ok, for a base of reference, what films do you like?
for that matter, what other films have you seen that were slated do you think are real winners?

-arcon
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"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance." --Sam Brown

not many but this one beats all of the put downs.
anybody who likes the genre i think should like it!
somethings were a stretch but thats not uncommon.
why did they never use those bloody frikken huge missiles or their wings?

I don't think it's bad at all. I give it a solid 7 for entertainment. And it just confirmed my theory that Matthew Lillard can't land a job without FP Jr

I love movies, and I really enjoyed playing Wing Commander Prophecy, but I avoided this film like the plague. I don't know why, maybe I stereotyped it, who knows. Maybe one hungover sunday I'll nip down to my local video store and rent it....but from what I've heard other people say, it might drive me to drink again

it's not exactly quality cinema, but it had it's moments, great beginning i thought, and threw some interesting slants on the WC story. a lot more could have been made of the Pilgrims (was that what they were called?) and I loved the way the ships sealed themselves up in the clamshell shields, and were nice and clunky. so while it ain't ever going to win a BAFTA, it's a passable 90mins late evning sci-fi.


..you think you're done with the past, but the past isn't done with you..

definately should have been a straight-to-video release

-arcon
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"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance." --Sam Brown

if u remember Arch it was only on pay-per-view here, it was the ONLY box office film i ever bought off Sky (and i asked for my money back)


..you think you're done with the past, but the past isn't done with you..

I actually didn't think it was all that bad, yeah it could have been better, but hey, it happens!

The feeling of the movie was great! In other words, it felt like when I played the Wing Commander games. With that said, the movie suffered because the game creator did it himself. If the movie had been given to someone else, there would have been better story flow and character development in the film. Chris Roberts was too close to it and couldn't decide the important information from the game between the unnecessary.

Other things that made the movie worse were it's horrible physics. I think it seemed childish to see runways for space ships that don't even have wheels but metal scraping on the metal floor. And you think fingernails on chalk board is annoying. Metal scraping metal is viscious.

The worst spacial physics were when they were all being silent so the Kilrathi ship couldn't "hear" them. All I could think was Das Boot with Jurgen Prochnow, trying to remain quiet while being depth charged by the enemy. Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, so there is no reason to be quiet and you won't be able to hear the "sonar" scans on the hull like a submarine would.

The plot developments were horribly executed. One part of the story would stop, sometimes mid-action, just to show the other continuing, when it came back to other it continued without any progression of time whatsoever. There was no real coherent story flow.

The best example of this bad editing was when Blair is cockpit to cockpit with the ejected Angel, after the skipper missile exploded. They have this entire conversation, then when he leaves, it cuts back to the Tiger's Claw bridge and then Paladin says "Now we'll make them wish they were never born." I hope he wasn't pondering what to say during the "touching" dialog between Blair and Angel, because it wasn't a very good or rousing war cry.

The problem with the movie was that plot, characters, editing and emotional high points were of the quality of a cheesy Hollywood movie from the 1950's.

But I still enjoy the film for that game feel in the space fighting sequences.


Sir Spectre


Like Master Yoda's speak, Olde English is, yes? Hehmmmmhaha!
-- From the play "Zlothello"

I agree with all things you mentioned Sir Spectre. The movie plot was piss poor. I was hoping for either the storyline of the first WC game or a storyline which actually tied with the original story or something close to it, but now the entire storyline got screwed up and didn´t make sense anymore. Like I was seriously hoping for people like Col. Halcyon to make an appearance, but we only saw people like Commodore Paul Gerald and Captain Jason Sansky (who are these guys ?) but that wasn´t the biggest issue though. The editing of the movie was a much bigger problem. Casting was even worse. Tchéky Karyo to name one ! He is Turkish born, but grew up in France and you can definitely hear that ! And he played a Scotsman !? Oh come on !! And let´s not talk about Freddie Prince Jr.....let´s not even go there. Indeed physics were way off and have you guys actually seen the Kilrathi !! OMG ! They were so cheesy ! They actually looked as fake as those frickin Power Rangers, if you know what I mean. The story in whole was just not exciting, but rather boring in comparison to the great storylines the games had to offer (especially Heart of the Tiger and The Price of Freedom, because in my opinion the story of Prophecy didn´t cut it like it used to). Overall it didn´t give me the genuine and overwhelming Wing Commander feel I always had with the games.

I´m not sure it had everything to do with Chris directing it though (I hear many people about this). I mean, he did create great movie material for WC III and IV and the casting was quite good actually, like Mark Hamill (Col. Blair), Tom Wilson (Maniac, although a little bit too much resemblance to the Biff character) and the incredible actor (IMO) Malcolm McDowell (Admiral Tolwyn, one of my personal favorites). The pretty slim budget of about 20 million didn´t do the movie good either. If it would have been treated like a big budget, 100+ million Jerry Bruckheimer (to name one) movie with a great script, than it good have been good, really good perhaps. I just feel there was a lot of potential, but this is just one movie which should never have been made...


Edited by - Eraser on 21-10-2003 09:05:07

Amen to that, Eraser. Agreed 100%. I wouldn't even have watched the movie if not for the game. What I got was total disappointment.

Just remember...if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.

Agreed eraser, especially on the casting. Chris Roberts did a helluva lot better job casting for WC 3/4 and prophecy than he did with the movie.

I have the movie too, hardly watch it though. But it's still WC so I have it

"A TopGun through and through"

@Eraser, the reason why I think it would have been better with another director over Chris Roberts, is that Chris had cut together two great games, as you said WC 3 & 4, but we as players fill in the inbetween action from story point to story point. When he was forced to fill in that action for us in WC the movie, he didn't do it well at all.

You can practically see the story points he wanted to make, if the Wing Commander movie was chopped up and put on top of a game for us to play. Then I think we would have a lot more fun with it, because we fill in the relevant action.

I think this movie as a game would have been great. But as a movie by itself it stunk.

And it doesn't have so much to do with casting as it did with execution. Although, I totally agree Malcolm McDowell was hands down the best Tolwyn. It's too bad he's not very good at choosing roles, I would like to see him in better films than he is.

Sir Spectre


Like Master Yoda's speak, Olde English is, yes? Hehmmmmhaha!
-- From the play "Zlothello"

Edited by - Sir Spectre on 21-10-2003 18:04:27