It Was Supposed To Be The 90s Biggest Space Adventure, Now It’s Completely Forgotten
Written by Douglas Helm | Published
Video game adaptation has come a long, long way, with titles like The Last of Us and Arcane receiving widespread critical acclaim. Still, it’s nice to go back to the dark days of video game adaptation, like 1999 Wing Commanderwhich was loosely based on the game series of the same name.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to revisit these movies as HD versions are not available on streaming services.
Wing Commander I never got a 4K restoration. In short, there is no good way to watch a movie on today’s TVs. But it’s no surprise that this movie doesn’t get much love because it’s so bad.
Wing Commander following an interstellar war between two factions known as the Terran Confederation and the cat-like Kilrathi Empire. A small group ends up being Earth’s last hope after finding a tool that allows them to stop the Kilrathi invasion. A small group of air force pilots were forced to hold Kilrathi until reinforcements arrived.
Wing Commander It has a great cast including Freddie Prinze Jr, Matthew Lillard, Saffron Burrows, Tcheky Karyo, Jurgen Prochnow, David Suchet, and David Warner. Also, Chris Roberts, creator of the video game series, directed the film. Unfortunately, having these elements in place did not equal a good movie.
Wing Commander it was a major critical and commercial failure, making only $11.6 million at the box office. This makes it easily the worst Freddie Prinze Jr. movie. and Matthew Lillard who have starred in it together. Before Wing Commanderthey both entered He is All That and would later star in both the live-action and movie Scooby-Doo films Summer Catch.
It’s not hard to imagine that there is a better version Wing Commander film out there, but some mistakes were made during production. First, Roberts decided to do good with the film’s budget and shoot most of the movie inside spaceships, which robs you of some of the space opera beauty you expect from cosmic dogfights. Also, the movie sadly missed out on having voice actors from the video game series.
I Wing Commander the movie was a prequel, so it was decided that Mark Hamill was too old to reprise his role in the games. Also, Malcolm McDowell plays Admiral Tolwyn in the play, but he had scheduling conflicts that prevented him from appearing in the movie. Ultimately, production was rushed because the studios wanted to release the film earlier Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace came out and destroyed any hope of competing space films to make money at the box office that year.
At the end, Wing Commander it ended up being a disaster, no matter how you cut it. Still, sometimes, it’s fun to revisit bad movies and see how bad they were. Unfortunately, the movie is not officially available on most streaming services, and it is not in HD.
