Top Gun Maverick Report

Jun 9, 2022, 3:54 AM

A few folks have already commented on the movie so I'll just toss my take in the mix. Took the Mrs. out and had a nice night of it. I'll throw in a few real life spoilers at the very end. They won't spoil the movie any but might break immersion for some.

Overall: Better than average, but not great. Can't say I was disappointed but nothing really jumped out about it except a few nice aerial scenes. It's not really quotable, no scenes are particularly memorable, and the characters are pretty stock and forgettable. Better than a lot of stuff out there, but I doubt it will achieve the campy cult status of its predecessor. Basically a competently crafted, semi-mindless, pre-summer mini-blockbuster. But I won't be looking for it on TCM in 10 years.

The plot was thin enough to easily follow and it felt like 1/3 or more of the movie was reminiscing - which was ok by me. Fun to look and remember back. It was interesting to see Tom have to take the role of the mature leader rather than the cocky, brash kid of the '86 version, and I thought the did ok.

It's got a mild love interest and some mild drama and a few mild bad guys, and really, really, fast jets. So that's what you'll be paying for.

Tom Cruise does want your money and your love though. And he cares about his craft. My showing had a 30 second video intro where he welcomes the audience back to the movies, thanks all the people required to make the movie, and hopes you enjoy the show.

It was a little odd, but since I had already paid for the ticket I guess he could have done nothing at all and just started with the opening credits if he wanted to. But make no mistake. It's his movie, he carries it, and everyone else is background noise.

So if you don't expect too much and just let the warm jet exhausts wash over you, you'll probably have a pretty good time for a couple of hours.

+++++++++++++++++++ Real Life Spoiler Section +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sadly for the moviemakers, and despite the movie claim, Top Gun, ie. Fightertown USA, is no longer located at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. It moved to Fallon, Nevada in 1996. So, they were faced with filming everything in the middle of the desert outside of Reno, Nevada, or fudging a bit with the truth. They fudged.

That means the beach scenes, the sailing scenes, and pretty much all of the water scenes are far, far away from the movie action. And so all the wet stuff was mostly filmed at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, Ca and up in San Francisco. There's nothing at Miramar now but naval helicopters.

As to the action scenes and pilots, although it adds a lot of drama to have them sweating and looking around nervously and mildly freaking out almost to the point of distraction, I'm pretty sure our real pilots are much more professional and cut more in the "Ice" mold. I certainly hope so.

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Yes, they did mention that, and that is where some carriers are based.

They move them around a tiny bit, but in general 5-6 are at Norfolk, 2-3 in San Diego, 2 in Washington State, and 1 in Japan.

Right now there are 11 I think, with 3 under construction to replace the three oldest.

But North Island is primarily just a staging and support base. No combat training or bomb dropping really occurs there. When the carriers come back from deployment the planes always fly into N.I. first, and the carriers then come into port empty. And vice versa when they leave. I don't know why that is. But that's where the planes are refitted, repaired, etc.

So in the movie when Cruise is told to "report to North Island", in real life he would probably be sent there for air-sea rescue training, aerial-refueling training, weapons storage, maintenance, etc. All the boring background shid to keep the guys in Fallon burning the afterburners.

When it comes to regular dropping bombs and not Top Gun Dogfighting, that mostly also occurs in the desert at China Lake on the CA/NV border, or out on the mostly unoccupied San Clemente Island off the Ca coast.

Top Gun Maverick Report

Re: Top Gun Maverick Report

Funny, saw it last night too. (semi spoilers too)

agree 100%. I really enjoyed it...

Obed, that was my feelings as well

^^^ this is the beauty of the movie...

Also, technical clarification....

Yes***

Re: Also, technical clarification....

It was all a dream

Lol, and in perfect Gen-Z fashion,

This is what happens when people who watched LOST

I loved it. It was the most 80s-esque movie I've ever seen.

APM loved it. And Cruise’s comments at the beginning got da feels going.

Re: APM loved it. And Cruise’s comments at the beginning got da feels going.

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