IMDB’s description:
Blair, a fighter pilot, joins an interstellar war to fight the evil Kilrathi who are trying to destroy the universe.
They definitely aren’t allowed to misrepresent a movie on these things.
The opening credits say based on the games and novels by Chris Roberts. Then it says directed by the same Chris Roberts. Video game design and making movies are basically the same, so I’m sure in hindsight this will be viewed as the good decision it obviously is. You don’t want to bog down a film production with a director who has experience or a proven track record.
The movie opens with some exposition that mankind was conquering space and everything until they ran into a race of aliens called the Kilrathi and now they are in a desperate war against them. On the space station Pegasus, it is business as usual, until a Kilrathi fleet comes out of nowhere and easily destroys all the ships and boards the station. Their target? The computer that allows humans to travel through space. The CO of the station tries somewhat comically to shoot and smash his way into the computer room to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, but to no avail. Instead he sends out a little distress pod and goes down with the station. The Kilrathi now have access to the CO’s computer! Let’s hope there wasn’t anything inappropriate on there…
Now we cut to a small cargo ship, the Diligent. This ship has a crew of one old guy (Tchéky Karyo) named Taggart and two rookie pilots being transported to their first assignment in deep space. The two pilots are Lt. Blair (Freddie Prince Jr.) and Lt. Marshall (Matthew Lillard). Wing Commander is the second of what is apparently five match-ups of Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard. Matthew Lillard, of course, having his acting career destroyed by Scooby Doo movies, and has subsequently spent the last 12 years of his life doing little else other than rehashing the character Shaggy.