Wing Commander Movie Night: The Gathering

The Wing Commander movie club had a pretty good time with the Beverly Hills 90210 pilot; it wasn't high art but it was a lot of fun... and gave us a good picture of the pop culture world Wing Commander was born into. This week, we're finishing our TV miniseries by looking at a second pilot that's a little more relevant to Wing Commander's world: The Gathering (1993). It's the telemovie that kicked off the Babylon 5 franchise! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Babylon 5 was midway through its first season when Wing Commander III's development was in high gear and we're confident the team included some fans. In fact, the Blackmane base model was a nod to Babylon 5's titular station. It's even stored as "BABYLON6" in the game's files!

The 3DO version even references this in the game: the name "STATION 6" is clearly visible on one of its textures!

And here's Art director Chris Douglas specifically talking about Babylon 5 in his interview in Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander III:

Chris has decked his door with "Dilbert” comic strips that he downloaded from the Internet, and his walls are hung with Maxfield Parrish posters. Compared to the other people on the Wing 3 team, however, the interior of his office is fairly uncluttered. Besides his PC and SGI there is only the black television that he uses to play tapes from his collection of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comfortable chair, two strings of blue and purple origami cranes and thirty-four miniature Star Trek spaceships. "When I was a kid, I would have given anything for some of the toys they have out now,” he confides. "I’m pretty bitter about how empty my childhood was when today kids can get all sorts of neat stuff. . . now I just wish they’d come out with some Babylon 5 ships.”

Babylon 5 fandom was still in force on the Wing Commander Prophecy team in 1997. The universe map features at least two Babylon 5 nods in the Kilrah Sector: K'za-Ha'duhm after the Shadow world Z'ha'dum and Pak Ma'hran after the Pak'ma'ra alien species.

Wing Commander Arena has a B5 nod, too! Without spoiling the end of the show, the phrase "menace to navigation" in a classified ad about a derelict Behemoth class ship is an intentional reference. (Interestingly, the exact phrase also shows up in a cut Privateer 2 scene... but that was years before the series ended!)

Wing Commander's cutscenes were… roughly the same quality as Babylon 5, and as a result they shared a number of major actors! Over the course of the series, these appearances included:

• David Warner - Aldous Gajic in Grail / Rhinehart in Privateer 2 / Admiral Tolwyn in Wing Commander
• Mauricio Mendoza - a Ranger in No Compromises / Border Worlds Pilot #1 in Wing Commander IV
• Jessica Walter - Senator Elise Voudreau in A Spider in the Web / Admiral Bergstrom on Wing Commander Academy
• David McCallum - Dr. Vance Hendricks in Infection / Canera Captain in Privateer 2
• John Shuck - Draal in The Long, Twilight Struggle and Voics of Authority / Hobbes in Wing Commander III

… and Robert Rusler, Seether himself, was a series regular during season 2… where he played a space fighter pilot! Not only that but Seether's Double Shadow knife was also frequently used as a generic alien knife by Babylon 5's props department. It also appeared on the spinoff, Crusade!

The fandom apparently goes both ways! Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski was an avid Wing Commander player back in the day... and since he was a big Usenet and social media poster, there's a great history of that preserved! On 12/29/94 he posted to GENIE looking for Wing Commander III cheat codes... just a few weeks after the game came out!

Only because I'm crummy at this stuff...anybody wants to send me cheat codes for Wing Commander III will live in my heart forever.
Damned kilrathi....

jms

There's even a Point of Origin that tells the story of the Wing Commander team contacting him in 1993 about the show:

Charles Cafrelli blasted a message to Babylon 5 and its creator/director/writer, Michael Straczynski, via CompuServ. Charles told him how much a lot of people at ORIGIN enjoyed the television show (and also passed along some of our artists' suggestions concerning bumps in the bitmaps). Straczynski sent Charles an e-mail reply: 'Do you realize how many hours of my life I have wasted in front of Wing Commander, Wing Commander II and the various Secret Missions modules? I hate all of you! Feh! Seriously, though, I'm glad y'all approve. I'll definitely relay the comments back to our design people.' Neat guy.

He occasionally fielded questions about whether or not things in his show were Wing Commander-related, usually denying them. That included the phrase "the price of freedom" (post) and "Earth's last, best hope" (post) which are both quotes from history. He also denied that Zathra's shuttle was based on the Tarsus from Privateer, though it has since come out that he didn't have as much creative control over the ship designs as he liked to suggest.

And in 1995, he even met with Chris Roberts to talk about doing a Wing Commander movie or series! He posted to GENIE on 8/8/96:

Actually met Chris Roberts last year, when we were in some preliminary discussions about us doing a Wing Commander movie or series. He definitely wants to be a film-maker.

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

We have chosen to watch the original 1993 version of The Gathering which would've been seen by the Wing Commander III team. In 1998, Warner Brothers re-edited the film with different scenes, new music and altered VFX and this is the edit generally available online. Since it is not available for purchase, we have made a copy of the 1993 cut available to download here. 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.