I saw the movie Top Gun Maverick today. My review

Just flew YVR-LHR-JNB (and back) and watched this movie two more times lol.

One question for Astro - Bob is wearing glasses in the movie. Is that normal and is there any fear of wearing them while pulling hard G's? He was wearing them for the shots in the real planes but I really have no idea if that is actually a normal thing?
Not Astro here, but wearing glasses while flying fighters is common, and there is no problem pulling Gs in them. Pressure and friction from the helmet keeps them firmly in place.
As a WSO, uncorrected eyesight kept me out of pilot training. Corrected I was 20-15 in one eye and 20-12.5 in the other. I flew with pilots that could beat that without glasses, others I could outspot.
 
You mean two people don't normally eject from a plane, land without a scratch and then just manage to run over to a nearby airfield and steal a plane without hundreds of people on the ground looking for them?
You are correct, two don't, but if you Google Bruce Carr, you will get the story of a WWII P-51D pilot that was shot down and subsequently was able to steal a FW-190 to fly back to his home field. If it wasn't so well documented, I'd have a hard time believing it.
 
And find a plane that is 45 years old that one of them knows how to fly and everything works too!
I am a big fan of the F-14 seeing as how they were built on Long Island where I've lived for over 40 years. Assembled at the Grumman Calverton facility in Calverton Long Island. I saw one cruising at altitude when it went to full afterburner....it was there....then it was GONE.....
F-14....a thing of beauty forever....
F 14 Jolly Rodgers.jpg

The F-105 Thunderchief was also built here....they looked fast even sitting still.... on the assembly line at Republic Aviation, Farmingdale Long Island....
F 105s being built in Farmingdale.jpg


The line up at Republic Aviation Corp circa 1957 or so.....
Famingdale Republic 1950s.jpg

And the last plane they designed and built....still flying....still a legend....the A-10 Thunderbolt II, with its grand dad...The P-47
Thunderbolts then and now.jpg
 
LouC,

If you get a chance read the book: Thud Ridge

The biggest mistake was not funding a Super Tomcat with upgraded everything.
 
I know this is an older comment, but...

This movie is absolutely loaded with CGI, as much as Cruise would like to have viewers believing otherwise. You're aware of that, right?
Right...the internal and flight scenes with the F/A-18s were mostly real...mostly. But the mountain scenery, F-14, SU-57 and Tomahawk cruise missiles...CGI...and of course, the Mach 10 hyper-sonic plane...
 
Right. Even using just the F-14 as an example...

Obviously none of the flying scenes are real as we don't have any airworthy F-14s anymore and we weren't asking Iran for one of theirs. The filmmakers borrowed one from a museum for the scenes on the ground. It had no engines in it so the startup sequence was all CGI. It couldn't move under its own power so it was towed out of the hangar and that's as far is it went. Out in the 'daylight' you could see how much the thing was washed through a computer to change its appearance, so much to the point that it didn't even look real anymore. The CGI artists removed almost all if its details and character so it looked like a plywood mock-up. The cockpit interior views were real F-14, but assuredly cleaned up/altered with CGI (like the gun round counter). Any scenes of it in flight (and the Su-57s also since we obviously don't have access to those) were other planes that were re-skinned digitally. The canyon combat was all CGI, and some of the best AND worst shots are from that scene. Any shots of them in the F-14 cockpit were of the actors in back seats of F/A-18Fs or similar and their surroundings altered, and any over-the-shoulder views of a back-seater were all CGI. Cruise launching off a catapult in an F/A-18E was 'real', but he was in the backseat of an F model and his position in the plane was fixed digitally. And the list goes on. Probably the only scene with 'unaltered' actual flying aircraft was the end with the P-51, and even that was probably retouched digitally in some way for various reasons.

Was it a fun ride of a movie? Yes! Was it convincing, done in a way no one's ever done before? Yes! But for Cruise and the producers to downplay or deny just how much computer work went into it is pretty dumb, bordering on insulting.

Creating CGI scenes, sometimes entire CGI movies nowadays is so (relatively) easy with the software tools and digital artists that are available now. What a talented digital artist can do with a computer to alter what you see onscreen is absolutely bonkers and you would be 100% convinced it's real. Problem is, like tattoo artists, there are amazing ones and there are crap ones and it's hard to fathom how or why some of the digitally created or altered scenes passed screenings and made it into final film. Henry Cavill's hilariously bad moustache removal in that Justice League movie is a perfect example. De-aged Mark Hamill in that episode of The Mandalorian was also amateurish.

Sorry for the word fort. I just kinda got rolling... lol
 
Nobody asked me, but.....if the leading actor was anybody other than Tom Cruise, I would have been the first in line to go see it. Tom Cruise is major diarrhea.
 
I’m the odd one out and I accept that. To me this movie was a frustrating downer for the first half and a mind bending unrealistic in the worst way beyond imaginable in the second half but at least in the second half I could stay awake.
Then again, Felix the Cat when I was a kid was just as realistic as this mega multimillion dollar production. I guess Tom Cruise can do no wrong for the masses.

(I too born and raised near where the F14 was designed and built by Grumman in Bethpage NY) also the lunar module … Long Islands best days, long gone and I skipped town 🙃
 
Yep I recall coming out to Long Island from our home in Brooklyn because my parents friends lived here (circa 1960 or so) and as a kid I was amazed that all the houses were brand new (Hicksville/Levittown area), each town seemed to have its own pool, you could drive to Jones Beach in 15 min, and all the schools were new too. Long Island’s heyday was about 1950-1980. It’s still a nice place to live if you can afford it!
BTW there were approx 25,000 planes built here by Grumman & Republic during WWII alone. It was an amazing accomplishment.
 
Yep I recall coming out to Long Island from our home in Brooklyn because my parents friends lived here (circa 1960 or so) and as a kid I was amazed that all the houses were brand new (Hicksville/Levittown area), each town seemed to have its own pool, you could drive to Jones Beach in 15 min, and all the schools were new too. Long Island’s heyday was about 1950-1980. It’s still a nice place to live if you can afford it!
BTW there were approx 25,000 planes built here by Grumman & Republic during WWII alone. It was an amazing accomplishment.
Well said, I was there from very late 50s to 2006. The town of Wantagh/Jones Beach and Great South Bay was our playground.
Incredible memories and friends I would not have traded for anything including our WILD teen years that we all amazingly survived but life goes on felt it lost it’s character… congestion, corruption, roads, parks, TAXES .. only thing I regret is leaving behind some friends I knew almost since the day I was born.

I still can miss it at times but the move worked out very well for our now adult kids and I would never say that I regret getting out of there.
When you think about it, New York was the technology center and the financial center of the country, sometimes I want to warn people on the West Coast technology centers that things don’t last forever if the conditions are not right for business.
 
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Well said, I was there from very late 50s to 2006. The town of Wantagh/Jones Beach and Great South Bay was our playground.
Incredible memories and friends I would not have traded for anything including our WILD teen years that we all amazingly survived but life goes on felt it lost it’s character… congestion, corruption, roads, parks, TAXES .. only thing I regret is leaving behind some friends I knew almost since the day I was born.

I still can miss it at times but the move worked out very well for our now adult kids and I would never say that I regret getting out of there.
When you think about it, New York was the technology center and the financial center of the country, sometimes I want to warn people on the West Coast technology centers that things don’t last forever if the conditions are not right for business.
That's true, in Long Island it was really two factors, the winding down of the Cold War and all the development led to a lot of congestion, taxes, and the think that killed it for young people was the great ramp up in house prices. I recall when I moved here myself (I moved to LI in 1981 to attend graduate school at Hofstra University) one of my friends was thinking of buying a house near the university because they were sick of commuting from Brooklyn. They were looking at a house on California Avenue in Uniondale walking distance from the university. It was a little cape cod and the price was....$65,000. Now Uniondale even then wasn't the best neighborhood (I lived there my 1st 2 years, them moved to Levittown and Hicksville) but even so, that house is at least $$450,000 today. And so it goes....
Thinking back about Grumman, I think that even though the space program was great for them, in terms of an amazing accomplishment, by nature of goverment contracts, it was going to be limited. I actually thought that they might have been better off buying Republic Aviation, before Fairchild bought them in 1965. Republic had some very talented designers but was having trouble getting contracts. Grumman's better managment and political connections might have helped that and the combined company would have had the Navy and Air Force covered. It is ironic that Fairchild Republic's last plane, the A-10, is still flying! Even though some in the Air Force, didn't want that to be so.
 
I forgot about Republic! Yes, ok, it’s early and I’m a bit foggy but I think Republic was on Rt 110.
I still remember one of the steel gray buildings with sq. windows along the top of the sides facing Rt 110 I think. J know the buildings just nit sure if it was 110.

We really were the technology center at the time along with GE, Kodak and all the others in upstate NY.
Everyone knew someone who’s friends dad worked for Grumman, Republic, think I had an aunt who worked for GE.
 
This one will be on the shorter side.

The very short version: Go see it. There is a reason it is 95% audience and 98% critics review. It is a good movie.

A little more in depth: I would like to first thank Tom Cruise. Much like the Rocky 4 re-release November 2021 which I also saw.. it contained a personal Thank You message from Mr. Cruise, thanking the Navy and all of us. And wishing us to enjoy the film.*

And enjoy, I did. It is a very LIGHTWEIGHT MOVIE, but it is very good.**

Quick takes:

1. Jennifer Connely looks the same as she did in The Labyrinth. Amazing. And she drives a 70s or 80s Porsche. Kind of hot.***

2. Jon Hamm is the hardest part to swallow for me. If one person was mis-cast, I would say it is him. Something just seems a little off about the guy,**** But that is just me.

3. It seemed a little bit hokey and cheesy to me, at times,***** but overall.. the star of Rainman and Jerry Maguire has been kept in a cryogenic chamber, as he too looks exactly the same.. mostly.

As we all know, this movie, the scenes were filmed under G and it was overall really well done, it is a movie and not real life but. It's a great Father's Day film.

9.5 out of 10 for me. Theater was dead quiet, out of respect. If only every movie experience was so proper.******

Bravo. Bravo.
Thanks for a thorough review. I have not seen it. Not on list of to see yet I will eventually based on your thoughts. Its almost as if 1/2 TC films I am into and 1/2 am not? Cant explain why. Jack Reacher #1 was great. #2 for me was a sleeper....
* nice and respectful of him / lots of stars hate our country (the one they just happen to stay living in to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities)
** first one , also good but kind of weak in parts
*** any woman who pilots any sports car is HOT (y)
**** John Hamm - I'm with you. He is popular yet just as u say to me - "off" Liked his part in The Town. I can't stop thinking he is a better funny/comedy actor than serious? Seen him do a couple funny things that were LMAO. Serious seems forced with him.
***** lots of films, the more we think & talk about them , we can find some hokey / cheesy parts. LOL
****** Congrats on your great experience in the theatre. Not too often we find everyone in the seats glued to a film and respectful of each other!
 
Yep I recall coming out to Long Island from our home in Brooklyn because my parents friends lived here (circa 1960 or so) and as a kid I was amazed that all the houses were brand new (Hicksville/Levittown area), each town seemed to have its own pool, you could drive to Jones Beach in 15 min, and all the schools were new too. Long Island’s heyday was about 1950-1980. It’s still a nice place to live if you can afford it!
BTW there were approx 25,000 planes built here by Grumman & Republic during WWII alone. It was an amazing accomplishment.
Would not surprise me one bit to find out some one has made deals for China to start making our military equipment we may have to use vs them one day. Apparently nothing is controlled or protected with National security in mind anymore from all the news almost weekly about things coming from there with folks saying OOPs , maybe not a good idea.
 
I have watched this six times now. This is definitely a movie I will be able to watch a few times a year and never get bored of it.

*spoliers*

The scene where Mav steals the F-18 after being grounded and shows the mission can be completed in the time frame allotted is one of the coolest scenes I can remember watching in any movie. When he inverts and dives down to start the mission is indescribably awesome.

 
So here's another question for Astro @Astro14

I routinely notice not only in the movie, but also watching air show footage and what not in real life, that the burners are often lit during hard cornering and manoeuvring. Like the scene above the burners are lit before the plane dives, which seems crazy to me as a layperson (unless that is just edited that way since they change to cockpit view). This seems counter-intuitive in that typically you could turn sharper if you were travelling at a slower speed...?
 
I just watched this not to long ago. My job is managing the real life version of the black space suit/helmet he is wearing in the experimental spy plane at the beginning. My wife had to tell me to quit talking suit facts to her during that part.. I thought it was a pretty good movie, but I can say ejection at that speed (assuming he ejected with just the seat and not a capsule) would have not been survivable.. even in that fine suit. haha
 
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