Wing 4 Gets The Royal Treatment (September 18, 2006)

[Bandit LOAF]

Last month our own Cpl_Hades had the privilege of staying at Joe Garrity's Origin Museum for several days, doing some exciting Wing Commander research. Now, we can reveal one of the exciting things he found in the archives: the original script treatment for Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom!

This 88 page document walks through the entire story of the game, as it was originally conceived... and fans will immediately notice some significant difference! Instead of two halves (on the Lexington and then the Intrepid), this early version was divided into three parts: it opens with an extended segment where Blair serves as part of a planet-based squadron on Nephele! That's not all -- each section has new characters, too... Nephele, for instance, includes Cmdr. Tyla Braverman and Chief Tech "Mutt" Malone.

Finally, one part may prove very controversial: this document seems to be the source of the Wing Commander movie's "Pilgrim" storyline: Border Worlders are distinguished by the fact that having spent generations in space has altered their genetics (brief references to this survive to the finished movie, such as Paulsen's speech about Border Worlders being from 'inferior stock'). Astute Wing Commander historians may remember that the Phoenix Pictures Memo, based on the original movie proposal, referred to Border Worlders rather than Pilgrims.

You can get the new document here (25 meg zipped .PDF).

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Original update published on September 18, 2006

[Delance]

Amazing! Now we know what the big deal about being a "half border worlder" was about. Great job, now let's see what this lost treasure has to offer.

[Dougly]

Read a little bit of it a few hours ago, and the whole planet based Nephele squadron thing seems interesting.

Part of me wishes it had made it into the final game. Maybe it's just me, but WC IV always seemed too short, somehow.

Anyway, thanks to Cpl_Hades for finding this, and thanks to the CIC for making a copy of it available for download.

[Bandit LOAF]

And Joe, for preserving the documents in the first place!

[AD]

Interesting. So was the concept conceived for wc4 or the Movie first? Or was this something that was put together about the same time to tie the two together but was in the end dropped from the game?

Kevin Droneys WC movie first draft was dated 10/27/95 and the date on the WC4 treatment is 02/07/95. Do we have a date for the original treatment (pre script first draft) of the movie?

[Quarto]

Originally Posted by Dougly

Read a little bit of it a few hours ago, and the whole planet based Nephele squadron thing seems interesting.

Part of me wishes it had made it into the final game. Maybe it's just me, but WC IV always seemed too short, somehow.

Well, note that this doesn't actually make WC4 any longer - it just shifts some of the early Lexington missions to Nephele.

IMO, it's pretty clear that they made the right decision, changing the story the way they did to put the player on the Lexington right from the start. The way this treatment goes, Eisen loses his position almost immediately after the player meets him. So, for people new to the series, it would have been fairly confusing as to why exactly they should follow Eisen and defect. Similarly, the game ultimately benefitted from the cutting-down of the unnecessary characters - all those people on Nephele, and that Border Worlder privateer guy (who gets like two scenes or something), they add nothing to the story. So, all in all, the most interesting thing about this treatment is that we get to see how the whole thing evolved from start to finished product, and how it improved along the way.

[Dougly]

Originally Posted by Quarto

Well, note that this doesn't actually make WC4 any longer - it just shifts some of the early Lexington missions to Nephele.

IMO, it's pretty clear that they made the right decision, changing the story the way they did to put the player on the Lexington right from the start. The way this treatment goes, Eisen loses his position almost immediately after the player meets him. So, for people new to the series, it would have been fairly confusing as to why exactly they should follow Eisen and defect. Similarly, the game ultimately benefitted from the cutting-down of the unnecessary characters - all those people on Nephele, and that Border Worlder privateer guy (who gets like two scenes or something), they add nothing to the story. So, all in all, the most interesting thing about this treatment is that we get to see how the whole thing evolved from start to finished product, and how it improved along the way.

Fair enough.

In that case, I wish there had been a few more missions during WC IV. It's a really fun game to play, but whenever I finish it I'm always left feeling that it was over too soon.

On the other hand, perhaps that's appropriate. I believe the events of WC IV took place over a relatively short time span.

[AD]

Originally Posted by Dougly

On the other hand, perhaps that's appropriate. I believe the events of WC IV took place over a relatively short time span.

It takes place over the course of two weeks.

[Wedge009]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but I suggest that this be linked to in the Document Archive section along with the other documents. Otherwise, people who know it exists would have to go looking through the news archives to find it, and those who don't will miss out altogether.