Top Gun Maverick

[Coxy_99]

15 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

Darkstar was a SR-72 Concept Prototype Modified with a cockpit in the forward section, the wings, fuselage and dual Engine intakes/Nozzles are exact coopies of the general illustrations of the SR-72's planned engines.

They likely had a full scale mockup already built for wind tunnel testing and just modified it for film use.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

As for the Tomcat Sequences, Throwing away obvious Hollywood shortcomings:
-Left Crank and Right Crank and taxi in less than 2 minutes isn't possible, 1 Breaker wouldn't darken the entire rear cockpit, let alone restore it.
-The Constant dis-regard for forbidden maneuvers (Roll, Pitch Yaw and Throttle wise). 
-He didn't exactly "Land" on the carrier now did he?

 

They dont read the storyline. Arm chair pilots know best, You should know this by now.

[CybrSlydr]

Up until the mission at the end, this was a 9/10. But SO MANY mistakes and stupid choices absolutely ruined the end for me. It went from a 9/10 to a 1/10. I thoroughly disagree this is better than the original - because of the idiocy of the final mission. Flares for radar guided missiles?? No CAP flying around? Disobeying orders, stealing an F-14 that just happened to not be destroyed and then beating 5th gen fighters in a dogfight???

It broke credulity and ruined it for me.

[SkateZilla]

1 hour ago, CybrSlydr said:

Up until the mission at the end, this was a 9/10. But SO MANY mistakes and stupid choices absolutely ruined the end for me. It went from a 9/10 to a 1/10. I thoroughly disagree this is better than the original - because of the idiocy of the final mission. Flares for radar guided missiles?? No CAP flying around? Disobeying orders, stealing an F-14 that just happened to not be destroyed and then beating 5th gen fighters in a dogfight???

It broke credulity and ruined it for me.

Well,
2 Things: They said Deploying Countmeasures or Defending (Chaff & Flares) in the S2A SA10 Engagements Their Countermeasures mix is likely Set to 2:1.
Flares are Visible for Filming, and creates excitement, Chaff do not. Rooster said flares when he should have said countermeasures.

But it's hollywood, you should expect that going in.
 

[Exorcet]

58 minutes ago, SkateZilla said:

Flares are Visible for Filming, and creates excitement, Chaff do not.
 

Chaff isn't totally invisible, and they could have highlighted it with special effects if needed. Mistakes like this just cements the wrong ideas in people's minds and makes it easier for future movies to get it wrong and perpetuate the mistake. You can watch Top Gun as a fun movie and just take in the visuals for what they are and disregard that it's supposed to be about combat jets, but I'd really like to see a "study" level movie someday. I promise such a thing doesn't have to be boring.

[SkateZilla]

32 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

Chaff isn't totally invisible, and they could have highlighted it with special effects if needed. Mistakes like this just cements the wrong ideas in people's minds and makes it easier for future movies to get it wrong and perpetuate the mistake. You can watch Top Gun as a fun movie and just take in the visuals for what they are and disregard that it's supposed to be about combat jets, but I'd really like to see a "study" level movie someday. I promise such a thing doesn't have to be boring.

Behind Enemy Lines did the same thing.

[Despayre]

3 hours ago, Exorcet said:

... You can watch Top Gun as a fun movie and just take in the visuals for what they are and disregard that it's supposed to be about combat jets...

Aha, there's where you went wrong. Maverick is a film about human emotional growth and closure, and new relationships. The cool plane stuff is there so that guys will go see it too.

[Dangerzone]

I find different people's expectations and reactions very interesting. I went with low expectations (well - expectations I have for any modern Hollywood movie these days) and was pleasantly surprised. I liked how they took certain scenes down a notch too to allow younger audiences the ability to watch. I also love how they kept politics, ideologies and agenda's out of it and just made a good ol' fashioned interesting storyline. I went back and watched it again with my child after seeing how 'family friendly' the movie was. Very smart move, and very much appreciated! 

I also find it interesting how I can listen to real navy pilots comment on how much they enjoyed the movie and then hear enthusiasts virtual pilots complain about the reality. 95% or more of viewers wouldn't have flown a military sim, let alone a real aircraft - nor have any idea - and the movie is predominantly made for fictional enjoyment.

The amount of accuracy they actually did include was a bonus. I don't know - maybe that's a half glass full vs half glass empty mindset? 

The rest that's unrealistic - well, that's the movie industry. To expect any different I think is unrealistic.  I think it's true of any movie. As a lawyer about lawyer movies. Marksman about guns in movies. Doctor about medical stuff in movies. Police about police movies. People involved in the space program about space movies. The list goes on. The more you know about reality in a particular field - the more you see how far away even the good movies are from reality. The trick to enjoying a movie is to have low expectations on reality - appreciate it when there is some reality and enjoy a fictional work. 

To make a movie 100% realistic would probably turn off a lot of the viewers, in the same way making a military game 100% realistic would turn off almost all of it's target audience. "Yeah - I bought this realistic first person shooter. I've been sitting in this one spot with a sniper rifle for 6hrs - and seen nothing yet. I'm so glad I bought this 'realistic' game".  

Edited June 14, 2022 by Dangerzone

[Steel Jaw]

On 6/11/2022 at 2:45 PM, Coxy_99 said:

The hind scene would of made mince meat of him 

 

Grossly unrealistic...the OPFOR would do all they could to CAPTURE the downed pilot...worth his weight in gold alive.

[Exorcet]

21 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

To make a movie 100% realistic would probably turn off a lot of the viewers, in the same way making a military game 100% realistic would turn off almost all of it's target audience. "Yeah - I bought this realistic first person shooter. I've been sitting in this one spot with a sniper rifle for 6hrs - and seen nothing yet. I'm so glad I bought this 'realistic' game".  

Realism isn't boring though. Sure there have been snipers that sat around for days on end never firing a shot. There is also this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

Both are reality.

And a movie doesn't need to be 100% realistic. Even reaching 50% would change things significantly compared to the average movie.

I'm not trying to ruin anyone's fun, or say that unrealistic movies are all bad, I just feel like they're too common. The things Hollywood does to "add excitement" are in my opinion very often unnecessary or counter productive. I also heavily doubt that realism would be a turn off for the average person. If it was it would most likely be because they have incorrect expectations based on common fictional tropes.

[Rick50]

6 hours ago, Exorcet said:

Chaff isn't totally invisible, and they could have highlighted it with special effects if needed.

 

But then that would require dialogue exposition... the public doesn't understand what Fox3 means. They don't understand much about radars, and chaff is unknown to most.  Flares don't need that explanation because everyone knows about "heat seeking missiles" so dumping flares becomes self-explanatory.... and just looks super cool!!

Another point is that these days, one new trend in missiles is to give additional seekers, so that you have two methods of terminal guidance, so that one decoy type doesn't ditch your million dollar missile, so the radar guideds get thermal seekers too. This is all early days, and there are significant packaging concerns, but that's the future trend, thus, flares and chaff at the same time is just now starting to make more sense.

[Exorcet]

14 minutes ago, Rick50 said:

 

But then that would require dialogue exposition... the public doesn't understand what Fox3 means. They don't understand much about radars, and chaff is unknown to most.  Flares don't need that explanation because everyone knows about "heat seeking missiles" so dumping flares becomes self-explanatory.... and just looks super cool!!

Luckily Top Gun is centered on an air combat training program. That provides a pretty convenient way to introduce some of these concepts. Some may disagree but I think that the aerial "training montage" early on would have been more interesting if it wasn't just pilots repeatedly trying to Over g their planes or get around FBW and force departures by pulling on the flight stick with the force of an enraged gorilla. Also, there is plenty of hand holding in the movie as it is. When displaying the radar screen, the audience wasn't left to figure out for themselves what was being displayed. Someone explained it. It was explained why F-18's were selected to fly the mission (despite the explanation making no sense). The term 5th gen fighter was also thrown around a lot and I'm pretty sure people picked up it meant "scary tough to beat plane" without being given a direct definition. We don't need text book level information, just a line or two of explanation, which the movie already has throughout.

14 minutes ago, Rick50 said:

Another point is that these days, one new trend in missiles is to give additional seekers, so that you have two methods of terminal guidance, so that one decoy type doesn't ditch your million dollar missile, so the radar guideds get thermal seekers too. This is all early days, and there are significant packaging concerns, but that's the future trend, thus, flares and chaff at the same time is just now starting to make more sense.

Although none of the missiles in the movie were dual seeker. Semi related note but the SAM threat was kind of deflated a little by the choice of missile used in the movie. I'm curious as to why it was picked.

[SkateZilla]

If they made it 100% realistic, 95% of the flying scenes wouldnt exist, and the other 5% is the CGI.

[Despayre]

2 hours ago, Exorcet said:

... The things Hollywood does to "add excitement" are in my opinion very often unnecessary or counter productive. I also heavily doubt that realism would be a turn off for the average person. ...

I understand your point, but I just can't get myself all the way around to agreeing with it. This movie is one of the highest grossing movies ever, and you're suggesting that somehow the "Hollywood-ness" of it, is "counter productive"? I don't see that. I can also tell you that I went to the movie with someone that knows nothing about planes, and as non-technical as the movie was, he had dozens of questions about it later, realism would have made that so much more confusing.... not to mention the 8 minutes we'd all have sat there staring at the screen  doing nothing else while the Tomcat INS warmed up.... and then stumbled into the various potholes, before crashing into those poorly placed grain silos (or whatever they were supposed to be). 

More realism means that SU-57 hits him with IFF, followed by a Fox1 from about 50 miles out, which doesn't even trigger a launch warning, and Cruise & Co, fall down go boom. But instead we get, "His partner just moved into his weapons envelope...." uhm, what? The SU-57 has off-boresight helmet mounted missiles, it's weapons envelope is pretty much a complete globe around the aircraft, moving outwards for at least 50 miles, it has no reason at all to move in behind the Tomcat. However, based on that, for ppl that thought the movie was too long, realism would definitely solve that problem.... this mission is over in about 5 minutes.  

To be fair, I did like the realism that was in the movie, such as knowing that the Tomcat needed ground power and oxygen to start up, that's not common knowledge, and I thought that was one of several pretty cool realistic touches, so it's not that I just don't like "realism", but this is a Hollywood action movie not a documentary, both are good, but when's the last time you saw a documentary that made 3/4 of a billion dollars in the first 3 weeks of release?

 

$747,044,000.00USD worldwide gross so far says Hollywood might have got this one right, just the way it is. Complete with flaws and everything. (source: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2500036097/)

 

Sidenote, I also noticed in the movie that the code for the laser guidance was 1655, the same as the default code in DCS, which I assume coincides to something realistic cuz I can't assume that's a coincidence.

[NineLine]

I loved the movie... that is all.

[Exorcet]

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

I understand your point, but I just can't get myself all the way around to agreeing with it. This movie is one of the highest grossing movies ever, and you're suggesting that somehow the "Hollywood-ness" of it, is "counter productive"? I don't see that.

Well remember that we don't have a direct comparison. I said before that you can enjoy Top Gun for what it is. I don't regret seeing it, and I knew what the movie was going to be long before I bought the ticket. A fantasy movie can still work. That said I still stand by my opinion that reality can be more interesting than fiction. Maverick is supposed to a legendary pilot, but they don't really have any way to show that other than he always wins*. No one in Top Gun has any technique and it's really difficult to apply any kind of logic to what's going on in a dogfight. This could have easily been subverted by, say, showing the Top Gun graduates being more abrupt with controls while Maverick was much more smooth and precise. The movie would actually show you Maverick's skill instead of just declaring it because he always wins*.

*except when he doesn't

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

 

I can also tell you that I went to the movie with someone that knows nothing about planes, and as non-technical as the movie was, he had dozens of questions about it later, realism would have made that so much more confusing....

Would it really have? The movie being more realistic wouldn't necessarily require technical answers, just different answers.

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

 

 

not to mention the 8 minutes we'd all have sat there staring at the screen  doing nothing else while the Tomcat INS warmed up.... and then stumbled into the various potholes, before crashing into those poorly placed grain silos (or whatever they were supposed to be).

Yeah, I'd think that would be a natural question for anyone to ask whether or not they were familiar with aircraft. Who built a tower on a taxiway?

But getting back to realism for a moment, I don't know why people keep conflating boring with realism. They have nothing to do with each other. I think it's fair to say that everyone in the Top Gun movie slept at some point. Most people sleep for 8 or so hours. We never saw this in the movie because no one wanted to watch it and we don't have to see every moment of every character's life. Why would the movie show a full 10 minute INS alignment?

What realism means is that your movie respects the laws of physics basically, not that it's shot in real time from a 1st person perspective from one character.

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

 

 

 

More realism means that SU-57 hits him with IFF, followed by a Fox1 from about 50 miles out, which doesn't even trigger a launch warning, and Cruise & Co, fall down go boom.

Yes the movie would have a different plot.

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

 

But instead we get, "His partner just moved into his weapons envelope...." uhm, what? The SU-57 has off-boresight helmet mounted missiles, it's weapons envelope is pretty much a complete globe around the aircraft, moving outwards for at least 50 miles, it has no reason at all to move in behind the Tomcat. However, based on that, for ppl that thought the movie was too long, realism would definitely solve that problem.... this mission is over in about 5 minutes.  

We'd have a different plot, the one actually portrayed in the movie would no longer work. That for me is a good thing. The sequence of events depicted is not the only possible Top Gun movie you could make.

One thing I will say is that fitting a Tomcat into the movie becomes a bit more difficult, but at the same time I'm not sitting here demanding that the movie is 100% true to reality:

"And a movie doesn't need to be 100% realistic. Even reaching 50% would change things significantly compared to the average movie."

I'm just saying that planes are cool and they don't need to be Hollywoodified. I didn't really get anything out of pilots slamming their controls around like they had no idea how to fly, or planes doing backflips constantly. You can make a great movie without any of that, just like DCS shows you can make a great game without any of that.

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

To be fair, I did like the realism that was in the movie, such as knowing that the Tomcat needed ground power and oxygen to start up, that's not common knowledge, and I thought that was one of several pretty cool realistic touches, so it's not that I just don't like "realism", but this is a Hollywood action movie not a documentary, both are good, but when's the last time you saw a documentary that made 3/4 of a billion dollars in the first 3 weeks of release?

I'm not asking for a documentary though. I'd also doubt that anyone on this forum is anti realism. I'm not so much arguing with you as much as I'm taking this opportunity to write walls of text on my general opinion on movies.

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

 

$747,044,000.00USD worldwide gross so far says Hollywood might have got this one right, just the way it is. Complete with flaws and everything. (source: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2500036097/)

We might never know unfortunately. We only have one side of the coin here, because Hollywood is likely to keep making the same type of movie. Top Gun made a lot of money, that doesn't mean Top Gun slightly realistic edition would not have made as much, or more.

4 hours ago, Despayre said:

 

Sidenote, I also noticed in the movie that the code for the laser guidance was 1655, the same as the default code in DCS, which I assume coincides to something realistic cuz I can't assume that's a coincidence.

I thought it was 1688, which is DCS's code. I noticed that too, my thought was someone must have looked at DCS as source material at some point. I don't think that particular code means anything, but maybe someone else knows more.

[Despayre]

5 hours ago, Exorcet said:

 

I'm just saying that planes are cool...

We definitely agree on that part.

5 hours ago, Exorcet said:

I thought it was 1688, which is DCS's code. I noticed that too, my thought was someone must have looked at DCS as source material at some point. I don't think that particular code means anything, but maybe someone else knows more.

I decided to look into this further, and found a post that explains why codes are what they are, (btw, I was thinking 1688, "1655" was a mental typo ) More details on that, here:

 

[Dangerzone]

23 hours ago, Exorcet said:

And a movie doesn't need to be 100% realistic. Even reaching 50% would change things significantly compared to the average movie.

I'm not trying to ruin anyone's fun, or say that unrealistic movies are all bad, I just feel like they're too common. The things Hollywood does to "add excitement" are in my opinion very often unnecessary or counter productive. I also heavily doubt that realism would be a turn off for the average person. If it was it would most likely be because they have incorrect expectations based on common fictional tropes.

I get where you're coming from. And personally I would have liked to see a bit more realism in it as well. However - 50% realism would change things significantly for who? You and I yes - but definitely not all the audience members. Just the few % that actually have a greater understanding of aircraft. Investment vs return is what it's about.

As my wife says "the secret to a happy marriage is to lower your expectations". Ouch - what does that say about me?  But at the same time - realistic.

So - instead of being disappointed at the things they got wrong. I was excited about the things they got right. Wow - they got the laser control codes right. Strewth - there's the slew on the throttle. Wow - there's the same leaver I use in DCS to control the wing sweep in the F14. 1688!!!! Look at that... it's laser code 1688!!!! (Rest of audience - what the hell are you on about?!?)   Oh wow - that's a real stick and not a Logitech X56. 

Plus, I can tell you, the rest of my family didn't care about chaff, or stuff. It was adrenalin pumping sound, flashes, and music - and they found it very enjoyable. I appreciated the extra effort Hollywood went into to give me just those things in itself. 

Even in saying that I thought they did hit 50% realism Listening to that youtube video that posted showed me that there was more to it than I even realised. And in the end - while I as a DCS nerd would have liked to have had it a little more realistic as well, I realise when real fighter pilots look at it and go 'who cares about the rest of the unrealistic stuff- it was enjoyable, and I give it a 9/9.5/10 out of 10 - maybe it's OK for me to be OK with it too. 

I've learned to appreciate it when Hollywood actually put a bit of realism into a movie and accept they can only do so much. It's the glass half full/empty thing again I guess.

But for me - the absolute best part of the movie though which was unexpected is that they took the 30 year old approach of making an exciting movie. They kept all the newer agenda's, politics, ideologies, obvious marketing placements, etc out of it (at least from what I observed) and just made a solid movie reachable to a wider audience globally. 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Dangerzone

[VirusAM]

I loved the movie... that is all.

I loved it too...I am seeking company to go see it the forth time

[WRAITH]

 

[Gianky]

3 hours ago, VirusAM said:

I loved it too...I am seeking company to go see it the forth time

What part of Italy do you live in? 

[VirusAM]

6 minutes ago, Gianky said:

What part of Italy do you live in? 

Rome.... 

[Gianky]

Sorry, I'm near Pisa! I wouldn't have minded a fourth vision, but 250 km are a bit too many!

[OLD CROW]

I haven't watch the film yet. I'm too busy editing missions, recording gameplays and editing vids that I literally have no free time for Mavericks ;))))

[WRAITH]

I really think all those in the creation of the music video and song was fantastic as well.

Lady Gaga - Hold My Hand (From “Top Gun: Maverick”) [Official Music Video]

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by WRAITH

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

I was expecting a soft-reboot or remake of some kind, but it was a proper sequel. I loved it.