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From Justin to Kelly was… a movie that existed. Next up, we have ANOTHER birthday pick… this time belonging to Comchia! Comchia has more wisely than I chosen George Lucas' classic American Graffiti for this week's movie and it should be a fascinating one! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

George Lucas is one of several directors to have star systems named after them (others include Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Akira Kurosawa) and so we get a slot to pick one of his movies. Except there aren't many options! We already watched Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and THX-1138 for specific references… so American Graffiti is kind of the option by default!

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

American Graffiti is available for rent or purchase on all of the standard streaming services (and on Netflix in the US).If you would like a physical copy, it was

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Character actor Richard Riehle typically steals any scene he appears in… and Wing Commander IV is no exception! Blair's interactions with Pliers' lighthearted grump is maybe the funniest part of your time aboard the BWS Intrepid… and when you think about it, he's actually responsible for some pretty complex gameplay mechanics under the hood! Like a lot of Wing Commander IV's outside-of-flight ('gameflow') mechanics, exactly what your interactions with Pliers are doing isn't always 100% clear… so we thought we'd take a closer look to see how things work. One of Wing Commander IV's goals was to expand on Wing Commander III's pretty simple division between interactive cutscenes and flight portions… and they accomplished quite a bit under the hood so that the choices you make (or don't make) impact other parts of the game pretty significantly!

One note on terminology. The HANGAR BAY is where you typically

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Admit it, we've all wondered: what would it look like if you could click on the 'strip club' storefront in Wing Commander Privateer's pleasure planet options screens? Well, it looks like Cybot has taken it upon himself to try and visualize the answer. He posted this to DeviantArt:

D-floor 0005 (DeviantArt)

Jolson Pleasure Planet Concourse (DeviantArt)

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You aren't going to believe this one: GOG... has put the Wing Commander games on sale again! The entire series will be 50% off for the next two weeks as part of their Sci Fi Promo? No, turns out it's their concurrent Shooter Promo! There's also a matching RPG Promo that includes Wing Commander's sister series, Ultima. Here's the great GOG grid (GGG):

Ultima Games:

Other Origin Games:

Free Games:

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Excalibur was a very interesting movie! I still can't believe I'd never even particularly heard of it before; as soon as it was added to my brain I started noticing references to it all over the place in pop culture. None of the descriptions I had read going in prepared me for how much more like David Lynch's Dune it is. It was repeatedly called a proto-Jackson's Lord of the Rings but I don 't think that's even accurate; it's part of that earlier fantasy tradition where the movies feel darker and dreamier.

I also think it's a lot of fun to get a handle on Paladin's character. One consistent point in all of his appearances is that he's especially well read. There's the medieval stories from Claw Marks, his quoting Yeats in Wing Commander IV, listening to a Mozart opera in the movie and so on… his character has always touched on that. So it's fun to see those first person sources he references and

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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 are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is From Justin to Kelly (2003) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!