For anyone else, sure. But this is MAVERICK we’re talking about here. 
It’s interesting that Cruise says there is no CGI in the flying scenes, Because even though Cruise is a pilot (and a good one, by all accounts), I don’t see him getting rated in an F-18. He did do all the helicopter flying in the last Mission Impossible, including some crazy canyon flying, and he is jet rated and flies a P-51 Mustang as well, but flying an F-18 as a civilian for a movie is problematic.
My guess is that the cockpit footage showing Cruise Flying is him in a 2-seat trainer version, and the exterior shots showing a single cockpit are not with Cruise in the cockpit. If CGI was in play, I would have assumed that they simply deepfaked his face onto another pilot’s body for the sequences that show him flying.
But maybe I’ll be surprised. Cruise is a maniac when it comes to doing his own stunts and his own flying. I’m sure he would have tried like crazy to get qualified in an F-18 and be allowed to fly one.
Given that he’s seen in a pressure suit, my guess as to the plot is that he volunteers to fly some sort of highly dangerous yet important recon over China or North Korea or something. Probably a U2, but perhaps also an SR-71 or some secret high altitude plane.
Shhhhhhh, it’s just a movie!
I have the same issue with movies where 65 year old actors are playing beat cops. C’mon, they would be retired!
Maverick was promoted to Admiral 2 or 3 times but kept getting busted down for doing unauthorized tower fly-bys.
(That and when he pushed the ship’s chaplain aside during evening prayer and used the 1MC trying to convert the crew to Scientology)
“You want subversion on a massive level.” Quentin Tarantino as Sid in Sleep with Me (1994)
Nah, they’re just two days from retirement
And they just bought a boat!
A new trailer has been released. More cheesy synths, more zooming!
hell i could never land the dammed thing …
I assume the character at 0:48 is Goose’s son, played by Miles Teller. I wonder if they used CGI, because he looks a lot more like Anthony Edwards than Miles Teller.
The shot where he flew between the cadets made me sit up in my chair.
Seems obvious the funeral scene is for Ice Man. Maybe a little too obvious.
Since he’s a new pilot, he’s probably supposed to be around 25. In the Navy you can be no older than 26 when you enter flight training. So I’m guessing they’ve knocked maybe 10 years off the timeline. Cruise can easily pass for 46 instead of 56, and that would make his Navy career fit his movie age a little better.
In the Navy, it’s a ship!
[/navypedant]
I thought the whole point of the first movie was that guys who were already serving as naval aviators — guys who’d already made their way up to section leader while showing that they’re, like, in the top one percent of military officers who’ve been ably landing planes on aircraft carriers — get tapped to go to Top Gun so they can further train up their existing skills with some best-of-the-best dogfighting.
It wasn’t clear they were at Top Gun at this point. It looked more lije a new bunch showing up for carrier duty. But maybe not. Still, in real time it’s been 33 years, and Goose’s kid was maybe 3 or 4 in the first movie. So if the movie tracked the real time gap, Goose’s kid would be maybe 36 or 37. That seems a little old to be going to Top Gun, but maybe not.
Miles Teller, the actor who plays Goose’s son, was born a year after Top Gun debuted, and is 32 now. So he’s approximately the right age, but judging by the other pilots in his class I think we’re supposed to assume they are younger. But maybe I’m just getting older and 30-somethings look young now…
Oh, I checked the trailer, and that is indeed Tom Cruise’s personal P-51 Mustang they are using in the movie. I’m going to guess that Maverick was flying air races in his spare time, and we’ll see so e footage of Cruise flying that P-51. It makes sense, since he knows the aircraft well. But I wonder if they will change the name, as Cruise’s P-51 is called ‘Kiss Me Kate’, for Katie Holmes…