Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter, telling the haunting tale of a gambler and former serviceman seeking closure for egregious actions of his past. William Tell, played by a steely Oscar Isaac, is a talented cards player whose spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when when he meets Cirk (Tye Sheridan) a vulnerable and angry young man seeking to execute a plan of revenge on military colonel Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe). Tell was trained in torture techniques by Major John Gordo at the abu Ghraib prison, resulting in persecution and an 8-year detainment in military prison. Show Tell sees an opportunity for redemption through his relationship with Cirk, and attempts to right the wrongs of his past by helping the troubled young man. Things begin to crumble when Cirk ignores Tell’s efforts, choosing to take matters into his own hands. Told with Schrader’s trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions, and features riveting performances from stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe. Movie InformationRelease dateThursday 2nd December Duration111 min RatingMA15+ DirectorPaul Schrader GenreDrama Participating CinemasPentridge Cinema, Palace Balwyn, Palace Dendy Brighton, Palace Cinema Como, The Kino, Palace Norton Street, Palace Barracks Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader’s THE CARD COUNTER. Told with Schrader’s trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions, and features riveting performances from stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe. Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader's THE CARD COUNTER. Told with Schrader's trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past. At the insistence of Tom Cruise, minimal green screen and CGI aerial shots exist in the film, and even the close up cockpit shots were taken during real in-flight sequences. This meant that much of the cast had to undergo extensive G-force training sessions to withstand the physical demands of G-force pressures during flights. 2,998 of 3,019 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options According to Miles Teller, the cast got to choose their own call signs. He chose "Rooster" because it was in the same family as "Goose." 2,443 of 2,461 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The roof of the shack next to Ed Harris wasn't supposed to be lifted when Maverick flies past. However, they only had one chance to shoot it, so this was a very lucky occurrence. (As the Darkstar is only a non-flying mockup, the actual plane being used was cloned out and an image of the Darkstar was composited over it.) 1,538 of 1,548 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The film is dedicated to the memory of original Top Gun (1986) director Tony Scott, who died by suicide on August 19, 2012 at the age of 68. He had been developing his own version of a sequel before his death. 1,825 of 1,842 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The actors playing pilots not only had to film themselves, turning the camera on and off, they also had to touch up their own makeup, adjust their lighting, and handle their own sound. Sometimes the director had to wait on the ground for hours for the actors to return with the footage. Adjustments would be made after viewing the footage, and the actors would have to go back up for another take. 2,183 of 2,206 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Val Kilmer told Entertainment Weekly that it was like no time had passed when he was on set with Tom Cruise again, and it was fun too. 'We blew a lot of takes laughing so much,' the 62-year-old stated. 'It was really fun and special.' 947 of 955 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options After extensive flight training and on-the-ground preparation, actors joined professional pilots to hit the skies for 90 minutes at a time, a few times per day, and had to hit their marks, check lighting and makeup, remember their eyelines, and turn on the cameras themselves while airborne. This meant that Claudio Miranda, who relied on the sun as his primary light source, prepped each day by studying flight paths and weather patterns in order to set camera exposures before liftoff. With no live film feed to track on the ground, it made for some nervous waiting periods for Miranda. "It got really nerve-racking because it's really hard to predict," he said. "I had to set one exposure basically, because we're not auto exposing the cameras and they're really specific. So I'd have to look 50 miles [ahead] where they're going and know the terrain, how deep they're going to go, and then set the exposure and hope on the way over there the weather doesn't change." 588 of 592 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise personally designed a 3-month aviation training course for the new actors to become ready to handle riding in an F-18. 1,848 of 1,872 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Since Val Kilmer can no longer speak due to throat cancer, a company named Sonantic developed the voice AI that Kilmer uses. It learned how to mimic Kilmer's voice, including the iconic way that he himself talks. The revelation that Kilmer used voice AI came during a New York Post interview with his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. In the interview, she explained how they dubbed the voice AI over Kilmer's acting to bring his scenes to life. "They were able to dub him with his own voice, which is amazing," Mercedes explained in the interview. "It's such a technical feat, being able to engineer his voice that way, that it's an extension of the technical feats of the film." 1,456 of 1,475 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The shirtless beach football montage had to be shot twice because Tom Cruise did not find the first version good enough. The re-shoot placed additional pressure on the actors to get their ripped bodies back to re-shoot the scene. Cast member Glen Powell recounted, "We shot it and that night we all went out for milkshakes and tater tots. Just like splurge and everybody grabbed a beer. And a week later Tom's like, "We gotta shoot it again. It wasn't good enough. We're gonna shoot it again. And then everybody's back in the gym again, day and night." The sequence is being used very heavily to promote the movie after a similar scene in the original film became iconic and an audience favorite. The original film showed an intense beach volleyball game. 1,933 of 1,968 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The ''Top Gun'' trophy belonging to Iceman from the original Top Gun (1986) movie can be seen on the wall in his office before and after he and Maverick hug. 303 of 307 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Glen Powell admitted there was a healthy macho rivalry onset among the male actors to out-do each others' physiques in the shirtless beach football sequence as there is a lot of posing and flexing involved in the scene. He said, "The amount of male anxiety around taking their shirts off! The gyms were packed day and night. It was a degree of insecurity that you have never seen ever." 1,260 of 1,291 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Both Goose in Top Gun (1986) and Rooster in the sequel tell Maverick, "Come on Mav, do some of that pilot shit." 778 of 795 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The Darkstar that Maverick test flies appears to be based on an actual concept for a Mach 6 un-crewed airplane which was tentatively referred to as the SR-72 and revealed by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in the Nov 4, 2013 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology. The airplane was projected to enter service no earlier than 2030. The overall configuration of Darkstar in the movie looks very similar to the SR-72 concept, as well as the use of a turbine engine at low speed and a scramjet at high speed. Both the Skunk Works skunk logo and the Lockheed Martin corporate logo are clearly visible in multiple shots of Darkstar in the film. 456 of 465 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The yacht that Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly are sailing in the movie is a J/125. It's a 41-foot high performance sailing machine designed by Rod Johnstone at J/Boats. Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly did not use stunt doubles while sailing the yacht in very windy conditions at San Francisco Bay. 915 of 938 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The opening text matches that of the original movie, ("On March 3, 1969, the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world.") except "insure" has been changed to "ensure" and "men" has been updated to "men and women". At times of Top Gun (1986), there weren't fighter aviator women in the Navy. Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt became the Air Force's first female fighter pilot in 1993. After her, eventually many women turned in naval aviators and fighter pilots. 648 of 663 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options This film represents one of the longest time gaps between a film and its sequel with the same lead actor(s), coming 36 years after Top Gun (1986), though the wait would have been two years less had it not been for delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other examples of long sequel gaps with the same lead actor(s) are Tron (1982) and Tron (2010) (28 years); The Odd Couple (1968) and The Odd Couple II (1998) (1998) (30 years); Coming to America (1988) and Coming 2 America (2021) (33 years); Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (35 years). 1,726 of 1,779 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Miles Teller was cast in the role of Goose's son, Rooster, beating out the likes of Nicholas Hoult and Glen Powell. All three were flown to the home of Tom Cruise, the star of this movie, for chemistry tests. Powell was later cast in this movie in a role beefed up for him, having impressed Cruise, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, as well as executives at Paramount Pictures and Skydance with his auditions. 1,406 of 1,448 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise is now older than Tom Skerritt was when he played Viper in the original Top Gun (1986). Skerritt was 53 in 1986 and Cruise was 56 in 2018 (when the movie was filmed) and 59 in 2022 (when it was premiered). 1,646 of 1,697 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Anthony Edwards gave the movie two thumbs up, reacting positively to the film and proclaiming "Mission accomplished". Tom Cruise even screened the film for him in person. 429 of 439 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Cinematographer Claudio Miranda, Joseph Kosinski and star-producer Tom Cruise worked closely with the Navy to develop the cinematographical approach to "Maverick," shooting a test of Maverick's rogue practice run after which he devised a months-long training program to get his younger castmates up to speed. A set up of six cameras each was installed in two F/A-18s flown by actual pilots. Making precious space in the cockpit by removing unnecessary hardware, the filmmakers installed 6k Sony Venice digital cinema cameras with lightweight lenses and the new Rialto system extending the camera's sensor blocks, allowing for film to be shot over the actors' shoulders and in toward the plane. Cameras had to clear the ejection path, run on batteries so as to not tap into the plane's power, and safely and securely withstand shocks, vibration and more than 7.5 Gs. Once Miranda made it through the exacting trial-and-error and approval process, he was good to go. The filmmakers were able to capture not only character performances but the real effects of flight maneuvers in their actors' faces, a quality that Miranda believes makes a perceptible difference to the moviegoer. For example, Miranda points to Cruise's catapult launch from the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. "You see Tom taking off from the aircraft carrier and you see him do that drop. In most movies all they do is [jerk backwards] and then they take off. But when you see Tom, what's exciting is that there's another little drop when he leaves the deck." "For some reason when you see that, you go, 'We're really with him,'" he said. "I think that is what makes this movie really special." 367 of 375 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise was instrumental in championing Val Kilmer in reprising his role as Iceman. 195 of 198 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Harold Faltermeyer received credit because significant portions of his iconic musical score from Top Gun (1986) were re-used in this film. 82 of 82 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The aircraft carrier in the movie is the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The ship is the Abraham Lincoln, indicated by the Abe Lincoln bobblehead shown when jets are taking off. 495 of 509 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options At the insistence of Miles Teller, he learned how to play "Great Balls of Fire" on the piano himself, without a double. He studied music when he was younger and still dabbles in it. 258 of 264 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Kenny Loggins did a re-record of "Danger Zone" for the film but Tom Cruise insisted that they use the original. 107 of 108 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The targeted country is never identified by name, other than as a 'rogue nation'. The markings on one aggressor aircraft, a red star within a colored circle, is the same marking used by the 'MiG-28s' in Top Gun (1986) and represents North Korea. The 5th Generation fighters they face are SU-57s, NATO call-sign Felon. Just over a dozen have been made up to 2022, and its only operator is Russia. Lastly, the aggressors possess F-14 Tomcats. Only two nations ever used the Tomcat, the United States and Iran. The last U.S. Tomcat was retired in September 2006. Eleven are in desert storage in Arizona. All remaining Tomcats not on display have been scrapped to prevent their components from being sold to Iran who still uses the Tomcat in 2022. 246 of 252 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Jon Hamm accepted his role in the film without reading the script. 165 of 168 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Shot entirely on IMAX-certified Sony Venice 6K full frame cameras, specially developed for the film in order to shoot the cockpit sequences. The sensor is able to detach itself from the camera body, connected by a fibre optic cable, which allows the camera rigs to fit in the tight spaces required, with the body ably placed in the jet's mechanics. Exclusively in IMAX theaters, selected sequences will feature an expanded aspect ratio of up to 26% more image. 888 of 923 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The finished film carries the "Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films" logo and credits the late, great Don Simpson as one of the producers. This was done at the behest of Jerry Bruckheimer, Simpson's partner and long time friend, who said Don was a strong champion for a Top Gun sequel and deserved to have his name on the film. Bad Boys (1995) sequels, Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), also carried the Simpson/Bruckheimer logo as well. 424 of 438 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options From actors' bodies conveying the strain of sustaining G-forces in the air to jet wings flapping realistically and beyond, the practical imperfections captured on film give the cinematography of "Maverick" its unique texture and power. "Sometimes you'd try to keep it in shot and the mess of what it is had more energy, so a lot of what we wanted was using long lens and trying to keep in the frame but not doing a good job. All that makes it much more exciting and real and human," he said. Claudio Miranda cited the visceral pre-CGI clunkiness of stop-motion animated AT-AT walkers of The Empire Strikes Back (1980). "Now everything is gazelle-like and [missing] human imperfection, which is what I think gives the energy to ["Top Gun: Maverick"], and I think that's what people are responding to." As such, the filmmakers decided not to clean up one aspect of their aerial photography that keen-eyed viewers might notice: the barely perceptible reflection of the cameras in some shots. "There was talk about, do we get rid of them? But that would have make it even more synthetic," he said. "We worked so hard to get it in camera that we left them in there a little bit intentionally, because we're really capturing this." 275 of 283 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Distributor Paramount Pictures wanted to debut this film on the new Paramount+ streaming service after the COVID-19 Pandemic closed movie theaters worldwide in 2020, and a release in 2021 was looking increasingly unlikely. However, Tom Cruise is one of the producers and refused to give in to studio pressure, insisting the film has a theatrical release. The gamble paid off as it has now become his highest-grossing film. 126 of 128 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Maverick taxis the Darkstar Hypersonic aircraft to the runway, a cartoonish skunk is seen on the rear tail fin. The skunk is the logo of "SkunkWorks", a division of Lockheed Martin who produced the SR-71 Blackbird, among other iconic aircraft. 272 of 280 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Jennifer Connelly is cast as Penny Benjamin. In the original Top Gun (1986), that character is referenced by Meg Ryan's character, in the diner scene, as being an Admiral's daughter that Maverick had dated. Earlier in the film, when Maverick and Goose are being chewed out, Goose asks Mav if the captain was referring to "Peggy Benjamin ". As of the 1986 version, Connelly was 16 years old. Connelly is 8 years younger than Tom Cruise. 1,164 of 1,217 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise has the strange habit of having someone or something named "Bob" in most of his movies for the past 20 years or so. 1,090 of 1,140 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The Navy's oldest fighter pilot retired at 54. Calculating from Maverick's birth in 1962, and counting to 2022, when the film actually came out, he is 60 in this film. Pushing the envelope, as pilots say. 989 of 1,034 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Like the original movie, this sequel was made with the close cooperation of the Department of Defense Entertainment Media Office. In a May 2022 Washington Post article titled "'Top Gun,' Brought to You by the U.S. Military," Theo Zenou reports: "Top Gun: Maverick received support from the Department of Defense (DOD) in the form of equipment-including jets and aircraft carriers-personnel and technical expertise. This was authorized by the DOD Entertainment Media Office, which assists filmmakers telling military stories. 'We've been in existence almost 100 years,' said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Glen Roberts, who leads the office. 'We actually assisted the very first movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.' That movie was Wings (1927), drama about World War I fighter pilots." Roberts claimed that (unlike with the first movie, for which the DoD significantly changed certain plot aspects to make them more sympathetic to the military) his office did not make any narrative changes to the Top Gun: Maverick script: "These days, when collaborating on a movie, the Pentagon can still demand script rewrites out of concern for veracity. But Roberts said he doesn't meddle in the artistic process. 'When I get a script, I don't change the story,' he said. 'I may say this isn't authentic or this is wrong.' Roberts said he keeps four criteria in mind: security (the film shouldn't give away state secrets), accuracy (it should depict training and combat accurately), policy (the characters should adhere to DOD rules), and propriety (the film must protect the privacy of military personnel and their families). 'I've had people say to me, "Oh, you guys, you tell people how to run their movies,"' Roberts added. 'I would tell you: Good luck telling Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan or Michael Bay how to run their movie! I don't think that's going to go over very well.'" 622 of 648 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The make and model of the motorbike that Maverick races against the jet fighter is a Kawasaki Ninja H2 carbon 2019. This is a homage to Top Gun (1986) when Maverick also rode a 1985 Kawasaki GPz900, which was a precursor to the Ninja motorcycle. GPZ900 is the European and Japanese designation for the ZX900A1, which is the first Ninja and not a precursor. Being in America, GPZ900 would not be used. This same bike from the first movie is also seen in this film. 682 of 712 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options This is Tom Cruise's first film that has earned $1 billion. 140 of 143 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The car that Penny drives, a 1973 Porsche 911, is homage to the car that Charlie drove in the original, a 1958 Porsche 356. 292 of 302 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The one F/A-18E Super Hornet, that was used as the hero fighter plane for Maverick, is about to be used for the Navy aerobatic team The Blue Angels to replace the older models for the 2021 airshow season. 552 of 576 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Because she suffers from a crippling fear of flying, Tom Cruise helped co-star Jennifer Connelly overcome her phobia by taking her for a ride in his 1946 vintage P-51 Mustang, a WW2 plane he has owned since 2001. 174 of 179 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Before filming with actors taking real G-forces in Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets sporting Imax-grade cameras, cinematographer Claudio Miranda climbed into the cockpit himself. Running months of camera tests and experimenting with in-cabin rigs, the Oscar-winning Life of Pi (2012) director of photography was searching for the right combination of technology, precision and artistry to capture the visceral effects of high-intensity aerial flight on the human body. He wanted to put the audience in the pilot's seat like never before as Tom Cruise's Maverick took to the skies again, decades after the original Top Gun (1986). So he strapped into an L-39 Albatros jet, the same aircraft Miles Teller, Glen Powell and their castmates trained in to prepare their minds and bodies for the real thing. "I only went four Gs," said Miranda, smiling at the memory of his own flight missions, "and that was enough for me." He watched how his own body reacted in the test film and learned some invaluable lessons. "Because we were doing experiments with cameras I was reading menus and I realized that's a terrible idea -as you're spinning, I'm in the plane trying to reset the camera," he said. "Anyway, I didn't feel very good after that." The experimentation proved how filming actors practically in actual flight could create a sensory, visceral connection with the audience. He even got his pilot's license in the process. Speaking with The Times over videochat from Australia, he dove into how (and why) the "Top Gun: Maverick" team went to such great lengths to push the limits of action cinema. 160 of 165 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Danny Ramirez detailed what it was like working with Tom Cruise and reflecting on the "unique" training that he went through in order to prepare for his role as Lieutenant Mickey "Fanboy" Garcia. "It has been one of the most amazing experiences," Ramirez told Fox News Digital. "It feels like we went to get our master's degree and our doctorates." Ramirez highlighted the impact Cruise has on moviegoers and how he's parlayed that into a "mentor" role to the actors he works alongside of. "I think this is why his movies are so well received," Ramirez said. "He has the audience in mind. It is a responsibility that like people are giving two hours of their time. And every year he has a movie that millions of people go to watch. And so that responsibility of the sheer amount of hours that people are giving to be taking on this adventure, he passed that down and then since then has been a mentor." 192 of 199 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The flight helmet for "Fanboy" has his call sign lettered in the title font of Star Trek (1966). 327 of 343 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The filmmakers wanted to honor the original Top Gun (1986) and its director, Tony Scott, whom cinematographer Claudio Miranda had actually worked with before becoming a cinematographer on Crimson Tide (1995). I was only a gaffer, but I did understand the language that [Tony Scott] was always getting at with 'warm grads' and longer lenses," he said, "And we did pay homage to that in some scenes." He spoke with original "Top Gun" cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball about the challenges they'd faced on their production, and added a slight overall film grain "to give it a little bit of antiquing." It was while filming "Maverick's" opening sequence montage, replicating the original's opening in homage, that Miranda got an unexpected assist. He'd been told repeatedly that he would not have any control over the directional movement of the aircraft carrier and might not be able to capture just the right backlight. Dejected, he was walking through a hallway when someone asked what was wrong. "I go, 'It'd be great if the sun was 20 degrees to the left of the boat at 4:00,'" said Miranda. "I didn't think anything of it." Walking up to the set early, the ship began turning. "I was able to get the best light ever and I realized I was talking to, like, the captain." Only later did he think of the legend that Scott, faced with a similar dilemma on the first "Top Gun," had to cut a $25,000 check to change the course of the carrier he was filming on in order to capture his now-iconic backlighted opening sequence. "Because the original 'Top Gun' did so well, and a lot of the people that were on the ships were there because they saw the original movie, I felt that also gave us a lot more support than I think the first one had," said Miranda. "Tony Scott paved the way for us. I find it hard to believe that anyone else is going to ever get that kind of access again." 248 of 259 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Lewis Pullman, who played callsign "Bob", is the son of actor Bill Pullman, who played President Thomas J. Whitmore in Independence Day (1996), and who flew the older version of the F/A-18 Hornet at the ending of the movie. In this movie, Lewis actually flew inside the real Super Hornet, while in Independence Day (1996) his father was in the studio. 439 of 463 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The only country in the world that flies the Su-57 stealth fighter, which is the fifth generation fighter flown by the film's unnamed enemy, is Russia. The enemy aviators' helmets strongly suggest North Korea, as they did in the original film. But the only country besides the US that ever flew the F-14 Tomcat was pre-revolutionary Iran in the 70's, and none of those countries would be signatories to a NATO Treaty. So the fictional enemy suggested by the story could not be in violation of a NATO treaty, as Admiral Bates explained to Maverick. 68 of 69 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Bob wears a patch for VFA-51. This is an intentional nod to former Navy fighter squadron VF-51 Screaming Eagles, the squadron that Viper flew in with Maverick's father. VF-51 was disbanded in 1995 and was never reactivated as a fighter attack squadron (VFA) and would not exist in real life. Likewise, Phoenix wears a patch for the VFA-41 Black Aces, the Navy squadron that was involved in the famous 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident, which formed the basis for the original film's climax. 86 of 88 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The film was originally set for release in July 2019, but was delayed. The first reason was to allow time to complete complex action sequences. The second reason was the COVID-19 Pandemic. Tom Cruise insisted that the film debut on cinema screens, something which proved to be a prescient move as the film proved to be one of the highest grossing films of 2022 and indeed of Cruise's entire career to that point. 86 of 88 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The original film featured the (once) very real "Fightertown U.S.A." as Naval Air Station Miramar was known. On 1 October 1997, control of Miramar was turned over to the U.S. Marine Corps, their fighter planes, transport aircraft, and helicopters, thus retiring the "Fightertown U.S.A." nickname. However in Top Gun Maverick, "Fightertown U.S.A." still exists and moved 19 miles southwest of Miramar to Naval Air Station North Island. While this Naval Air Station is real, it is not the real home of Topgun nor did it inherit the former Miramar moniker. So unlike the original, the "Fightertown U.S.A." featured in the sequel is fictional. It's likely that NAS North Island was used because the real Top Gun location is now NAS Fallon east of Reno in Nevada. It would not have made sense to have a southern California beach scene if their base is in the middle of the Nevada desert. 97 of 100 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options During an interview with the 'About Last Night' podcast, Miles Teller described the underwater training, which he likened to being "water boarded." According to Teller, he and the other cast mates were strapped into what's called a "dunker" that simulates being trapped inside a fully submerged cockpit. It was not fun! "So you're upside down. So instead of climbing cross chairs like this, you're upside down, you get out of your straps, which I think there was four. And then you're climbing the seats like this and you're blindfolded and you're underwater and you're upside down. So you're basically getting water boarded," he added. Naturally, the experience gave Teller a newfound experience for Tom Cruise's intensity, which he has no intention of ever trying to match. "No offense, Tom [Cruise], but like, you do you. Nobody else is in your lane, man" Teller quipped. "Gimme some comedy lines or something." 208 of 219 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options On the Kermode and Mayo Podcast, Miles Teller said that they shot more footage for this film than the run time of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 647 of 695 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options First time a film starring Tom Cruise has made US $100 million or more at the box-office on its opening weekend. The film surpassed War of the Worlds (2005) to become Tom Cruise's highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. It also passed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) to have the highest Memorial Day opening weekend and also passed Shrek 2 (2004) to have the lowest 2nd weekend drop for a movie that made over 100 million dollars in its opening weekend. 167 of 176 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise met with Ridley Scott to see if he would be interested in directing this movie, as his brother, Tony Scott, had directed the original film. Scott, who had previously directed Cruise in Legend (1985), politely declined. He said that fast-paced, high-octane action movies like this were not really his style. However, he did draw up a list of directors he thought would be better candidates for Cruise. 86 of 89 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Director Joseph Kosinski shared the amazing connection between the original and new Top Gun films. Kosinski stated, "I did have a couple of the camera operators who worked on the original film. I had a number of crew members who worked on the original film on our film. And one of them was the ground-to-air operator. And he told me a lot of their ground-to-air stuff was shot on a specific mountain peak in Nevada, looking down into the training valley. So we went back to that exact peak. I stood up there with him and our four cameras with our really long lenses. And we shot our ground-to-air stuff from the same place, 35 years later. Which was pretty awesome." Though Top Gun (1986) director Tony Scott passed away in 2012, Kosinski said he had a couple of camera operators from the 1986 movie. One of them actually remembered an exact filming location and brought the production there to pay homage to the original film. It's certainly rare for a sequel filmed over 30 years later to not only have some of the same crew but end up featuring an exact location. This film accomplished that. 139 of 146 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options As the only active Naval aviator besides Maverick to achieve an air-to-air kill, Hangman is said to have shot down a Cold War-era aircraft. This makes reference to the 2017 shooting down of a Soviet-made Syrian Air Force Su-22 fighter-bomber that allegedly bombed a position held by U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near Tabqa. It was the first aerial kill of a manned aircraft by the U.S. Navy since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the first kill by a Super Hornet, and the third kill by an F/A-18, so if this is the basis of Hangman's reputation, it is a very impressive feat for a young aviator and Hangman would be justly famous or notorious in the Naval Aviation community.. 95 of 99 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise is 5'7 feet height (1.70 meters height), which is the ideal height for fighter pilots. 205 of 219 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options About eight hundred hours of film footage was shot for this major motion picture. Director Joseph Kosinski, told Empire that he figures the team shot as much footage as Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings trilogy movies combined. 100 of 105 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In the film, Val Kilmer's character, Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, was portrayed as the commander of the Pacific Fleet. In the real life, at the time the film was released, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Samuel John Paparo Jr., is also a fighter pilot within United States Navy. As with Iceman, Admiral Samuel Paparo also graduated from the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School which was known as Top Gun and is also an experienced pilot with 6,000 flying hours including flying Grumman F-14 Tomcat which was also flown by Iceman in the first film. 111 of 117 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise was actually approached about a Top Gun sequel in 1990 while promoting Born on the Fourth of July (1989). But at the time, Cruise said that it would be "irresponsible to make a sequel." It wasn't until 2010 when producer Jerry Bruckheimer and the director of the original film, Tony Scott, had enough of a compelling sequel story in order to get Cruise to officially say yes. Although Cruise and ultimately Val Kilmer were interested in participating, the sequel was put in jeopardy when Scott sadly committed suicide in 2012. It took a number of years to develop enough of a compelling story for a sequel to materialize. 60 of 62 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In 2019, China's Tencent invested 12.5% of the film, but later pulled out of the project at the end of that year over concerns that the film's themes could anger the Chinese Communist Party. 82 of 86 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options During filming, the production was able to film on particular Naval Air Stations at the DOD's discretion. This led to a particularly hectic schedule of moving up and down the West Coast of the United States. These included NAS North Island (twice), NAWS China Lake (twice), NAS Lemoore, NAS Fallon (home of the actual Top Gun School - 3 times), and NAS Whidbey Island. All were gracious and accommodating of the film crew during their visits. 44 of 45 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options During the original Top Gun (1986) volleyball scene, "Slider" lets out an excited howl just after "Maverick" dives into the sand. The same howl can be overhead in the background of the football scene in 'Top Gun: Maverick' just before "Hondo" jumps into the game. 73 of 77 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Glen Powell had impressed the production team so much in his auditions to play Goose's son that they enlarged the part of Hangman for him. 73 of 77 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Director Joseph Kosinski has made a specialty of directing sequels to 1980s films decades after their originals; just as Top Gun: Maverick comes 36 years after its namesake film Top Gun (1986), he also directed Tron (2010), released 28 years after the original Tron (1982). They both have their aspect ratios opened up during selected sequences in IMAX. 280 of 308 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Joseph Kosinski deliberately didn't tell his cast members when he planned to shoot the shirtless beach volleyball scene. This annoyed many of the actors as they had to maintain their exercise regimes throughout the entire production as the scene ended up being one of the last to be filmed. 71 of 75 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The second film since the COVID-19 pandemic that grossed over $1 billion worldwide, after Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). 35 of 36 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Although it's natural to assume that the film takes place in its theatrical release year of 2022, the film seems to take place in October 2019. According to the wall calendar in Maverick's private hangar, it is the month of October, 2019. The calendar puts Halloween (31st of October) falling on a Thursday, which only recently happened in 2019. Nothing else in the movie contradicts the setting of 2019, which is when it was originally scheduled for release. 60 of 64 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The trailers prominently feature a character with the call sign "FANBOY" on his helmet, written in the font popularized by the Star Trek films. Paramount owns/distributes both Star Trek and Top Gun. 364 of 413 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options This film has a real-life historical comparison: on June 7, 1981, Israeli jets destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor shortly before it was scheduled to become operational. Such a reactor, besides supplying electrical power, can also be used to enrich uranium, which can then be used to make nuclear weapons. This was the reason given by Israel for destroying the facility. 20 of 20 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Miles Teller grew ill and broke out in head-to-toe hives after a flight. A trip to the doctor revealed the actor had suffered an allergic reaction from the presence of jet fuel in his bloodstream. When Teller told Tom Cruise about it, the latter quipped, "Yeah, I was born with it, kid." 30 of 31 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options While some viewers might regard it as a tactical mistake, the reason that the carrier group did not launch Tomahawk missile attacks on the surface-to-air (SAM) emplacements along with the enemy air base is that most of the SAM sites were too close to the target area, and the resulting debris in the air would have vastly reduced the aviators' visibility near hard target, and ruined their hope of successfully striking it in an already narrow window of success, and endangered the intakes on jet engines with the flying debris, practically guaranteeing not only mission failure but the deaths of the aviators risking their lives to fly it. 106 of 118 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The basic plot, about pilots having to learn low-level flying to attack a heavily guarded area involved in nuclear production, and having the mission moved forward, is very close to 633 Squadron (1964). In that film, the target was a Nazi rocket fuel plant in Norway, rocket fuel was made for the Nazi V1 and V2 rockets. 52 of 56 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Admiral Simpson is named after the late Don Simpson, one of the producers of the original Top Gun (1986). 36 of 38 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Just as Maverick decides to push the Darkstar hypersonic jet a little past Mach 10, the Skunk Works mascot is shown painted on the the joystick. "Skunk Works" is the nickname for Lockheed Martin's highly classified technology lab, which is formally called ADP, for Advanced Development Programs. 42 of 45 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Maverick tells Rooster that if he were to fly long enough there would be other flyers who would be lost. His exact words are the same that Viper shared with him 36 years earlier when Goose was lost. 26 of 27 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise celebrated his 60th birthday whilst this film was still on theatrical release. 53 of 58 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options They reused the video clip of the F14 shooting a missile from Top Gun (1986) when they shoot at the Russian fighter. 46 of 50 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The film is the fifth film that earned $1 billion worldwide without being released in China. The first four films are Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Joker (2019), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), respectively. 51 of 56 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Though Admiral Tom Kazansky, portrayed by Val Kilmer, is frequently referred to by his call-name/nickname of ''Iceman'', his character's billing at the end of Top Gun (1986) was simply in the short form of ''Ice''. 64 of 72 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Tom Cruise was on location in the UK filming Edge of Tomorrow (2014), he befriended British Formula One champ Lewis Hamilton who'd been an avid fan of the original Top Gun film. Hamilton even expressed an interest in having a cameo role in a future Top Gun sequel. When the production was in the process of casting, Cruise remembered his friend and made a call with the offer of a prominent role as a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, Hamilton regretfully had to decline the offer due to his commitment to his Formula One seasonal activities. 47 of 52 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Directors Martin Campbell, Joe Johnston, and Simon West were all contacted by Tom Cruise with regards to directing this. Campbell said that at 75 (as he was at the time) he was done with directing blockbusters and wanted to concentrate on smaller-scale films. Johnston apparently said that he was a fan of the original film and didn't think he could make a film that came anywhere near it. It isn't known what happened with West, but some years previously, he had a disagreement with producer Jerry Bruckheimer over directing Black Hawk Down (2001) and left to direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) instead. 29 of 31 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Second theatrical feature film collaboration of director Joseph Kosinski and actor Tom Cruise. Their first had been Oblivion (2013) about five years earlier [n.b. 'Top Gun: Maverick (2022) was filmed in 2018]. 172 of 204 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Lady Gaga sings the movie's theme song for the film. Titled "Hold My Hand", it was first released on May 3, 2022. The song's release was accompanied by a music video directed by Joseph Kosinski, who is also the director of the movie. 234 of 284 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options This is not the first time the callsign "Hondo" has been used in a Top Gun production. The Playstation video game, Top Gun: Fire at Will (1996), featured video footage of James Tolkan reprising his role as a commanding officer who has the callsign of Hondo (strangely, his callsign was Stinger in Top Gun (1986)). 118 of 141 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The actual pilot of the MiG in the original Top Gun (1986) was Navy pilot Robert Willard, who was the lead flight choreographer for the film. He would later be promoted to Commander of the United States Pacific Fleet (2007-2009), which was the command that Iceman had risen to in the present film. 18 of 19 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Jennifer Connelly's character, Penny Benjamin, is first introduced in the film's first bar scene, the song in the background that starts playing is "Let's Dance" by David Bowie. Connelly and Bowie co-starred together in Labyrinth (1986), which was released in 1986, the same year as Top Gun (1986). 113 of 139 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In 2010, Christopher McQuarrie originally wrote Maverick as a minor character. 237 of 302 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The highest ever critically rated Tom Cruise movie in many movie systems as of June 2022. 70 of 85 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options During the opening credits, in one shot of fighters being launched off the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, as seen from the bridge, a silhouette of a President Lincoln bobblehead doll is visible in the window. 37 of 43 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Publicity for the film has stated that CGI was sparingly used and that as much footage as possible was shot using 'conventional methods' . Whilst a lot of footage was shot in a real aircraft setting, some of the more hazardous cockpit shots, for safety's sake, had to be filmed using a cockpit rig on a gimbal set against green screen. Also, some old fashioned detailed large scale models were handmade by experts for FX shots of aircraft explosions (as was employed in the first film). 24 of 27 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Both Ed Harris (Admiral Cain) and Glen Powell (Hangman) have played former astronaut and senator, the late John Glenn; Harris in The Right Stuff (1983) and Powell in Hidden Figures (2016). 157 of 203 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Although they are not displayed in the proper order, Maverick's ribbons are: Silver Star / Legion of Merit / Defense Meritorious Service Medal / Meritorious Service Medal / Air Medal with Strike/ Flight numeral 5 / Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal / Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal / Combat Action Ribbon / Joint Meritorious Unit Award / Navy E Ribbon / National Defense Service Medal / Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal / Southwest Asia Service Medal with 2 service stars / Afghanistan Campaign Medal with 2 service stars / Iraq Campaign Medal with 2 service stars / Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal / Global War on Terrorism Service Medal / Navy and Marine Corps Sea Service Deployment Ribbon / United Nations Medal / Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait) / Navy Expert Rifleman Medal / Navy Expert Pistol Shot Medal. 14 of 15 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The Japanese dub of the film uses the same voice cast from the 2009 TV Tokyo broadcast of the first film. Top Gun has had four different Japanese dubs since its broadcast on Fuji TV in 1989. 36 of 43 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Hangman chews a toothpick in this film as Iceman did in the original Top Gun (1986). 41 of 50 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Maverick posts Mach 10.4 in the Darkstar jet he is testing, and the plane starts to malfunction, he is forced to punch out. He is then seen walking along a rural road toward Cecil's Cafe where he asks where he is. A boy informs him his is on Earth. To be more accurate, the scene was filmed at the Halfway House Cafe located on the outskirts of Santa Clarita. It's about 128 miles away from China Lake, California where he took off. 31 of 37 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Maverick begins his run through the mountain training course, and in the flight scenes during the mountain range attack debriefing, the masks are snug up against the actor's faces. These are the only times the helmets are worn properly. 26 of 31 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Miles Teller appears in the film which is the sequel to Top Gun (1986) and also appears in Footloose (2011) which is the reboot/remake of Footloose (1984). Both of the original 1980s films had songs written and released for the movie soundtrack by Kenny Loggins; "Danger Zone" and "Playing With the Boys" for Top Gun (1986) and the title track "Footloose" for Footloose (1984). 254 of 352 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Maverick's rank of captain is the equivalent of a full bird colonel in the Army, Air Force and Marines. Being told that he should have been at least a two-star admiral ("Rear Admiral") by this time puts him two ranks below that. In comparison, his by-the-book colleague Iceman is four ranks ahead of him ("full Admiral"). For those who have reached that rank it typically it has taken 34 years. In the film's chronology 36 years has passed. Ice would have served as a full Admiral for two or more years before retiring due to his health. 15 of 17 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In the first film Maverick downed three MiG-28s. Combine that with the two Su-57s he downed in this film gives him five kills. Thus makes Maverick the first US ace since Vietnam. 15 of 17 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The location where Darkstar is assumed to have crashed is the same location as Evel Knievel's infamous Snake River Canyon jump. 11 of 12 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The black Ford Raptor used throughout the film was also being used in Break Even (2020). The two productions shared use as they were filming simultaneously. 121 of 169 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The part of Amelia, Penny's daughter, originally went to Thomasin McKenzie who later dropped out to make Lost Girls (2020). Lyliana Wray took on the role instead. 28 of 35 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Clearly resentful of Maverick remaining in flight status as a Captain and being protected politically by his old classmate and longtime friend Admiral "Iceman" Kozinski, Vice Admiral "Cyclone" Simpson snidely comments that since the unnamed enemy is in possession of some operational F-14A Tomcats, "I guess we're not the only ones holding on to old relics." According to Rear Admiral "Warlock" Bates, Cyclone was the class honor graduate at Top Gun only two years after Maverick (class of '88), so he's a bit of an old relic himself. 17 of 20 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The family of the author whose article inspired the Tom Cruise's movie Top Gun (1986) sued Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement over 2022's blockbuster sequel "Top Gun: Maverick." According to a complaint filed in Los Angeles Federal Court, the Paramount Global unit failed to reacquire the rights to Ehud Yonay's 1983 article "Top Guns" from the family before releasing the "derivative" sequel. The lawsuit by Shosh Yonay and Yuval Yonay, who live in Israel and are respectively Ehud's widow and son, sought unspecified damages, including profits from "Top Gun: Maverick," and to block distribution of the movie. 61 of 85 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options A barricade landing on the aircraft carrier is shown in this film. Inspired by a similar scene in The Final Countdown, Tony Scott had originally wanted Cougar and Merlin's landing at the beginning of the first Top Gun to also be a barricade landing. Tony Scott had shot the crew rigging the barricade several times, but making the scene work proved to be too cumbersome and costly. Running out of time, Tony changed the scene to the now famous sequence, where Maverick and Goose ignore their fuel state to help talk Cougar down to the ship. The technology was in place to make the barricade sequence finally work for this film instead. 6 of 6 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Early in the film, Admiral Cain, played by Ed Harris, berates Maverick (Tom Cruise), saying "You should be at least a two-star admiral by now, if not a senator." Harris previously played former fighter pilot and future senator John Glenn in The Right Stuff (1983). 31 of 41 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The ''Rooster'' call-sign of Lieutenant Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw is a recognition of the way he cocks his head while playing the piano. You can see it when he plays 'Great Balls of Fire' in a call-back to the original Top Gun (1986) when his father, Goose, plays it with his son ''Rooster'' sitting on the piano. 77 of 115 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options James Tolkan, Tom Skerritt and Michael Ironside didn't return as Stinger, Viper and Jester respectively due to their age. In 2018 (when the movie was filmed) Tolkan was 88 years old, Skerritt was 86 and Ironside was 68 and their characters would have retired before the events in the film, or perhaps they would have passed away before the sequel. 183 of 292 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Movie-makers often use terminology that they know is not correct but which ordinary viewers will understand better. This was the case when Rooster told Maverick, as they were preparing to take off in the F-14, that both runways were cratered, and they were on a taxiway ("a very *short* taxiway!"). In actuality, there was only one runway; the second runway was actually a taxiway, which planes use to get to either end of the runway without interfering with planes taking off or landing. The "taxiway" that Rooster said they were on is actually called the "apron," which refers to all the paved area other than the runway and taxiways. The airport used in the movie was the Lake Tahoe airport, which was undergoing renovation at the time of filming and was therefore available. The Google Earth view of the airport shows that the military hangars, and the two round tanks that took off the F-14's nose wheel, were CGI additions, but the layout of the runway, taxiway, and apron was real. 10 of 12 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Returned to the #1 position at the domestic box office (U.S. and Canada) over Labor Day weekend (September 2-5) in its 15th weekend, becoming the first film since box office was regularly tracked to top both Memorial Day and Labor Day. It also became one of only a handful of films to be in the #1 position after 15 weeks of wide release, and the first since Titanic (1997). 16 of 21 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Joseph Kosinski was just 12 years old when he saw Top Gun (1986) for the first time. 34 of 50 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The character "Hondo" is credited as the rank of WO-1 (Warrant Officer 1). There is no rank of WO-1 in the US Navy, all Navy Warrant Officers enter as a minimum of CWO-2 (Chief Warrant Officer 2). This is because all Navy Warrant Officers must be prior enlisted and achieve the rank of Chief (E7) before being able to apply for selection to Warrant. 7 of 8 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The majority of this movie's main cast all have call-names/nick-names and this is even formalized in the film's closing credits. Including archive footage of characters from Top Gun (1986), there are no fewer than 21 characters with nick-names/call-names. They are the following (ordered by call-name/nick-name, actor/actress name, character name and billing order): 32 of 48 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The F-14 fighter aircraft seen in the original film was in use by the U.S. Navy from 1974-2006 before being retired. However, as of 2022, the Iranian airforce still has a number of them in active service. They were acquired by the Iranian government before the revolution in 1979. This may be a clue as to which country the sortie takes place in. 19 of 27 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Joseph Kosinski was hired as director in 2017. 20 of 31 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Director Joseph Kosinski previously directed Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, and Jake Picking in Only the Brave (2017) the year before this film was shot in 2018. 25 of 41 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Glen Powell played another military member in Sand Castle (2017). He sported similar close-cropped hair and appeared in a similar scene where he was flexing and posing shirtless to show off his physique. 77 of 146 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Cast members Tom Cruise and Ed Harris have both previously appeared in both The Firm (1993) and the documentary feature Junket Whore (1998). 'Top Gun: Maverick' marks the reunion between Tom Cruise (Captain Pete ''Maverick'' Mitchell) and Ed Harris (Rear Admiral Chester "Hammer" Cain) after The Firm (1993). It is twenty-nine years later at the point of the premiere and twenty-five years at the point of when it was filmed in 2018. 32 of 59 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In Japan, the movie collaborated with Uma Musume: Pretty Derby (2018), which has a character named Mayano Top Gun named after the racehorse of the same name, which was in turn named after the original movie. She is also fond of using aeronautical terms and has a bomber jacket similar to Maverick's, and she consequently was named as an advertising pilot and replaced Maverick in an alternate version of one of the movie posters in Japan. Four Uma Musume voice actresses attended the movie's Japanese premiere, which included Tom Cruise prompting Mayano Top Gun's voice actress Mio Hoshitani by asking, "You copy?" to salute and say one of her trademark lines: "I copy!" 14 of 23 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In the first bar scene, Phoenix tells one of the other pilots, "We're playing 9 ball." This may have been a nod to the fact that Tom Cruise played a 9-ball whiz kid, Vincent, in The Color of Money (1986) right after he played Maverick in the original Top Gun (1986). In fact, he had to come back and do re-shoots for Top Gun while he was filming The Color of Money. 34 of 67 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The fourth Tom Cruise film that was the year's top-grosser worldwide, after Top Gun (1986), Rain Man (1988), and Mission: Impossible II (2000). 12 of 21 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In the first bar scene, "Hangman" is at the jukebox and presses "86". Top Gun was released in 1986. 21 of 41 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Cast members Lewis Pullman, Jon Hamm and Manny Jacinto all previously appeared in Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) which was first released in 2018 which was the year that 'Top Gun: Maverick' (2022) started filming. 31 of 67 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The USS Leyte Gulf, mentioned in the film was a Ticonderoga-class (CG-55) guided missile cruiser in the US Navy. She was named in memory of the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific (a gulf in the Eastern Visayan region in the Philippines). She is powered by four large gas-turbine engines, and she has a large complement of guided missiles for air defense, attack of surface targets at sea and ashore, and anti-submarine warfare (ASW). In addition, she carries two "Seahawk" LAMPS multi-purpose helicopters, whose primary mission is ASW. 8 of 14 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, and Jennifer Connelly have all appeared in 1980s mythical-fantasy adventure movies. They are, respectively, Legend (1985), Willow (1988), and Labyrinth (1986). 31 of 78 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Cast members Jon Hamm and Jennifer Connelly both appeared in The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). However, the pair don't share any scenes in 'Top Gun: Maverick' (2022). 29 of 73 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options This sequel to Top Gun (1986) arrives after an interval of about 36 years. 'Top Gun' was a big enough movie to have its own parody picture, Hot Shots! (1991), made by another studio, and it debuted about just five years after the subject of its spoof. The parody was so successful in itself, that it produced a sequel, Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993). Yet Top Gun didn't get an official sequel for 25 additional years. 'Top Gun: Maverick' was filmed in 2018. Even if the film had debuted in 2019, it has still taken a considerably longer time, more than 30 years, for the sequel to surface. 30 of 81 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The cobra maneuver that Vice Admiral "Cyclone" Simpson reproached Maverick from performing is actually beyond the capability of any known fighter aircraft except the Russian Su-57 and some MiG-29 variants. Maverick performed a limited cobra move in the original film during his dogfight with the unnamed enemy fighters while flying the F-14, and again in training with his strike force with his F-18A, and lastly to save Rooster from the missile that took down Maverick's own plane when Rooster ran out of countermeasures. Historically there is no record of that maneuver, which is called "Pugachev's Cobra", ever being used in genuine air-to-air combat. It has been seen in dog-fighting training and in public demonstrations, so this would add one more record to Maverick's stellar body of aerial combat achievements: the only aviator to use Pugachev's Cobra to defeat another aviator in combat. It's named after Viktor Pugachev, the Soviet pilot who popularized it when he demonstrated it at an airshow in Paris in 1989, but it was also previously performed by Soviet test pilot Igor Volk, by Swedish pilots who called it kort parad ("short parry") after a maneuver in fencing, and by Syrian pilots in the 1960's, who called it the "zero speed maneuver". It would be both useful both in dog-fighting and in spoofing certain kinds of radar. 9 of 20 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Miles Teller and Joseph Kosinski would go on to make Spiderhead (2022) immediately after this film. 13 of 33 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Tom Cruise and Ed Harris also appear together in The Firm (1993). 15 of 42 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options At least five crew and production personnel worked on both the similarly titled but unrelated movies Maverick (1994) and this film. They are Camera Operator John T. Connor, Foley Artist John Roesch, Musician George Doering, Oboe Soloist Musician Tom Boyd, and French Horn Musician James Thatcher. 16 of 48 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options For a time it was theorized if Charles Parnell would to play an older version of Lieutenant Marcus 'Sundown' Williams, which was played by Clarence Gilyard Jr. in Top Gun (1986). Finally Parnell played a different character, Admiral Solomon 'Warlock' Bates. 2 of 3 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, and Val Kilmer all previously appeared in the film Pollock (2000) which was directed by Harris. 18 of 60 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In a podcast in early August 2022, director Quentin Tarantino stated that he liked the film. 20 of 79 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Ed Harris and Val Kilmer have both previously appeared in both Pollock (2000) and Masked and Anonymous (2003). 12 of 50 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Top Gun (1986) was released, co-star Jennifer Connelly, who portrays Penny Benjamin in this film, appeared in Labyrinth (1986) in the same year. Connelly discussed this on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Jennifer Connelly/Patti LuPone (2022) where she noted that this was a bit of [movie] trivia. 12 of 51 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The second movie between Jon Hamm and Lewis Pullman, the first one is "Bad times at El Royale" 3 of 9 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The movie premiered in 2022, which is the 40th Anniversary year of An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). The former film was the Paramount Pictures studio classic naval military film, which debuted about four years before the studio produced Top Gun (1986). In between, the Hollywood studio also made and released The Lords of Discipline (1983) which starred an actor from An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), David Keith. Since these 1980s movies, the Paramount Pictures studio has been associated with making quality military dramas. During the 1990's, Paramount produced another, which was The General's Daughter (1999). 10 of 55 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Miles Teller's The Spectacular Now (2013) co-star Shailene Woodley congratulated him on the film's success and even attended a screening. 7 of 37 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Raymond Lee portrays a character, Lieutenant Logan "Yale" Lee, who has the same last name (surname) as his own. 10 of 69 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options A large part of the cast were involved with superhero movies or they have worked with other actors involved with superhero movies: Tom Cruise worked in Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) with Henry Cavill, who played Clark Kent/Superman in Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition) (2016), Justice League (2017), and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021); Cruise also worked with Jeremy Renner in the Mission: Impossible franchise, who played Clint Barton/Hawkeye in MCU; with Gene Hackman in The Firm (1993), who played Lex Luthor in Superman (1978) and sequels; with Colin Farrell in Minority Report (2002), who played Bullseye in Daredevil (2003) and Penguin in The Batman (2022); with Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai (2003), who played Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins (2005); and with Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder (2008), who played Tony Stark/Iron Man in MCU.Jennifer Connelly played Betty Ross in Hulk (2003) and she voiced Suit Lady "Karen" in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). Miles Teller played Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in Fantastic Four (2015). Jon Hamm voiced Tony Stark in the animated series M.O.D.O.K. (2021); Danny Ramirez played Joaquin Torres in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). Glen Powell played Trader #1 in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). And Val Kilmer played Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Forever (1995). Oddly funny, Teller's fictional father Goose (Anthony Edwards) worked together with two Batman, Kilmer in Top Gun (1986) and George Clooney in the TV series ER (1994). Later Clooney succeeded Kilmer as Batman in Batman & Robin (1997). 1 of 13 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options CameoMeg Ryan: Uncredited, as Carole Bradshaw, via archive footage. 56 of 74 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Anthony Edwards: Uncredited, as Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, via archive footage. 37 of 60 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Kelly McGillis: Uncredited, as Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, via archive footage. 37 of 60 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options SpoilersThe trivia items below may give away important plot points. Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky has a relapse of throat cancer and dies from it. In real life, Val Kilmer was suffering from throat cancer at the time, resulting in his vocal cords being damaged so severely he was unable to speak. To accommodate this handicap, his character communicates through typing and only speaks three lines near the end of the scene. Those spoken lines were created via a synthetic vocal generator programmed to emulate Kilmer's voice. 2,135 of 2,160 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The reason the ejector seat didn't work in the stolen F-14, was in their haste to depart they did not remove the safety pins from the eject seat, which prevent the canopy release and seat rocket motor being fired accidentally on the ground. 616 of 621 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options At Ice's funeral, the famous "Missing Person" formation is shown. At the last moment, one of the pilots pulls up out of formation, indicating someone has passed on. 396 of 403 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options At the start of the film, Maverick flies a test plane past Mach 10. That is 2.1 miles per second, or 3.4 kilometers per second. In real life, as of 2022, the world's fastest air-breathing manned aircraft is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, whose top speed is slightly more than Mach 3. The unmanned NASA's X-43 scramjet has flown at Mach 9.6. Spacecraft such as the Space Shuttle can fly much faster, but only because they've left Earth's atmosphere. 316 of 322 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Behind the scenes, the reasoning for Carole Bradshaw's offscreen death (played by Meg Ryan in Top Gun (1986)) was fairly simple despite its devastating implications: wanting to focus on new characters more than the legacy ones. "I didn't want every storyline to always be looking backwards," director Joseph Kosinski told Insider. "It was important to introduce some new characters." As a result, Ryan, along with Kelly McGillis (who played Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, Maverick's love interest in the original movie), was not asked back for the sequel and only appears very briefly in a bit of archival footage from the first movie. In an interview with CinemaBlend, Kosinski explained his decision further. "[Charlie and Carole were] not in the story that I worked on. Clearly, their spirits hang over the film in certain ways. There is a glimpse, as you guys know, of both of them in the film. But it was important that we wanted to make sure we were telling a new chapter of Maverick's life. We didn't want to be looking back the whole time." 256 of 262 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The enemy aircraft in this film are Sukhoi Su-57 Felon 5th generation fighters. 535 of 555 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Maverick first arrives at Top Gun, he stops by an F14 "Gate Guardian". This aircraft is Mavericks from Top Gun (1986). It has his name under the canopy, and three aircraft symbols on the nose representing his three Mig kills. This scene appeared in the trailer, but it was cut from the film. 274 of 283 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The only pilot to crash during training was Phoenix, named after a mythical bird who rises from its own fiery ashes. She then proceeds to fly in the final mission. 744 of 785 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Maverick had already shot down three enemy aircraft before returning to Miramar. He shoots down two more on the new mission, thus earning the title "Fighter/Flying Ace." Five downed aircraft was considered the minimum requirement for the distinction. 199 of 208 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The mission in this movie shares multiple elements with the Death Star mission in Star Wars (1977). A small group of fighters have to fly along a trench, keeping below the defensive armament, to target the opening to a small shaft that will enable them to destroy the target. The successful shot is made by a pilot who does not use the targeting technology and instead shoots by instinct, and the heroes are eventually saved by the late intervention of an arrogant pilot who was not part of the original mission. In the scene when Maverick attacks them in their practice run, one pilot tells the pilot that will shoot, the Star Wars line "Stay on target" and they are both shot by Maverick, again like the movie. 491 of 523 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Another element Claudio Miranda played with in his own test flights was how speeding vistas visible in the background during low-altitude runs (like the dangerous route Maverick trains his hotshot class of aces on, below the safety standard "hard deck") enhanced a sense of cinematic excitement. "It was great to have foreground mountains and canyons, whatever made it feel exciting," said Miranda. A wide-angle lens mounted on an inward-facing camera was perfect for showing the ground on both sides of the jet, with Tom Cruise centered. "Normally it's not a flattering lens because if people get off to the side, they get stretched in a funny way. But since Cruise stays mainly in the middle of it, it doesn't hurt and looks kind of bad ass to see all this ground around him," he said. "The great thing that you see on the F/A-18, the wings actually bend," said Miranda. "They flap back and forth. You see those wings when they're pulling the G's and you see his face, and you see the wings bending in the other direction." One "epic" sequence achieved practically was Maverick's "illegal" practice run, in which he steals a jet to prove to his trainees and to the Navy brass that the mission is, indeed, possible. "I even think that it kind of looks like CG, but it's not," said Miranda. "It's totally real. They had a Blue Angel who can go below spec level and even, I think, push to 50 feet. And that's what you see when it goes over the desert floor." 160 of 168 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Two more winks at the original. Maverick appears in the class to the embarrassment of the younger pilots, who had been teasing him the night before in the bar. In Top Gun, Maverick is similarly mortified when Charlie is introduced, as he'd come on to her in the bar previously. And at the end of the successful missions in both films, Maverick shamelessly buzzes the tower. 164 of 174 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The film differs in one major aspect from Top Gun (1986). In this film, Maverick scores a kill using his guns. In the first film, all of the MiG-28s were shot down using missiles; the F-14's M61 Vulcan cannon was never fired. This somewhat defeated the purpose of the Top Gun Academy. The weapons school was designed to instill less reliance on computers and missiles, and instead bring back a hunter's instinct with dog fighting maneuvers and reliance on the aircraft's guns. 91 of 99 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options A barrel roll is performed at the very end of both 'Top Gun' movies. 230 of 261 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In Top Gun (1986) Charlie tells Maverick "We both know you won't be happy unless you're doing Mach 2 with your hair on fire." The opening scene in the sequel is Maverick working as a test pilot attempting to achieve Mach 10 in an experimental aircraft. Mach is the unit used to measure the speed of sound (Mach 1 means travel to 1,125.33 fps or 767.26 mph, equivalent to 340 m/s or 1,234.8 km/h at the near ground level (decreasing with altitude since air density is getting lower the higher we go). Above 40,000 feet (12,192 m), the speed of sound is over 100 mph slower at 659.8 mph (1,062 km/h). Mach 10 implies that Maverick is flying at a speed of 6,958 mph or 10,620 km/h. For reference, Earth's equatorial circumference is 24,901 miles or 40,075 kilometers, and the great circle distance from Los Angeles to New York is 2446.3 miles or 3936 km; if the Darkstar hadn't failed and had continued flying, Maverick could go from LA to NY in under 25 minutes with the enough endurance and without any power loss. For a second reference, Earth's equatorial diameter is 7,926.4 miles or 12,756.3 kilometers, and polar diameter is 7,900 miles or 12,714 kilometers. Assuming Darkstar wouldn't fail and would keep flying in straight line as if Earth didn't exist (and without any power loss), Maverick could cross Earth's equatorial or polar diameter in approximately one hour and ten minutes. The term "Mach" comes from Austrian scientist and physicist Ernst Mach. 318 of 368 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options During the first scene at the bar, Hangman plays a song on the jukebox by pressing "8" and "6". This is a reference to the year the original Top Gun (1986) was released. In addition, Maverick is "eighty-sixed" (USA bar slang for bodily thrown out) from the bar soon afterward for having his credit card declined. 340 of 409 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options During his first meeting with Adm. Simpson (Jon Hamm) and Adm. Bates (Charles Parnell), it's revealed by Maverick that in Top Gun (1986) he graduated second in the Top Gun academy (Iceman graduated first). Also it's revealed that Maverick was flight instructor in Top Gun only for two months. At the end of Top Gun (1986) Maverick commented to Commander Tom "Stinger" Jardian (James Tolkan) to be flight instructor on Top Gun. 88 of 102 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options While Maverick (Tom Cruise) is sailing with Penny (Jennifer Connelly), she gives him instructions, "Pull on the backstay to de-power the sails." Maverick asks, "Okay. What does that mean?" Penny responds, "You're supposed to be in the Navy!" This is similar to a moment in A Few Good Men (1992) where Cruise portrays Lt. Daniel Kaifee of the US Navy. Upon arriving in Cuba, he is informed that a ferry will take him to his next destination. He states, "I'm just not that crazy about boats. That's all." Com. Galloway (Demi Moore) responds, "Jesus Christ, Kaifee! You're in the Navy for crying out loud!" 67 of 80 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The movie mirrors the intro and outro of the original Top Gun (1986): for the intro, it introduces Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly as the main actors (Kelly McGillis in the first part), it shows an intro text explaining the origin of Top Gun academy. Behind the opening credits are shown scenes of fighter planes taking off from a carrier in the middle of the ocean; for the outro, both films show the main cast and their call signs and characters, and then a sunset in a yellow sky with up-scrolling ending credits. The song chosen for the original outro was The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"; the song chosen for this movie was Lady Gaga's "Hold My Hand". 66 of 81 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In Top Gun (1986), Maverick buzzes the tower twice over Air Boss Johnson, the commander aboard the USS Enterprise vessel as well at the Miramar Naval Air Station. In this film, Maverick buzzes the tower again when he returns in the stolen F-14 plane over Admiral Beau "Cyclone" Simpson, whose appointment (Commander Navy Air Force) is unofficially known as Navy Air Boss. 38 of 45 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Pentagon's contract for the Darkstar was to get Mach 10 (no more beyond). However, Maverick disobeys the orders and he pulls the ship beyond, having malfunction at 10.3 and being destroyed at 10.4. Despite the results, the experiment is in a certain way double successful: Maverick not only proves that Mach 10 is possible, but he also shows which are Darkstar limits and at what speed it fails. 7 of 7 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Admiral "Warlock" Bates lauds Maverick to have come out top of his 1986 Top Gun class, to which Maverick quickly corrects and says that he ended up second. This is based on a common misconception of the viewers from the first Top Gun (1986), who claim that Maverick won the Top Gun trophy, but in reality it was Iceman who won. After Goose's death, Maverick became disoriented and traumatized and for such, he couldn't concentrate on the practice runs and tests. As a result, he lost points and ended up second in his class. 13 of 15 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options There are several interpretations of Val Kilmer's character, Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, in the film. First, looking at the situation at Iceman's house and his character's appearance, Iceman might have retired from active duty within the US Navy. His portrait is still on display at the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet, but it is common for the portrait of the former commander of the military service to be displayed at the military service headquarters.
35 of 54 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Although "Fanboy" is a nod to Star Trek (1966), there are a couple of similarities to Star Wars, such as, "Stay on Target". Aim for an exhaust vent. The target is only 3 meters wide (Star Wars (1977) 2 meters) flying in a trench run (Beggar's Canyon/Death Star) and stealing an aircraft (Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) Tie fighter). 30 of 47 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options When Penny and Pete meet in the bar David Bowie's "Let's Dance" is playing, a nod to Jennifer Connelly's time with Bowie on the movie Labyrinth (1986). The reference is not casual after Labyrinth (1986) and Top Gun (1986) were premiered barely one month apart: Cruise's on May 16 and Connelly's on June 27. 7 of 9 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In both Top Gun films, someone close to Maverick dies. In Top Gun (1986), Maverick lost his best friend, Goose. In this film, he lost his rival-turned-friend, Iceman. Goose lost his life during a botched training mission. This devastated and deeply traumatized Maverick, the results of which are still felt in this film. Here, Iceman dies due to throat cancer. At Iceman's funeral, Maverick is emotionally shaken. Despite their tense rivalry in the first film, Maverick and Iceman eventually grew to respect one another and became close friends. Judging by the many risky activities Maverick had indulged in, Iceman would vouch for him when he (Maverick) got into trouble. Before he passed, Iceman encouraged Maverick to let go of the trauma of what happened to Goose, forgive himself, and clear the air with Rooster. 39 of 80 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The movie employs the same opening and ending as in the original Top Gun (1986): for the opening, it introduces Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly as the main actors (Kelly McGillis in the first part), it shows an intro text explaining the origin of Top Gun academy and later appear the opening credits while are shown scenes of fight planes taking off from an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean; for the ending it is shown the main cast and their names, and later a sunset with a down-up vertical scrolling ending credits. The replica includes the same font for the letters: ITC Machine for "Top Gun" logo, Futura for the intro text, Serpentine for the opening credits, Universe for the main cast in the ending and Univers Ultra Condensed for the ending credits. 4 of 5 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In the second to last dog fight, Maverick used guns against the 5th generation fighter. There is a counter showing how many rounds are left to use. At one point they had 33 rounds left. This was a nod to the original film, as they were filming the sequel 33 years after the release of the first film. 28 of 56 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options It's never revealed why Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood 'Charlie' from Top Gun (1986) is no longer part of Maverick's life. Other than a couple of brief flashbacks, she is never mentioned. Given that Maverick starts a romantic relationship with Penny, it could be Charlie, like most others in Maverick's past, has died. 40 of 88 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The film has many parallels with its predecessor Top Gun (1986). Some of them include:
8 of 14 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options In the closing scenes, Penny arrives at Maverick's airplane hanger along with her daughter Amelia. The plot indicates Penny and Maverick are both starting new chapters in their lives and settling down. In Amelia's final scene she is wearing two flowers pinned to her shirt, foreshadowing her possible role as a 'Flower Girl' in their wedding. 39 of 208 found this interesting Interesting? Yes No | Share this Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options The number of rounds left in Maverick's arsenal was 33 before he finally shoots down the last enemy plane . That is the same number Tom Cruise wore on his football jersey in All the Right Moves (1983). Who is showing The Card Counter?Add HBO Max™ to any Hulu plan for an additional $14.99/month. New subscribers only.
Where is movie card counter playing?Currently you are able to watch "The Card Counter" streaming on HBO Max, DIRECTV.
Is The Card Counter worth seeing?One of the best films and performances of the year. Schrader and Isaac at their best. Having written Taxi Driver and directed First reformed, Paul Schrader knows something about deeply-troubled souls, especially haunted taxi drivers and small-town cops. Now add card counting loner.
How long is The Card Counter?1h 52mThe Card Counter / Running timenull
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