Fatale Attraction

July 1998 issue of Femme Fatales magazine (offering "the luscious ladies of horror, fantasy and science fiction") has an interesting interview with Wing Commander III and Prophecy star Ginger Lynn Allen conducted while she was doing press for the latter game. It even features two photos of Ginger on set that we've never seen before (plus some fairly tame cheesecake from other parts of her career)! Scans are below; here's the Wing Commander-focused portion:

And, one year later, she rekindled her celebrity with an interactive CD game. The medium is full of X-rated divas, but Allen opted for some sci-fi extravagance with WING COMMANDER III: HEART OF THE TIGER. In lieu of moaning and heavy breathing, she was working with the likes of Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, John Rhy-Davies and Malcolm McDowell.

Debuting in 1989, WING COMMANDER — the first simulated 3-D space flight game — earned enough revenue to spawn a sequel the following year. AUen was cast as Chief Technician Rachel Coriolis when the franchise turned into a trilogy. The saga involved “Earth being overrun by the cat-like race of the Kilrathi” and the Terran Confederation delegating “the one man qualified enough to destroy planet Kilrah.” It was fueled by a p.r. blitz, and ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT was on the set interviewing Allen, “a pivotal player in the lavish interactive game, produced for millions.”

Two years later, another sequel — WING COMMANDER: THE PATH OF FREEDOM — hit the shelves but Allen’s absence in the game was con- spicuous. Why wasn’t she hired to reprise the Coriolis role? “It just made good sense,” explains producer Dave Downing. “Ginger was the lead in WING COMMANDER III and it was great to have her back in WING COMMANDER: PROPHECY (aka WING COMMANDER V) which was released last year. She wasn’t in Part 4 because it was a different story with different action, but she was quite a draw based on our consumer interest. We felt that she was something we could use from a marketing angle, and have for the interest of the young men.”

Ms. Allen opens the interview by insisting that I just call her Ginger. “I’m a nice girl from Rockford, Illinois and here we go by first names.” I mentioned that, as a student of entomology at the University of Illinois, I lived in the state for over nine years. Next thing you know, we’re rapping about bugs, corn and soybean pests and her current ant problem. In regard to the latter, she jokes, ‘T’m a great cook, I think that they just keep coming back for my cooking. It’s a huge colony. I don’t like the spraying of pesticide because I have a three-month-old baby, a dog and a cat.”

After shifting into a de- scription of her WING COMMANDER femme, Ginger noted, “Rachel is the Chief Technician on the ship, and she is kind of a tough, ballsy, confident, cocky kind of gal. She is not someone that you would really want to mess with and she knows what she is doing. She is in charge, she loves her weapons and keeps the ship up and running. She was introduced in WING COMMANDER III, but things got a bit overwhelming at the time — and she was quite new at the time — so Rachel went on hiatus and went after a more prominent position. So she came back on this mission, WING COMMANDER V, and is more mature and has really come into her own as a woman and as a technician.” I can’t help interject that “went on hiatus” sounds like a euphemism which translates to “wasn’t hired.” Ginger giggles. “What I am saying is that everybody missed me in Part IV and I am back in Part V by popular demand. I was amazed. I have a PC, but I’m not a hacker. WING COMMANDER is the first experience I’ve had with this kind of project, and I had no idea of how popular CD games are. Playing the actual game, I crashed and burned-up in no more than two seconds — as soon as I got out into flight. I was never one to even play with old video games like Pac- Man or the tennis game.

When I turn on my computer now, I have two options: one is the standard and the other is WING COMMANDER III. It takes up a lot of memory space because it is so advanced and much is going on in it. I do my own Website [www.gingerlynn.com] and, by chatting on-line, I discovered that so many people play the game and love the character. For me it was a wonderful experience. I rarely get to play a tough girl. I am somewhat of a small woman, and I have this girl-next-door face and come across as very nice. Sometimes, when I am auditioning, they say, ‘Okay, but she almost looks too nice.’ So to have the opportunity to play Rachel — she is really a bitch — was a wonderful chance. On the ship there aren’t that many physical conflicts, but I would love Rachel to have some fights.”

So what are the significant differences between shooting a B-movie and a CD interactive film? WING COMMANDER III was filmed entire- ly against a green screen. Most of the locales and props didn’t exist and were added in post-production. “They were all phantoms, and I felt like a mime,” grins Ginger. “Plus, so much of the emphasis was shot with three to five different endings so you would have to say, ‘Okay, who died in this scene?. ..I’m mad at this guy in this scene, so now I kiss him but not in this ending. . .” And so on.” That could be challenging. But you really have to do more preparation and studying than for other media because you not only have to develop your character, you have to know what is happening from scene to scene and from ending to ending. There are so many different endings in PROPHECY (WC-5), dependent upon how you are playing the game. 'Then there are scenes where our characters, unlike WC-3, are the basis of it and not the interactive parts.

“And WC-3 didn’t have what I like about this one, specifically, camaraderie between the characters. It’s more of how it affects you when they don’t come back from their missions. It has especially impacted Rachel. She gets the ships ready and every ship that doesn’t come back is like suffering the loss of one of her babies. Although she is tough on the outside, she suffers on the inside because she cares now much more than she did before. I loved that I was able to grow as Rachel has grown in this one. The challenge is Rachel continuously being tough and doing her job: be compassionate but don’t let the loss of a friend get to her too much.”

CAPTION: “WING COMMANDER was a wonderful experience. I rarely play tough girls & Rachel was a bitch.”