Pop Culture AHC: Wing Commander Movie (1999) a Success

[Fearless Leader]

Alright, what kind of POD(s) are necessary to make one of the worst sci-fi movies of the past two decades, Wing Commander (1999) a success.

Regular number of points for improving it enough so that it makes enough money to cover it's production costs.

Extra special bonus points for having it make enough money to convince 20th century Fox to make a sequel.

Good Luck!

 

[CarribeanViking]

Um...WC takes a hell of a lot from/is basically a sci fi riff on the island hopping pacific campaign of WWII. With the Terran Confederation playing the part of the Japanese. It took real effort to screw that up and make boring, meandering, maudlin crap out of it.

Considering the FMV that was done for the third game in the series, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Run bits of the plot together, do some action scenes in decent CGI; go with the whole backs against the wall, long losing war, defensive campaign thing, the attempt to retain a beachhead to deploy Behemoth from and the disaster there, the last desperate roll of the dice that was Temblor (although have them do something like hit the Kilrahi equivalent of Yellowstone, slightly more reasonable), should work.

Hell, you could use most of the actors from the game, just pay them a little more. Biff Tannen as the deputy saviour of humanity? Wierd.

 

[Dan Reilly The Great]

One of the biggest problems that the movie had was that they tried to make it into Dawson's Creek IN SPAAAAASSSSEEEE!!!!!

They cast Freddie Prinze Jr. and that guy who was in all those Freddie Prinze Jr. movies and a whole bunch of other hot young actors in the lead roles which would have been fine if they were making a movie that appealed to the kinds of people who liked watching Dawson's Creek (12 year old girls), but twelve year old girls didn't typically like watching military sci-fi movies(at least the 12 year old girls who liked Dawson's Creek), and the kinds of people who would have liked a military sci-fi movie don't typically like Dawson's Creek.

There's also the fact that they butchered the source material(who's genius idea was it to add the "pilgrim" subplot anyway?). Paladin in the games was made really Scottish but was played by a French guy in the movie, and Angel was really French in the games but played by a British actress in the movie for no apparent reason. I could understand toning down the accents and whatnot, but needlessly changing the nationalities was a bit disorienting. The dynamic between Maniac and Blair was always one of antagonism and begrudging respect, but in the movie they were made into best friends right from the start. And let's not forget about the Kilrathi somehow looking worse in the movie than in the games.

It was as if they had deliverately made the movie to piss off the fans of the games, and then decided to piss away whatever appeal they would have had to anybody else by making it into some kind of hybrid mess in some poor attempt at mass appeal. It's telling that Space Above and Beyond was actually a more faithful adaptation of the WC games despite being a wholly original series.

In short, you need the studio backing it to decide that they don't want to make a mainstream blockbuster, which means a lower budget, but also means that it appeals to the right kinds of people and hasn't been butchered to hell and gone.

 

[Some Bloke]

Maybe don't include Blair and Maniac at all. Set it during Custer's Carnival.

 

[volantredx]

Basically take Wing Commander 3 and cut it down to feature length, then add in a few dog fight scenes where the gameplay was. I mean selling a sci-fi movie as "staring Mark Hamill" shouldn't be too hard.

 

[Ameise]

There's also the fact that they butchered the source material(who's genius idea was it to add the "pilgrim" subplot anyway?). Paladin in the games was made really Scottish but was played by a French guy in the movie, and Angel was really French in the games but played by a British actress in the movie for no apparent reason. I could understand toning down the accents and whatnot, but needlessly changing the nationalities was a bit disorienting. The dynamic between Maniac and Blair was always one of antagonism and begrudging respect, but in the movie they were made into best friends right from the start. And let's not forget about the Kilrathi somehow looking worse in the movie than in the games.

Eh? Even in the games, Maniac and Maverick were basically close friends, though also rivals. They were academy-mates, IIRC, after all.

The main problems with the movie were:
1. Terrible acting.
2. Terrible writing.
3. Didn't follow the plot of the games. At all, really.

I still want to know why the Kilrathi became giant sphinx cats.