Display MoreGreetings WingNuts,Midway represents another decade forward in our exploration of war movies that influenced Wing Commander and while several of us remembered it fondly from our youths what we found was that it was very, very slow. The first hour plus is a lot of Dambusters-style maneuvering to get us to Midway and it just isn't something you'd see in a movie today. And then the battles themselves are nowhere near as spectacular, a mix of colorized stock footage and not-quite-believable airplane props. We haven't gotten to Tora! Tora! Tora! yet but I'm betting it's going to hold up better. I also want to especially thank Dundradal, who showed up for the night to offer his experience as a professional Pacific War historian despite being a new father! Get some sleep, pilot.
While several interviews and other production material notes that Midway was used as reference for the Wing Commander movie's VFX shots of capital ships battling it's not quite clear what got across there… because Midway's special effects are, to be blunt, mostly war-era stock footage shots that rarely actually match up to the aircraft or scenes they're supposed to be showing. And no capital ships battle directly in the movie, either, so we're limited to some establishing shots of carriers and battleships… which are themselves mostly stock footage!
The pilots in their planes are filmed like Wing Commander although the angles are pretty different. This shot with Felix the cat nose art reminded us of Blair in his Rapier, though!
How bad is the stock footage? Well, here are some stills from a famous sequence at the end of the movie where a Wildcat is supposed to crash while landing… and instead we see a torpedo bomber that then becomes a F9F Panther jet during the crash. And Dundradal reports that the TV version even has a C-130 Hercules standing in for a flying boat! If anything, this is closest to the Wing Commander movie's climax that had to construct a totally new fight aboard the comcon using footage mostly shot for other purposes.
The movie opens with the Doolittle Raid, the 1942 bombing of Tokyo by American B-25s launched by the USS Hornet. The raid's impact was largely symbolic, proof to the Japanese population and American civilians at home that the United States could attack their homeland. The second Wing Commander novel, End Run, is loosely based on the story and the book is dedicated to General Doolittle and his bomber crews.
We talked about the codebreaking in Action Stations in the introductory post but since we never see Ches M. Penney in Wing Commander, here's Hal Holbrook as Joseph Rochefort:
Action Stations takes a LOT from Midway (and mixes it into other material taken from Pearl Harbor). The Japanese planning scenes in the movie are extremely similar to the book's scenes of Kilrathi commanders plotting the attack on McAuliffe, especialyk the "God of Operations has conceived a monster" one with the concerns about landing troops on the island.
The ordinance switching situation was also borrowed for the novel. Just like the Japanese, the Kilrathi must pause their operations to switch between ground based bombs and torpedoes... allowing the Confederation to launch a succesful strike!
Action Stations even names the Admiral in charge of the fleet at McAuliffe Nagumo, referencing the Japanese commander at McAuliffe, Admiral Nagomo.
We also previously talked about the connection between the Torpedo Squadron 6 story and Wing Commander Action Stations' Commander Winston Turner, who was said to have been descended from Lt. Cmdr. John Waldron, the doomed unit's commander. We don't have a picture of Turner, so here's Waldron's Midway appearance compared to the real man as he appeared in John Ford's Torpedo Squadron 6 memorial film!
The final scene of the Japanese commanders discussing how to apologize to the Emperor is extremely similar to the Wing Commander 2 introduction where Thrakhath tells Khasra that "I shall render… an apology… to the Emperor." Compare that to Midway's "Leave that to me. I am the only one who must apologize to His Majesty."
We also noted that Fleet Action borrows the recon mission flown by 'Strawberry 5' as the basis for the discovery of the Hakagas by Paladin and the Bannockburn.
I'm sure this one is a total coincidence, but I couldn't help but notice that our heroic fighter pilot's injuries were extremely similar to those received by Admiral Bergstron in Chain of Command:
There are several ships that are referenced in Wing Commander, too! Notably, the TCS Victory from Wing Commander III is a Yorktown-class light carrier, honoring the brave Yorktown that fought at Midway.
There's also a TCS Soryu, again in Action Stations! It's said to be a Confederation fleet carrier that's down for repairs when the Kilrathi attack McAulilffe.
Finally, the Confederation Handbook has a TCS Halsey, named after the Admiral Halsey who fought at Midway (here in Robert Mitchum headshot form). The Halsey was Captain Sansky's command during the Epsilon Initiative.
Sully thought the movie was mid AF.
