Wing Commander (1999)

[JoshuaMacPhetridge 0]

I remember seeing this movie and thinking it was awful. Is it too obviously bad or was it not so bad as I remember?

[sillstaw 414]

Sonar in space.

 

Reason enough to do the movie.

[Ace Face McGee 1]

This! I saw the Last Starfighter post and my immediate reaction was "Wing Commander." And since I'm a well trained noob I searched first before starting a new thread.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

I remember that this movie was predicted to have an awesome opening weekend because it had the latest "Phantom Menace" trailer. Yeeeaahhhh, didn't quite turn out that way.

[Mhurdok 0]

This movie is one of the very few I've actually walked out of the theater and asked for my money back. Not that I GOT it back, mind you, but holy crap.

Yes, it's a video game movie... which should tell you it's gonna suck right out of the chute, but I was young and dumb in 1999. Later I got forced into watching it in a cinematography class (case study in what NOT to do)

HORRID acting, almost hillariously stupid physics... oh, and it rips off Top Gun, Star Wars and every other sci fi movie you've probably ever seen. I'm surprised Rotten Tomatoes even gave it 11%. That seems rather high to me.

 

You can see the trailer (complete with obligatory 'bullet time' BS) here.

[thestray 361]

When I was in highschool I took my younger brother to a double-feature movie theater and we saw Baby Geniuses, and then this came on, and my little brother wanted to leave and refused to stay and started crying and stuff, so we left. At the time I was pissed off at him, it wasn't until years later that I realized that he helped me dodge a bullet when I saw this film on cable. Kids some times have the right instinct.

[Lando 2019]

Wait, you stayed through Baby Geniuses and left before Wing Commander and THAT was the right choice? I've never heard anyone say that watching Baby Geniuses all the way through was "dodging a bullet."

[thestray 361]

Haha. I have a high threshold for bad movies. Baby Geniuses was very dumb, but it was watchable dumb, at least that's how I remember it as a young teenager. Wing Commander to be honest I've only ever seen enough to decide it was painfully dull. I STAND BEHIND MY STATEMENT!

[LaramieCigarettes 0]

 

This is a truly awful movie in every way. There are barely any "so bad it's funny" parts and the dialogue, plot, acting, shots and effects all make it excruciating to get through. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard were bankable teen movie stars and were coming off of most of the movies they're most well known for, yet bring nothing to this god-awful turd of a film.

 

Video game movies are notoriously terrible, but this one is a special case, as it had a pretty big budget, a big cast and got wide release.

 

I defy anyone to get through this movie.

[MarcDickenson 5]

 

yet another Saffron Burrows movie lol

 

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[RyanSz 3140]

I remember that this movie was predicted to have an awesome opening weekend because it had the latest "Phantom Menace" trailer. Yeeeaahhhh, didn't quite turn out that way.

Yeah I was going to bring up that the big selling point of this movie wasn't anything about it, but rather that it was the first movie to have a full length trailer for Phantom Menace, as they obviously needed some sort of ploy to bring people in to see this shit, and even then it still flopped.

[nthurkettle 148]

This was really during that peak post-Scream period when Hollywood wanted ALL MOVIES to be HOT TEENS. (Like, Hollywood always wants that at least a little, but this was a special time).

 

The strongest memory I have of this was their way of coping with the deaths of fellow pilots would be to just immediately respond to every mention of their name with "HE NEVER EXISTED". Which, is like, one step away from covering your ears and going "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA." I'm sure any therapist would be totally on-board with this method.

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

This looks like an aggressively 90s movie. Nick Wiger talked about it on another podcast so this could be a could cross over episode with How Did This Get Played. 

[nthurkettle 148]

I love how they were so excited to jump on that "bullet time" bandwagon post-Matrix, built a whole sequence around creating an excuse for "bullet time", and one of their two big "bullet time" shots is literally - "Freddie Prinze, Jr. standing, looking worried". 

 

 

Yes, filmmakers, we really needed to freeze this thrilling moment in time and zoom around it.