair stopped him.

You are correct in stating that the game and the novel had different tones. I found all the books to be far more endearing to me since the characters were much more fleshed out by the authors.

As for the GenSelect Weapon, he planned on using it, yes. He also tested it. As horrible as it is, we can only surmise it's use in a war against the Border Worlds. He didn't work hard to kill people, he worked hard to keep surviving. Admittedly, it wasn't the most "humane" method, but still...
Click to expand...

Well, I do think WCIV has the most complex history of all WC games. The only other that approaches it is WC2. Then we have spies, traitors, humans working for the Kilrathi, Kilrathi that are citizens of the Confederation, Blair being punished by something he didn't do, an saboteur and assassin onboard the Concordia, Stealth Fighters that no one believes in, and the most well done romance in all WC games.

WC is very complicated, even before we find out the Tolwyn thing. It's complicated from the get go. Should Blair stay with the Confederation? Is Confed worth saving at all? Who is behind these attacks? Is Eisein a traitor? Is Paulsen a traitor? And the talk with Eisein has more intelligent thinking then the plot of a lot of games. Not only the story is complex, but the ideas behind it. Mankind united under a flag has advantages and disadvantages.

As for the GenSelect device, remember that Tolwyn's objective was to make all of mankind stronger, not only the border worlds. Separate the weak from the strong. If a few billions had to die along the way, well, they weren't worth anyway. In his vision the plantes targeted with the GenSelect would become stronger in the long run. He didn't want to make the UBW stronger. He wanted mankind to be ready for the next war. The best way, in his view, was to create a superior race and eliminate the weaklings. So I don't think the GenSelect is a weapon to attack the UBW, but, instead a tool to “tinker” with mankind. All of mankind. And that would mean at some point using the Black Lance to unleash it upon Confed. Dragons could easily infiltrate the defenses of any confederation system. Blair did land on the Senate, didn’t him? Only another Dragon could detect him.

As for the novel/game different tones, it is of course a matter of taste and personal preferences. I like the game/movie better myself. But, like ice-cream flavors, there's no right or wrong. :)
 
Delance,you scare me ,looks like you like Tolwyn`s Ideas ;)

I agree though with what you said.That was the vision of Tolwyn.
 
Originally posted by TCSTigersClaw
Delance,you scare me ,looks like you like Tolwyn`s Ideas ;)

I agree though with what you said.That was the vision of Tolwyn.
Click to expand...

I understand his ideas... But I disagree with them, of course. WCIV is a conflict of ideas, of ideologies... Such is the ending. Not a combat in deep space, but a debate on the senate, followed by a judgment.

Blair's debate with Tolwyn places WCIV Movie/Game into the realm of great sci-fi. Not only great sci-fi, but very good movie-making. Think of other space-movies around. Those scenes were better, in my book, then anything in 90+ Star Trek movies, Star Wars prequels or the WC movie. It's odd that WCIV was so much better then the official movie, but there's just the way it is. Mark Hammil and McDowell did great. Rhys-Davis was as good as a dwarf on helm's deep.

"Why can't we be more like the Kilrathi? Addicted to conflict, the only meaning of life being found in death. Tell us all, admiral... Is that the price of freedom?"

"This who court is out of order!!!"

"The truth!? You can't handle the truth!!!"

Got the idea?
 
You're looking far, far too deeply into a rather ankle-deep storyline in WC4.
 
The humorous screw-up was more Tom Wilson's acting interpretation than the characterization ever was.
 
Originally posted by LeHah
The humorous screw-up was more Tom Wilson's acting interpretation than the characterization ever was.
Click to expand...

Actually, the "screw up" bit was established Maniac behavior long before FMV. Maniac was and is the comic foil/relief, in every game in which the character has played a role.

Hell, look at the "use guns or missiles?" discussion in WC1, between Blair and Halcyon in the briefing room. :p
 
Well, he was always the obvious foil, but he was made more physically slapstick through Wilson. What I'm trying to say is that the character was more limited before WC3 and the novels.
 
Originally posted by LeHah
What I'm trying to say is that the character was more limited before WC3 and the novels.
Click to expand...

Amen to that. Although in WC3 he leaned more towards "jerkoff" than comic foil/relief. Although that "everybody knows the Maniac" conversation was hilarious! "Hey! Who hears knows of the Maniac? What? No one!?"

Plus his vidcom material was classic. Heh heh heh. He's the best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top