Wing Commander Meme of the Day: Change My Mind (August 11, 2018)

The whole point of pretending dead pilots never existed has always been the most ridiculous one in the movie for me.
All the pilots who died, including Bossman and Rosie, deserved a proper funeral reminding friends and relatives who these pilots were, how they lived and what they accomplished instead of being disrespected like this.
Captain Metcalve made a good point to Colonel Webber on the importance of proper funerals when telling him about Custer's Carnival in "Defiant Few - The Day of Poision".
 
However, this particular scene wasn't related to the "if you're dead, you never existed" conceit. The idea was that the wreckage was blocking the landing path for other ships, which were running out of fuel. The movie wanted to communicate a difficult choice: attempt to save one pilot, possibly already dead, and risk losing a significant part of the carrier's fighter wing in the process (which, in turn, could endanger a lot of lives). The reason this didn't work, of course, is that pushing the fighter off the deck didn't look like it was a significantly more time-consuming process than pushing it into the hangar; or it could be pushed to the side of the deck, where it would not get in the way of landing fighters - it certainly didn't seem big enough to block the entire path. And then there's the question of emergency rescue teams - like, didn't they have any? Any modern carrier will have people standing by to rescue a pilot from a damaged fighter coming in to land, so what was the story here?

The artificial gravity didn't help, although it's probably only a problem for non-fans, who tend to stop at the "it's silly to have things fall off in space" level of analysis. From the fan perspective, it does make sense that the ship's artificial gravity field extends all the way to the edge of the ship and maybe even a bit beyond (this would also explain that ridiculous, ridiculous "drop" that fighters go through on take-off). But understandable or not, it still looks silly.
 
"The artificial gravity didn't help, although it's probably only a problem for non-fans, who tend to stop at the "it's silly to have things fall off in space" level of analysis. From the fan perspective, it does make sense that the ship's artificial gravity field extends all the way to the edge of the ship and maybe even a bit beyond (this would also explain that ridiculous, ridiculous "drop" that fighters go through on take-off). But understandable or not, it still looks silly."

I'd just say that there were better ways to convey a command decision of that magnitude. I have the same problem with Goose defying the laws of physics to die in Top Gun, when they could have simply had his chute malfunction.

Why not have Rosie crash into the barriers within the hangar, get trapped in a burning fighter and there weren't enough personnel to get her out of danger while emergency landing the rest of the fighters? Why are they worried about "running out of fuel" when they're in space and can simply shut their engines off (or just pull them to idle)?

In any case, it's the kind of issue that will come with trying to make space war = World War II so closely. I count myself among those that enjoy this movie, regardless of such issues.
 
Hunter_13 said:
In any case, it's the kind of issue that will come with trying to make space war = World War II so closely. I count myself among those that enjoy this movie, regardless of such issues.
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The issues mostly stem from just that. They - probably at the urging of the producers - decided that if they were going to do WWII in space, then they should just embrace it and go all out. Everything from the set design, to the way the fighters move, and more was based on various bits and pieces from classic war movies and more. They really needed a few more months of preproduction to really plan a lot of these scenes out better and to come up with solutions that both met the motif but also made sense on a grander scale.

Interestingly, in some of the earlier versions of this scene, rather than a tractor, the Claw has some kind of automatic shunting system where big metal paddles sweep the deck automatically. There's no tractor that needs to go out the airlock, and thus avoids the "it would have taken the same amount of time to push her in" problem. It doesn't answer why the other fighters can't just maneuver around the rapier... though perhaps the artificial gravity means that the fighters have to maintain a certain amount of momentum on the way into the hangar. It also explains why Maniac doesn't seem to know what a tractor is when he's yelling "what is that!" and then pleading with the flight boss to stop the process.

 
AD said:
Interestingly, in some of the earlier versions of this scene, rather than a tractor, the Claw has some kind of automatic shunting system where big metal paddles sweep the deck automatically. There's no tractor that needs to go out the airlock, and thus avoids the "it would have taken the same amount of time to push her in" problem. It doesn't answer why the other fighters can't just maneuver around the rapier... though perhaps the artificial gravity means that the fighters have to maintain a certain amount of momentum on the way into the hangar. It also explains why Maniac doesn't seem to know what a tractor is when he's yelling "what is that!" and then pleading with the flight boss to stop the process.
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You'd still ask why the paddles don't sweep inwards towards the enclosed airspace area. Also, we see the Diligent land vertically into a landing bay when it first arrives at the Claw, so there's certainly ways for craft to maneuver into landing position.
 
ChrisReid said:
You'd still ask why the paddles don't sweep inwards towards the enclosed airspace area. Also, we see the Diligent land vertically into a landing bay when it first arrives at the Claw, so there's certainly ways for craft to maneuver into landing position.
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The scene as a whole is probably the most problematic one in the movie, moreso than any Pilgrim stuff or the "never existed" subplot. We see rapiers maneuver directly vertically earlier in the movie even with the Jack-in-the-box move. The bay the Diligent parks in is a separate bay though with a separate door and presumably, at the point Rosie crashes, the Diligent is still parked there, so the bay isn't available for Rapiers.
 
Yeah, I didn't mean it would literally use that bay, just that the ship and ships who are landing on it obviously have the ability to land vertically, even if they just had to park straight down onto the flight deck.
 
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