Wing Commander

Apparently early space travelers is allot like what happened on Earth. They left to escape religious persecution and these pilgrims are hated for some strange reason. Bigotry is not to be tolerated by any means, race, creed, religion or style. It's just wrong and the main problem is this subplot of everyone hating this guy just because he's a "pilgram" decent. It's just wrong, now I don't know anything about the game series this movie is based on. I really don't. I can only judge by the movie. The effects are good, the Kirathi are cool, the story for the most part works. I know enough of the game that they got the first person outside the ship view and that's cool. It's cool. I give it...8 STARS

I just saw Wing Commander last Saturday and I was very impressed. Science fiction movies (that are not Star Trek or Star Wars movies) usually do not have plots of good quality, but Wing Commander seems to be an exception to this rule. It's a great movie overall . . . it's got everything: action, incredible special effects, a little romance, and yes, it's even got some important social issues thrown in. The whole "s/he never existed" attitude after a pilot was killed was a fascinating dynamic -- you could see that it pained 'Angel' to say "Do it for Rosie." And the hatred directed toward Blair for being half-'Pilgrim' was a telling reminder that prejudice against people based on their heritage still exists today, but that it can be overcome. I would rate the movie 9 1/2 out of 10 stars. Hopefully, Hollywood will produce more of such thought-provoking, enjoyable science fiction flicks. In the meantime, my final words on the movie are that Wing Commander rules!

It's easy to forget the fact that "Wing Commander" is a decent film with professional level acting, writing and production values -even if this is strictly by-the-numbers hackwork - until you see a really dumb movie in the Sci Fi Space Opera genre such as "Fatal Conflict","Star Crash" or "Message From Space". Compared to Grade D efforts like those turkeys, "Wing Commander" is at least smooth and easy to take and offers enough eye candy for the fan boy who can't get enough of his space fighters, laser beams and alien races. But in comparison to the Big Boys of the genre ("Star Wars", the "Star Trek" franchise) or even under-sung classics ("Enemy Mine","The Last Starfighter", etc), "Wing Commander" is a nothing more than a wanna-be. Almost every story element and character of "Wing Commander" seems to be lifted whole from other, more original efforts. The Kilrathi seem to be taken directly from Larry Niven's "Man/Kzin War" stories. The Prinze character is a Rent-A-Center version of Luke Skywalker. His hotheaded best friend is an amalgamation of every sidekick EVER in Space Opera along with quite a bit of "Mongoose" from "Top Gun" thrown in. His flight commander is the female character from "Top Gun" and VERY little else. One of the battle scenes (where the Tiger Claw must hide from the Kilrathi fleet) is a blatant rip-off/tribute to every WWII submarine flick ever made. And the list goes on. There is "A" level professional level talent involved here (and yes, I count Freddie Prinze as a "A" level, even if I don't care for his screen persona), but they all seem to be in in purely for in it the paycheck. Seriously, how can you have Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner and David Suchet - each of whom have carried entire movies - and not produce something memorable? The answer: "Paycheck." How can you have talented, interesting character actors like Lillard and Karyo in almost every scene and completely waste them? I don't know, but I suspect: "Paycheck." Even as hackwork, though, the movie is OK...kind of the Space Opera equivalent of the dozens of "Shaw Brothers/Golden Harvest" martial arts pieces which the USA Network used to air on "Kung Fu Theater". Uncritical fans of the genre will still find all the standard elements they expect from these movies, and a few polished touches here and there:The clunky, bristly designs of the space ships makes them look like heavy duty battle-wagons, not space age toys. The script does generate a little suspense here and there with its depictions fleets manoeuvrings to get the best advantage. David Warner and David Suchet are incapable of delivering a dull or inept line. Tcheky Karyo's light touch and charming accent are almost enough to save any scene he is in. Lillard is his usual fire-hose of manic energy, even if his character is a complete tool. The depiction of the Kilrathi warships popping one by one out of the 'warp hole', only to be torn to pieces by weapons of the human fleet, has a nice heft and rhythm to it that is viscerally satisfying. But whatever you do, do NOT come into "Wing Commander" expecting anything new or fresh, or even very impressive.

When I was a child I remember catch every episode of Battlestar galactica watching it again every one as I never see it before. I never been so many times (5) in a cinema watching the same movie but with the same feeling when you discover a treasure, one of this films or shows (like galactica) with great characters, maybe not so good special effects. What's makes Wing commander a good underrated movie? The story about the war in the heart of the warriors, in this case Blair (before becomes the Wing Commander)and Maniac Marshall have to fight not only against the kilrathi, they have a little dark war with the own crew of the battlecruiser Tigerclaw, where the pain of the last civil war is still pounding in every heart. With this movie Chris Roberts explore a new vision of the space colonization(the pilgrim war) and at the same time try to bring feeling of the First world war as a model of this new war on the new frontier. Even when the acting is not so great Tcheky Karyo and Jurgen Prochnow, makes a good work and the soundtracks is wonderful. But this kind of movies it's only for those who wanna watch something more adult than star wars.

I have to say i liked it a lot. The environment is well created, so are the dialogs and the ships. The special effects are pretty good, the dark atmosphere gives the movie a "grim and dark future" look. The only negative thing is the fighting scenes, they look just unreal and penalize the whole movie. The plot is simple, they travel through quasars to save the earth from a Killrathi invasion, these aliens look like big cats wielding some technologically advanced sticks. The cameras are always centered on Lt. Blair, so the shape of the Killrathi is shrouded in mystery until the third quarter of the movie. Overall it's a really good movie, with a great atmosphere that will make you say "Ok, i didn't waste these two hours".

Well I saw this one before I've read any comment about it. I think its very much like the game. So I was a little surprised that the movie get such bad comments. I really liked it, and I've seen it even twice, after reading the bad comments; and I still enjoyed it. Well I've tried to find out why the movie get that bad comments, but I've still no clue. They say there is no story, but thats not true, the story is really complex (in fact, too complex). Or that sound can't be heard in space - haha, funny, why does nobody care about that in movies such as "Star Wars" ? My own main problem with the movie are those parts which doesn't get explained; for example, what happened with the commander after he get wounded ? Suddenly he's just gone, and never appears again. Or why didn't they tried to save the fighter pilot who had crashed on the gangway ?!?!? And the fights itself as well as some of the starships looked too much just like those in the game, that could have been far cooler. On the other hand, the Kilrati - didn't they looked like lions in the original, much bigger than human beings ? Here they are black and are just same size, and they look more like rats. I somehow missed Rachael Leigh Cook in this one. Freddie Prinze Jr. played again the Prince Charming, but he had no real counterpart like in She's all that. Saffron Burrows is really good looking, but simply too old for taking Raechael's part. Matthew Lillard was again crazy - surprise, surprise ! I hope I can summarize the rest of the acting as simply good, without mentioning each of them individually. The movie looked much like the game - or much like StarTrek. The script was a little to complex and confusing, with too many stories in the story, but it also had suspense. The introduction was really good, except that one has to hear what these people say to understand some things happening later.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie after reading the bad prior reviews. It is a good combat science fiction movie. The special effects were really good considering the budget of the film. The acting was decent, and the story was well written. The only problem I had was the poor effects of the Kilrathi, they did not look good at all. Fans of the wing commander games should go see this movie with an open mind. No Mark Hammil, but the movie is not any lesser with him missing. See this film, you will like it. 10/10

A lot of negative reviews have been given about Wing Commander which I find slightly upsetting. People have been saying the plot was extremely weak and that the Kilrathi monsters were very poorly done. A few comments have also been made as to the quality of acting in the movie. The movie at this point has earned a 4.7/10 IMDb user's rating which I feel is undeservingly low. I will not try to defend the movie as a "great and timeless" movie, for it was not. However, considering a $27 million budget, the movie was very well presented. I mean, to release a Sci-Fi movie, which relies very heavily on costly special effects, for such a small amount of money must have been a very difficult task. Look at Titanic, it was a romance and the special effects involved recreating a Ship and making it Sink, now granted they were good effects and Titanic was a good movie, but it also had a budget of $200 million. As for the actors I feel they did a superb job portraying the characters, especially Matthew Lillard who gave "Maniac" a lovable character and portrayed the original Maniac from the video game series very well. The plot, though not very strong, had enough flow to give the movie a sense of direction and having played the game, I understood the concepts easily. Another point not many people have touched upon is how Chris Roberts used many tactical elements from the gaming series. Involving torpedoes and the use of bombers to attack capital ships, and jump points as opposed to simple "warp" or "hyperdrive". In this, sense he kept very true to the game series. Before watching the movie, I did not really expect much from the special effects with the knowledge of the low budget but surprisingly the effects were very, very well done (except for a few close ups of the Rapiers when you can tell they are using a model with a computer generated background). The Kilrathi were poorly done but there is not enough exposure of them to take too much away from the movie, again budget constraints have hurt them in this department. However, the dogfights, capital ships, battle scenes, and backgrounds were quite stunning and had me very surprised. I think the movie provides a good opportunity for franchise possibilities if done right. Also keep in mind that this was Chris Robert's debut on the big screens and if the Wing Commander games have taught us anything at all is that Chris adapts well and learns from his mistakes. If there is a Wing Commander 2 (The movie of course) look for it to be quite a step up from this Wing Commander, especially if they get a bigger budget. I think the Wing Commander concept has great potential and after all is considered I think an excellent job was done on this movie. In comparison to other movies in this genre I would give it a 7.3/10

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The graphics weren't up to say Episode1 standards, but were convincing enough (and I loved the raspy engine noise for the Rapiers). The acting was what I've come to expect from these younger American actors (as in good). I'd say from an objective view point it's a good film. A bit lacking in certain areas, but certainly enjoyable. I say "objective" simply because I have never been exposed to the hugely popular game series, so I was seeing this as a film, not as a spin off (in which case I'm sure it would come across worse, simply because when you're used to one set of actors portraying your favourite characters a new team will never fit the bill). Overall not a bad way to spend my Wednesday evening.

I know this guy who works at a multiplex and is a movie maniac. He insists that "Wing Commander" is the worst movie ever made, so when I saw that SciFi Channel was going to air it this week, I thought, "Oh, good! I will get to see it for free and see if it's everything my friend promises it is, because I've got a perverse obsession with bad movies!" I will tell you how much I... well, I suppose the word is "enjoyed"... "Wing Commander" by describing my favorite part of the movie for you. The setting is a big war in outer space between Earthlings and some aliens called the Kilrathi (more about them later), and most of the action we are chiefly concerned with takes place on a big spaceship that is something like an aircraft carrier. The hero's annoying best friend and his sort-of-girlfriend have disobeyed the leader of their team and, thanks to Cosmic Revenge, the sort-of-girlfriend dies when she crashes her little spaceship into the landing pad thing on the big ship. Now, this is supposed to be the big, dramatic sad part. We cut from a scene where the hero's annoying best friend is crying and begging to save his sort-of-girlfriend, to a scene where the sort-of-girlfriend's ship is being pushed by a little snowplow off the runway thing of the big ship. In the middle of Outer Space. In Zero Gravity. I suppose there's some B.S. about there being big magnets or something lining the runway so that the ships can't just float away. But, you know, that's something that's supposed to be the screenplay writers' responsibility to tell us. My second favorite part is when we finally see the Kilrathi for the first time. At about the forty-five minute mark, it occurred to me that we don't even know who or what the Kilrathi are. We only know that they're at war with Earth and that they hate humans. But for the first full hour and a half or so, we don't even know what a Kilrathi looks like. Well, the Kilrathi end up being something like an anthropomorphic Mr. Bigglesworth. And they really like fog machines. When the hero and his buddies invade the Kilrathi ship, the whole place is choked with green fog. Oh, and for all this, we never find out why they hate humans. I came up with a theory. The Kilrathi are the descendants of a bunch of hairless cats who were sent in a probe many years ago to a strange planet. This planet was highly irradiated, and the cats were sent there to see if Earthlings could survive on it. Well, the radiation made the cats evolve very quickly, and eventually their descendants began to look more and more humanoid. They built some spaceships and went to war against humanity, to avenge the fact that the humans never remembered to clean out their grandparents' litter boxes. As for the green fog, that's to remind all the Kilrathi of the awful stench their ancestors had to suffer when their litter was left unchanged. But, again, this is the screenwriter's job. And I'm not even going to start on the whole "Pilgrim" thing. "Wing Commander" gets a three, because of it's parody value and because it isn't as bad as my friend promised but it's close. VERY close. Essentially, this is the kind of movie that "Starship Troopers", as a *very* small part of it's agenda, set out to parody. Go watch that movie instead. It's a great date movie.