StarCitizen:Wing Commander (movie)

Theatrical release poster

Wing Commander is a 1999 science fiction movie<ref>imdb: Wing Commander</ref> loosely based on the Chris Roberts Wing Commander games. It premiered on March 11 1999.<ref>Wing Commander, variety.com, March 11, 1999</ref>

With the games being inspired by the look and feel of Star Wars when they were first started, with no Star Wars games on computer back then, Chris Roberts was concerned the movie might be accused to be a rip off so he tried to return to the basic roots of Wing Commander I inspired by the war in the pacific and WW2 and make the designs look more retro.<ref name=":0">Wing Commander Combat Information Center interview with Chris Roberts by Hadrian, 1999</ref> For Chris Roberts it's like classic, nautical World War II movie, taking elements of Das Boot, or Tora! Tora! Tora! set in a science-fiction universe.<ref>Cinescape - March 1999</ref>

History

On May 17, 1996, Chris Roberts met with Mike Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures to pitch the Wing Commander movie. His presentation included a director's reel of footage from Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV and a copy of Kevin Droney's already finished first draft script for the film. Three days later, executive assistant Stuart Volkow e-mailed his thoughts on the project to the rest of his creative team.<ref name=":2" />

The notes were not particularly gentle: he did not like Droney's script and found Wing Commander IV's production to be amateurish. But he also believed it could be worth investing in. The pitch meeting, one of many like it that had begun with the initial treatment for the movie in 1995, didn't result in a deal between Phoenix and Electronic Arts. But in September, Volkow's notes were leaked to the Wing Commander Home Sector's Dan Hardwicke who published them online. This caused a firestorm in the Origin community, and was the first mention anywhere in public of StarCitizen:Digital Anvil. Fans bickered over whether or not the notes were real, what they represented, whether a Wing Commander movie was really being made and so on.<ref name=":2" />

In late 1997 StarCitizen:Digital Anvil, the company founded by StarCitizen:Chris Roberts, acquired the live action feature film rights to the Wing Commander series from Electronic Arts, which had previously bought StarCitizen:Origin Systems where the game series had been made.

Malcolm McDowell accepted to act on the Fantasy Island tv serie and had to be replaced by David Warner to play Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn.<ref name=":0" />

Chris Roberts first movie

Chris Roberts attended a director's boot camp training program as part of the preproduction of Wing Commander III and by the time he got off the plane in Luxembourg in 1998, Chris Roberts had directed half a dozen multimillion dollar game productions, three film shoots (two feature-equivalent games and a theatrical short), done and uncredited edit on another major FMV project, spent over a year in preproduction on Wing Commander, had executive produced a television show and so on.<ref name=":2">Moron Writes Article, wcnews.com, 9 December 2025</ref>

Reception

The movie had a bad reception, which Chris Roberts blamed on his inexperience as a film director, with directing live action for Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV not being on the same level. He also blamed the lack of a strong creative producer, a low budget, a ridiculously short pre-production timeline as well as giving into some of the studio's casting choices that didn't fit the Wing Commander audience.<ref>Chris Roberts Reddit AMA first comment about the Wing Commander movie</ref><ref>Chris Roberts Reddit AMA comment about the Wing Commander movie</ref>

The film has been criticized by some fans for altering the visual style of the most recent Wing Commander games.

It grossed over $11 millions at the domestic box office.<ref>"This article is incorrect about the Wing Commander movie; $11.6 million (22 million in 2024 dollars) was the domestic box office. Worldwide box office takes weren't generally reported in 1999.", @banditloaf, Twitter, Sep 12, 2024</ref>

Yet, it was only one of many examples of how the Wing Commander franchise expanded over the years.<ref>Take a look inside the cockpit of the famous Wing Commander series, gog.com, February 28, 2022</ref>

Trivia

Jürgen Prochnow, 2nd in command of the Tigerclaw, also played among others in the classic Das Boot and in David Lynch StarCitizen:Dune.<ref>Jürgen Prochnow, imdb

</ref>

StarCitizen:Martin Galway appears in the screen credits.<ref>Template:Cite RSI</ref>
Wing Commander Arena, the latest game in the series, makes reference to the movie, including references to the Pilgrim War, while using ships and settings which first appeared in the main series of games. The manual Star*Soldier does make references to some of the ships from the movie however showing them in silhouettes.
Chris Roberts voices a bomber pilot.<ref name=":1">"Two Star Citizen cameos to look/listen for: Chris Roberts as a bomber pilot and Mark Hamill as the voice of the Merlin computer!", @banditloaf, Twitter, Mar 14, 2018</ref>
Mark Hamill voices the Merlin computer.<ref name=":1" />
Joseph Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame was in preliminary discussions in 1995 to work with Chris Roberts on a Wing Commander movie or series but in the end he didn't work on it.<ref>"Actually met Chris Roberts last year, when we were in some preliminary discussions about us doing a Wing Commander movie or series. He definitely wants to be a film-maker.", .jmsnews.com, Joe Straczynki, 8/8/1996</ref>

External Links

Wing Commander Movie at the Wing Commander encycopedia

References