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The Wing Commander movie club has run both silent and deep through Das Boot! We were certainly impressed… with the film and with just how much of the film Chris Roberts managed to work into Wing Commander. Next up we're going to watch something a little more fun: as suggested by Vera, Friday's movie will be The Fifth Element! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The Fifth Element is a 1997 science fiction film from French director Luc Besson. It tells the story of a futuristic taxi driver who inadvertently becomes the key to stopping an incredible weapon capable of destroying the Earth. That plot description is reductive, though: the film is celebrated for both its slick storytelling and its stunningly visualized world (with visuals inspired by the likes of Moebius and Mézières) that seemed like nothing we'd ever seen before at the time. Do you think it will hold up now that some

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We recently posted a scan of the 1997/2673 Kilrathi Saga calendar, a classic Wing Commander document that hasn't been available online. But wasn't there another Wing Commander calendar? There was! The fancy Premiere Edition of Wing Commander III came with a trilingual calendar that shows off high resolution stills from the game's FMV. It's not quite as cool as the Kilrathi Saga calendar because it doesn't have any original lore... but it sure is pretty! But we've scanned the whole thing anyway and you can get either the high resolution version here (298 megs) or a smaller reading copy here (12 megs). You can take your time, though: you can't use this one again until 2034!

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Late last year we posted a guide to the weapons of Wing Commander Academy. One of the topics was the slight differences between the 'generic' Kilrathi capital ship design created for the show. Star*Soldier divided these similar ships into different sizes: the Kamar-class blockade-runner, the Dorkar-class transport, the Ralar-class destroyer and the Naukar-class carrier.

We decided it would be interesting to go through the season and see how many of the capital ships we could identify in-continuity. We learned that the model appears on the show a total of 18 times, although six of these are briefing holograms and one, a carrier, is a TrainSim opponent. The remaining 11 are one Kamar, two Ralar, two Dorkar, three Naukars… and two cruisers and a corvette?! That's right, in the process of trying to identify each ship's class (first from dialogue and failing that by looking at outlines, scripts and

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Imperial agents have been charged with attempting to seize political influence deep in Federal territory following the Battle of Sol.
With the aftermath of the Thargoid Invasion still causing upheaval across populated space, there has been a marked effort by many factions to establish themselves in systems impacted by Titan Cocijo's assault in December.
Sofia Trevino wrote a summary for the Federal Times:
"In recent weeks there has been turmoil in Sol, as political, corporate and military interests come to terms with the impact of Titan Cocijo's arrival – not to mention the civilian cost, with billions of refugees still displaced in surrounding systems."
"But an unexpected element has emerged, with ports and outposts reporting a significant increase in positive Imperial sentiment. This has been tied to Princess Aisling Duval in particular, currently enjoying a good reputation among

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We've taken a look under the hood of Wing Commander II and come away with more questions than answers! This collection of sprites is the 'mid' character artwork, the ones that show up in establishing and group shots punctuated by the more familiar animated portraits. Let's take a look and maybe you can help identify some of the mystery images!

The Kilrathi sprites include Khasra and the guard that appears next to him in one cut scene… and one kil we can't put our finger on! Does the older Kilrathi ever actually show up in the game? He might have been intended to stand in for Khasra in the final mission cutscene… but in the final game Khasra being shot down doesn't stop him from talking to Thrakhath later.

Duty uniforms from the base game: Angel, Hobbes, Stingray, Downtown, Doomsday, Jazz, Shadow and Spirit. Pay attention to Hobbes' boots, which are accurate to the ones seen on his physical costume in

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A squadron of AX pilots have planned to sustain pressure on the lingering Thargoid presence in the HIP 22460 system.
Led by the respected AXI and XSF combat fleets, the blockade seeks to push Thargoid craft from the area from January 12th.
HIP 22460 was the staging ground for Salvation's Proteus Wave weapon, which sought to end the Second Thargoid War in August 3308 but resulted in disaster. Prior to this it is believed to have hosted several clandestine research operations hosted by Azimuth Biochemicals and protected by the notorious Black Flight.
More updates will be provided as the story develops.

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is a fun one: The Fifth Element, a movie that shares a cinematographer with Wing Commander! You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST, but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Greetings WingNuts,

We are back from our long sea tour! After two weeks, the Wing Commander movie club has watched the director's cut of Das Boot. Most in attendance had seen at least the theatrical version before so we had a good idea what we were getting into… but it was certainly a tough watch! Unlike some of the war films we've watched in this series, Das Boot's impact has not diminished over the years. It's a hard edged story that portrays the reality of warfare: that most of the people fighting aren't there supporting an ideology but because society offers them no other choice. It's not an easy watch but it's a valuable one.

Of course there were a lot of Wing Commander connections to discuss given the film's importance in inspiring the Wing Commander film's look, feel, specific scenes and even… well, its captain. AD provided this excerpt from Chris Roberts' original Wing Commander film pitch

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A few weeks ago, we reported the welcome surprise that The Fatman had released the "Just the FAT" edition of the Wing Commander II soundtrack… and we mentioned that a complete release was on the way from Xeen Music! And now, that release is here!

• Wing Commander II Soundtrack
• Wing Commander Academy Soundtrack

These are, in a word, incredible. Andrew Harrington of Xeen Music has spent months researching and restoring the music of Wing Commander II and Academy and has produced an incredible collection with everything you know… and whole a lot you don't! He has reached out to the original composers, tracked down cut music and music that was simplified to save disk space… and he's collected it all alongside comprehensive notes about what you're listening to. And it's all properly licensed through Electronic Arts, this is an official release. This is surely the isometal standard for video game music releases!

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Sad news today: French voice actor Benoît Allemane passed away on Sunday. To say that M. Alleman was prolific would be an understatement; he performed the French voices for characters from Doctor Claw to Baloo and in the process dubbed countless film and genre roles over the years. He was likely best known as the official French voice of actor Morgan Freeman, who paid tribute to him on Instagram.

You can find an obituary here. He is best known to Wing Commander fans, however, as the French voice of Captain William Eisen in localized releases of Wing Commander III and IV. Here's a briefing from Wing Commander IV showing his dub work in action:

Our thoughts are with M. Allemane's family, friends and fans.

Thank you to Sergorn for reporting this news.

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The Wing Commander movie club watched The Fifth Element on Friday and it certainly wasn't Boron! (everyone laugh) Next up, we're going back to World War II… but in the Pacific this time! We're going to be watching the 1976 film Midway and you can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Midway is a star-studded, big budget war movie about the 1942 Battle of Midway, a naval engagement that changed the direction of World War 2 in the Pacific and which enshrined the aircraft carrier as the centerpiece of naval doctrine. Midway attempts to tell the story of the battle, a challenging thing for a conflict where the two sides rarely encountered each other.

Wing Commander's Kilrathi War has always been patterned after World War II in the Pacific so it's not a surprise that there are some clear connections to look out for! We'll talk about some connections to the real battle shortly, but first the 1976

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Welcome to 2025, where retro gaming is "hip". And when something becomes popular it can start to generate a lot of useless, hastily assembled money-grabbing crap. Case in point is this 2025 "Retro Games Classic Gaming Calendar" from Red Rock Publishing:

The ultimate gaming calendar for all gamers, whether young or old! Here, the most legendary games of all time are brought back to life, whether for PC, Amiga, SEGA, PlayStation, XBOX, or other platforms - all through the new year!

Classics like WarCraft, Doom 3D, Monkey Island, Pacman, StarCraft, Super Mario, Quake, Diablo or Dune: In this calendar, the unforgettable giants of gaming history will accompany you throughout the new year, 365 days in a row.

Including a fold-out mega poster, all public and religious holidays as well as plenty of space to add your own notes, birthdays, etc. Format: Large Wall Dimensions: 59cm x 29.5cm

Sounds great, except…

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Here's a short but fascinating followup to our article on the partnership between Origin and Intel: st3lt3k added that an Internet Archive contributor named Star Raider has uploaded beautiful scans of all five of the 1994 CES posters! Origin wasn't promoting Wing Commander at the time but these is artwork worth studying nonetheless...

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Aegis has confirmed that HIP 22460 shows zero sign of Thargoid activity following a blockade organised by AXI and XSF forces.
It is theorised that the Thargoids have maintained a varying presence in the HIP 22460 system since at least 3303, due to reports recovered from the now-abandoned Fort Asch laboratory. After the Proteus Wave weapon in the system in 3308, Thargoids aggressively swarmed the system until recently.
But AX forces sought to change this over the past few weeks, and the signal from Aegis' military advisor Aden Tanner indicates that the system is now fully under human control. Tanner himself provided a message of thanks:
"The impeccable efforts of AXI, XSF and allied AX pilots have finally brought peace to one more system. I only wish I was young enough to join these heroes out on the front lines. These pilots have provided a great service to humanity, and all here at Aegis

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Well, everyone knows Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. What this update presupposes is... maybe it wasn't. The Confederation starbase seen here should be pretty familiar: it's Blackmane Base, which appears in Wing Commander III. Depending on your performance in the game, you will either fight to resupply or to evacuate the base relatively early in the game. Canonically, the latter missions are flown and the base is disassembled.

What may surprise you is that there's a nerdy reference hidden deep in the bowels of the game: internally, the station is stored as BAB6… for Babylon 6, a clear nod to the television series that surely inspired its design:

And while the mesh is named BAB6 in the PC version of Wing Commander III the 3DO release makes the reference even more clear by storing the station's textures as BABYLON6.TXM (accessible via the game's debug mode):

In fact, the 3DO release even

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Midway (1976), a movie with both creative and historical ties to Wing Commander. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST (with a bit of pre-show starting 30 minutes earlier), but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club is ready to turn in our collective multipass! We watched The Fifth Element last week and it's just as strange and beautiful an experience as many of us remember from our youths. It represents such a fascinating moment in our culture when such a strange, not-like-anything-else film could get a blockbuster budget and a huge theatrical release. Whether you're interested in discussing deeper meanings or if you just want a completely unique audiovisual experience it's one heck of a film.

We loved the movie but there aren't many Wing Commander connections to report! We talked all about the cinematography of Thierry Arbogast and his team in the intro post and it was certainly on full display here. There's no question that his incredible talents are what made this movie look so incredible… and they're a significant reason why Wing Commander remains so

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Last week we reported on the new Wing Commander II and Wing Commander Academy albums from Xeen Music. The albums are absolutely wonderful, including newly uncovered versions of tracks that no one has heard in almost 35 years! We've noticed some confusion about the different albums and versions currently available, so we've put together a quick cheat sheet and a master index to purchase or stream each version where available. Here's a quick cheat sheet:

Wing One - Music from Wing Commander I (27 tracks): This is The Fatman's 2016 release of the Wing Commander I music recorded from an authentic MT-32. This is NOT the release put together by Xeen Music.

Wing Commander I - Complete Original Soundtrack - MT-32 Archival Edition (55 tracks): This is the 2022 Xeen Music release of the Wing Commander I score. It is offered by The Fatman directly on some services. Every release listed below has the same music.

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We often remember Wing Commander Prophecy and Secret Ops as being almost the same game; we tend to think of Secret Ops as almost an expansion, reusing Prophecy's assets almost exclusively. But one place Secret Ops didn't settle for the status quo was guns: it replaced five of the player guns with new, experimental options and it completely redid the VFX for four of the alien bolts!

Gun bolts fly by so quickly and after Wing Commander Academy or so there are so many to keep track of in your head... so we thought we'd show off the jump from WCP to WCSO AND provide an easy reference chart for anyone who wants to learn their lasers by sight. Enjoy!

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The Wing Commander movie club has faced the enemy at Midway and returned (relatively) unscathed. Now we're going to make the jump to hyperspace to watch a movie that was absolutely foundational for pretty much every aspect of Wing Commander: the original 1977 Star Wars (aka A New Hope). And we're going to watch the original version in order to understand exactly what Chris Roberts grew up wanting to turn into a game! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

We probably don't have to expend too many pixels explaining what Star Wars is. George Lucas' unexpected masterpiece combined the pulpy sci-fi serials of the 1930s with the most modern filmmaking technologies available. The result has become both modern mythology and a major basis for how and why movies are made.

We also probably don't have to spend much time pointing out the Wing Commander connections: from the very start of the