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The Wing Commander movie club has succesfully ended the beginning with a pretty uneventful watch of Battle of Britain; maybe have some characters next time, movie! And that next time will be 1995's Judge Dredd, a fun action sci-fi movie with a slight technical connection to Wing Commander. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Judge Dredd is a British comic book antihero whose stories have appeared in 2000 A.D. since the late 1970s. He's an ultra-powered police officer in a dystopian world where the police are judge, jury and executioner. The 1995 film adaptation is a big, brassy action movie that trades some of the satire of the source material for Jean-Claude Van Damme and a big '90s action movie production. No one thinks Judge Dredd is the best movie in the world (or even the best Judge Dredd movie) but it's certainly a mood!

The big Wing Commander connection to Judge Dredd is

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The Wing Commander movie club has put their seats up and their tray tables in the upright position following the conclusion of Die Hard 2. Next week, we're going a little further back in the past… to 1933 for the original King Kong! King Kong is a massively important film for how it defined the kind of blockbuster movies whose evolution continues to this day… and it's always fun to watch a giant ape wreck things. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The direct connection to Wing Commander this time around is a fun one: the island that Blair, Grunt and Kulrag crash land on in Wing Commander Academy's Word of Honor is based on the island where Kong is discovered in the original movie (later named Skull Island). USA originally aired a 'Kids Club' bumper with the series' background artists explaining this; unfortunately, it has been lost to time!

There's also a big connection to Chris

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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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We've got an unusual one this week: the 1969 comedy Monte Carlo or Bust! (aka Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies). Monte Carlo or Bust! is the sequel to the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. It's a comedy racing movie set in the 1920s at the Monte Carlo Rally which stars Tony Curtis; it seems to be generally well regarded but no one on the team has seen it! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The Wing Commander connection is equally mysterious and something we're going to have to explore as we watch. The quote that added it to our roster is from Chris Roberts' original treatment for the Wing Commander movie. Here he describes the film's climax–which seems to have become the 'broadside' scene–as being "literally Monte Carlo or Bust". Can we figure out what that means when we watch the movie?

As the Tiger's Claw slips behind a nearby planet, a plan

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The Wing Commander movie club is home from the (check notes) Bungo Straights and we can confidently say that yes, the Wing Commander movie does owe quite a bit to Run Silent, Run Deep. This week, we're taking the DEDFLASH space/time cruiser back to the future… the distant future of the original Planet of the Apes! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The original Planet of the Apes sends Charlton Heston to the distant future as a lone astronaut stranded on a… well, planet of apes. Adapted from Pierre Boulle's novel by the brilliant Rod Sirling, Planet of the Apes' mix of clever plotting, allegory and action helped set a new standard in quality for science fiction blockbusters that had previously been treated more like childrens' fare. It's bold and engaging even when the entire world already knows the twist ending!

With regards to the Wing Commander connection, we normally pick movies

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The Wing Commander movie club is back from Skull Island and King Kong turned out to be just what we needed (a giant ape). This week, we're going to revisit a true classic: Return of the Jedi, the epic conclusion to the original Star Wars trilogy. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

There's little question that Return of the Jedi influenced Wing Commander: it's spectacular third act space battle was the best in the business for decades. The Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide specifically calls out Return of the Jedi as one of Chris Roberts' major influences for the original Wing Commander game:

Roberts had always been fascinated by science fiction movies and television shows, especially those like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Return of the Jedi. He liked the action elements of space combat, the dazzling special effects, and the variety of characters the

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The Wing Commander movie club is home from exploring the new world with sexy Columbus. I wouldn't say anyone loved 1492: Conquest of Paradise but it was certainly a movie you could think about. This week's movie is... not that. We'll be watching RoboCop 3 (1991), arguably the third or fourth best of the RoboCop movies. But it also may just be the kind of movie you need after a week of taking things too seriously! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The big connection for RoboCop 3 is once again that Chris Roberts used some of its music when temp tracking the 1999 Wing Commander movie. RoboCop 3's score is by Basil Poledouris who we previously heard in StarShip Troopers. Chris used "Murphy's Memories" embedded below for the early version of the scene where Blair confronts Angel about Maniac (after the depth charge attack).

RoboCop also reminds us of this classic fellow (robot?

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The Wing Commander movie club has made it through RoboCop 3 which, while not a good film by any means, ended nicely. But after two weeks of objectively lower quality films, we asked everyone to vote from a selection of six Oscar winners. And the victor was psychological horror classic Rosemary's Baby (1968), which won Best Actress in a Supporting Role. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Why Rosemary's Baby? We previously talked about directors honored with references in the Wing Commander universe, specifically George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Akira Kurosawa and their associated star systems. We've since picked out two more for the movie pool: Michael Cimino (the TCS Cimino appears in the Prophecy simulator) and Roman Polanski, tuckerized as the Wing Commander movie's "Bishop" Polanski. As with the others, we've selected an additional classic to represent each. We'll be back in

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The Wing Commander movie club has swung back around from the outer planets to finish Silent Running. This week we're going back to World War II for the 1958 submarine film Run Silent, Run Deep. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Run Silent, Run Deep is a 1958 action/war film about an American submarine captain desperately pursuing revenge against the Japanese destroyer captain that sunk his last boat. It stars Burt Lancaster as Clarke Gable as the captain and XO at odds over the battle and alongside the previous year's The Enemy Below helped establish the standard beats for a submarine movie. It was directed by Robert Wise who would go on to helm Star Trek: The Motion Picture and it was also heavily referenced in Star Trek's Balance of Terror.

As we discussed last week, Run Silent, Run Deep is almost certainly the movie Chris Roberts meant to reference when he described Wing

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Demolition Man gets our seal of approval; it's not anything brilliant but it's endlessly fun and it really compares favorably to Judge Dredd. Our next movie will be Seven Samurai (1954) by Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai is regarded as a timeless classic and a film that has had endless influence on films since… so it will be pretty fun to see that and decide how it might connect back to Wing Commander! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along. Please note that the movie will begin one hour early (at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific) to accommodate the run time.

The Wing Commander universe has a sea of over a dozen stars named after the sci-fi authors that inspired the series, from Clarke to Niven. But there are only three named after directors: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (both in the Enigma Sector)... and Akira Kurosawa in the Vega Sector. The system, sometimes spelled Kurasawa, first

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Back in February when we watched Battle of Britain, people jokingly complained that they would rather watch Paul Verhoeven's disasterpiece Showgirls instead of another war movie. I responded that if we watched all four remaining war movies in the series then we could take a break from Wing Commander-related movies and watch it. Well, last week's screening of Hell in the Pacific made that a reality so this Friday we'll be watching Showgirls!

Showgirls is a 1995 erotic drama which famously bombed at the box office. But it was also the film Paul Verhoeven's similarly underappreciated Starship Troopers, a favorite of movie club. Could it also be underrated? Or at least maybe ridiculously fun? We'll find out this week! Please note that this is not part of the official movie series; there will be no after action report for Showgirls! But it should be a good time, regardless. You can join us this Friday via

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The Wing Commander movie club has visited space and attempted to scream; results pending! This week, we're going to be taking another space voyage with the 1972 science fiction film Silent Running. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Silent Running is an environmental-themed science fiction film that tells the story of a convoy of spaceships carrying a destroyed Earth's last plant life. It was directed by the man responsible for 2001: A Space Odyssey's spectacular special effects, Douglas Trumbull, on a shoestring budget. Silent Running won critics' hearts but didn't perform at the box office; it has become a cult classic today.

Wing Commander's connection to Silent Running is… pretty much nothing. Here's an excerpt from Chris Roberts' original treatment of the Wing Commander movie where he is trying to explain how he intends for the film to feel:

Space combat in this universe follows

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We aren't going to sugarcoat it for you: it turns out that Ishtar was not a good movie. Nevertheless, the Wing Commander movie club marches on! We decided to vote for a science fiction film specifically and after a big tie and a second round our choice for next week was Sphere (1998), one of the newest movies in the pool. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Sphere is the second of three movies we will be looking at that was explicitly referenced in the Wing Commander movie's famous introduction sequence. The first was 1492: Conquest of Paradise, which we watched earlier this month. The after action report contains a thorough look at the paintings used to create the introduction. Sphere had its own clear impact on the style of the intro and especially the flashes of Kilrathi art; we'll take a closer look on Friday!

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Sphere is

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't quite live up to the highs of the franchise that followed but it was an interesting little movie… just one that fell short of the premise or its colorful cinematography. This week, we're returning to space with one more movie in 'part one' of our series: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Our connection to the making of Wing Commander once again comes from the March 1992 art list composed for Wing Commander Privateer which notes the following for the external design of Perry Naval Base: "Perry Naval Base: Perry looks very similar to the orbiting base in Star Trek." This would be the massive orbital starbase facility first created for Star Trek III and then reused extensively in later features and serieses. Perry Naval Base is one of the signature designs in the game, making a significant appearance on the box

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Top Gun? More like Top Fun! The third meeting of the Wing Commander movie club was a great success; we all had a great time finding out that Top Gun maybe wasn't the perfect film we remembered from our youths… and noting its massive influences on the entire Wing Commander franchise, of course! This week instead of going for a broad inspiration, we're going to be zeroing in on a very specific one in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

It's a good bet you're already familiar with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It's the last of the films spun off of the original Star Trek television series. It tells a story about old soldiers conspiring to prevent newly possible peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire with the Enterprise heroes there to save the day. Considered by many to be a favorite in the series, Star Trek VI is a

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Against all odds, we enjoyed Tora! Tora! Tora! Which makes the score Wing Commander movie club one, war movies fifty. This week we've voted to travel back to the future with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). ST:tMP is a sometimes-misunderstood masterpiece that we've found has improved greatly with age… and we're eager to see if that remains the case today! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is full of spectacular effects and incredible spaceships… but the connection to Wing Commander is the music. Back when Chris Roberts was developing the original Wing Commander he told composer George Sanger (The Fatman) that he wanted the game to have an epic score similar to Jerry Goldsmith's work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Here it is mentioned in a recent recent interview with The Fatman!

We had the creative brief that was that we should do something

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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

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I guess you could say we really earned our… wings of Glory… this time! The Wing Commander movie club had an exciting Friday night enjoying the 1989 Civil War epic and now we're ready to go back to the future. So this week we'll be sharing a familiar favorite: Starship Troopers. We've all seen it, we all love it… and we can't wait to talk about it again! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Starship Troopers is Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation of Robert Heinlein's classic novel of galactic warfare and political science lectures. Initially derided as pop culture trash that was distinctly unfaithful to its source material, Starship Troopers has since attained cult status for both its spectacular filmmaking and its unique, cutting satire and anti-war message.

But Starship Troopers came out in 1997, after almost every Wing Commander game was finished. What, exactly, is its connection to

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We had so much fun watching Wing Commander on Discord last week and it was such a nice distraction that we thought we would try making it a regular event! And what could be more fun than going back in time to watch some of the classic movies that have been credited with inspiring Wing Commander? This week, we're watching The Dam Busters, one of the films Chris Roberts wanted the 1999 Wing Commander movie to emulate. Details about the film and how to find a copy follow.

The Dam Busters is a 1955 film which dramatizes Operation Chastise, a daring 1943 air raid in which specially trained British bomber crews dropped purpose-design "bouncing bombs" to destroy German dams. It's considered a classic war and aviation film, particularly in the United Kingdom where Wing Commander Guy Gibson's World War II heroics are revered. The film is also famous for being a major inspiration for the original Star Wars'

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Spock has been found – and guess what, he regenerated and lived his whole life and happened to end up exactly as old as he was the first time. What luck! In all seriousness, we loved Star Trek III and talked a lot about how important it was in setting up the next twenty years of Star Trek storytelling.

This week, things are changing just a little bit: we're moving from the previous collection of films, which were exclusively ones which inspired Wing Commander, to add a new set of movies that are referenced in Wing Commander stories (either in front of or behind the screens). If we come across another reference to a movie that inspired Wing Commander, we'll prioritize that in future weeks. Until then, enjoy a new batch of films with a little more variety… and some interesting Wing Commander connections that we'll explore in these intro posts.

With that in mind, we're kicking things off with the Star Wars