Wing Commander - The Price of Freedom - The Movie

realAudioslave schrieb:

Ich fand den Wing Commander Film eigentlich gar nicht schlecht

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

Directed by the 29-year-old Roberts, with digital effects provided by Digital Anvil and starring teen idol Freddie Prinze Junior, the Wing Commander film should have been the cherry on top of a sparkling career-an ultimate ambition fulfilled. Instead, it was a flop. A huge one.

Today, Roberts is sanguine about the reasons it just didn't work: "In the game business I had a lot more power and clout when I was doing filming stuff towards the end. Whereas in the film business I was a first time director and there were some issues."

Aside from being given a budget amounting to half of that other sci-fi films were getting, running out of money and having to axe a major character, and not being given the time to fix the Kilrathi ("They're not very good"), Roberts faced other difficulties. A producer who acted as a good deal-maker- but not one very helpful for a first-time director, for example.

And of course, it didn't help that he was a first-time director. "Movies are all about detail and texture-they're all about moments, feeling and emotion, and all that stuff isn't immediately obvious if you're a first time director."

Nevertheless, he remains positive about some aspects: "Robert Rodriguez is a friend of mine, when I first showed him the early cuts he was like, 'How did you do that shot? I'm going to steal that for Spy Kids!' Maybe he wasn't stealing my storytelling sense, but at least my shots-that's not bad!"
Starring Luke Skywalker?

Just how did Mark Hamill come to be involved in the Wing Commander series?

"What happened with Mark Hamill was that we were going to do the video shoot - we were casting, and it all came out of that. Mark came up as one of the options from the casting director, originally my instinct was 'no, he's Luke Skywalker, it's Star Wars - it wouldn't feel right'. The character in Wing Commander III was a lot older now, he'd been through a lot and he was a hero when he was very young... which was pretty much Mark Hamill/Luke Skywalker. So we said why not. It wasn't intentional-it just came out of the discussions."

Roberts isn't making excuses to me, though-he recognizes the film has a lot of flaws, one being the general look of the thing, which rubbed series fans up the wrong way: "Star Wars was an inspiration for the Wing Commander games, so I didn't want people saying it was just a Star Wars clone. Instead I went for a very literal 'World War II in space' look, but all the people who grew up with the games were used to [it] looking a certain way.

Beyond that, he was more direct in this reflective critique: "I don't think I was particularly good at the nuance or subtlety that I think you need for movies, or also understanding how to focus your time and resources... I wasn't particularly happy with the movie myself."

Basically, it didn't work, even if all the intentions were good. The cast was wrong (Roberts said of Prinze Junior "He's a really nice guy, but for the character that I saw in the film he wasn't right"), production was difficult, and generally speaking it just didn't go to plan.

But it didn't put Roberts off: "I won't say I wouldn't do it again-I actually did have a lot of fun, I just want it to be what I see in my head next time."

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....