Top Gun: Maverick

[mexos]

Just returned from this. About 30 seconds in when I realised… 

 

Spoiler

… that they were doing the full intro, fonts, colour, music all the same but new I started welling up and got the chills. Fuck. Yes.

There is so much to like here even if…

 

Spoiler

They brazenly ripped the mission straight out of Iron Eagle 2!!! Like wtf!!! And I don’t care!

The way they handle his relationships, time passing. He’s still Maverick but there is vulnerability there. They nailed it. Connolly was excellent, they both had great chemistry and it all just felt… right.

 

Spoiler

Again I’m welling up just watching him texting with Ice. I loved that they were friends and that Ice kept bailing him out. Just perfect. More tears narrowly avoided in Val’s scene which was mega. Seeing him like that then the black and white photo of them was so damn sad. 

 

Maybe it had one or two shot recreations too much. But again, I don’t care. The action.. it’s all been said. It’s great.

 

Coming out of 2020 / 2021 this is exactly the wholesome, feel good nostalgia cheese I needed. They nailed the brief and knocked it out park. 
 

My one criticism is about that

 

Spoiler

Music they played on the flight into the sunset. What the hell?! Where is mighty wings?! Ah who cares!!!

 

I’m really at a loss as to how the could have made a better Top Gun sequel. It was very much worth the wait.

[probotector]

It’s sad that the Lady Gaga song ruined the ending.

 

It’s such a try hard 2000s pop idol crap

[gone fishin]

2 hours ago, probotector said:

It’s sad that the Lady Gaga song ruined the ending.

 

It’s such a try hard 2000s pop idol crap

 

The song makes more sense if you listen to the soundtrack album, as it’s essentially a vocal version of one of the main musical themes/motifs. 

 

Although I think the One Republic song that’s on the album is a lot worse. Like, it’s awful. But then it wouldn’t be Top Gun without some songs that will sound dated within 2 years.

[probotector]

Except it was shit as soon as it started.

Still an amazing film but the song stood out as poor.

 

 

[gone fishin]

27 minutes ago, probotector said:

Except it was shit as soon as it started.

Still an amazing film but the song stood out as poor.

 

 

Is this

 

 

Any better/worse/cheesier/more of its time 

 

than this

 

 

Top Gun Maverick certainly feels like the soundtrack is less of a “Original Music from the Movie” album than the original, which lets be honest, apart from the main theme by Harold Faltermeyer and Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins, is totally 80s cheese!

 

[Timmo]

Yes, Take my Breath Away is a waaaaaay better song.

[probotector]

is that a retorical question?

 

Take my breath away is a classic!

[Steve McQueef]

Now, that's how you do a sequel to a beloved '80s property.

 

Loved it.

 

 

[mexos]

As soon as they did the briefing and they…

 

Spoiler

Showed the F14s I was like so that’s how they are going to do it. Nice! He gets shot down and escapes in one. But I’m a dumbass and never saw Rooster also getting shot down and him taking the back seat.  
 

I was getting scared about half way through they were going to do the unthinkable and kill him off at the end. So glad they didn’t.

 

[sprite]

The Gaga song is growing on me, I like how the tune flows through the film and riffs off the main theme too.

[sandman]

Saw this today. My wife and I both agreed that it took far too long for the film to get in the air after the intro section.

 

Apart from that we both thought it was utterly amazing.  Much better than the original  which I feel has aged terribly. 
 

Talking about the intro section, surely no aircraft is close to Mach 5, let alone 10? Also, is all the stuff about drones replacing fighter pilots true? Is it a profession that won’t exist in 25 years? 
 

I’ve been a fan of Kosinski since Tron. Incredibly gifted visual director. 

[mexos]

10 minutes ago, sandman said:

Also, is all the stuff about drones replacing fighter pilots true? Is it a profession that won’t exist in 25 years? 

25 years? More like 10 I recon. I highly doubt there will be lots of 6th gen fighters around if any. 

[JohnC]

10 minutes ago, sandman said:

Talking about the intro section, surely no aircraft is close to Mach 5, let alone 10?

No normal jet plane. But this was an experimental scramjet plane. If they get going properly, they can theoretically get to top speeds a fair bit higher than mach 10.

[sandman]

6 minutes ago, JohnC said:

No normal jet plane. But this was an experimental scramjet plane. If they get going properly, they can theoretically get to top speeds a fair bit higher than mach 10.

Wow!

[JohnC]

5 minutes ago, sandman said:

Wow!

Having looked up some stuff, the fastest so far in the real world is the X-43, which reached mach 9.6. It's unmanned. All of this kind of stuff it still in experimental stages, so who knows where we'll end up.

[Vespa Alex]

24 minutes ago, sandman said:

Talking about the intro section, surely no aircraft is close to Mach 5, let alone 10? Also, is all the stuff about drones replacing fighter pilots true? Is it a profession that won’t exist in 25 years? 
 

The X43 drone hit those speeds. 18 years ago, and Lockheed Martin are working on an SR71 successor that might end up looking a lot like the Darkstar from the film (which they helped design). 

 

As for manned fighter jets, there will definitely be a shift to more capable drones and less pilots up there. Boeing are working on drones that are designed to fly alongside manned planes. They can do recon, electronic warfare, act as a target for enemy fire, or shoot back. 

[Gigawatt]

12 hours ago, sandman said:

Also, is all the stuff about drones replacing fighter pilots true? Is it a profession that won’t exist in 25 years?

 

This is a really interesting topic that we talk about a lot at work, so indulge me for a minute while I pontificate.  Short answer is no, not in that timescale, but as mentioned above, there will be a shift. In the UK, Typhoon currently has an Out-of-Service date of about 2040, but is going through some major upgrades so I'd be amazed if that wasn't pushed later.  F-35 will still be flying in 25 years, so there will still be Fighter Pilots then (not as many as now, and there aren't as many now as there were 25 years ago).

 

Right now - there is a mix of manned and unmanned systems.  For example, MQ-9 Reaper has been conducting armed operations for a long time, and that is a Remotely Piloted Air System (RPAS).  As an aside, I detest the term Drones in this case, as it is just a normal aeroplane whose crew sit on the ground at the end of a very long piece of string. There are other systems out there with various degrees of autonomy, but we're not yet at the stage of a fully-fledged fighter with no pilot.  There are a few factors that I think will affect how and when that shift happens:

 

Benefits:  Humans are a problem, they need to sleep, eat, pee and poop, they get bored very easily and they make mistakes.  Crucially, they also need to breathe, have displays to interpret, and a way to interface with and control the aircraft.  If you get rid of all those systems you can save weight and complexity, you can pull more G, you don't need windows or seats, but you will need more sensors and probably data links, which brings some of the drawbacks.   Clearly the major benefit is not putting a human in harm's way.

 

Bandwidth:  If your vehicle is controlled remotely, it's most likely via some sort of satellite link.  You therefore need enough capacity to cope with as many vehicles as you want airborne at any one time, with multiple video and audio feeds, which will incur a significant cost I would have thought.  The question then is; what happens if your enemy can jam the link or disable the satellites?  Is your entire fleet useless?  To get around that there will need to be some element of automatics or autonomy.

 

Latency: If you are controlling remotely, then there is an unavoidable round-trip-timing issue with sending commands and receiving feedback. Even worse than PSNow.  This would make very fine control or split-second decision making very difficult.  You can't beat physics but some element of automatics will probably help.

 

Automatics vs Autonomy:  In my head, automated functions are just taking tasks that can be done by a computer and doing them onboard rather than remotely, ie an autopilot flying a preplanned route or a sensor tracking a moving target.  Autonomy implies a level of onboard decision making, ie which route to fly to avoid a threat, or which target to track.  Automatics are generally a good thing in my opinion.  Autonomy is clearly a technical challenge, but more importantly it is an ethical question of how much you are willing to delegate to the system, how much faith you have in its decisions, and who has accountability.  That is a far bigger question that I don't know the answer to, but it is definitely a big concern.

 

In reality, I think that any 6th Gen Fighter that emerges (Typhoon = 4th, F-35 = 5th) will likely be a system of systems that has crewed and un-crewed elements, probably with an operator in a crewed platform controlling several un-crewed adjuncts remotely.  I guess we'll see how it all develops but I think that's the direction things are heading in, as @Vespa Alex says above.

 

Sorry for the long diatribe, I just find it a fascinating topic to talk about.  

[Jammy]

@sandmanI worked on the structure design of a fighter-sized ‘unmanned aerial combat vehicle’ nearly 15 years ago that was designed to replace piloted aircraft in sorties they deemed too big a risk to pilot safety. Still not in active service, but it has done a lot of test flights.

[sprite]

That's a really interesting read @Gigawatt and I see parallels in how AI is being used in my career area - in radiotherapy - basically they're looking at how AI can be used to automate/expedite the more mundane from a brainpower point of view tasks, but that actually take a lot of time.  It's not about using AI to replace humans but rather to free us up to work on the most complicated bits where we can't quire rely on AI in the same way.

[MardiganX]

I’m not going to do this film justice by talking about it too much tonight (just out from seeing it) so I will leave the post it deserves until tomorrow.

 

However… that was without a shadow of a doubt the best experience I have had in a cinema as an adult. I think I said “what the actual fuck” several times, cried a little three times, proper wailed once, smiled all the way through unless I was too tense to breathe and overall left unbelievably satisfied with a movie I honestly never thought would be possible. For all his madness Tom Cruise is a fucking legend!!

 

 

[MardiganX]

Ok, I think I'm ready.

 

I've said so many times and will repeat it, the things we find joy in become less frequent and powerful as we get older. Its just part of life. Very rarely something special has the ability to not only make you feel like a kid again but make you appreciate so many things you might sometimes take for granted. Perhaps a bit strong but fuck it, that's how this movie made me feel. I was mesmerised from incredible, iconic intro to the rolling of the credits and will likely appreciate it even more on a second viewing. There isnt a single mis-calculated or missed step the whole way through. Its simply remarkable movie making from every single department involved and while he doesnt often get the appreciation he deserves, Cruise is a living legend. What he clearly brings to the overall movie making process alongside his characters is something most actors will never come close to. Sure, the guy is absolutely crackers but without that side of him I doubt we would get all the other stuff that allows movies like Maverick to be not only possible, but as benchmark setting as it is. 

 

Visually, this has to be the greatest movie ever made. A few have mentioned Fury Road as a comparison and I completely agree, where both movies manage to do things that are unbelievable. That's how all movies should be and sadly its become less and less about that kind of output. I'm torn over watching behind-the-scenes stuff as while part of me loves to understand the magic behind it all another part of me wants it to remain something I never really understand but appreciate more and more every time I see it. Like being a kid watching a movie and that simply being it. No in depth analysis and critique, no ripping apart of every camera angle and directing choice, just the movie and how it looks and makes you feel. I want Maverick to always be that for me.

 

Spoilery stuff...

 

Spoiler

Maverick does in the first 10 minutes what most movies fail to do through their entire run time. I was so invested and (surprisingly) emotionally impacted by the whole Scramjet sequence that I cried a little. When he hit that Mach 10 and the music (Oblivion influences showing right from the off) settled into the orchestral score it was just fucking beautiful. It being shortly followed by the genuinely hilarious diner scene shows just how well measured everything is. "Where am I?".... "Earth". Like that kid was reminding us, 'yes you are still on Earth even though that sequence just made you question it'. Fucking brilliant!

 

I could talk all day about the aerial stuff and most of it has already been said but how this movie was able to remain so faithful to the original given the obvious advances in technology was ridiculous. Its a fairly loose set-up as to why the technology parameters of the mission are what they are, but it doesnt matter because everything that is needed to support that set-up is done so well. I totally forgot about the Tomcat's being revealed near the start so got the intended 'fuck YES' moment when I realised Mave and Rooster were going to hop in one. I should have seen it coming but again, I was so hypnotised by everything else that I was enjoying each moment as it happened. I could have happily watched another 30 minutes of Mave and Rooster reconciling whilst flying around a peaceful landscape but yet again, that was all measured perfectly with small nods and moments toward the end.

 

Finally, how they handled Val Kilmer was wonderful and devastating in equal measure. It was tasteful, poignant, necessary for the plot, funny and it gave you a real feeling about how this friendship has developed over the last 30 odd years, yet it was only a few minutes. It was another perfectly measured aspect of a what should go down as a masterpiece in movie making. I have loved Kilmer since I was a little boy but it wasnt Top Gun that made it that way, it was Willow. The swaggering, charismatic swordsman Madmartigan (that inspired my online avatar) brought to life by Kilmer at his finest. I wasnt sure how it would be handled but thinking back to it they could not have dont it any better. 

 

Its clear why Cruise fought so hard for Maverick to be released as it has been. Anything else would not have done justice to what everyone involved in that movie created, which is actually really well mirrored in the opening 10 minutes. I'm not sure how deliberate that was but I have no doubt as pressure was building a couple of years ago those scenes were in Cruise's mind as he and whoever else held their ground.

 

Spoiler

Hondo says to Mave "You know what happens if you do this"... he replies "I know what happens to everyone else if I dont". 

 

Movie of the year, the best since Fury Road for me and its only going to get better on repeat viewings. Thank you Tom. You absolutely have permission to buzz the tower!!

[mexos]

Any idea when this will come out to buy on Apple TV etc? I'm in day 1.

[Stifler]

Saw this today and absolutely loved it. Overall quite predictable at points, but it didn't matter when it was all so well done!

 

In particular

Spoiler

Val Kilmer turning up as Iceman was fantastic - I was totally unaware he would be returning until I saw his name during the intro and the way they handled the character was just fantastic. A little bit heartbreaking, but the few minutes he was on-screen were sheer brilliance!

 

 

[JohnC]

11 minutes ago, mexos said:

Any idea when this will come out to buy on Apple TV etc? I'm in day 1.

They've not said when, but it will be at least 45 days after cinema release. 45 days is their new theatrical window, but some movies could be longer, and there's some hints that this could be one of those.

[K]

In an absolutely unprecedented move, my partner enjoyed Top Gun 2 so much that we're going to see it again tonight, and watched Top Gun 1 last night in preparation. It's interesting to compare the two films, as while they're very similar in a lot of respects, they're also quite different films - Top Gun Maverick is a plot-heavy, men-and-women-on-a-mission film, while the original film has no plot to speak of, and is basically a melodrama about a moody fighter pilot coming to terms with something or other. Maverick's emotional journey is a bit hazy - not that this stops the film from being highly enjoyable, of course.

 

The film is basically a romance, although the romance scenes between Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise have a slightly odd vibe, because McGillis seems like a sophisticated, mature woman, and Cruise seems like a child. In the early sequence, with Cruise and his buddies hitting the slightly creepy pick-up bar in their crisp white uniforms, Maverick and Goose come across like students; they seem incredibly young and immature. Kelly McGillis seems like she'd eat Cruise for breakfast, and the scenes where Maverick tries to romance her reminded me of the bits in Rushmore where Jason Schwartzman's eerily precocious child tries to put the moves on Olivia Williams, and is very firmly put in his place.

 

The action scenes in the original are beautiful to look at, but visually incomprehensible. it's mostly jets going whoosh, and people in flight helmets turning to look behind them. If you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time someone in a plane looked behind them, you'd be in intensive care by the halfway mark. It's impossible to follow the action just from what's on screen, you have to listen to the characters narrate what they're doing. It's inherently difficult to show complex dogfights on screen given the lack of scenery in the sky to help fix your bearings, but the sequel really is an absolute textbook example of clarity - they make it clear what's happening, what the current problem is, and how they resolve it. In the original film, I was baffled by whole sequences, like the one in the mid-film dogfight where Goose gets killed. Iceman is on the tail of someone, but needs another ten seconds to actually shoot them for some reason. The climactic dogfight is similarly chaotic - it makes Quantum of Solace look like Yojimbo. You sort of have to do the same thing you do in a JJ Abrams film and just go with the emotional impetus of the scene rather than apply any kind of logic to it, but it really shows up what an expertly-crafted film the sequel is.

 

The other thing I noticed: Iceman actually seems alright. He's a bit arrogant at the start, but for most of the film he comes across as being pretty reasonable in the face of Maverick being absolutely unbearable. His concerns over Maverick's competence are valid, he's fairly magnanimous when he graduates top of the class, and he shows concern over Maverick's mental health after Goose cops it. In the scene where he tries to console Maverick just after Goose dies, you can see him really thinking about his words, and he seems sincere. I thought that bit was a short but quite effective bit of acting from Val Kilmer. Iceman seems hard done-by in popular culture; I would be his wingman any time.

[cavalcade]

Maverick was fine. Planes go pew pew.

 

And most people side with Val Kilmer from Top Gun 1 whose basic safety concerns were entirely warranted. I'm fairly sure this has been the pop culture take for about 20 years now. 

[Turino 73]

32 minutes ago, K said:

In an absolutely unprecedented move, my partner enjoyed Top Gun 2 so much that we're going to see it again tonight, and watched Top Gun 1 last night in preparation. It's interesting to compare the two films, as while they're very similar in a lot of respects, they're also quite different films - Top Gun Maverick is a plot-heavy, men-and-women-on-a-mission film, while the original film has no plot to speak of, and is basically a melodrama about a moody fighter pilot coming to terms with something or other. Maverick's emotional journey is a bit hazy - not that this stops the film from being highly enjoyable, of course.

 

The film is basically a romance, although the romance scenes between Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise have a slightly odd vibe, because McGillis seems like a sophisticated, mature woman, and Cruise seems like a child. In the early sequence, with Cruise and his buddies hitting the slightly creepy pick-up bar in their crisp white uniforms, Maverick and Goose come across like students; they seem incredibly young and immature. Kelly McGillis seems like she'd eat Cruise for breakfast, and the scenes where Maverick tries to romance her reminded me of the bits in Rushmore where Jason Schwartzman's eerily precocious child tries to put the moves on Olivia Williams, and is very firmly put in his place.

 

The action scenes in the original are beautiful to look at, but visually incomprehensible. it's mostly jets going whoosh, and people in flight helmets turning to look behind them. If you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time someone in a plane looked behind them, you'd be in intensive care by the halfway mark. It's impossible to follow the action just from what's on screen, you have to listen to the characters narrate what they're doing. It's inherently difficult to show complex dogfights on screen given the lack of scenery in the sky to help fix your bearings, but the sequel really is an absolute textbook example of clarity - they make it clear what's happening, what the current problem is, and how they resolve it. In the original film, I was baffled by whole sequences, like the one in the mid-film dogfight where Goose gets killed. Iceman is on the tail of someone, but needs another ten seconds to actually shoot them for some reason. The climactic dogfight is similarly chaotic - it makes Quantum of Solace look like Yojimbo. You sort of have to do the same thing you do in a JJ Abrams film and just go with the emotional impetus of the scene rather than apply any kind of logic to it, but it really shows up what an expertly-crafted film the sequel is.

 

The other thing I noticed: Iceman actually seems alright. He's a bit arrogant at the start, but for most of the film he comes across as being pretty reasonable in the face of Maverick being absolutely unbearable. His concerns over Maverick's competence are valid, he's fairly magnanimous when he graduates top of the class, and he shows concern over Maverick's mental health after Goose cops it. In the scene where he tries to console Maverick just after Goose dies, you can see him really thinking about his words, and he seems sincere. I thought that bit was a short but quite effective bit of acting from Val Kilmer. Iceman seems hard done-by in popular culture; I would be his wingman any time.

It's often overlooked that Top Gun is basically a Republican Ronald Reagan wet dream. Tom Cruises character is an entitled asshole with no moral compass who still wins the fight and gets the girl. His character is irredeemable and he is very much not someone to root for, but the west was so enraptured in white privilege none of us realised how we were being indoctrinated. 

His name is maverick ffs.

You watch it back now with embarrassment. 

The new film is one hell of a ride, but on examination it quickly falls apart. The mission is to destroy a box and then unquestioningly kill some faceless pilots. I loved it, but I needed a shower afterwards. Its grim grim stuff.

[Sabreman]

Hangman has a similar vibe to Iceman, but again it's more about professionalism and naturally the kind of ego you have when you're legitimately among the best of the best. Neither of them are Bad Guys, but I think Iceman got some misguided short shrift for a while simply because he was pitted against the lead. These people have to push themselves and each other to the limit, but I found it especially refreshing in Maverick that it was never a significant plot device.

[K]

Hangman was explicitly much more of a knob than Iceman was, I thought. He was portrayed as a danger to other pilots, and as not caring about their safety. Obviously, he comes good in the end.

[Turino 73]

6 hours ago, K said:

Hangman was explicitly much more of a knob than Iceman was, I thought. He was portrayed as a danger to other pilots, and as not caring about their safety. Obviously, he comes good in the end.

Iceman is the hero of Top Gun. Maverick is a knob. Watch the original film again objectively.