Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is The Right Stuff (1983) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 6 PM PST/9 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time! Please note that the movie is starting one hour earlier than usual to accommodate its run time.

After Action Report: Sphere

The Wing Commander movie club has nothing to fear but Sphere itself! The general consensus is that while there's some material of interest in Sphere it doesn't really come together in the end… and it spends a lot of time not quite getting there! In the week before the screening, a lot of people told me that Sphere was a guilty pleasure because they had seen it in theaters when it came out. And there's an argument that that's actually the best kind of movie: one you can enjoy in spite of itself.

... while Sphere may not be a timeless classic, we immediately saw that it had a pretty tangible impact on the Wing Commander movie. We knew going in that this was one of three movies referenced by Digital Anvil's spectacular opening titles… and just like 1492, the influence was obvious in the first seconds of the film. Like 1492, Sphere uses historical drawings as part of the backdrop for the titles… but it also has text that flashes in and out and floats horizontally like Wing Commander and it has flashes of scarier monsters between the historical drawings like Wing Commander's Kilrathi frames. Here's the Sphere intro:

If you want to know more about the Wing Commander introduction, we took a pretty comprehensive look its elements when we talked about 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Here's where a few line up in Sphere:

KATT Got Your Tongue

We recently posted about the Wing Commander material included in the Keyboard And Terminal Technology (KATT) Game Master Matt, which I was thrilled to see for the very first time. That was all thanks to LiqMatrix who has done some truly incredible work preserving the history of this very odd device. And now they've made available a massive archive that includes not only the Wing Commander artwork but everything they managed to collect about the KATT... including a preserved copy of the actual upgrade ROM that adds support for games like Privateer and Academy! You can read all about it at Games That Weren't and you can download the material from the Internet Archive. There's even a well produced 45-minute video unboxing a KATT! Check it out:

Wing Commander Series Discounted 50% for Autumn Sale

Sound Blaster Re:Imagine Kickstarter Launches

The long-teased Creative Labs Sound Blaster Re:Imagine Kickstarter has launched (and already met its goal)! So what the heck is this thing? it's a physical 'hub' that you can reconfigure with different components including switches, sliders, dials and a tiny screen. It runs Linux and can operate apps like the SoundBlaster parrot and a DOS emulator without needing to connect to your PC. They say:

Re:Imagine is a modular audio hub that brings all your audio devices together in one place. Switch connections instantly across any input, and any output.

Customize your setup with programmable modular controls. Enjoy high resolution audio playback via a powerful DAC and amp. And you have superuser access to hardware, to create and run your own apps on it.

More than a sound card, it is your hub, your control deck, and your creative playground.

There are plenty of additional details on the pledge page and a comprehenive FAQ. I'm not sure it's anything anyone was specifically looking for but it does look like the sort of thing that would be fun for hobbyists. The AI branding for the apps is a turn off but the details make it pretty clear it's marketing speak.

But what about Wing Commander? It's not included but the original game does show up all over the marketing! It seems like WC is promoting the fact that the Re:Imagine has an onboard DOS emulator ("Retro PC Gaming via a DOS emulator running on-device") which you can play standalone on the tiny screen. Necessary? No. The ideal way to play Wing Commander? No. Pretty neat? Yes! It even kicks off their promotional video (CIC mirror):

We also see Wing Commander in some of the campaign graphics. It shows up in two of the animations on the campaign page, embedded below. (And because we're completionists, here are the slightly different versions included in campaign emails: one, two).

There is one unquestionably great aspect of the campaign, though: if it raises $250,000, everyone gets a stuffed parrot!

Wing Commander Movie Night: The Right Stuff

We have traveled to the bottom of the sea and released the Sphere sphere! Sphere wasn't a classic but it was interesting enough… and you could certainly see the Wing Commander movie intro in its opening titles. For Halloween, we've voted to dress up as astronauts… and watch The Right Stuff (1983), a true classic. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along. Please note that the movie will begin one hour early (at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific) to accommodate the run time.

Our Wing Commander connection for this one is a cutscene from Wing Commander Prophecy. Prophecy selects a landing cutscene where Rachel reacts to your mission depending on your performance. Missions can be immaculate, A, B, C, D or F with F representing a total failure. This is one of the 'A' options where Rachel tells you you've got 'the right stuff'.

So what is the 'right stuff'? It's a term adopted in the 1950s to refer to an inexplicable quality that separates successful fighter pilots from people who are innately unable to thrive in the job. It was first used in the Korean War but it was quickly adopted by the test pilots of the 1950s and 1960s. Tom Wolfe popularized it when he wrote the original book of The Right Stuff, using it to speak to his thesis that men like Chuck Yeager and the Mercury astronauts had something extraordinary in them. Here's how it's described in the book:

A young man might go into military flight training believing that he was entering some sort of technical school in which he was simply going to acquire a certain set of skills. Instead, he found himself all at once enclosed in a fraternity. And in this fraternity, even though it was military, men were not rated by their outward rank as ensigns, lieutenants, commanders, or whatever. No, herein the world was divided into those who had it and those who did not. This quality, this it, was never named, however, nor was it talked about in anyway. As to just what this ineffable quality was… well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment—and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite—and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humanity, to God. Nor was there a test to show whether or not a pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even—ultimately, God willing, one day —that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men's eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself. None of this was to be mentioned, and yet it was acted out in a way that a young man could not fail to understand. When a new flight (i.e., a class) of trainees arrived at Pensacola, they were brought into an auditorium for a little lecture. An officer would tell them: "Take a look at the man on either side of you. "Quite a few actually swiveled their heads this way and that, in the interest of appearing diligent. Then the officer would say: "One of the three of you is not going to make it!"—meaning, not get his wings. That was the opening theme, the motif of primary training. We already know that one-third of you do not have the right stuff—it only remains to find out who.

Incidentally, Action Stations heavily cribs Ensign Tolwyn's argument to Senator More from this same chapter and general idea!

"Sir, I am in training so I can one day fly a Wildcat. The good Lord willing, I'll make the grade. And when I get my wings, sir, I want to point out one thing."
He paused as if willing to let More interject, but then forged ahead.
"There is a one in three chance, sir, that within five years I'll be dead. The reason, sir, is that the fleet board begged your committee for the additional ten million for a Wildcat upgrade. The engines are outdated, stress flaws are becoming increasingly common. In short they're already five years past their design limits. The Wildcat is thirty years old and its replacement, thanks to cutbacks, won't be fully on-line for at least five more years. Therefore we are in a bind, sir. Since neither the upgrade facility for the Wildcat nor the main factory for its replacement went to your district, you turned on the plan and have locked it in committee for three and a half years, sir.
"Respectfully, sir, on behalf of my comrades who graduated today and will fly with me, we do hope that you get your political deal, sir, and that you force the Senate to build the facilities on your world, where I understand that several of your family members own the land the proposed facilities were to be built on. Your district will profit, and, sir, I will be able to look forward to living past the age of twenty-six."

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

The Right Stuff is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on Blu-ray in 2017 and remains in print around the world. The Internet Archive doesn't have a recent copy, although you CAN view it like we did in the 1980s: on a pair of VHS tapes (tape A & tape B)! If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 9 PM EST. Please note that this is one hour earlier than usual to allow for the film's lengthy run time. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

How can I help pick future movie club movies?

The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.

All About That Base: Vision Engine Edition

We've been working on a more expansive atlas of the Wing Commander universe and part of that involves finding all the space stations we've seen throughout the series. I recently went through Wing Commanders Prophecy and Secret Ops and thought I'd share some of my notes here! Here are all the bases we see in the game, plus an extra screenshot of the high poly model if they appear in a cutscene.

Terran Confederation

Ella Starbase
Class: Ella-type
Location: Ella System
Visited by the Cerberus crew in the Ella series. Behind the scenes material refers to it as 'new Ella' indicating it may be distinct from the Ella superbase from Wing Commander IV. The base type has eight targetable bridges, four on top and four on the bottom.

Wing Commander Prophecy includes two different in-engine base meshes: the more familiar relay station and a unique TCS Callisto variant seen only in the game's losing path. Callisto has a unique set of comms and it lacks the large dish seen on the relay station. Wing Commander Secret Ops adds a third base type, the "outpost" which has a von Braun wheel style rotating structure around it. It also adds a superbase model.

Jupiter Station
Location: Sol System
Jupiter Station is named in Secret Ops but it appears in a losing cutscene in Wing Commander Prophecy. Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy refers to it as the Confederation headquarters. The mesh does not appear in the game engine. It is the same type of base as Torgo from Wing Commander III and Orion from Wing Commander IV.

Krieger Starbase
Class: Confederation Outpost
Location: Krieger System
Visited by the Cerberus crew in the Krieger series. The Outposts consist of a bridge, two hangars, a main antenna and two secondary antennae.

Luyten Station
Class: Confederation Comm Relay
Location: Luyten System
Visited by the Cerberus crew in the Luyten series.

Relay Station
Class: Confederation Relay Station
Location: H'hrass System
The H'hrass relay station is where Commodore Blair is first abducted by the Nephilim. It consists of a bridge and two hangars.

Talos Station
Class: Confederation Outpost
Location: Talos System
Visited by the Cerberus crew in the Talos series.

Terran ShipYard Arcology
Class: Confederation Comm Relay
Location: Sol System
The TSY Arcology is seen during the introduction to Wing Commander Secret Ops. It is where the Midway returns to refit after the events of Prophecy.

TCS Callisto
Class: Confederation Starbase
Location: Hellespont System
The TCS Callisto is seen during the game's losing series in the Hellespont system. You must save Callisto to successfully return to the winning track.

Unidentified Starbase
Class: Ella-type
Location: Sol System
This station, which is the same type as Ella, appears in the Wing Commander Secret Ops endgames. It is never named.

TCA Base
Class: Confederation Comm Relay
Location: Simulated
The TCA Base is seen in the Midway's flight simulator. It is intended to represent an Academy training base.

Kilrathi Assembly of Clans

Dula Seven
Class: Kilrathi Station
Location: T'lan Meth System
Dula Seven is a Kilrathi starbase in the T'lan Meth which was occupied by the Nephilim. It was destroyed after being used to allow the Midway crew to recover Commodore Blair. The only component of Dula Seven is the bridge.

Hrai Hhallas
Class: Kilrathi Station
Location: Simulator
The Hrai Hhallas station in Wing Commander Prophecy's simulator missions seems to be left over from a more elaborate multiplayer scenario in which different Kilrathi clans would battle it out. It is the same model of station as Dula Seven.

Nephilim

Accretion Device
Location: Proxima System
The alien accretion device appears in the final mission of Wing Commander Secret Ops. It is constructed from the comm facility and drydock models used in Wing Commander Prophecy plus a new gate graphic. It retains the structures of its components: seven antennae and a bridge.

Comm Facility
Class: Alien Comm Facility
Location: G'mar System
The aliens use their comm facility to jam the Midway from communicating with the rest of the Confederation. The Midway crew teams with the TCS Eisen to attack the alien comm facility in G'mar G1. It or its wreckage appear in the following mission, depending on your performance. It consists of seven individual antennae. (This technically belongs in the Confederation section: Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy, the installation was modified from a Confederation radar station.)

Drydock
Class: Alien Drydock
Location: G'mar System
The alien drydock appears in G'mar G3 shielding the Kraken ship-killer which the Midway marines board and capture. It has a bridge.

Wormhole
Class: Alien Wormhole
Location: Kilrah System
The alien wormhole begins to deploy during Wing Commander Prophecy's opening cutscene and the game occasionally flashes to scenes of its construction. You must destroy the structure in Prophecy's climactic final mission after the marines (and eventually Commodore Blair) board it. It consists of seven crewed towers.

Can you think of any bases we missed? Let us know on the forums!

Cybot Brings Ghosts and Horses

Forum user and 3D hero Cybot recently introduced us to Uncle Bilbop... and now they already have developed more for us to play with!

• ANCLYDE LW Daz cockpit 00A
• ANCLYDE LW Daz cockpit 00B
• Privateer Clydesdale LW Daz 01
• Privateer Clydesdale LW Daz 02
• Privateer Clydesdale TEX

They've also built a new model of Wing Commander Academy's Wraith and posted it for anyone to use! How cool!

• Privateer Wraith Daz

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Sphere (1998) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: Ishtar

There's a contemporary claim that Ishtar is a movie that didn't deserve its reputation as one of the worst films of all time; that separated from time and temperament, it holds up as an entertaining film. Well: we have determined that this is not true. Ishtar is a bad movie and it's one whose existence remains mystifying. Sometimes a million strange, well intended pieces can come together just right to make something special. That did not happen here.

… but it did happen in Privateer 2: The Darkening! Which is why we were very interested to learn that the two productions actually share a casting director. The Zimmerman of the agency listed in the Ishtar credits, Davis-Zimmerman, is none other than Jeremy Zimmerman who would go on to not only cast but also APPEAR in Privateer 2! He appears as the half-masked Blessed Brew Bidder #1 during the Uncle Kashumai 'auction' mission.

But he's not the only Ishtar veteran to appear in Privateer 2! Jordanian-British actor Nadmin Sawalha appears as the rug salesman (and a camel salesman!) in Ishtar and then in Privateer 2 as Nelson Ramirez, an exhausted Kindred-affiliated collections agent who needs your help to escape to Janus IV after pulling off his last job.

What's more, reading up on Nadmin Sawalha revealed that one of his daughters, Nadia Sawalha, also appeared in Privateer 2 as Tamessa Ames, the Senator's daughter. What a neat bit of trivia!

Creative Teases Very Tiny Wing Commander

Last month, we reported that Creative Labs has been using Wing Commander in marketing for an upcoming crowd fund project which aims to... do something. Last night, they sent out a 'first look' email that is still fairly inscrutable. But what IS certain is that the Sound Blaster Re:Imagined... seems to be playing Wing Commander I on some kind of tiny modular screen?

Here are the details from the e-mail. The most interesting part for Wing Commander fans is probably the promise that "many fun apps" are included. It specifically mentions the Sound Blaster Parrot and Dr. Sbaitso, which are the other things they've been using in the marketing. Could they have licensed the original Wing Commander to include with this hardware?

Insider Access Note #1
Meet Sound Blaster Re:Imagine — a modular audio hub that brings all your audio devices together in one place. Switch connections instantly across any input, and any output.

Customise your setup with programmable modular controls. Enjoy high resolution audio playback via a powerful DAC and amp. And you have superuser access to hardware, to create and run your own apps on it

More than a sound card, it is your hub, your control deck, and your creative playground.

RE:IMAGINE WHAT A SOUND BLASTER CAN DO

The Ultimate Audio Hub
Seamlessly connect devices such as PCs, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, gaming consoles, as well as microphones, headphones, speakers, and instruments, all in one place. Route any input to any output instantly with a simple tap, without tangled setups.

Modular and Customizable
Expand and reconfigure with magnetically attached swappable modules such as Smart Screens, sliders, knobs, and quick keys. Allows users to adapt their setup as it evolves.

Fully Programmable Controls
Every button can be configured as macros to perform any action a user wants, for example, mute a call, trigger a software code compile, or activate any Matter-enabled smart home device.

Studio-Grade Sound
High-resolution 32-bit/384 kHz playback with a studio-quality DAC and amp powerful enough to drive everything from professional headphones to large desktop speakers.

Superuser Access
With root access to hardware, developers can build and share their own custom apps that utilize this open platform in any creative way — making this a truly community-driven platform.

Many Fun Apps Included
Enjoy retro DOS games, music visualizers, an AI-powered DJ, and the iconic Sound Blaster Parrot and Dr.Sbaitso, reborn as AI-powered companions.

From the same team that defined PC audio — this is the next chapter of Sound Blaster.

The project launches Tuesday, October 28th at 10 AM EST. I don't know that I need a modular sound experience but if they've actually included the original Wing Commander in some way then I want to know more! You can sign up for notifications about their Kickstarter here.

Wing Commander III & IV Enhancement Gets Enhancedier

• Wing Commander III Enhancement Patch
• Wing Commander IV Enhancement Patch

Wing Commander III:

Ship rotations upgrades:

• higher precision rotation.
• updated the precision of axis movement for joysticks from the original range of (-16 to 16) to (-256 to 256).
• enhanced rotation matrix calculations for all ships, player and non-player.
• added a separate matrix for the player for even greater precision. Enabled by default, this can be disabled in "wc3w_en.ini" by setting "ENABLE_ENHANCED_PLAYER_ROTATION_MATRIX=0"
• fixed retrograde rotations when making small movements.
• fixed occasional axis lock issues.
• increased dead-zone options.

other updates:

• Fixed movie fade out effect.
• Added option to Object distance "LOD" modifier, to always display the highest detail level. This is now the default setting.
• Set default max space refresh rate to 60fps.
• Fixed the max size of the HUD targeting rectangle to more closely match how it is displayed at the original resolution.
• Fixed pops and static noise when playing some audio samples from "SAMPLES.IFF".
• Use a pixel shader to set the gamma instead of altering the palette.
• Set the default gamma level to "off", instead of "low".
• Made gamma a global setting instead of being restored from saved games.
• other fixes

fixes v0.8.1:

• Added support for the rear turret control that was missed in the Ship rotation upgrade.
• Improved ship rotation precision for mouse.
• Replaced original movie fade out function for greater control of timing.

Wing Commander IV:

Ship rotations upgrades:

• higher precision rotation.
• enhanced rotation matrix calculations for all ships, player and non-player.
• added a separate matrix for the player for even greater precision. Enabled by default, this can be disabled in "wc4w_en.ini" by setting "ENABLE_ENHANCED_PLAYER_ROTATION_MATRIX=0"
• fixed retrograde rotations when making small movements.
• fixed occasional axis lock issues.
• increased dead-zone options.

other updates:

• Fixed movie fade out effect.
• Added option to Object distance "LOD" modifier, to always display the highest detail level. This is now the default setting.
• Set default max space refresh rate to 60fps.
• Fixed the max size of the HUD targeting rectangle to more closely match how it is displayed at the original resolution.
• Fix for some static and popping sounds at the end of playback when playing some audio samples.
• Fixed long pause occurring after auto-pilot for win95 patch version.

Do I Make You Hornet?

Back in 2023, we reported on a very cool 3D printed Tarsus made by Cpt. Streets. At the time he promised that a Hornet was up next... and here it is! This is truly spectacular work, complete with a cool base with a printed deck crew. This is one of the coolest printed Wing Commander ships I've seen so far!

It´s a 3D Print an about 9cm (3,5") long... Scale is 1:160 or "Spur N" (for miniature train builders) And it is resin. The file is a mash-up from several (I think 2) Hornets found somewhere in the web. Some parts are modified and other parts are added after print from several vintage spare plastic model kits (most of the details) I add the plastic parts und painted it. But I did not make or print the 3D resin model. This was done by a friend.

And here are some shots of it under construction, including what it looked like before painting and further customization. Actually, the transparent red is pretty cool on its own!

Wing Commander Movie Night: Sphere

We aren't going to sugarcoat it for you: it turns out that Ishtar was not a good movie. Nevertheless, the Wing Commander movie club marches on! We decided to vote for a science fiction film specifically and after a big tie and a second round our choice for next week was Sphere (1998), one of the newest movies in the pool. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Sphere is the second of three movies we will be looking at that was explicitly referenced in the Wing Commander movie's famous introduction sequence. The first was 1492: Conquest of Paradise, which we watched earlier this month. The after action report contains a thorough look at the paintings used to create the introduction. Sphere had its own clear impact on the style of the intro and especially the flashes of Kilrathi art; we'll take a closer look on Friday!

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Sphere is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on Blu-ray in 2009 and remains in print around the world. A copy is available on the Internet Archive. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

How can I help pick future movie club movies?

The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.

BREAKING NEWS: New Ship Discovered!

AD has come upon a pretty fascinating vintage article that had not been in our community consciousness. It's a preview of Origin's product lineup from the April 1991 issue of The One, an Amiga-focused computer outlet. It includes a very early description of Wing Commander II and some rendered images of ships in progress… including one we've never seen before!

We asked Wing Commander II director Siobhan Beeman about the unknown ship and she was kind enough to think back so far to figure it out:

Vaguely. Early drafts of the story had more capital ship engagements, which is why torpedoes were introduced and why the Concordia is a strike carrier with a spinal-mount weapon. I believe this art is for a frigate or destroyer class that would have shown up with multiple names.

Awesome! You can certainly see how a frigate with this design would fit right alongside the Gilgamesh destroyer and Waterloo cruiser in the final game. Though we know the Waterloo model was originally built as the patrol carrier TCS Peel which was where Blair was to serve before the Concordia, so it's possible that this was originally the destroyer and that all of the Confederation capital ships traded classes when the game plan was reworked that summer.

We strongly suspect that the missing frigate was ultimately reworked as Super Wing Commander's Venture-class corvette. It's not exactly the same model but it's extremely similar. The majority of the meshes used in Super Wing Commander were taken from Wing Commander II and Privateer. Many were simply retextured but others were reworked into new ships, like the Kamekh that lost its wings to become a Snakeir or the Sabre fuselage that was turned into a Kilrathi corvette! Super Wing Commander was also the ultimate home of other cut WC2 models, like the Lumbakh civilian transport.

Note also the mention of six flyable spacecraft instead of five; at this point, the Mongoose was still in the cards! It would've been a single turret bomber that would've introduced you to torpedo runs earlier in the game.

The other WC2 images are also great. A shot of Angel's Deluxepaint screen and then early renders of the Rigakh and Drakhri.

There's a lot of other interesting material in this article as well, including a very early take on Strike Commander then referred to as Ground Commander and details on Mindscape's early attempt to port Wing Commander to the Amiga. Origin had initially tried to port it in house and this represents Mindscape's first attempt outsourcing the project to Eastridge Technology. The project would eventually go to the needed genius, programmer Nick Pelling. There's even mention of a Japanese Ultima theme park, though we suspect that's a case of something being lost in translation. Oh and there's a LOT of braggadocio from a young Chris Roberts!

And if you can believe it, this wasn't the first new vintage Wing Commander ship we've claimed in 2025!

Reminder: #Wingnut Cartoon Party TODAY!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut event happening on Discord this morning! Join us at noon EST/9 AM PST for a fun filled morning of television... that all connect to Wing Commander somehow! We'll enjoy two episodes of MST3k that have deep connections to Wing Commander III, specifically. You can find details on the shows included as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. Be sure to download the episodes so they're ready to play with the group!

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Ishtar (1987) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

And don't forget our third Wing Commander Cartoon party is early tomorrow!

After Action Report: Rosemary's Baby

The Wing Commander movie club has kicked off October right with a spooky horror movie: the 1968 classic Rosemary's Baby. We found it to be a stunningly well made movie full of visual texture and nuance. The story is maybe more relevant than ever again, an allegory about society's belief in its right to control women. Now: the Wing Commander connection here was always slight, so we're going to lean right into it and try and collect everything we know about the character named after Rosemary's Baby's controversial director Roman Polanski.

In the 27th century, Lt. Adam "Bishop" Polanski is one of the veteran wingmen aboard the Tiger Claw in the Wing Commander movie. He was played by veteran British actor Mark Powley, best known for a long running role on television's The Bill. He is a Rapier pilot and flies ship number 35. He has been aboard the carrier for about seven months at this point in the timeline. He loves chess and is a smoker, per his introduction in the rec room.

His callsign, Bishop, seems to refer to his introduction playing chess with Rosie (rather than, say, being a nod to Aliens). Despite indications otherwise, Bishop was chosen as his callsign in the movie itself. His nose art isn't visible on screen but it does appear in the Confederation Handbook. You can read an analysis of his chess game here.

The character of Polanski was created by Kevin Droney in his first draft of the Wing Commander movie. The initial version of the script doesn't have any pilots from the games beyond Maniac, Angel and Blair. In this first take, Polanski (and another pilot named Abbot) covers the Hunter and Knight roles from the final film. He taunts Maniac and Blair when they arrive on the ship and then later is killed flying a Broadsword on Paladin's wing. So the original idea was that Polanski would get some comeuppance for his treatment of the replacement! Here's his significantly more involved introduction:

In Chris Roberts' rewrite of the draft, he completely removes Polanski, replacing him and Abbot with Hunter and Knight. But either Larry Wilson or Mike Finch opt to resurrect him by the third draft, though his death is left to Knight. This is also where he gets his distinctive facial scar!

In the final movie, Polanski is scripted to appear three times: playing chess with Rosie in the rec room, delivering the "eating suns for breakfast" line during the pulsar jump and then confronting Maniac with the other pilots after Rosie's death.

He also appears in the briefing scene and then with the group of pilots that help save Maniac and Blair after the depth charge attack.

A scene was shot of Polanski's Rapier in the 'time slice' rig for the pulsar jump sequence but it was not included in the movie. Shots of the filming have survived:

The other major backstory for Polanski comes from the Confederation Handbook which prints his pilot evaluation and includes him in an interesting little story that's somewhat hidden! His evaluation, dated January 2, 2654 and written by Commander Gerald, is very positive and believes he has command potential. It notes that he has been on the Tiger Claw for three months but has experience from tours on several carriers flying multiple types of fighters. It mentions several incidents of heroics, including one where his understanding of Kilrathi tactics turned failure into victory and one where he led five pilots home safely after an ambush in an asteroid field (for which he is to be decorated).

But there's another more tragic story hidden in the page about the Tiger Claw's casualty report. If you read through the listing you'll find that four pilots were killed on December 31, 2653: Streaker, Cassipea, Schlitterbahn and Witch Hazel. A fifth, Topdog, died the next day. The story detailed next is that a flight of six Rapiers, the previously listed pilots and Polanski, were ambushed by a full squadron of Kilrathi near Cairo III. The pilots managed to shoot down between 23 and 28 Kilrathi but were ultimately doomed. Topdog and Polanski managed to escape but Topdog died of his wounds. Polanski was recommended for the Silver Star for his actions during the incident.

Polanski is present throughout the movie sequel novel, Pilgrim Stars, remaining with Black Lion squadron and flying through all of the book's engagements. While he survives and even appears at the very end of the story, he does not appear in Pilgrim Truth. His ultimate fate remains unknown; perhaps he's the rare Tiger Claw pilot that actually died when the ship went down!

One funny bit from the viewing: we immediately starting joking about the film's continual references to Yamaha products, which turned out to be part of a major product tie-in between Paramount and Yamaha at the time. Turns out Yamaha was still making such deals twenty years later: in 1993, they arranged with Origin to display Privateer in their COMDEX booth! Here's a Point of Origin with the full story.

Lost Ships in 3D!

Verman has been experimenting with some technology to bring some of Feng Zhu's unused Privateer Online concept ships to life! They write:

It's been a long time since I contributed anything to the news, I still visit the site often and have quite a few projects for Wing Commander going on at the moment (along with a million other projects too). Well I decided to do some tinkering with 2D image to 3D Modelling AI, using a site called Meshy. I always loved one of the ship concepts for Wing Commander Online so I thought I would test out how good the AI was just using that concept art to produce a 3D model and also the textures from the artwork. I attached some screenshots.

I also made it freely available on Sketchfab so people can download it and make it better or use it in any projects or just study it...

I have also done a couple of the other models but I haven't had time to get them uploaded to sketchfab yet. But I will put in a couple of pictures of them too, Mainly one of the Kilrathi concepts and another Confed ship.

Pretty neat way to see what the game could've looked like! You can download a copy for yourself on Sketchfab.

Here are the original designs by concept artist Feng Zhu. The model is a Confederation "multi-role" which is a type of light freighter that can mount fighter equipment. The capital ship is a Confederation cruiser and the Kilrathi ship is a fighter.

Wing Commander on a Mexican Radio

AD made a pretty neat discovery the other day: a Spanish language radio program called "Space Wars" aired an hour-long look at the music of Wing Commander on September 3 on radio station Querétaro 100.3 FM. The broadcast include samples of lots of music and even one of Jazz's piano pieces played on a real piano! AD recorded a copy which you can listen to below.

We continue with our special Space Wars programs, where we take a brief look at the music of some Space Simulation video games. This time, we're focusing on a classic, Wing Commander, a video game developed by Chris Roberts that was a turning point in this video game genre in many ways, but primarily in its music. Listen to the adaptations of this video game's soundtrack to various formats that we've made, and hear the musical evolution that, as always, goes from the BIT to the Orchestra!

We would also like to thank uu from Discord for recording an extra copy and for listing out the timestamps:

Radio presentation of the show 00:00 to 00:03 then Wing commander presentation 00:03 to 00:06
Music 1 00:06 to 00:10
more info about wing commander music 1 & sound designer & more (soundblaster, midi tech, ...) 00:10 to 00:15
Music 2 00:15 to 00:19
More info about the music 2 & more 00:19 to 00:24
Music 3 00:24 to 00:26
00:26 ads 00:30
short music for the show & more info 00:30 to 00:34
Music 4 00:34 to 00:36
Info about the music & more info 00:36 to 00:39
Music 5 00:39 to 00:42
Info about the music & more info 00:42 to 00:45
Music 6 00:45 to 00:49
Info about the music Edouard Sanchez adaptation & more info & thanks then end of transmission 00:49 to 00:53
Music 7 00:53 to 00:55

• Archived Copy - Broadcast
• Achived Copy - Recoding

We also discovered that the same host had presented a similar program broadcast back on February 9, 2022 which was a biography of George Sanger, aka The Fat Man. You can listen to that one here.

In our Musical Biographies we continue with the pioneering composers in the US, and we go with a very important artist in the implementation of MIDI music in video games, the great Fat Man. In this program you will hear music from its origins in Intellivision to his most recent collaborations he has made in music and in various events that seek to reward the work of composers and sound designers.

• Archived Copy

Classic Pancakes Straight from the Griddle

Ulimann644 is back with maybe the most recognizable Wing Commander ship of all time: the original Dralthi medium fighter! You may recall that they've previously rendered excellent Fralthi and Hornet models… and the fleet keeps expanding!

WING COMMANDER - DRALTHI-CLASS (DeviantArt)

This is my third WING COMMANDER mesh. The DRALTHI-CLASS Medium-Fighter of the Kilrathi in WING COMMANDER 1.

Hope you like it.

Software:
- Lightwave 2024
- Photoshop

Wing Commander Movie Night: Ishtar

Last week, the Wing Commander movie voted on a movie from a list of Oscar winners. It turned out to be Rosemary's Baby, which was a great way to start a spooky October. Sadly, this time around I thought it would be fun to vote from a selection of Razzie winners… and after two rounds, the winner was Ishtar (1987). Ishtar is famous for being an enormous box office bomb and was once considered the worst big budget movie ever made. Modern critics are much kinder, though, so it'll be interesting to see what it's like! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

What does Ishtar have to do with Wing Commander? This is another one of the 'joke' movie names used to label original Privateer concept art. Specifically, it was used for the very first sketches of the game's incredibly familiar mining base options screen. You can hear the music just seeing the screenshot!

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Ishtar is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on Blu-ray in 2013 and remains in print around the world. A copy is available on the Internet Archive. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

How can I help pick future movie club movies?

The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.

Wing Commander Cartoon Party III: WC3 x MST3k

Earlier in the year, we held a pair of Saturday morning marathons that celebrated Wing Commander-connected media that didn't quite fit with the Friday movie club. And now we're bringing them back! This Saturday, October 18, we'll be bringing you another themed morning of '90s media and great Wing Commander conversation. This time, we're taking a look at a series that was pretty influential during the making of Wing Commander III: Mystery Science Theater 3000. We'll be watching two episodes that are referenced in WC3 and talking all about what life was like on the internet way back in 1994!

"Manos": The Hands of Fate (1993, s4e24): MST3k brought Manos to the world, introducing future generations to what may be the single worst movie ever made. But it made for a pretty funny episode! And one that was clearly appreciated by Wing Commander III's development team, which named the crucial Torgo system after a character from the film. He takes care of the place while the Master is away…

Mitchell (1993, s5e12): Get ready to meet Mitchell, an unpleasant cop who… well, we won't spoil it. But the episode was so funny (and then contemporary) that the Wing Commander III team opted to make the game's entire cheat code (wc3 -mitchell) a joke about it. As you likely know, it even plays a sound clip from the episode when you take off with the cheat active!

So JOIN US on Saturday, October 18th at noon Eastern when we'll enjoy them all together! Previous marathons, we've had big fun wearing pajamas and eating cereal… so we recommend you plan to do the same again! Like last time, we're going to start things off with a classic Looney Tunes short… the third Duck Dodgers short, Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension, which was the last one made while Wing Commander was in active development.

This time, all three videos are available on YouTube!

• Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension
• MST3k 424 - Manos
• MST3k 512 - Mitchell

We've also uploaded a zip of all three shows together locally for anyone who can't access YouTube. You can get that here.

How do we watch the shows together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Saturday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the shows in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should download their own copies from the CIC and we will count down to play them one at a time together starting with the short at noon EST on Saturday. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

Will there be custom certificates made for the attendees this time?

Yes.

Why are you STILL calling it a 'cartoon party' when almost all of the shows are live action?

Shut up.

I love these events but want to do better long term planning. Do you have any others coming up?

We do! Here's the upcoming schedule:

• Marathon 4 - Wing Commander Academy & The End of the Future - November 15
• Marathon 5 - Wing Commander Combat Information Center Family Day! - December 20
• Marathon 6 - I'd Rather Be Playing Wing Commander - January 17

The Fatman Takes Portland

You've probably heard talk of some excitement going on in Portland, Oregon and it's all true: Wing Commander I and II composer George "The Fatman" Sanger will be appearing at next weekend's Portland Retro Gaming Expo! The convention runs October 17 to 19 at the Oregon Convention Center.

We were also honored to loan a Wing Commander Prophecy flight suit for display at their FMV Zone museum exhibit. So if you're in Portland next weekend, you can really have some Wing Commander fun!

Selling Wing Commander III in Europe

AD has found another interesting historical radio broadcast. This one aired on KRFC 88.9 FM on December 30, 2018. It's an hour long interview with Jen Parker. Ms. Parker got her start in video game magazines and went on to become a brand manager for Origin Systems in Europe... and later headed up Electronic Arts' worldwide marketing. Her whole life story is pretty interesting and it starts about 40 minutes in. We've clipped out just the part covering her work on Wing Commander III here:

• Archived Version (Clip)
• Archived Version (Full)

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Rosemary's Baby (1973) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: RoboCop 3

The Wing Commander movie club is back from old Detroit and there's no way around it: RoboCop 3 is a bad movie. Like the sequels to Starship Troopers and Showgirls, this is another case of an artful Verhoeven movie being cut down into only its most literal parts. Which is fine: RoboCop said everything it needed to say… following it up with endless sequels focused on how cool it is that there could be a robot cop kind of just reinforces the original message. And you know, it did end up being sort of fun: RoboCop 3 drags in the first half but it has a pretty fun third act that climaxes with RoboCop flying a jetpack and saying absolutely nothing about the human condition.

What about Wing Commander? The only direct connection was a piece of music used in the Wing Commander workprint and we reviewed that in the intro post. But the one thing we couldn't get out of our minds was the Righteous Fire introduction. Is the "cop" that informs you that your Steltek gun was stolen a robot? A cyborg? A person in armor? And if so, was he inspired by RoboCop?

The short answer is that it's unclear. Like most elements of the expansion, the 'security guy' was actually leftover material from the original Privateer. The scene was originally conceived and rendered as a losing endgame for the base game. The guard would inform you that the game was over and that they were seizing your ship if you ever had a negative credit balance. This situation was possible only if you landed at a base with a balance such that you could not pay the 50 credit docking fee. In the end, Privateer moved the focus away from economics and managed to save disk space (a significant concern) by simply adding a rule that the game wouldn't charge you the fee if you couldn't pay it. You can actually see shots of this scene in the very first set of Privateer screenshots released to the press in 1992:

In this original formulation, there's a strong indication that he is intended to be a man wearing an armored suit. Specifically, he was intended to be a 3D representation of the armored security forces seen in the game's concept and manual art. They were originally imagined as more of a 'storm trooper' style and a lot of his 3D appearance seems to match how Origin's artists were doing characters at that time: compare him to the Super Wing Commander pilot, Bioforge's Lex or even the Avatar in Serpent Isle!

Looking at the surviving Privateer development material, his filename is ENFORCER. Looking at his individual parts they're all labeled like a body: fingers, feet, shoulders and so on. The smoking gun in all this is his helmet, which is explicitly a helmet rather than part of a head. We think that's enough to confirm that it was originally intended to be a man in an armored suit. If you'd like to explore his original model you can find it here.

But Wing Commander's soldiers typically aren't armored. And that's true: in Wing Commander I human soldiers wear only shirt sleeves and berets. Starting with the live action games, they're portrayed by live actors in familiar modern fatigues and this is mirrored by appearances on Wing Commander Academy and references in spinoff novels and games. But in 1993 that was not at all an established trend. When Privateer was first imagined the most recent security guard had been the Warhammer 40k-style guards protecting Jazz after his arrest! Ah ha!

But that's just how Enforcer was imagined… for a role he didn't play. While it was the original idea, Privateer never establishes it as canon that there's big metal guys at every base. Instead, we see only one on Jolson in Righteous Fire. And Righteous Fire's change to the dialogue is a key consideration. With the original lines about confiscating your ship removed, the new dialogue was recorded not with an actor but with a text-to-speech library similar to the one used by Dr. Sbaitso. Voice work in these games was done in-house and often used Origin's developers instead of professional actors… so it's not a case of making him a robot because there wasn't budget for anything else. The Righteous Fire development team decided to make him seem more robotic (or RoboCopic?) on purpose.

Could this be an indication that he's a cyborg like RoboCop? Maybe; after all, RoboCop speaks with a robotic voice. And visible cyborgs are actually pretty common in Privateer… except they don't speak with robotic voices! Additionally, the new conversation in Righteous Fire does seem to imply that whatever he is is standard equipment rather than a surprise specific to one man on Jolson. Burrows doesn't seem shocked by his existence and refers to him as a "metal man"; and his further mention that he didn't pay for a "bunch of tin idiots" seems to suggest he's a normal example of base security.

And so the mystery endures! My strong suspicion is that the original character was inspired by RoboCop but was intended to represent a 'normal' future cop wearing armor like in Wing Commander II. But he was further roboticized for Righteous Fire on purpose. But do I think that just the Enforcer's face texture is enough to add a truly great movie to the upcoming pool: the original RoboCop. This discussion will continue!

The KATT is Out of the Bag

You will be forgiven if you've never heard of the Keyboard And Terminal Technology (KATT) Game Master Matt. It was a very obscure mid-90s game controller keyboard. Its gimmick was that it was pre-programmed to support specific games and you could buy different layout "matts" (sic) that would customize the device to 'look' like the game you're playing. They might, for instance, show a jet cockpit or an RPG character sheet with the custom buttons labeled. The device was not a success and it's best (barely) remembered for small ads which appeared in magazines like PC Gamer which listed the different game mats available.

We've known that there were several Wing Commander mats sold but none of them had ever been seen before. Enter LiqMatrix who has been researching the Game Master and who kindly stopped by our forum to share what they've learned. They were recently lucky enough to win an auction for what seems to be the full set of game mats and are working to preserve and present them to the world (we'll share when that happens). One big discovery was that a ROM chip to add additional games WAS released and that it included both Wing Commander Academy and Privateer! The original 1993 item had the original Wing Commander plus several other Origin games: Strike Commander and both Ultima Underworlds.

LiqMatrix was kind enough to send along VERY high resolution scans of the three Wing Commander mats. And they are just about the most charming thing you'll ever see! They remind me of the art in the Mark Minasi Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe book… just wonderful to see some of the old ships imagined this way. The images linked here have been reduced to a lower resolution. You can download the full advertisement scan here and the Wing Commander scans here.

The Annotated Warbirds

I thought it would be fun to take a look at Wing Commander III's magnificent Warbirds 2669 poster with some 'behind the screens' notes where they came to me. Do you have fond memories of Warbirds, or anything else fun to note with the pages? Let us known on the forums!

• Warbirds is Wing Commander III's "feelie," the traditional 'extra' included with Origin games. Wing Commander games typically had paper feelies compared to the physical runes and coins and the like included with the Ultima series.
• The foldout was included with the original PC release of Wing Commander III as well as the Macintosh and 3DO ports. It was not included with the PlayStation or the Kilrathi Saga versions.
• The full color version seen here was included with the premiere edition of Wing Commander III. Most other releases include a greyscale version (with colored highlights for each faction in purple or orange).
• The European 3DO releases of Wing Commander III includes a redesigned version of Warbirds which has been updated to fit in the region's smaller jewel case-style 3DO packaging. It is in full color rather than grayscale.
• Warbirds was localized into French and German.
• "Warbirds" is an odd choice for a name; a warbird typically refers to a historically preserved aircraft and not an active duty craft
• The 'sword and stars' logo seen here is the Terran Confederation's 'combined forces' logo. It is intended to represent the different forces allied together against the Kilrathi rather than just one particular armed force.
• I love the references to spaceships as planes: "military aircraft," "airspeed," "aerodynamic," etc.
• I decided to follow up on the claim that it takes 8,000 man years to produce a spacecraft in the 27th century. The F-35 is said to have taken 23,000 man years of development, so we are already ahead of this complexity!

• We were already familiar with the Arrow when Wing Commander III released because it had first appeared in Armada. We also saw it in most of the pre-release screenshots for the game, so it was no surprise!
• The addition of a 'manufacturer' section to the specifications was extremely cool at the time. They refer to the artists that worked on the ships; here "Douglas Aerospace" is master Wing Commander ship builder Chris Douglas. (The Wing Commander I blueprints also listed a manufacturer, Origin Aerospace, for all the ships.)
• Chris Douglas used "Douglas Astrospace" in his work on Privateer; it's a funnier name than aerospace!
• The seven hour life support system is exactly the kind of immersive detail Chris Roberts pushes for in his world building. It's a "fact" that doesn't matter to the gameplay and which doesn't need to be simulated… but knowing it makes you feel like you're part of a real world instead of a game.
• The lengths listed here do not make actual sense; we see these ships in live action cutscenes and they're nowhere near as long as said here. They are correct relative to one another and also to the ships in Wing Commander I (which also has inaccurate lengths)… but they're closer to feet than meters!

• The guns for the Hellcat seem to be listed incorrectly; this was not a balance change, they're simply copied from the Arrow listing.
• The Roman numerals added to the Hellcat and Thunderbolt (and Dralthi) are great for implying story, as is the mention that this is the best Hellcat yet. What were the Hellcat I through IV and the Thunderbot I through VI? We may never know!

• I always thought it was neat that the Excalibur (and the Strakha) were positioned with their nominal class instead of as 'special' ships at the end of the poster.
• The Vega Sector mention is a reference to where the original Wing Commander took place.

• The Thunderbolt is listed as McCall Industries here (after artist Dean McCall) but the Wing Commander IV version will revert to Douglas Aerospace.

• The claim that the Kilrathi discovered aerodynamic principles 'relatively late' doesn't seem to square with other material (including Voices of War) that says the Kilrathi have had spacecraft roughly as long as humans.
• The logo seen here is intended to be the one that refers to the entire empire rather than one specific clan.
• "TCN pilots" is a good reminder that the Terran Confederation Space Force is part of the navy rather than a distinct armed force.

• Despite the listing all of the Kilrathi ships on this poster are seen to jump at some point in Wing Commander III.

• While we consider Dralthi a universal thing today, it was actually pretty neat to see a 'Dralthi IV' after Wing Commander II didn't feature one at all. Going with IV instead of III implied so much backstory!

• How crazy was it the first time you saw a Strakha that didn't look like a slice of toast? Bold decision to totally reimagine the ship for Wing Commander III.
• The fact about a lone Strakha being known to eliminate four Hellcats in ten minutes is so odd. Is this a common, specific occurrence?!

How They Grounded the Bird

Have you ever wondered why the original Wing Commander's cheat code is referred to as the "finger of death"? Sure, you use your fingers to activate it… but that's also how pretty much every cheat code that exists works. There's a little bit more to the story than you would expect: the term actually goes back to the game's original Quality Assurance team and it's based on a feature cut from the game!

Wait, what? That's right, at one point Wing Commander had a second animated hand in the cockpit. The design was that you would see your 'left' hand react to certain events in combat. If you scored a kill you would make a fist and when your wingman scored you would give them a thumbs up. Here's the original art assignment from the game's production schedule, assigning the task of digitizing the hand artwork to Daniel Bourbonnais.

What does that have to do with the cheat code? As a joke, the team replaced the 'fist' emote with one giving the middle finger. So every time the testers had to 'alt delete' through a level to check something doing so would trigger the finger art over and over and over. Thus the cheat code became known as finger of death! It was ultimately decided that the left arm was too busy and distracting… but it was cut late enough that the animations still appear in the game's files! Here are both hands; note that they have blue sleeves rather than the red ones used in the final game (we recolored the mockup above to match the final art).

Wing Commander Movie Night: Rosemary's Baby

The Wing Commander movie club has made it through RoboCop 3 which, while not a good film by any means, ended nicely. But after two weeks of objectively lower quality films, we asked everyone to vote from a selection of six Oscar winners. And the victor was psychological horror classic Rosemary's Baby (1968), which won Best Actress in a Supporting Role. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Why Rosemary's Baby? We previously talked about directors honored with references in the Wing Commander universe, specifically George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Akira Kurosawa and their associated star systems. We've since picked out two more for the movie pool: Michael Cimino (the TCS Cimino appears in the Prophecy simulator) and Roman Polanski, tuckerized as the Wing Commander movie's "Bishop" Polanski. As with the others, we've selected an additional classic to represent each. We'll be back in the After Action Report to discuss Bishop's character history and where he, the lone pilot in the movie other than Forbes not seen in the original game, came from.

As for the director: if you are familiar with movie history you will know that Roman Polanski is a difficult topic to broach. He is recognized as an extremely talented artist and director responsible for a number of classic films in the 1960s and 70s, including Knife in the Water, Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown. But in 1977, he was arrested for raping an underage girl. Facing conviction, he fled the country and has lived in quasi-exile in France ever since. In spite of this, his films have stayed in the canon and he has continued to work extensively abroad. He won an Academy Award in 2002 for directing The Pianist. The situation has spawned endless debates over the relationship between art and creator… a topic we almost certainly won't be able to resolve on Friday. In spite of that, I trust our group to have a mature conversation and to ultimately address why, decades after committing a horrible crime, he might still have been honored so prominently in the Wing Commander movie!

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Rosemary's Baby is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection in 2012 and remains in print around the world. A copy is available on the Internet Archive. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

How can I help pick future movie club movies?

The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.

Mysterious Shirt Explained

Several years ago, I purchased an unusual Wing Commander shirt from a 'picker' in Malaysia that I found on Instagram. Such sellers dig through unwanted clothing given to thrift stores or otherwise discarded for treasures that will appeal to collectors of vintage clothing. I've found several Wing Commander promotional shirts this way over the years… but this one was different, I'd never seen it before. It simply reads "Wing Commander" in glittery letters. Were it not for the small text mentioning "Wing Commander Productions" I would've assumed it had nothing to do with our favorite franchise.

Then last week, AD thought up the idea to search the Internet Archive for the Japanese website for the Wing Commander movie. It was set up by distributor Gaga Corporation at wc.gaga.ne.jp (now defunct) for the film's local release. It has the usual collection of cast biographies and a brief background… and this logo image! The shirt must have been a promotional item available in Japan in 2000. Crazy… and a good thing I ended up buying it for the Wing Commander collection!

Handsome SNES Preview Found

Here's a preview of Wing Commander SNES that we found on eBay, of all places! We snagged it from one of those 'cut up magazines and sell them as posters' accounts and as of this moment we don't know where it was from. The listing claimed it dates to 1992, which makes sense, but we haven't found the specific magazine it comes from. When we do, we'll track down a higher resolution version! But we thought it would be good to go ahead and get it in the archive because the article layout is just so pretty. Look at those cool alternating icons!

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Robocop 3 (1993) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: 1492: Conquest of Paradise

I think every member of the Wing Commander movie club can agree that 1492: Conquest of Paradise was not the most thrilling film in the world. It's not that it wasn't well made but it just… sort of sat there with lavish production values that never seemed to quite live up to the story it was telling with characters that just weren't engaging enough for you to put your full head into them. But my philosophy is that mediocrity should be met with a little extra work to make things better… so we're going to use our viewing of 1492 as an excuse to really look at part of the Wing Commander movie!

We watched 1492 for a very important reason: its opening titles were a major influence on the ones Chris Roberts created for the 1999 Wing Commander movie (alongside Sphere and The Fan, which we will be viewing in the future). So technically our Wing Commander interest was over in the first four minutes but it was pretty exciting to see what helped Chris dream up a particularly cool part of our favorite film. In 1492, we see the titles set over stylized drawings of monsters and explorers telling the story of early attempts to explore the Atlantic. Here's a copy from YouTube:

There's little argument that the coolest part of the Wing Commander movie is the coolest part of the film. Here's a refresher:

And it has an excellent story: it wasn't scripted alongside the rest of the film, it was developed during post production by Chris Roberts as a replacement for his original opening scene that FOX refused to finance. Origin Systems had a company-wide design philosophy about putting as much effort as possible into the opening of a game and Chris understood that was just important in a movie. The movie intro went through a number of iterations intended to set the stage, quickly explain the Wing Commander world and also visually impress immediately. Earlier versions featured Star Wars-style text and sometimes voiceover by either Paladin or Blair. Here's a tape of an earlier attempt:

And here's the 'setting card' which is very similar to how 1492 ends its titles:

Eventually, Chris settled on telling the story less directly, with a series of historical vignettes that would be quoted and then seen as animated stills played over a stunning map of the Wing Commander universe. The map and the artwork was created by veteran illustrator Peter Heer. Here's a very high resolution reproduction of the map itself; you can lose yourself for hours studying this!

Peter Heer created a video showing some of his process; sadly it's low resolution these days but it's still well worth viewing!

The story for the intro changed a little as development went along. Here's an early version scripted:

And here's a second one from a day later which has already expanded and rearranged the plan. We believe Heer used the first for most of his work.

Here are Peter Heer's initial storyboards which suggest a total of sixteen sketches are being developed. We'll see a few more!

The final version that you know essentially repurposes (some of) the images created for that first draft to tell three small stories: human expansion into the galaxy and the rise of the Pilgrims, the destruction of the TCS Iason and then march to war with the Kilrathi. So we've done a little work and we've synced the original scripts with Heer's storyboards and art and the final intro! The most exciting part is that eleven of the original sketches have been located and we've included 600dpi scans of them below! When a sketch wasn't available we've tried to find the most clear still to chart out what was being seen. Enjoy!

... SMALL GROUP of KILRATHI WARRIORS MID FIGHTING)

This one appears in only a couple of frames as the intro 'flashes'. The sketch is repeated later.

... a strongly idealized (heroic) portrait of a few
PILGRIM/HUMAN MARINES, putting up the PILGRIM/CONFED BANNER
against an exotic space-scape. This image represents the
heroic era of the Pilgrim exploring space and refers to the
IWO JIMA MOTIVE.

... a spinning drawing of the PILGRIM CROSS, embedded in
symbols and numbers and lines, suggesting a 'user guide'for
the ancient (ultimate) navigation tool.

... another exotic landscape.

... a heavy BATTLESCENE. ATTACK FORMATIONS clashing (think
of Revell Assambly Kit Covers)

... a GIANT SPACE SHIP headed towards the camera, a
threatening black behemoth, with guns sticking out along the
fuselage like spikes of a dragons armor.

... another threatening, attacking BATTLESHIP. This time it
is clearly alien (Kilrathi) due to all KILRATHI INSIGNIA
· surrounding the ship. Its cannons blasting bright beams of
fire towards the camera.

... another angle on the previous SPACE BATTLE. Nearly a
dozen vessels involved some on fire others drifting through
3D space.

... a first impression of a KILRATHI WARRIOR in a very
heroic pose with runes around him. ( Think "MARS")

This is the repeat of the first still.

... we see another KILRATHI WARRIOR. This time he is
portrayed in a powerful and expressive action pose (with
sword or blaster).

This one has not been located outside of the finished intro; AD has cleaned it up to try and make the image, a Kilrathi warrior lording over a human prisoner, as clear as possible.

At the end of the sequence, we see a Kilrathi silhouette move across the map as it turns red. Since we've located the original silhouette drawing, we've included it in this post.

The following sketches do not appear in the final sequence.

... we see a giant PARADE. According to all strange
engravings and a even stranger looking PALACE in the
background this must be the KILRATHI CAPITOL.

a CITY or COLONY engulfed in black smoke. We see RUINS
and a KILRATHI BATTLECRUISER hovering above it (think ID4).

... we see what looks like a CEREMONY, - A GATHERING OF
STARPILOTS (recognized by their gear and helmet) This image
also features strong INSIGNIA.

It isn't clear what these two Kilrathi sketches were for; but they're excellent!

... we see an old/ancient version of the CONFEDERATION
BANNER engulfed in FLAMES.

The burning flag may have never made it to sketch for; it was likely intended to be a practical effect.

We aren't sure what this board was intended to represent.

Now there is one additional note about the movie. We certainly did smile when our old pal Paladin showed up as Martín Alonso Pinzón, captain of the Pinta!

We've Got it Mead!

The rarely seen 2006 film Visual Futurist: The Art and Life of Syd Mead is back! The group responsible for preserving Mead's legacy has remastered the film and made it available for sale and rent on streaming services:

• AppleTV
• Amazon
• Google Play
• YouTube

I watched Visual Futurist in advance of this update and found it very compelling! I went in knowing that Mead was both an incredible talent and someone loved by their peers... and the documentary quickly confirmed both of those things. The film doesn't cover his work on Wing Commander Prophecy's Nephilim but it does showcase a lot of incredible art from his storied career, with extended sections covering fan favorites like Blade Runner, TRON, 2010 (topical!) and Aliens. Learning about his thought process about industrial design was fascinating and there was plenty I'd never heard before. I had no idea that he had designed a luxury yacht for Donald Trump and a Hot Wheels limo!

Joystick Reviews Wing Commander

Bitterman stopped by the CIC Discord the other night with a cool present for the community: scans of four Wing Commander cover stories from French magazine Joystick. The Wing Commander Prophecy preview is especially interesting... look carefully at the right VDU images in the screenshots and you'll see that some--but not all!--are from the E3 demo.

Joystick 62 - August 1995 - Wing Commander IV preview

Joystick 68 - February 1996 - Wing Commander IV review

Joystick 77 - December 1996 - Privateer 2 review

Joystick 89 - January 1998 - Wing Commander Prophecy review