History YMMV / WingCommander

* LoveItOrHateIt: it's either the best movie ever and well worthy of being part of the Wing Commander universe, or a completely unforgivable turd with nothing more than an InNameOnly connection to the rest of WC. Views anywhere in between are rare, and drowned out by the extremes.

*** Probably because it is either so distantly related to not have any impact on canon at all, or because attempts to put it into the canon were so [[DolledUpInstallment transparant]] that nobody bothers to address it.

** The mine clusters? Sheesh! They are NOTHING compared to infamous Kurasawa-2 mission in ''Wing Commander''. Yes, the one with Ralari defense (you have about ten seconds to destroy 4 heavy cat fighters, or else the craft you're suposed to be protecting goes boom).

[[AC:Animated series]]
* TooGoodToLast: Plans for a second season were ruined by USA Network terminating their entire Saturday morning cartoon lineup.

* TheyJustDidntCare: The actors seem to be attempting to care, and many other aspects seem polished, but misspelling common words (breach) and the names of main characters (Devereaux and Tolwyn) is unvorgivable. They also mix up actors Tcheky Karyo and Jurgen Prochnow on the back of the DVD.

* DemonicSpiders: The Jalthis in ''WingCommander'' may be slow, but their six-gun attacks are deadly, making escort missions very difficult (especially [[ScrappyLevel Kurasawa 2]], which was designed to be [[NintendoHard quite difficult]]).

* ItWasHisSled: Tolwyn instigated the events of ''WingCommander IV''. The game plays it up as a mystery, but everyone knows it by now.

* [[ThatOneLevel/SpaceSimulator That One Level]]: Anything dealing with flying through a mine cluster in a ''WingCommander'' game. You have to maneuver ''painfully slowly'' through these if you want to make it through. At least you can shoot [[TheAsteroidThicket asteroids]] out of your way. [[DontTryThisAtHome Try the same with a space mine]] and...''BOOM!'' [[FinalDeath Twenty-one gun salute city for you]].

** The mine clusters? Sheesh! They are NOTHING compared to infamous Kurasawa-2 mission in ''WingCommander''. Yes, the one with Ralari defense (you have about ten seconds to destroy 4 heavy cat fighters, or else the craft you're suposed to be protecting goes boom).

* TitleConfusion: ''Prophecy'' is sometimes referred to by fans as "WingCommander 5", as the fifth "main line" WingCommander game, even though it's never been used outside the fandom using it as a working title, when almost nothing of the game was yet known to anyone not involved with production of the game.

* LoveItOrHateIt: it's either the best movie ever and well worthy of being part of the WingCommander universe, or a completely unforgivable turd with nothing more than an InNameOnly connection to the rest of WC. Views anywhere in between are rare, and drowned out by the extremes.

[[AC:Novels]]
* AdaptationDistillation: ''[[TwoWordsObviousTrope End Run]]'' A RagtagBunchOfMisfits in a hastily assembled task force including a [[WhatAPieceOfJunk merchant ship converted into a carrier]] with a PointyHairedBoss for a captain and sent on a daring raid behind enemy lines to sucker punch the Kilrathi by [[RefugeInAudacity launching a raid on their homeworld]], all while drawing the enemy's attention away from the ''real'' goal of [[BatmanGambit ambushing and destroying one of their main battle fleets]].

* HeyItsThatGuy: The casting of ''Wing Commander III'' went for this effect. Of the seven people billed in the opening credits, only one (Jennifer [=MacDonald=]) was an unknown. One (Jason Bernard) was an established character actor, and four (MarkHamill, [[AClockworkOrange Malcolm McDowell]], [[IndianaJones John Rhys-Davies]], and [[BackToTheFuture Tom Wilson]]) were all famous for one particular role. The last, Ginger (Lynn) Allen, had little "legit" work to her name... but was a celebrated porn star.

* CharacterDerailment: In the games Angel is a compassionate, [[strike:French]] Belgian, ReasonableAuthorityFigure. In the movie she is played by British born Saffron Burrows who tries to forget those lost in battle rather than remember them and approaches DrillSergeantNasty. Yeah.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: A ''very'' common complaint amongst the film's {{hatedom}}.

*** If you do manage to protect the captured enemy cruiser, you are sent straight to the victorious ending mission sequence. Ramming the enemy fighters works wonders, it turns out.

* FridgeBrilliance / TakeThat: If you run the profit tables for commodities in ''Wing Commander: Privateer'', guess what the least profitable item is, even if you buy at the lowest possible price and sell at the highest? '''Videogames'''. Even ''grain'' can sell for more.

* FridgeBrilliance/TakeThat: If you run the profit tables for commodities in ''Wing Commander: Privateer'', guess what the least profitable item is, even if you buy at the lowest possible price and sell at the highest? '''Videogames'''. Even ''grain'' can sell for more.

* [[Narm/VideoGames Narm]]: From ''WingCommander IV'':
-->'''Blair:''' That wasn't hot-dogging, Maniac. That was the move of a true master.

* {{Narm}}: "We need a medic!"

* AdaptationDecay

* AdaptationDecay: the ''Wing4'' novel was a travesty of, "Hmm, I think I'll ignore the video game itself and just go my own way," cutting out major characters, ''all'' of the new {{Cool Ship}}s (except the Dragon superfighter) and contradicting canon like no one's business. This despite the fact that the ''Wing3'' novel, by the same author, ''is'' canon, with people adhering to its {{Road Cone}}s even though it take the DownerEnding at Locanda.

** Am I the only one who noticed the author managed to turn the ''Vesuvius'' into a [[BattlestarGalactica battlestar]]? Seriously, the description is spot-on. And that's the ''least'' of the novel's problems; a full list of just the important [[{{Wallbanger}} wallbangers]] would be longer than this page.

* {{Narm}}:

* {{Narm}}

* AdaptationDistillation: ''[[TwoWordsObviousTrope End Run]]''

* AdaptationDistillation: ''[[TwoWordsOneTrope End Run]]''

* AdaptationDecay: the ''Wing4'' novel was a travesty of, "Hmm, I think I'll ignore the video game itself and just go my own way," cutting out major characters, ''all'' of the new {{Cool Ship}}s (except the Dragon superfighter) and contradicting canon like no one's business. This despite the fact that the ''Wing3'' novel, by the same author, ''is'' canon, with people adhering to its {{Road Cone}}s even though it take the DownerEnding at Locanda.