Wing Commander. Jurgen Prochnow, who played the submarine captain in 'Das Boot,' is one of the stars of 'Wing Commander,' and no wonder: This is a sub movie exported to deep space, complete with the obligatory warning about the onboard oxygen running low. Wing Commander (1999) A space pilot (Freddie Prinze Jr.) with an encoded message, his sidekick (Matthew Lillard) and their superior (Saffron Burrows) fight attacking aliens.

It’s easy to forget just how greatly visual effects shifted in the late 1990s. Even in 1999, the sight of iffy scale model effects and rubbery aliens rubbing shoulders with relatively fresh CGI must have looked curiously archaic to cinemagoers of the time, and it feels as though the filmmakers themselves knew this. In the midst of all the likeably kitsch space operatics, there’s one brief, isolated sequence where the film turns into The Matrix: as a space ship goes into hyper drive, we see a couple of bullet-time shots of characters frozen in awkward positions. It’s a moment of quintessentially late-90s style that probably looked quite trendy at the time, but now looks just as quaint as the rest of this deliriously camp would-be blockbuster. Then again, Lillard does at least inject a bit of verve and unpredictability to the film, and serves as a spikier counterpoint to Freddie Prinze Jr, whose studiously bland performance makes Lieutenant Blair one of the most forgettable sci-fi heroes in 1990s cinema.Lillard madness aside, Wing Commander’s other pleasures largely appear to be accidental.

Some of the dialogue is memorably appalling (“If you want to play at being a fighter pilot I suggest you find a virtual fun zone,” Saffron Burrows says). Taking note of the wildly varying quality of the special effects also becomes a surprisingly absorbing pastime, as perfectly passable space vistas give way to Buck Rogers-style miniatures. In the late 90s, $30m wasn’t exactly a lot of money to make a sprawling space opera with (The Phantom Menace cost $115m), but it could still have afforded some better FX shots than these – couldn’t it? It’s strange to think that Wing Commander was made a full 16 years after the release of Return Of The Jedi. Subscribe1999 was an extraordinary year for films of all kinds, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that Wing Commander was drowned out somewhat by the competition. Released in March in the US and the UK, it was surrounded by the likes of Joel Schumacher’s gloomy thriller, 8mm, Harold Ramis’ comedy hit Analyze This, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, and at the end of the month, the Wachowskis’ unexpected blockbuster success, The Matrix.Wing Commander did, however, receive a bit of marketing assistance from an unlikely source: Star Wars.

Anticipation for The Phantom Menace was at fever pitch in the first half of 1999, to the extent that Star Wars fans were willing to buy a ticket for a movie, sit and watch the Phantom Menace trailer, and then walk out of the theatre without hanging around for the main feature. Wing Commander was one film which carried the promo for The Phantom Menace in its package of opening trailers, yet even this minor boost didn’t push its profits into the black: Wing Commander made just over $11.5m in US cinemas – little more than a third of its reported budget.

Time hasn’t dimmed Roberts’ love for space opera, either. In 2012, his space trading videogame project Star Citizen began a successful crowdfunding campaign, which to date has amassed almost $45m in funding – thus making it the most successful crowdfunded project ever.The Wing Commander movie may be a curious footnote in sci-fi movie history, but it’s by no means the worst game-to-film adaptation ever made. And as Star Citizen proves, there’s still a legion loyal fans out there, all keen to keep the space opera spirit of the Wing Commander videogame series alive. Colin mcrae rally 3 intro 2016.