Top Gun 2 Maverick - Official Trailer

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Just saw this was released. Looks ok, hopefully it won’t be a full let down from the original.

 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

One thing for certain, Tom Cruise is ageless, and so are the aircraft celebrated in these movies.  I live near Luke AFB, my high school girlfriend's husband was a top gun pilot there, my colleague, a good friend even more than 12 years after we quit working together, is also an Air Force alumni as was my brother David, who passed on but got an early honorable discharge because the air force could not fit him in the electronics program they promised him when they recruited him.  Still when he passed on we were allowed a full military funeral for him with honor guard in Reno.  Living near Luke, where I have seen both the F22 and the F35 (which replaced the F16 as its main aircraft for training), it was always fun.  I used to live closer and in my 40's I'd fly a kite with 500 feet of line, well below pattern altitude but with an eight foot wingspan, visible to the F16's that would overfly our community park in Waddell, 5 miles NW of Luke.  When I flew the kite, the pilots, usually in groups of two to four in the pattern as they were flying downwind into Luke, would waggle their wings as they flew right over our park and my kite.  Quite an honor, to say the least.  I tried to attend Luke Airshows but at the time, there were only surface streets which became so clogged, I could not get to parking so I could be on base.  But I would go to the western end of Luke's boundary, and I got great views of the Thunderbirds and other air show performers.  It was quite startling once when they dropped a bomb in one air show demo while I was stuck in traffic, I thought an aircraft had crashed, their was a huge black mushroom cloud with flames visible underneath, but it was just part of the show.

I believe in 2020 Luke will have another airshow, traffic will be greatly improved because now there is the Northern limited access Parkway which allows easier access to Litchfield road and Dysart, the two main four lane roads towards parking there.

I hope the movie is released in IMAX 3D, that would be a treat if done well and realistically.  I did not like some of the scenes in the first movie, first the Mig's were not Mig's, and some of the CGI was quite obvious, as well as errors with locations.  But LOL, same was true with Independence Day, where the Marine Base used in that film was nowhere near Nevada or Area 51 and the dogfight could not have covered that much ground, in so short a time.  Hollywood takes so many dramatic licenses and aviation buffs can spot the area.  My friend from Paramount who I knew well in the late 80's wrote Beverly Hills Cop 2, the Presidio, and the Hunt For Red October.  His name is Larry Ferguson.  He invited me to Paramount, and I accepted his invitation on my birthday.  Rock Star John Cougar Mellencamp was part of my private tour, which had only seven or so of us.

Larry took great attention to make sure his movies were as realistic as possible, and I was on the set of Hunt for Red October while they were filming some scenes of the sub, but I could not see the actors because they were enclosed in a full moving, sub simulator high above the indoor filming set on gimbals.  I also got to walk on the deck of Star Trek, Next Generation's Enterprise, sit in the Captain's chair and at the first officer's and helmsman spot, and see the place where they'd beam in and out, and I learned some of the tricks they used to fool us--for instance the Stars off the deck and ready room were actually just sparkles added to black curtains.  Sadly, the Enterprise set, lol, was not on gimbals.

Larry invited me to Paramount because he was a guest from my resort, and he lost a teddy bear he always writes into his screenplays while he was there--he and his wife were heartbroken, but as manager on duty I had the discretion of pulling about 10 employees off of their usual property rounds, since our resort was stretched out over more than a mile end to end.  This was in '89 while he was filming the Hunt For Red October.  I told him I could not promise we could find it, but he gave me the clue we needed--he had left the Teddy Bear on his bed and he felt the housekeepers unintentionally swept it up with the laundry when they went to change the sheets which they did daily.  I asked him where he was going to dinner and was relieved because I knew the host and owner at his restaurant.  Our housekeepers would go to our remote lodges, which had three to four rooms, grab the laundry, and transfer it down the property for the morning laundry the next day to one of three holding areas given the 15 or so lodges we had.  Our security guard was the hero, he found the Teddy Bear, named Blanche, in one of the holding areas.  I called Larry and his wife, and the overjoyed actor/director/screenwriter invited me on the spot to Paramount on a day of my choice.  He then told my big boss what I had organized, and I got an immediate raise as a result although I was already intending to leave the job for my first real career role, because one of our other guests was an IT business systems instructor and had seen me teaching my employees, and invited me to become the same if I decided to leave my role in the resort.  He actually gave me two jobs, because when I left his first offering to manage Harrah's Tahoe accounting staff, my very next job, because I wanted to finish my career as a teacher, was with his new firm in Maryland, just outside of Washington DC.  Serendipity, and my Hunt For Red October story, which won our hotel a commendation in Traveler Magazine, also led me to my wife.

Sadly when I was at Paramount, the last thing I did was stand behind the camera's while they filmed "Entertainment Tonight" and their tribute to Gilda Radner the comedian, who had passed on May 20th 89, the day before my birthday tour of Paramount.  I felt like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill as he visited Julia Robert's set in England, but alas I had no girl to pine for at that time, lol.  I was given free reign to wander Paramount, which had those gates that wannabee actors were famous for crashing, here I had driven up in a rented Toyota Tercel from LAX which drew suspicious looks from the security guard who was gobsmacked when he actually saw my name on the invitation list and Larry's name by it.  I ate in their cafeteria recognizing many actors from their TV series and some movies filming but left them alone, since they looked at me, a stranger, a bit oddly.  I also went to see Larry in his Office and I recognized the office area as an area where they filmed scenes from the movie "The Presidio", it even looked like military housing and he was apologetic his office was not bigger.  He invited me to Arsenio but it would have meant a wait and wandering for hours, so I dissed Arsenio to his amusement and told him I was going to Disneyland.

Just after the Movie's release Larry called me at home, asking if I had seen it but I told him I could not make it since I was traveling at that time for my first IT job, he laughed when I told him I had to wait for it on VHS.  He played a trick on me.  I was given a thank you card signed with his Teddy Bear's paw prints in '89 with these words "Thank you for saving me from a watery doom -- Blanche".  The card is buried somewhere in my ex wife's house since she holds on to my personal belongings for me, since she knows my apartment is not big enough for what is mostly my library, model car and aircraft collection, old but still working computers and computer equipment, and my photo negatives from my business and personal trips back when 35mm was still used.

At the end of Hunt For Red October, Larry's surprise for me was Blanche, who was filling in for a male Teddy Bear Alec Baldwin wanted to buy his daughter when he was flying to DC at the beginning of the movie.  Like me, he could not usually sleep on aircraft but it was just because he was afraid of flying--I could not sleep when I fly because the flight attendants would always wake me.  At the end of the movie he is shown fast asleep, after saving the world from Nuclear Disaster, fast asleep next to Blanche.  If we at my resort, Meadowood Napa Valley, had not found Blanche in 89, just think, the ending of the movie would be different!

Sorry, did not mean to hijack the thread, but Hunt For Red October to me relates to Top Gun, since my Dad before he passed helped build our nuclear carrier and sub program and is memorialized by the US government and Navy for his civilian service in the Navy and Army service working with Eisenhower and his staff in the Korean War.

Here is a link about Larry, who I have not heard from since 1990 since I lost his number and I had moved, so he lost mine.  Not much of a bio on him but there are other places where we can read about screenwriters for Hollywood and not to leave out, Bollywood and the Canadian and British film industry.

Wake up, Avsim members, if I have lulled you to sleep.

And I will see Top Gun II even if the reviews are awful....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ferguson_(screenwriter)

John

[newtie 533]

I remember quite some time ago Cruise agreeing to a script, any script, and he would sign on.

Looks like everything worked out.

Edited July 19, 2019 by newtie
sp

[John_Cillis 2,406]

48 minutes ago, newtie said:

I remember quite some time ago Cruise agreeing to a script, any script, and he would sign on.....

I liked of all his movies so far, "The Last Samurai" which I thought caught the culture and traditions of Japan even better than the miniseries I saw in 1980, Shogun (although at the time it was a good series and I even used a bit of the Japanese I learned from it when I visited Japan on my way to and from Guam in '92).  I also liked him greatly in "A Few Good Men" although the ending was given away shortly before the end of the movie, when he was with his boss and assistant in his home mapping out his strategy for Jack Nicholson's character's interrogation in the court room.  But the movie was true--"Code Reds" were common in all branches of our service and are still used today, though not to a fatal extent.  Finally I liked his father's character in "War of the Worlds", which I felt described what any father would do in time of civilian conflict during war--protecting his children or letting them fight if they could and defending them even if he had to hurt someone in the process--a matter of what was good for the greatest number where family is concerned.

My brother and close friends told me about their experiences in basic in the Army and Air Force, although my brother who went in the Air Force said their basic is indeed a bit more laid back than Army or the Marines or Navy.  I wanted in spite of that to go into the Air Force or Army ROTC or academy to fly transport aircraft, but my vision prohibited me from joining the service in any role, because of partial blindness in my left eye and the risks inherent in service. 

I could have applied for a waiver, but I did not have the right connections back then, my father did not know John McCain at that time, who would have helped me with a waiver once he knew our family, but by that time I had chosen a civilian career and decided to move forward with it, given the economy and my ability to land jobs in our days of hyperinflation and recession at the end of the 70's and until Reagan got it under control using the Fed's help.  I also survived the "Great Recession" that started in 2007 and I had continuous employment from 93 until 2012, then I had intermittent employment as an IT project specialist until disability caused me to quit working at age 53 in 2015.

John

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

2 hours ago, newtie said:

I remember quite some time ago Cruise agreeing to a script, any script, and he would sign on.

Looks like everything worked out.

I was surprised to see an official trailer this early. I didn’t know they had already filmed so much.

[Chock 17,769]

 

I hope it's better than the original, which frankly, was an unintentionally comedic homo-erotic embarrassment, but then again, that is probably the funniest reason to watch it:

 

 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Chock

[Holdit 551]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

 

I hope it's better than the original, which frankly, was an unintentionally comedic homo-erotic embarrassment, but then again, that is probably the funniest reason to watch it:

 

 

That Top Gun Honest Trailer is one of the funniest in the series. Tom Skerritt = discount Burt Reynolds. Brilliant.

 

[IAhawkeyeDDS 158]

From the trailer...

Cruise having conflict with commanding officer

1. Cruise on a motorcycle next to a jet taking off
2. Shirtless pilots playing against each other in a sport
3. Looks like Cruise was pushing the jet past certain limits..
4. Same intro music (which is cool)
5. Piano scene
6. Pilots singing scene
7. Weird young Goose look alike.
8. Pilot competition

I'm hoping for a new plot line but I’m seeing too much retreading of the original movie

[charliearon 3,017]

19 minutes ago, IAhawkeyeDDS said:

From the trailer...

Cruise having conflict with commanding officer

1. Cruise on a motorcycle next to a jet taking off
2. Shirtless pilots playing against each other in a sport
3. Looks like Cruise was pushing the jet past certain limits..
4. Same intro music (which is cool)
5. Piano scene
6. Pilots singing scene
7. Weird young Goose look alike.
8. Pilot competition

I'm hoping for a new plot line but I’m seeing too much retreading of the original movie

Don't forget to include Kelly McGillis as the "love" interest!

 

[IAhawkeyeDDS 158]

15 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Don't forget to include Kelly McGillis as the "love" interest!

 

[overspeed3 410]

Kelly's five years older than Tom - but she can still do her own stunts as well !

 

 

[Patco Lch 1,464]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

Don't forget to include Kelly McGillis as the "love" interest!

 

My word, is that her?

[odourboy 1,288]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

Don't forget to include Kelly McGillis as the "love" interest!

 

You just had to post that didn't you!?

[charliearon 3,017]

4 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

My word, is that her?

Yup!  Some of us folks don't age well at all!

[jon b 2,041]

3 hours ago, charliearon said:

Don't forget to include Kelly McGillis as the "love" interest!

 

TAKE MY BREATH AWAY !