Quicksand Fans

I saw the original Top Gun three times with three different girls back in '86. At the time I was broken up with my girlfriend of three years so I didn't get to see it with her. Run ahead 36 years and Friday night I finally got to see Top Gun Maverick with the old girlfriend. Only now I've been married to her for nearly 33 years. All of the military part was absolutely ridiculous and the love story was kind of shallow but you know what? We loved it and the audience broke into applause and cheering more than once. The flying scenes were real and absolutely awesome on the big screen. The connections to the original were incessant but well done. There's a couple of surprises that aren't really but again, handled well. The whole movie is a huge bucket of popcorn that will make you feel good if you suspend belief in...well, all of it. But it doesn't matter. You should see it.

Preview for Top Gun Maverick - https://youtu.be/giXco2jaZ_4

Duncan Edwards wrote:The connections to the original were incessant....

That was my only gripe. I'll still give it 9/10 though.
I wonder if this is a record for time passed between an original movie and a sequel? I was only 4 when the original came out haha.

Big jet nerd here - absolutely adore the first film, 'Maverick' was a lot better than I expected, really enjoyed it personally, so did my other half, infact, she wholeheartedly prefers it to the first!

The F/A-18 Hornet doesn't do anything for me, so the highlight was most certainly the F-14 Tomcat (without giving too much away). I felt like the only guy in the cinema who knew what the Tomcat was - nevertheless it made me giddy, so much so that my missus knew I was grinning without even looking over!

TheSacredCow wrote:Big jet nerd here - absolutely adore the first film, 'Maverick' was a lot better than I expected, really enjoyed it personally, so did my other half, infact, she wholeheartedly prefers it to the first!

The F/A-18 Hornet doesn't do anything for me, so the highlight was most certainly the F-14 Tomcat (without giving too much away). I felt like the only guy in the cinema who knew what the Tomcat was - nevertheless it made me giddy, so much so that my missus knew I was grinning without even looking over!

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I agree, the F-14 was bad-ass.

But my personal favorite is still the F-4. Possibly because I assembled a (Blue Angels) model of one when I was a kid. The kick nowadays is that a good friend of mine here in TN was a Phantom driver in Vietnam - including Wild Weasel missions. I enjoy his stories very much.

I did have a close encounter with one at Clark in 1990. It came screaming in for a landing about 20 feet over the road we were on - just ahead of us. I realized much later that he actually landed on a (crosswind?) taxiway. I never made out the markings. But there was a squadron of New Zealand F/A18a's parked there as we drove further by. Crow Valley was pretty busy back in the day.

dlodoski wrote:...but my personal favorite is still the F-4. Possibly because I assembled a (Blue Angels) model of one when I was a kid. The kick nowadays is that a good friend of mine here in TN was a Phantom driver in Vietnam - including Wild Weasel missions. I enjoy his stories very much.

I did have a close encounter with one at Clark in 1990. It came screaming in for a landing about 20 feet over the road we were on - just ahead of us. I realized much later that he actually landed on a (crosswind?) taxiway. I never made out the markings. But there was a squadron of New Zealand F/A18a's parked there as we drove further by. Crow Valley was pretty busy back in the day.

Love a good Phantom! That's amazing - must have been quite a daunting feat being those first Phantom pilots in Vietnam facing all those VPAF MiG's - AFAIK, one of the only countries to actually adopt Soviet aircraft well and use them properly!

That must have been amazing to witness! We have quite busy skies Mon through Fri here in the North West of the U.K, as we're just on the doorstep of the Lake District, which they often use to train, aswell as the coveted Mach loop. We have a few Squadrons of USAF F15's down at RAF Lakenheath and Mildenhall that fly by at least once or twice a week. They hung around a few weeks ago and performed one hell of a low level display before zipping off up into the Lakes!

Mynock wrote:
I wonder if this is a record for time passed between an original movie and a sequel? I was only 4 when the original came out haha.

Sorry Maverick, but a little doe has the record.

Bambi --> 64 years later --> Bambi II



I was 26 when TG was released. After that movie came out, every damn time an F-14 flew at an airshow anywhere they just HAD to play "Danger Zone" over the PA system. We got so sick of it that it became a bit of a running joke for dedicated air show fans. "Noooooo. Not Danger Zone!?"

My personal fav will always be the A-10 Warthog but the Tomcat is up there on my list. Gotta give the Hind gunship a nod for it's role too, the most bad ass fuck shit uppest helicopter in existance.

I got to see both fly in the 1980s and early 1990s at the free annual airshow at Moffett Field, formerly a Navy Air Base. Saw my first show there in 1967.

See the A-10 here (1986 show). The F-14 follows right after. Check out the whole video for a real treat. We were so aviation-spoiled then : https://youtu.be/713iWrgjrsA?t=1547