After Action Report: Heaven's Gate

We've made it through Heaven's Gate! Going into it, the run time was really all we could think about; 3.5 hours?! And of course the ancient claim that it was the worst movie ever made didn't help. But the truth is that it's a brilliant, beautiful movie that is more relevant today than it ever was. A government run by the rich deciding the poor are terrorists and must be eliminated so their land can be taken? Seems familiar! In the end the run time is nothing, it ebbs and flows in front of your eye and you do not lose interest because it's so beautifully done.

My biggest question going in: is there some reason the system/starbase in Wing Commander II is named Heaven's Gate? And after watching the movie carefully I think I have the answer. In the film, Heaven's Gate is the name of the skating rink in Casper. We first see it when the townspeople celebrate and Averill and Watson dance together. It's the emotional high point of the story and it represents the utopia that should've been possible, the world the townspeople created. But it's also ominous: you know already that this is the end and that that same place will soon serve as the centerpiece for this world's destruction. And that's exactly the same role the space station plays in the climax of Wing Commander II's second act. It's both the hope that Spirit's lost fiance has survived… and the knowledge that both are soon doomed.

We also couldn't help but see a thematic connection between Heaven's Gate director Michael Cimino's obsessive perfectionism and that of Chris Roberts. Both directors have a 'project first' view that ignores the limitations of investors, budgets, calendars and the like… and both have been heaped scorn for that and also been viewed as geniuses in the long run. We will watch The Deer Hunter in a future meeting… and now I'm genuinely looking forward to it!

Here are the two actors Heaven's Gate improbably shares with Privateer 2: The Darkening. Christopher Walken plays lead Kris Kristofferson's rival Nathan Champion and John Hurt his college buddy Billy Irvine. Both put in world class performances, adding to the surprise that 25 years later they would be appearing in CD-ROMs!

This is a reference we missed in the first post: Heaven's Gate is also one of the joke names for Privateer used by the game's artists when creating storyboards. The joke was that the company had been unable to settle on a name for the project (going through Free Trader and Trade Commander already) and so they would give it the names of famous entertainment industry debacles on various options screen storyboards. Here's Heaven's Gate: