Bandit LOAF said:
It's funny -- we streamed a new longer cut of the Wing Commander movie in #WingNut last weekend and had a grand old time watching and talking about it.
I must see this...
For the curious, there has always been hints at what's in the deleted scenes here at the CIC since... before the movie came out. Often ignored, a number of screenshots that we've had since before the movie came out have had elements that aren't in the finished film. Over time we've also uncovered various bits that have been sitting under our noses all along. Lets run through a few examples.
This particular picture is interesting because immediately you don't quite recognize where this is supposed to be from in the film, and until recently we didn't really have any context.
Upon close examination though you can tell that the walls are rock and that the Marine isn't wearing a helmet, nor the standard Marine armor. So what is this? It's obviously not during the concom raid late in the film. It really only fits into the Pegasus attack. A close examination will tell you that this looks an awful lot like one of the guards that is attacked by the kilrathi while Admiral Wilson and the Pegasus' security officer watch on a security camera. This whole sequence is maybe 2 to 4 seconds in the finished film.
Enter Ed Rice. Ed Rice was one of the people that worked *inside* the Kilrathi animatronic suits. We recently
uncovered a video he posted of his work on the film, and wouldn't you know it? It has behind the scenes footage of this very scene in discussion:
What is apparent is that it was originally a more elaborate shootout in the corridor with the guard's possition being overran. It might not have ammounted to a significant amount of screen time, but interestingly the workprint also has a few extra frames in this segment as well. In the theatrical cut the order of shots is actually jumbled to make it seem like it was an attack on multiple decks but it's obvious it's one longer sequence originally. The guards are pulling back, shooting at the kilrathi. At least one goes down by gunfire. On the DVD you can see the woman in the picture then run away. Apparently she was going to meet her end with a set of claws to the face! Gah... ugly Kilrathi or not I think I would have liked to see that. (And, I have no idea why one is mirrored)
We all knew that the Merlin character was nixed early on. But for years we debated on exactly when the production decided to not use the character and ultimated ruin the possibilty the inclusion of the traitor subplot in the theatrical cut. Only recently did we find out that the proof that they actually shot all the scenes in the movie to allow for Merlin existed.... And it had been right under our noses for years. When examining the films electronic press kit and removing the music track (they conveniently had the music in one channel and the camera audio in the other) it turns out there was
a shot of on of Merlin's scenes!
Now how about that Traitor subplot?
.
Who is that among those hairles felines? Why, it's a Pilgrim traitor! Again, these shots have been online since before the film came out. This fellow would have had several scenes thoughout the film where he converses with the Kilrathi Admiral and urges them to destroy earth and not underestimate the crew of the Tiger Claw. Oh, and check out that shiny idol of Sivar in the foreground of those first couple of shots!
What a strange pose! Well, that is because this Cat has just been startled by Christopher Blair grenading the "pillbox-like" door to the Concon bridge. Aware of the attack by Confed marines. This ugly fellow is waiting patiently over the self-destruct button. Can plair explode his chest before his hand comes down on the big red game-ending button?
Whoa! Wait a minute! Those are two confed marines duking it out! Blair has cleared the Kilrathi bridge, but discovered the ULF transmitter that begins broadcasting a highfrequency burts detailing the Tiger Claw's location to the whole fleet. Gerald is upset blair has left his post in the Diligent's ion gun turret and suspects it's because he's a traitor. One of the real traitors (see above) tries to pit Blair against Gerald. Perhaps a knife fight with a pilgrim cross will prove Blair's loyalty to the Pilgrim cause. In this picture Blair gets the upper hand in time to prove to Gerald where his loyalties really lie.
Do you remeber two really akward jump transitions in the theatrical cut? There was one where Maniac shimmies in slow motion and one where Blair's face goes black . I know I've wondered why the jump effects weren't consistent. Why didn't they use the same timeslice technology for all of them. Well, this picture kind of suggests that they did! Notice the huge curved camera rig set up around the Rapier cockpit. My guess is that this is near the end of the film where Blair needs to jump a rapier into sol system to warn the fleet. So why didn't they use the effect? My guess was that it's possible the footage was either unusable or not dynamic enough to give the idea that time is standing still for Blair for a second or two. Maybe Chris didn't like that Blair had his mouth open the whole time! (he actually has his facemask on for the jump).
Note that the second picture also has the rig on the flight deck but it doesn't acutally look like it's set up for a shot in that picture.
For more info on just what was cut from the movie, here's a rundown of some of the scenes in the script along with screenshots from the workprint:
https://www.wcnews.com/articles/movie_cuts.shtml
Way back before the film was released the 3 minute international trailer that got leaked online also contained several second of footage not in the finished film, including a brief explosion. Keen eyes will notice that Blair and Gerald in marine outfits are knocked down by the explosion of a grenade detonated by the dying Pilgrim traitor. You can download the whole trailer in terrible quality
here or just get the video I made that tries to isolate the extra footage here:
http://download.wcnews.com/files/wcm/wcm_trailer_deletedscenes.avi
You can also check out the movie novelization which is pretty faithful to the shooting script, or you can search our archives for the various drafts of the film we have online.