What was up with Star Fox's Dad showing up after you defeat Andross?
At first I thought that He was held in a prison of some sort and maybe escaped in his Arwing?
But at the end he just mysteriously disappears. Peppy sees Fox looking around for his father
and asks Fox: "What's wrong Fox?"
And Fox says: "Nothing"
He doen't appear during the end credits, and isn't mentioned in the game again.
Was he just a ghost, or is he still alive?
The Japnese veiw ghosts as something like a fingerprint left behind by an individual.
So he could be something like Hero's Shade from the Ledgand of Zelda Twilight Princess.
On the other hand, If he is still alive then that means that he could come back in a new release- that would be cool.
He could show  up and save the Star Fox team from some disaster that had fallen upon them.
Oh yeah, If James Mcloud survived then Dogma might have survived as well.
I know that since Star fox 64 there have been other realeases that may as well have answered the question.
So mostly I'd like to know what you thought was going on there when you played Star fox 64.

That somehow escaped my memory. However, it must have been his ghost, since at the battle in SF64, where you must destroy the core, Pigma taunts "Your daddy squealled real good before he died".

Eirinn : I haven't heard Pigma say that yet, that's interesting.

Yeah, that was a cheap shot. It kind of stuck with me. It may depend on how long it takes you to destroy the core, and whether or not he gets killed before a certain point.

Eirinn : Huh? destroy the Core? I must not have gotten the true ending yet or something.
Strange I thought that there were only two endings. 

No, we probably just took different paths.

Foxes dad is very much dead. Pigma and Peppy were both there, and pigma taunts fox about it. I believe fox's memory played a trick on him and he saw his father, that or the ghost of his father is still watching over him, and that's sweet.

Fun fact: hyrule historia confirmed that the heroes shade in TP is actually the manifestation of the regrets OOT link had because he never taught anyone how to use a sword well.

ender44 : I hate to go off topic, but really? That is awesome! I never would have guessed that.

No one knows exactly why James appeared at the end of SF64. Some say he's a vision or a gjost, and some say he survived the incident. I think his spirit was/is watching over Fox and he helped him escape Andross's wrath.

I don't think he was alive, most likely a ghost.

Hate to bring this up, but... there's a mission in Star Fox Command, I think it's "Dash Makes a Choice", where James McCloud shows up. (I remember it being a mission on Venom, and that's the only mission there where you would even be allowed to have a reinforcement pilot.) It's the only mission you can play as him in, and I don't think he shows up until something like turn 5 (and you can actually complete the mission in fewer turns than it takes for him to show up), but he's real enough to blast ships out of the sky (and in my opinion has one of the best ships and music tracks in the game). And yet... even in that ending, no mention is made of him, unless I'm forgetting something in the storyline itself, and I'm not currently heading toward whatever ending that was, so I can't find out right now.

Perhaps he never truly died, but lives in hiding in Venom to help out the Star Fox team in times of need? Just a guess, but is still some food for thought. If he is dead, you can't explain ships suddenly being shot out of the sky by nothing.

sonikku :

Good answer: Maybe he did survive.

Really crazy answer: His body was salvaged and a clone was made from his DNA.

Going with the better answer, I thought a later Star Fox game might clear it up.
It seems that Nintendo wants it to just be a mystery.

Maybe Fox mcloud wants to watch his son from the shadows an just say:

"That's my boy"

I noticed that you said, "hate to bring this up", Is Star Fox Command a less that good SF game?

Sword legion : It's a pretty decent game, but once you figure out how to practically max out your timer for missions, it's too easy. I actually got bored of it while I was trying to practically max out the kill count on missions, it got that easy. So while it lacks replayability once you have 100%, it's still a decent game overall.

I only said I hate to bring it up because I felt like it might bring the discussion to a halt.