The Wing Commander movie club agrees that Hard Target is a joyful and wonderful thing. It wasn't anything like I, a person largely unfamiliar with this kind of action movie, expected. I expected something stylish and clinical, a proto-Matrix perhaps… and instead it was a joyous, though stylistically distinct, celebration of over-the-top garbage. The kind of movie that makes you remember how wonderful it is that such unusual kinds of movies can exist. From the opening with a violent bow and arrow attack to Wilford Brimley immolating one of Lance Henrickson's goons with an exploding moonshine still it's exactly the movie you need it to be. Excelsior!
The name of the place… is Ba… Hard Target. The big connection to Wing Commander is a tough one to quantify. The Wing Commander III team repeatedly expressed their love of "two-fisted John Woo" films, so watching it helped us get into their shoes while they were making our favorite game. But really, the movie we found is exactly what we were hoping: something that lets you escape your troubles thoroughly for 93 minutes. That's exactly the thing you need with the state of the world today… or when you're crunching seven days a week to revolutionize electronic entertainment! It's a very pleasant thought to imagine the young team behind Wing Commander III coming together with this kind of movie as an outlet. Note that we will expand this line of consideration by taking a look at one of John Woo's Hong Kong films in a future movie club screening; if you have a suggestion, let us know in the comments!
I did find another funny connection to this specific movie, though! Hard Target features a performer named Randy Hall as a stuntman, apparently doubling for Jean-Claude Van Damme. Three years later, Mr. Hall would appear in Wing Commander IV as the double for Malcolm McDowell's Admiral Tolwyn! How crazy that the Wing Commander III team, dreaming of John Woo movies, would just moments later be hiring the same talent to make their sequel. It turns out Hall was McDowell's regular double and that in 1994 he was shooting Star Trek Generations! This featurette about the making of that movie's questionably epic final fight scene interviews him starting around the ten minute mark:
Two-fisted John Woo action got Sully so excited he turned into a blur (really).
