See How Awesome WING COMMANDER Could Have Been in Concept Art by Alex Hillkurtz and Rob McKinnon

Check out Wing Commander concept art by Alex Hillkurtz and Robert McKinnon!

The tough thing about being an artist in the film and television industry is you have no control of the final product. You work hard and always produce your best work, but sometimes the show just doesn't match expectations. Back in the late 90's a popular computer game series was called Wing Commanderthat put the player in a virtual space battle against aliens known as the Kilrathi. The games were noteworthy for having a coherant story, live-action cut scenes and casting well-known actors like John Rhys-Davies, Mark Hamill, Thomas F. Wilson, Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, and Clive Owen. It was a best seller and led to the development of other space combat games, like LucasArts' X-Wing. So a live-action movie was made. Unfortunately, the movie bombed. Fans complained that it deviated too far from the source material and it's currently one of the lowest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. That said, the artists produced some amazing artwork for the film. Two artists have shared some concept art that show how amazing the film could have been.

 Hillkurtz and McKinnon are professional concept artists who've worked on big budge movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Transcendence (2014) and Iron Man 3 (2013).

Click on the images to enlarge.

Robert McKinnon
Here's what the combat uniforms looked like in the movie

(bluray.com)

Alex Hillkurtz

See more of Alex Hillkurtz' work at http://alexhillkurtz.viewbook.com and Robert McKinnon's brilliant portfolio at krop.com/robmckinnon.

Click on the links if you want to see more of Alex Hillkurtz and Robert McKinnon's work or Wing Commander artwork on my blog.

What do you think of the concept art? If you've seen Wing Commander what do you think of the designs?

Official Wing Commander Synopsis:
Blair, a fighter pilot, joins an interstellar war to fight the evil Kilrathi who are trying to destroy the universe.
Directed by Chris Roberts
Cinematography by Thierry Arbogast
Production Design by Peter Lamont
Starring Freddie Prinze, Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow, and David Warner.
Release date:  March 12, 1999
© Copyright 1999 Digital Anvil, Origin Systems, 20th Century Fox All rights reserved