# "You can ride my tail any time!" It's Top Gun 2: Maverick **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280 "2019-07-19T00:02:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/1 "2019-07-19T00:02:29Z")
The [first trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSqVVswa420) has been released for the sequel to _Top Gun_ (1986), entitled _Top Gun: Maverick_. Looks like the Navy might have reduced the hourly rates they charge for use of their aircraft. Not much indications of what the plot might be yet, but the few clues we’re given make it look a lot like the the previous movie, with a much older Tom Cruise. “Iceman”/Val Kilmer’s in it, although I didn’t notice him in the trailer, as are Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm and Ed Harris. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/2 "2019-07-19T00:06:33Z")
Saw that trailer earlier today. If I had heard that _Topper Gun_ was being made, I forgot about it. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/3 "2019-07-19T00:45:35Z")
Cool. Top Gun is one of my shameful faves. As is [Sky Fighters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Fighters) - another movie that’s dumb as shit but the flying and dogfighting scenes are just out of this world. No CGI whatsoever either. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/4 "2019-07-19T01:14:06Z")
Good to see they are keeping the homoerotic undertones of the original. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/5 "2019-07-19T01:21:11Z")
I presume that Cruise is an instructor now, and they’ll have some new hot young thing to be the pilot who doesn’t play by the rules. > [@](#): > > Looks like the Navy might have reduced the hourly rates they charge for use of their aircraft. I’m not sure you can assume that any particular scene has real aircraft in it. Except maybe for a scene of a pilot climbing the ladder into the cockpit, it’s probably cheaper now to do that all in computer graphics, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/6 "2019-07-19T01:22:20Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Good to see they are keeping the homoerotic undertones of the original. Tarantino on Top Gun [Tarantino on Top Gun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7IgwDqJhno) ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/7 "2019-07-19T02:03:36Z")
I think it would be pretty cool if, in this movie, it turned out that one of the original pilots was gay, probably either “Iceman” or his wingman “Slider”. ---
**Author:** ![txtumbleweed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/278dde/32.png) [@txtumbleweed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txtumbleweed)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/8 "2019-07-19T02:34:24Z")
First thoughts: Looks a lot better than Emmerich’s Midway, the inflight cinematography looks absolutely gorgeous! Music is a great call back to the original. Only negative… F-18’s will never be as cool as the old swingwing Tomcats. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t turn down a ride in a Hornet, they are pretty little airplanes, but the Tomcat, well, I’ll let a better write than I describe it: > [@](#): > > Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/9 "2019-07-19T02:53:15Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > I think it would be pretty cool if, in this movie, it turned out that one of the original pilots was gay, probably either “Iceman” or his wingman “Slider”. They were all gay - in the movie and in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/10 "2019-07-19T04:28:23Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > They were all gay - in the movie and in real life. Yup. My take away from the trailer was what great shape Cruise has kept himself in, compared to what Kilmer and even Meg Ryan look like today. Looked up and am glad to see Michael Ironside and Tom Skerritt are still alive. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/11 "2019-07-19T06:43:13Z")
erm didnt the “top gun” academy close down in the 90s ? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/12 "2019-07-19T11:46:03Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > erm didnt the “top gun” academy close down in the 90s ? It is still around, it was moved to Nevada from San Diego > **[United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Strike_Fighter_Tactics_Instructor_program)** > > The United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (SFTI program), more popularly known as Top Gun (stylized as TOPGUN), is a United States Navy training program that teaches air combat maneuvering tactics and techniques to selected naval aviators and naval flight officers, who return to their operating units as surrogate instructors. > The program began as the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, established on 3 March 1969, at the former Naval Air Station Miramar in San Die... ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/13 "2019-07-19T11:48:33Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > Looks like the Navy might have reduced the hourly rates they charge for use of their aircraft. Not likely; there’s plenty of CGI apparent in the trailer, which was inevitable, but is disappointing. CGI is getting really good these days, but there are still a lot of details that get left out, and some that just seem wrong. Special effects were necessary even in the first movie for a few scenes (most notably the impossible canopy-to-canopy scene), but the vast majority of the flight sequences featured actual aircraft. Tom Cruise’s demeanor/acting in the trailer is notably different from the original movie. Not sure whether he’s deliberately portraying an aged fighter pilot, or if it’s just that he himself has matured as an actor. He seems a lot closer to his Jack Reacher character than to the original Maverick character. ---
**Author:** ![LaughingSnowman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/laughingsnowman/32/422_2.png) [@LaughingSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaughingSnowman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/14 "2019-07-19T12:55:36Z")
Gotta keep this one away from the girlfriend she may climax. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/15 "2019-07-19T13:03:43Z")
If the CGI is detectable, that’s disappointing. They don’t lack the capability to get those details right; if there are details missing, it’s because they didn’t know to include them. Which means that they skimped on the technical consultants. ---
**Author:** ![Stuntman\_Mike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stuntman_mike/32/334_2.png) [@Stuntman\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuntman_Mike)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/16 "2019-07-19T13:30:28Z")
I don’t get the adoration for Top Gun. …at all. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/17 "2019-07-19T13:39:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If the CGI is detectable, that’s disappointing. They don’t lack the capability to get those details right; if there are details missing, it’s because they didn’t know to include them. Which means that they skimped on the technical consultants. I think that (skimping on technical consultants) has almost always been a problem; for example, many movies feature aircraft with ridiculous thrust-to-weight ratios and otherworldly maneuverability. But another part is about using CGI for footage that you would never attempt to produce IRL because it would be too hazardous, in which case you think “that’s gotta be CGI because they would never try to get that footage IRL.” See e.g in the trailer at 0:38; there’s no way they’re going to hover a camera drone and then fly a real aircraft within a few feet of it at a closure rate of several hundred knots. The scene at 1:42 (three aircraft hustling upriver at treetop level) is questionable, too. They are exhibiting [vapor cones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_cone) indicative of transonic speed, but they don’t appear to be moving that fast. Not only that, but there’s snow and ice all around, so it’s a pretty cold day; there shouldn’t be enough moisture in the air to make the super-dense vapor cones that are visible in this sequence. In some cases you can have all the right parts and pieces and movements, but _something_ just doesn’t seem right, and it’s really difficult for anyone to say exactly what the problem is. See e.g. in the trailer at 1:00, when the engines are coming up to afterburner and the flight control surfaces are all being checked for movement. Contrast this with the matching sequence in the early moments of the original movie (see [here](https://youtu.be/bNxvXj9nff4?t=147)), and you can see what I mean. I can’t articulate the differences, but I’d bet money that that scene in the new trailer is CGI. Gladwell’s book [Blink](https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669) covers this sort of thing, explaining why people can quickly make assessments like this, even when they can’t explain why. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/18 "2019-07-19T13:41:37Z")
> [@Stuntman\_Mike](#): > > I don’t get the adoration for Top Gun. > > …at all. Do you not like planes at all? Or do you like planes, but just not Top Gun? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/19 "2019-07-19T13:55:24Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I think that (skimping on technical consultants) has almost always been a problem; for example, many movies feature aircraft with ridiculous thrust-to-weight ratios and otherworldly maneuverability. But another part is about using CGI for footage that you would never attempt to produce IRL because it would be too hazardous, in which case you think “that’s gotta be CGI because they would never try to get that footage IRL.” See e.g in the trailer at 0:38; there’s no way they’re going to hover a camera drone and then fly a real aircraft within a few feet of it at a closure rate of several hundred knots. > > The scene at 1:42 (three aircraft hustling upriver at treetop level) is questionable, too. They are exhibiting [vapor cones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_cone) indicative of transonic speed, but they don’t appear to be moving that fast. Not only that, but there’s snow and ice all around, so it’s a pretty cold day; there shouldn’t be enough moisture in the air to make the super-dense vapor cones that are visible in this sequence. > > In some cases you can have all the right parts and pieces and movements, but _something_ just doesn’t seem right, and it’s really difficult for anyone to say exactly what the problem is. See e.g. in the trailer at 1:00, when the engines are coming up to afterburner and the flight control surfaces are all being checked for movement. Contrast this with the matching sequence in the early moments of the original movie (see [here](https://youtu.be/bNxvXj9nff4?t=147)), and you can see what I mean. I can’t articulate the differences, but I’d bet money that that scene in the new trailer is CGI. > > Gladwell’s book [Blink](https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669) covers this sort of thing, explaining why people can quickly make assessments like this, even when they can’t explain why. Despite using real planes for the flight sequences in the original, I never thought the aerial combat scenes were very good. The planes that were supposed to be fighting each other were way too close together. I always assumed that they did that for cinematography reasons; two planes in a shot, trying to maneuver relative to each other, is more exciting than one plane on its own. From what I’ve read about air combat, though, the planes never get that close to each other, even when using their guns rather than missiles. There was also a scene, I think it was Maverick’s first dogfight at the school, where they’re (Maverick and the adversary/instructor) flying around the rock outcroppings out in the desert. Then everybody goes way up high, then back down, and Maverick gets dressed down for violating the minimum altitude. As a wise dog once said, it just don’t add up. > [@txtumbleweed](#): > > Only negative… F-18’s will never be as cool as the old swingwing Tomcats. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t turn down a ride in a Hornet, they are pretty little airplanes, but the Tomcat, well, I’ll let a better write than I describe it: > 🙂 There is a brief shot of an F-14 at the end of the trailer. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280/20 "2019-07-19T14:19:56Z")
Does this mean there will be a Hot Shots Trois?! That officially makes fun of all this nostalgia porn? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-can-ride-my-tail-any-time-its-top-gun-2-maverick/837280.md?page=2)