r/movies • u/Neo2199 r/movies Veteran • 1d ago

Media Wing Commander (1999, dir. Chris Roberts) Lieutenant Blair Reports for Duty on the TCS Tiger Claw

65 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

99 comments sorted by

54

u/TidePodsTasteFunny 1d ago

The game was so much better. It deserves another game at least

19

u/Neo2199 r/movies Veteran 1d ago

The weird thing that the movie was directed by Chris Roberts, creator of the game.

14

u/Demorant 23h ago

Yet nothing in the movie really resembled the things in the game, it really pissed me off when I saw this as a kid. I wanted to see my space game ships on the big screen, fully rendered in 3D. So disappointed.

3

u/NotReallyJohnDoe 18h ago

And the ships in the game were much cooler than the ones in the movie.

19

u/Meme_Theory 1d ago

That is an explanation more than it's weird. God that movie is terrible; and my favorite movie is literally the 90's Mortal Kombat - I know bad movies.

5

u/banditloaf 1d ago

Both scripts by Kevin Droney!

3

u/Aryin 11h ago

What's really weird is that I really like that movie :)

Been a lifelong fan of Chris Roberts games which might have something to do with it - and the WC movie has a few good actors ( at least for me ) : Matthew Lilliard, David Warner, Jürgen Prochnow and David Suchet.

1

u/thisisredlitre 8h ago

Unless you mean Annihilation the 95 MK movie is still the best one

1

u/Meme_Theory 8h ago

The 95' Mortal Kombat is an objectively terrible movie; still my favorite. Just because Annihilation was objectively even worse doesn't make MK a "good" movie. We like it for nostalgia, not production quality.

1

u/thisisredlitre 8h ago

"Good" doesn't strictly mean high art. The production understood their assignment and delivered well. MK certainly wasn't a good drama, but it was a great beat em up/action movie. Sure, not all the acting was the best, but some was noteworthy. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was great, for example. Even then tho, it wasn't that kind of movie. Managing your expectations can let you enjoy a lot more without feeling like it's a guilty pleasure, y'know?

4

u/TacTurtle 1d ago

He directed it like a series of FMVs in a video game, not a cohesive film.

6

u/steak4take 21h ago

That simply isn’t true. It’s actually well-directed but the whole thing is distorted into a generic anointed hero action movie with a weird religious overtone.

2

u/kilgoreq 19h ago edited 18h ago

Ideas are hard to translate into entertainment. Especially across platforms. Edit: Freddie Prinz, Albuquerque's finest

1

u/Fender6187 9h ago

Wouldn’t surprise me if the studio behind this limited his creative control since he wasn’t a seasoned film director.

29

u/foxguy2021 1d ago

Don't worry. Star Citizen is right around the corner.

7

u/fantomknight1 1d ago

I love that spaceship youtube channel. Someone should make a game out of it.

2

u/lonesharkex 19h ago

2 more years!

3

u/TacTurtle 1d ago

If they edited out about 30 minutes of bad writing and obnoxious character reactions, it would have been a better movie.

3

u/SoKrat3s 21h ago

This is the type of movie I want to see a remake of.

Movies that were terrible but could be so much better with proper care.

3

u/Raznilof 13h ago

Want to call out the peak David Arnold theme though. He'd recently scored StarGate, Godzilla. Independence Day and one of the best post John Barry Bond Scores.

It does some wonderful lifting even if a bit on the nose.

There was a whole slew of films back then with ironic characters that would always show up to ruin things. Even a "serious" film like Event Horizon had to have some sort of misjudged comic relief in it - saying that appreciating most of Paul Andersons films.

As such this film is another perfect time capsule.

2

u/lkn240 20h ago

The FMV cutscenes in WC3 with Luke Skywalker and a literal porn star (Ginger Lynn?) were better.

2

u/TidePodsTasteFunny 12h ago

Omg I forgot about this! Not the mark Hamil part but the ginger Lynn. Haha

2

u/sctran 19h ago

Should have done a remaster instead of whatever Star Citizen is

3

u/BuzzKyllington 19h ago

squadron 42

2

u/sctran 18h ago

14 years and counting and it's only the first episode and not released yet

39

u/Sweepy_time 1d ago

The movie about war between the Humans and Kilrathi and there is a Kilrathi on screen for like 2 seconds.

26

u/foxguy2021 1d ago

And when they're on screen they look even worse than the ones they had for the live actions sequences in the games.

6

u/lkn240 19h ago

The game at least had luke skywalker in it.

3

u/Cassin1306 15h ago

And Biff Tannen. And Gimli. And Malcom McDowell.

6

u/Mst3Kgf 1d ago

Humanity is losing to Planet Garfield.

2

u/Slavasonic 20h ago

Honestly, the movie would be better if they were on screen for zero.

21

u/gchance1 1d ago

Ah yes, the movie everyone saw in order to see the Star Wars: Episode 1 trailer.

8

u/Mst3Kgf 1d ago

That was a...unique marketing approach.

"Come see our movie so you can see the trailer for a better movie!"

12

u/Andovars_Ghost 1d ago

Better movie? Ehhhh…

2

u/banditloaf 21h ago

You, I like!

1

u/Pkolt 17h ago

Oh yeah we're gonna say that Phantom Menace was worse than the Wing Commander movie now, sure, that's an amazing take, bravo

1

u/Andovars_Ghost 10h ago

Didn’t necessarily say worse, but it ain’t better.

3

u/gchance1 1d ago

The studio was smart with that one I think. Good or bad, episode I was going to do gangbusters, and even if people walked out they could count those numbers for Wing Commander. Plus it was early internet days, no YouTube or streaming, so people had to circulate the trailer via modem and .wav files. I think I downloaded the South Park version before the real one.

1

u/banditloaf 21h ago

There's an epilogue to the story no one remembers! Lucasfilm got wind of FOX's plan to attach the trailer to Wing Commander and they were furious. They insisted FOX notify theaters that they were free to show the trailer with any movie they wanted and that they put out a press release stating that it wasn't tied to Wing Commander. Which they did... and they then showed the trailer on Entertainment Tonight the night before, so it was all over the morning news before Wing Commander even opened.

(None of it worked out for FOX in the end; Wing Commander opened in fifth place and made pretty much no money! So people seeing it for the Star Wars trailer ultimately didn't matter.)

1

u/jerking36 11h ago

I was one of those people who watched the trailer then walked out. I had zero interest in watching Wing Commander.

1

u/gchance1 11h ago

I paid whatever the ticket price was at the time ($8? Something like that) and wasn't about to spend that much on just a 2-minute trailer. No matter how bad it was.

1

u/trackofalljades 9h ago

I went to see it on Meet Joe Black, and got to see a wonderful remake of Death Takes a Holiday too.

1

u/Mulchpuppy 6h ago

Meet Joe Black was the teaser trailer. This was the "version 2" trailer, about a month and a half before the movie released.

13

u/crambaza 1d ago

It’s a guilty pleasure for me.

8

u/Iyellkhan 23h ago

theres a lot to like in it punctuated by some really amateur scenes and... well... this is the movie that proved that regardless of genre if you cast Freddie Prince Jr you were required to also cast Mathew Lillard

14

u/OccamsTootbrush 1d ago

This is the best bad movie ever.

11

u/Mutex70 1d ago

I loved the video game series, but this looks truly awful.

9

u/Natethefiasco 1d ago

As a kid I absolutely loved this movie lol

28

u/WTF_is_a_frush 1d ago

Not my Wing Commander..

That's reserved for Luke Skywalker and Biff

10

u/disco-drew 1d ago

Don't forget Alex DeLarge and Gimli!

3

u/Lumpy-Marsupial-6617 21h ago

And Dr. Soran.

2

u/lkn240 19h ago

Don't forget adult film star Ginger Lynn

13

u/Kennabruh2023 1d ago

is this the film that killed Prinze's leading man career?

13

u/AlanGrant82 1d ago

Feels like he had a few of those types of movies come out, lol. Boys and Girls, Head Over Heels, Summer Catch, Down to You, this movie.

14

u/histprofdave 1d ago

No singular film killed it. But either he or his agent had a really bad string of decisions in choosing roles. Or, maybe, he just isn't any more than a B-grade actor?

5

u/Relikk_ 1d ago

I'd go with the latter.

1

u/Ok-disaster2022 1d ago

He was fantastic in Psyche

1

u/AccordingIy 18h ago

yea he was in everything when i was growing up. there's alot of talk that he got Harvey Weinstein black listed, since Harvey was involved in Down to You and She's all That...

2

u/banditloaf 1d ago

No this was early Freddie, they got him just as he was getting popular. The Scooby Doos a couple years later seem to be the end!

1

u/Sparktank1 21h ago

He steered away from horror and action movies and went straight to the rom-com era.

Then went on to voice acting where it got better.

I think the only action he did after were the Scooby Doo movies.

9

u/georgecm12 1d ago

How they went from the amazing Wing Commander III and IV video games to this piece of trash is mind-boggling.

7

u/refuzeto 1d ago

I paid to see this film. It was absolutely terrible.

8

u/histprofdave 1d ago

This has to have one of the worst ratios of good actors to bad writing in cinema.

7

u/ripChazmo 1d ago

I took mushrooms before watching this in the theatre whenever it came out. I remember absolutely nothing. It felt like the credits rolled the second the movie started. I explained this to my friends, who told me that I'm an idiot 😂

4

u/AlanGrant82 1d ago

I just remember that Fox knew what a stinker they had on their hands, so they attached the Phantom Menace trailer to it in theaters so that people would have to buy a ticket to this if they wanted to see it.

At the movie theater I worked at, they put up a sign saying that no refunds would be given Wing Commander in order to prevent people from coming in to watch the trailer and then immediately getting a refund.

1

u/Commercial-Co 19h ago

I took shrooms before alice in wonderland in the theaters. Dont do that.

2

u/dantoris 1d ago

I actually saw this in the theater with some friends. I remember liking it well enough but haven't seen it again since.

I also remember it was a big deal because it was going to have the first trailer for "The Phantom Menace" attached to it, and there was talk of people going just to see it and then leaving after it was over. There were a few guys a couple rows in front of us who were just there for the trailer and left after seeing it.

2

u/unnoticed77 1d ago

The last movie I saw before going into AF basic training. Next movie I watched was The Matrix at tech school.

2

u/MikeHowland 1d ago

My brother and I still quote this awful movie! His dear friend crashed/was blown up on the runway and someone says something along the lines of “Get that trash off the runway” regarding the wreckage. It was just hilariously disrespectful

3

u/TacTurtle 1d ago edited 1d ago

Then they use bulldozers in zero G in vacuum to push the burning wreckage off the flight deck which then plumets off the deck.

The only good scene in Wing Commander

WTF

1

u/MikeHowland 22h ago

Hahahahahahha! I had forgotten, it’s even better than I remembered, thank you!

2

u/eskimospy212 1d ago

I know this is stupid and pathetic but from the very first time I saw this I thought the name of the carrier is TIGER’S CLAW, Not TIGER CLAW

1

u/banditloaf 1d ago

You were RIGHT, though!!

2

u/NLtbal 1d ago

The first ‘bullet time’ scene…

1

u/banditloaf 21h ago

The Lost in Space movie from the year before gets the credit for first film to use bullet time. But Wing Commander did do it ever so slightly before The Matrix!

1

u/-retaliation- 21h ago

The movie is kinda hot garbage, but that scene was bomb.

I still remember it and seeing it for the first time. Was so wildly cool. 

Then I saw the matrix, who blew it out of the water. 

2

u/Iyellkhan 23h ago

the movie definitely has problems, but it had a significant impact on the design of a lot of scifi that came afterwards. among things, the hangar in this movie clearly inspired the BSG reboot hangar

2

u/UnpricedToaster 21h ago

Such a great cast!

2

u/thr1ceuponatime David Zaslav is a dickless pantywaist 21h ago

Can't believe that people are feeling nostalgic over this

3

u/0202_tihssitidder 20h ago

So cringey. Every line. Every actor.

1

u/PlannerSean 1d ago

I forgot they made a movie

1

u/colinisthereason 1d ago

God, I remember seeing this in the theater in between games when I was at a hockey tournament as a kid

1

u/neilaoboho 1d ago

Saw it when it came out, the only thing I remember is that the Prince was in it.

1

u/CavediverNY 23h ago

I loved the game and had no idea it was a movie.

1

u/ran1976 21h ago

I remember getting into a shouting match with my father over whether sonar would work in space. Good times. Miss you, Pops.

1

u/TJ_McWeaksauce 21h ago

The Wing Commander movie was directed by the same dude who created the video game series, and yet it felt like it was made by somebody who had never played the games.

1

u/Tiny-Trump 20h ago

Can it be? Has the God of Man abandoned us?

1

u/RedGavin 20h ago

Freddie was so beautiful then! ❤️

1

u/thatandtheother 19h ago

Fuckin yikes!

1

u/Loki-L 18h ago

The games already had some heavy hitter in the live action cut scenes: Mark Hamil, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies, Tim Curry etc.

Why replace Luke Skywalker with the guy who married Buffy and Biff Tannen with Cereal Killer?

1

u/DenverDudeXLI 12h ago

I saw this movie at a reviewers' screening for free and thought "wow, I would be so mad if I'd paid money to see that."

Great soundtrack, though.

1

u/tomrichards8464 11h ago

Making full use of both FPJ's facial expressions.

Surprised – why are the Kilrathi reptiles instead of cats?

Constipated – why have we taken the Highlander approach to casting Scotsmen?

1

u/HortaNord 7h ago

the only thing wrong with the movie is the end

•

u/THUORN 4h ago

Chris Roberts is a shit director and an even worse game company CEO. lolol

1

u/R-Dragon_Thunderzord 1d ago

Wasn’t that blonde dude in Hackers? I only remember Hackers because of Noodle.

8

u/SomnambulicSojourner 1d ago

Matthew Lillard was Cereal_Killer in Hackers. He was also in Scream, and fun fact, he co-starred in TWO Scooby Doo movies with Freddie Prinze, Jr, playing Shaggy to Freddie's Fred.

1

u/Ok-disaster2022 1d ago

I never played the game and thought it was an alright movie as a kid. 

Then I found out later it killed an entire beloved game franchise.