Top Gun: Maverick

"It's no more than a cool movie, an escape from reality." I'm reminded of Dylan once saying as a kid all he wanted was to die in a war for a noble cause. I remember the impact these war movies had on me as a kid, wanting to join the green berets, marines, etc. As was said above, 'Bombing is about frying other peoples kids and ripping thier arms legs and heads off.' I get it - we all know this. All this talk of great angles, great photography, great locations, etc. I mean - that's just a pay day for the best technicians in their field. You buy that ****. I've not seen the film, I don't need to see it. I spent 63 years in movie theatres in this country to know what any still of this movie looks like on a Petri dish. Didn't mean to be so obvious about all of this. And I know we're suppose to keep politics out of it here - but when I see WW3 starting and no marches on Washington - I have to scratch my head and think how come the ghouls always win? All this glorification of war in our movies is mixed in the cement.
 
Tom Roper said:
There were other proud Nazis, like Gunther Rall, one of the prolific murderous BF-109 Luftwaffe aviators. After his high level appointment by Hitler, he claimed ignorance after the war of the atrocities of the Holocaust and became a consultant for USAF for ME-262.
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About 25 years ago, I used to actively participate in WWII Forums on AOL. One of posters there was an avid aviation fan to the point of living in an aircraft community somewhere in Florida (you open your front door, walk over to a hangar, start up your plane and off you go). He said Rall visited that place and spoke to a bunch of pilots sometime in the mid-90's. The poster, who's Jewish, said, at one point Rall was showing a move from his WWII dogfight days (Rall was a deflection shooter supreme) and he held his right arm in what looked like a Nazi salute. And that sent chills down that guy's spine.

As to what the fighting men knew or didn't know, most of them had a decent idea about what was going on behind own front lines and the 'anti-partisan" activities of the Bandenkämpfverbände. And that was vicious, much like the guerillas (partisans, in the Russian lexicon) themselves. When I was a kid, I visited the Khatyn Memorial near Minsk. One thing they did not tell us was that those performing the anti-partisan operations were mostly ex-Soviet citizens from Ukraine and the Baltic States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre
 
morgan_moore said:
Bombing is about frying other peoples kids and ripping thier arms legs and heads off. This happened to some of my relatives in ww2.

So im in a quandy about this basic purpose not, I guess, getting mulled over in TG

I thought the first TG was too straight for me the alternative teenager.

But its gotta be said some cool rigs angles and nice rock music do move the inside - this kind of questions the whole human phsyce and ability to ignore what they cannot see.

I remember some 1950s ww2 film with a burnng pilot even though I watched when i was 8, dont know the movie though.. but it had an effect that TG prbably wont.
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Also, the faceless helmets of the enemy fighter pilots made it easier to dehumanize them.

And yes I agree that every war movie that isn't an anti-war movie contributes to nationalist bloodlust. But this is a criticism of the whole genre,, not just top gun.. and unfortunately the movie still is fun even with all that in mind
 
I remember one of the witnesses in Beatty's REDS saying "Dont ya know men love war, otherwise they would have stopped having them a long time ago."
 
ahalpert said:
Also, the faceless helmets of the enemy fighter pilots made it easier to dehumanize them.
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In the RAF vs. the Luftwaffe duels, the rules of the game were generally followed. Even when the RAF dropped off Douglas Bader's legs ... and a bomb to go along with them.

But as far as Arthur Harris goes ...

PS. An amusing WWII story, if such exist. Ulrich Steinhilper was a 22 year old Luftwaffe Bf-109 pilot, who was shot down over Canterbury on October, 27th, 1940 and taken POW. Early in 1941, he was transferred to a camp in Canada, from which he tried escaping five times. Once he made it as far as Buffalo. Which is chronicled in his book, "10 minutes in Buffalo". He was sent back to Germany after the war and finally released in late 1946. Having by then become fluent in English, he was hired by IBM to sell typewriters. In German. In 1955, he coined a term Textverarbeitung, which was subsequently translated into English as "word processing". In 1971, IBM gave him in recognition of it an Outstanding Achievement Award and a trip around the world. Which presumably did not include a stop in Buffalo.

Steinhilper wrote four books overall including "Spitfire on my tail". He passed away in 2009.
 
Saw this last night at an advanced screening. It's by far my favorite movie of 2022 so far and I'm definitely going to go see it again! My dad was an Air Force pilot, my brother is too, so I was raised with the original Top Gun and the fighter pilot culture. This film had my adrenaline going, it had me smiling, and was just about a perfect movie. 10/10 for me!
 
Not much air-to-air combat action here, aside of a brief bit on Pips Priller, but this is generally considered one of the great war films. IMO, the book was immeasurably better but this was a major effort about the events of the D-Day/Normandy landings on June, 6th, 1944.

The Longest Day (in a crappy 480p).

 
It was a good time at the movies. Perhaps a bit overhyped. I felt the first two thirds of it were nothing special, but the last third was amazing. Overall, solid entertainment of the kind we haven't gotten in a while.
 
Batutta said:
It was a good time at the movies. Perhaps a bit overhyped. I felt the first two thirds of it were nothing special, but the last third was amazing. Overall, solid entertainment of the kind we haven't gotten in a while.
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I've felt for a decade or so like Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies the way it used to. That magic mix of epic spectacle, exacting tradecraft, and classic 3-act structure with rapturous climax. (But I feel like filmmakers from Mexico and Europe have better continued the tradition.) I haven't seen Maverick yet, but I feel like Tom Cruise is dedicated to making movies like they did in the 90s
 
It was an entertaining but stupid and in many ways offensive movie. Turn off your brain to pretty much every message in the movie and just sit back and stare at the technical accomplishment. Otherwise yuck.
 
Mitch Gross said:
It was an entertaining but stupid and in many ways offensive movie. Turn off your brain to pretty much every message in the movie and just sit back and stare at the technical accomplishment. Otherwise yuck.
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Here's a sincere question: What in this world in 2022 doesn't have a message or ulterior motive?
 
Mitch Gross said:
It was an entertaining but stupid and in many ways offensive movie. Turn off your brain to pretty much every message in the movie and just sit back and stare at the technical accomplishment. Otherwise yuck.
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what did you find offensive?
 
I saw it for $5, so I feel like I got my money's worth! The story was kind of contrived and the movie took a lot for granted from the viewer but I enjoyed the sort of relaxed pace of the film. It did not take itself too seriously and the hype was tempered imho. The flight scenes were great. So a win for what I would expect from this type of movie.
 
I didn't feel it had a message ecept being pro American - which isn't a bad thing... It was refreshing to see a movie without a woke agenda. They just wanted to give the viewer a fun experience, and they did that. A movie that tried to be a good movie. Who knew such a thing was possible?
 
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