SPOILERS!!! Top Gun Maverick Discussion Thread

[Shadepiece]

Well folks the movie is finally out, and I can honestly say I was blown away. This movie far exceeded all of my expectations which were somewhat pessimistically low. I'll avoid plot points for a while to give everyone some time to go see it, but holy shit, if you like planes then you ought to go see this movie! I highly recommend!

[Klaiber]

I've heard it's really good.  Haven't seen it yet, but am hoping to go soon.

[Britchot]

I'll probably go tomorrow or Monday.

[TedsOnMeds]

I don't want to be a debbie downer; but despite the fact it looked quite impressive, I just feel like it was okay. Not great, not bad, a bit meh 

[Ludwig]

Hollywood gets no money from me.

[J5_Hotlead]

I’m going to see it tonight. Hyped!

[TedsOnMeds]

I'd be interested to know what you think when you come back, Hotlead, especially considering how well you analyze combat sequences on stream and stuff. 

[J5_Hotlead]

On 5/31/2022 at 11:33 AM, TedsOnMeds said:

I'd be interested to know what you think when you come back, Hotlead, especially considering how well you analyze combat sequences on stream and stuff. 

You flatter me!

I personally really loved it. I'd even say it was as good as the original, which for me is saying a lot. There were some very solid tactical concepts at play (warning spoilers below)...

When Hangman abandoned his wingman in training, Maverick was easily able to get a "kill" on the wingman, eliminating Hangman's flight's 2 v 1 advantage. It reminds me of a mistake I made last Sunday with Flyboy, where I lost my nerve and got too separated from him. I was barely able to make it back in time to save him when he got attacked by a bandit with a superior energy state, but if I'd been with him, he may not have even gotten bullet holes. 

While I am not a jet simmer, Maverick crossing behind Rooster to draw off the incoming SAMs seemed like it would legitimately work. I see this in WW1 when one pilot is dragging a bandit and drags him in front of his wingman to get the bandit off him.

I loved how Maverick's F-14 ran out of bullet rounds and actually showed the bullet counters counting down. A pet peeve of mine in action movies is that the hero has unlimited ammo and never runs or needs to reload. By the same token, Rooster ran out of flares and Maverick ran out of missiles. A realistic touch for sure!

I like that they portrayed G-LOC and absolutely loved the blackout effects to show the audience how the pilots were feeling. Too many cheesy flying movies forget to deal with this at all. 

I loved that the bandits did not all go down with the first shot. The dogfight sequences really seemed like a battle of wits and machines, with both parties involved having the advantage at different points. Seeing the enemy aircraft deploy flares and escape missiles felt very satisfying. In most other flying movies, bandits are not that smart.

Losing SAMs against the ground clutter is a valid tactic since the Vietnam War. I liked seeing that. 

 

Overall, those things felt very believable! Of course there were things that were cheesy. But it was fun cheese. Here's some of the bits that stretch credulity:

Rooster and Maverick being downed behind enemy lines and just finding an F-14 lying around. Believable? No. But very satisfying.

The whole approach to the Iranian target seemed remarkably like the trench run from Star Wars. And the fact that all fighters hit the air duct (even Rooster without aiming guidance) is astonishing. But hey, stranger things have happened!

All of the times Maverick was saved at the last second by a fellow pilot. It really isn't very believable, but it does reinforce his persona of being the "by the seat of his pants" pilot with seemingly nine lives. 

 

Those are my off the cuff impressions. YMMV, of course, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

 

[Britchot]

4 hours ago, HotleadColdfeet said:

Iranian "Enemy" target

They actually never name a country, though it's easy to assume Iran with the airworthy F-14. 

I really enjoyed it and appreciated some minute details of the F/A-18D/F that one would not catch if they weren't a fan of the DCS module or actual Hornet drivers.

 

[J5_Hotlead]

Ahhh, I heard “uranium” in the theater and thought they said “Iranian”. That makes sense; the countryside didn’t look like Iran to me anyway.

[Britchot]

That countryside is actually a low level range through the Cascade mountains in Washington.

[Gus]

Just saw the movie and it is a good one!

The first scenes are really good, in which Cruise´ character was introduced and the conflicts of the character were well exposed, within only few lines of dialogue embedded in the tension of those scenes.
Those first scenes are very important for the movie and here they were perfectly introduced into the main character and plot. Also Mavericks very own premise is consistent until the end.
That´s quite interesting, as the character arc, means the journey of the hero, wasn´t Maverick, but it was Rooster who changed, overcome his inner demons and become the real hero of the movie.
But it was also a bit constructed: the conflict between Maverick and Rooster is explained, in the way that Maverick prevented Rooster from going to the Academy, what costs Rooster four years… a bit ridiculous to serve as the core of Roosters conflict with Maverick. The death of his father was explained as an accident, so Maverick couldn´t made responsible and wasn´t made responsible by Rooster. It would have been better if they would have left the explanation, that Maverick prevented Rooster from going to the Academy as it denies the real conflict which lies underneath both: the death of Goose, Rooster´s father.

It could have been worked out better, that Rooster did overcome making Maverick responsible for the death of his father, when he has learned, that being a Fighter Pilot is very dangerous, with a high probability to get killed in action. Maybe it is overlooked easily by the audience but a key for Roosters character to change his mind against Maverick.

So, chapter two in the movie, after the character and conflict introduction in chapter one, was very much constructed with no progress in the plot or the characters. Also the goal to destroy the bunker in the mountains was clear from the beginning and predictible until the end, without any twist.

While I´ve waited for the twist in chapter two, it suddenly came unexpected with the death of Mavericks protector Iceman and in consequence Maverick was immediately rejected from the task: a desperate Situation for the main character, but his actions in the first scenes as a test pilot to safe the DarkStar project foreshadowed his ongoing actions to solve the desperate situation, he is facing at this point. Well, it is all very much constructed by the book, but it works and there are no experiments allowed by the studios for a multi-million Blockbuster movie like this.

Jennifer Connelly is a great actress. For me she is like Harry Dean Stanton: a movie in which one of those are acting, can´t be a bad movie! In Top Gun Maverick she is far below her value as an actress, unfortunately. More than that her character seems to be created by the AI in modern screenwriting software, which creates a love interest automatically and puts it in, in the right intervals/screentime - a pity and kind of waste of Connellys talent.

The third chapter was really impressive, in a way never seen before in cinema. The action was such exciting - it felt like a constant emotional impact watching the pilots fighting in the Hornets. That was definitely the heartbeat of TopGun Maverick and it was the fastes heartbeat you could experience in a movie. Quite an experience!

Maybe the truth of this movie, its expression of our times, lies exactly in the heartbeat of the fighting scenes in the third chapter. The feeling of a world too fast to keep up. Getting killed within seconds by most deadly machines the world ever saw. Something which was themed in the beginning, that humans ( in the subtext ) respectively human pilots belong to the past and more efficient machines take over the fights and decide upon life and death within milliseconds.

Like in these action scenes the pilots, as well the audience, just loses control and overview of the thread automated machines or most modern 5th gen fighter jets put on the opponents. 

In this expression of the time we´re living in Top Gun Maverick differentiate very much from the original Top Gun Movie.
Where Top Gun Maverick´s relationships between the characters are very formal with kind of oppressed feelings and a world too fast with machines such efficient, that humans can´t handle it anymore ( like flying with 10G ), the world and times of the original Top Gun was a world of challenge and rebellion against the hierarchical systems ( which was the tragedy of the original Maverick character ), as well a time of sexual freedom of orientation and playing with homoerotic staging. Yes, Tarantino was right in his views describing Top Gun from that perspective, but he was wrong concluding Top Gun is a gay movie - it isn´t, it was that time in the 80s and 90s of new sexual orientation of the youth and the easiness to play with. If looking at the popcultural expression of that time, you will find references to this freedom all over the place, in Music in Art and maybe Top Gun as the most prominent reference in cinema. But there has nothing been left of that time in Top Gun Maverick, no easiness, no experimentation, no rebellion anymore, kind of artificial happiness, when the team of Top Gun Maverick is playing Football on the beach and with a scary perspective for the future.

Alright, I know, the regular DCS Pilot will see the movie different. It´s a good movie in anyway and I just hope, one day we could look back with a smile from different times to remember the times, we are living in today.   

[Klaiber]

Something I didn't catch in the theatre, but after I got home.

Top Gun clip at 30 seconds:

So they get props from me for paying attention.

[Gus]

Interesting detail, but her connection to the original Top Gun didn´t played out in Maverick.

[Britchot]

On 6/15/2022 at 4:25 PM, Klaiber said:

Something I didn't catch in the theatre, but after I got home.

Top Gun clip at 30 seconds:

So they get props from me for paying attention.

As soon as he called her Penny, I knew. 

[Klaiber]

8 hours ago, Britchot said:

As soon as he called her Penny, I knew. 

Had you watched the first one recently?

If not, you have an amazing memory.

[Gus]

Me always asked myself while watching Maverick: Who is she? What does she add to the story? Is she a mentor? Is she a gate keeper? Is she a trickser? And where does she sail with that boat now? 

[Britchot]

On 6/17/2022 at 4:18 PM, Klaiber said:

Had you watched the first one recently?

If not, you have an amazing memory.

Nope, but I really enjoy a lot of the banter between Goose and Maverick in the first one.  I am constantly quoting the Truckmasters line. 

  

On 6/17/2022 at 5:37 PM, Gus said:

Me always asked myself while watching Maverick: Who is she? What does she add to the story? Is she a mentor? Is she a gate keeper? Is she a trickser? And where does she sail with that boat now? 

Mentor, for sure.  I think she added a similar love interest that Kelly McGillis had in the first one and, more importantly, provided the same disconnected, level-headed advice, that "Charlie" did.  Her being "Penny Benjamin" was just a nod back to that one scene referenced above.

[Gus]

Yeah, there were a lot of references back to the original Top Gun, like photographies everywhere and scenes, like Rooster playing piano and singing "Great Balls of Fire" in the bar or the scene, when Mavericks drives his motorbike along with the rolling Hornet at the runway - it was a bit like Top Gun Maverick lacks of an identity of its own by bringing the original Top Gun back in mind such often.

It´s for sure no easy task to resurrect Mavericks character after 30 years, but that is something the movie did very believable. Most of the time he appeared like a broken hero or was made as such by the others. He carried his personal drama until the very end, when he and Rooster were in this hopeless situation in the Tomcat without bullets and about to get shot by the Su-57, Maverick said "Forgive me Goose", which was a great drama moment in the movie and connected the original story with the new one on a deeper level of its charcaters.  

I also like to fly the Tomcat and Hornet in DCS and enjoyed the action scenes in the movie very much, but in total the action scenes were approx 15 or 20 minutes in total. So what do we see in the remaining 120 minutes of the movie? I know, that my perspective may sound ridicoulus to many, but when it´s about movies I´m more interested in the drama, characters and the story than in the action scenes.

It was just kidding saying that Penny might be the mentor, gate keeper or trickser - those are just some archetypes in movies, which goes back to the greek drama ( I think it was Aristoteles, who defined these archetypes for the greek stage play ). But you could find these archetypes and their relations to the hero in nearly every movie - Top Gun Maverick isn´t an exception there: without a doubt Maverick himself filled the role of the Mentor for Rooster, the commander of the base was the gate keeper, who decides if the hero could go on, to fullfill his task or puts obstacles in the way of the hero to fullfill his task ( the commander did both ) and Hangman was the archetype of the trickser ( he also fills the role of the competitor, Iceman had in the original Top Gun ).

Penny´s role appeared very shallow to me in Maverick. maybe they were in need to cut out very much, what could have explained their relation much better or at least bring some tension into this relation. Very different for Charly in the original Top Gun, who was kind of investigator or observer from the Navy with a higher rank than the pilots, what made the love affair kind of forbidden and gives a lot of tension to it. There was a lot of passion, when they finally had their moment together, which was also a kind of rebellion against their formal relation in the movie - there is no drama without a conflict.
More than that, the role of Charly played a lot with breaking up traditional female roles, it couldn´t be more escalated than bringing a women into a superior position in that men occupied domain of fighter pilots ( btw. her man like forename also points to breaking up the gender roles ). 

What really bothered me in Top Gun Maverick was that the script was obviously rewritten to present the Military/Navy in another way, the story and drama of Top Gun Maverick was intended. There was a contract between the studio and the defense department or Pentagon, in which the studio paid a ot of money to use the real Hornets and be allowed to put actors in the real Hornets. I´m pretty sure that the defense department also put the the right for a final word into the contract on how the Navy is presented and they didn´t liked, that being a fighter pilot is a very dangerous and life threatening job, what is the true understanding Rooster has to get through to solve the difficult relation he had with Maverick. I´m sure Roosters line "Maverick hindert me from going to the acadamy" was replaced afterwards, otherwise this deep conflict between both wouldn´t make any sense.
After Rooster attained this understanding that being a fighter pilot is very risky and that is why his father died, he got deeply feared about fullfilling his task as pilot. You only see this fear twice: 1st scene on the deck of the carrier, when Rooster was completely sweated in fear of his task minutes before they start ( Maverick was more than before his mentor in this scene, telling him to not think, just do, what he is prepared for ... or something like that ). The second time his massive fear to die showed, when he falls back while flying through the canyon, but then, and that is the true hero moment, he overcome his fears and pushed forward; finally got back into this danger to save Maverick. But these movements of the hero were kind of covered and turned into the opposite by the line "he hindert me from going to the academy" in favor for the presentation of being a fighter pilot at the military - what a pity, as it ruined the drama and the reflection of becoming a hero if the characters are overlooked.  

  
 

[Snaggle]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:43 AM, Gus said:

I also like to fly the Tomcat and Hornet in DCS and enjoyed the action scenes in the movie very much, but in total the action scenes were approx 15 or 20 minutes in total. So what do we see in the remaining 120 minutes of the movie? I know, that my perspective may sound ridicoulus to many, but when it´s about movies I´m more interested in the drama, characters and the story than in the action scenes.

I'm with you on this Gus!!!

The action scenes were fine, but for me it was the drama and seeing my Navy as a fit fighting force that I liked the best. Same thing happens to me when I watch the original Top Gun, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, In Harms Way, even The Final Countdown, 20+ years of pure enjoyment and memories come flooding back. The ships, the crews, the aircraft, the good times and the bad, and most of all the shipmates I have lost. I can actually smell the JP5!

Sorry, just an old guy thinking of his youth.

Movie, well done!!

[Gus]

For me it was  the first time since two years watching a movie in cinema. I was very happy, that it was kind of old-school action movie instead of another blockbuster from Marvel Studios or something with Dinosaurs, Aliens or Disney´s Star Wars. "Flight of the Intruder" by John Milius might be also a movie you would like, but it plays in the Vietnam era and the characters in there are completely stereotypes, but it´s also a good and exciting movie.

 

 
 

[Snaggle]

4 hours ago, Gus said:

"Flight of the Intruder" by John Milius

Forgot that one, have it also use the quote “that’s my thing.” 

[Erhardt]

I love flight of the Intruder - found the game (for my Amiga 500)  in Kiel Germany during our summer holiday so I bought it - the book came with the game and I already had the movie, so game/book/movie perfect! And I really liked "Cole" in that movie!

[Etzel]

Well, finally saw the movie yesterday with my wife, before it's not playing in cinemas aynmore.... (we really were the only 2 people sitting in this movie hall), and well, what should I say => The expectations I had 3 years ago:

On 7/19/2019 at 12:56 PM, Etzel said:

Embarrassing, pathetic, pro-american-military-propaga-trash-fim the worst kind .... trailer looks like the took the script and the cast of 1986 and made a new film with some newer planes.... 

Conclusion for me:

An absolute "MUST-SEE" next year!!!!!   

 

...were completely fullfilled!

It's basically the same story, you can find the same characters, it's the same great music, and really all of this was just reworked & remastered to meet the standards 3 decades later...

Simply great entertainment, glad that I did not miss it  

 

[Barton]

Way late to this but I finally got around to seeing the movie.  Really liked it and so did my wife.  It had enough of the Original scenes in it to elicit the nostalgia and identify it as clearly "Top Gun" without the mindless sellout nonsense of Star Wars Episode VII.  

The mission reminded me of every installment of Ace Combat games since I started playing them on PS1 back when I was a kid, but themselves pull from the infamous trench run from Star Wars.  As corny as that is I think it was pulled off nicely and those ridiculous missions were always the most fun in AC.  

Totally missed Penny being the Admiral's daughter.  Nice way to bring a love interest back without "Charlie".  

The air to air scenes were meh.  But a lot of the things they didn't get right are things only 2% of the audience would even notice anyhow and didn't really matter.  Was cool to see the old ATFLIR I used to work on used in the movie.  They even used the right button on the throttle.  

Air to air scenes always look terrible because there is no continutiy as to what is going on.  99.5% of the audience wouldn't be able to put it together even if there was, so I understand the lack of effort but I wish there was a little more.  They could have made the scenes even more interesting and less predictable.  

Overall, though, I knew what I was getting into and they delivered exactly that.  Awesome movie and one of few sequels fully deserving of the original movie.  

We watched the original afterwards and my god, between having aged myself well beyond the age he was in that movie and after seeing him now, if Tom Cruise doesn't look like a child!  

Now my wife is calling me Goose and her wingman.