I Watch Films: Top Gun: Maverick
Top Gun: Maverick
Maverick from the film Top Gun is a test pilot; when the program for the plane he’s testing is about to be ended he goes beyond the limits and crashes his plane. This is the kind of thing he does.
He’s been protected in his career by Iceman from Top Gun, who is now Commander of the Pacific Fleet. So after the crash he’s brought in to train some hot young pilots for a special mission*.
The mission is impossible (mountains, stay low under defences, very short time period before enemy fighters (5th generation!) engage and a hair-raising, plane-destroying, threat-increasing climb at the end). But they need to destroy this uranium enrichment plant before radioactive materials arrive. Very contrived but that’s okay.
Also contrived is that one of the top naval aviators selected as candidates for the mission is Rooster, the son of Goose, who died in Top Gun. Maverick and he have issues**. Frankly Rooster has his father’s moustache and also his piano-playing, I don’t know if maybe someone wants to talk to him about that. The rest of them have one, maybe two character traits, which is also related to their flying style. None of them can fly as well as Maverick, who is presumably in his fifties.
Maverick works through his various problems, while also solving the big problem (nuclear anti-proliferation***). Rooster also has some character moments, everyone else gets slightly better at flying, that’s it. There’s a lot of aerial training and a lot of bits and pieces on the ground as various problems arrive, then are negated. Then they fly the mission.
Watch This: Some cool flying action, a bit of old-school men
coming to terms with past problems
Don’t Watch This: The film is as subtle as a brick
* SPOILERS for Top Gun: Maverick: Most of the film takes place at the Top Gun academy where they train for the strike. In theory this takes place at the former Naval Air Station Miramar, San Diego. However the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program has been located in Nevada since 1996. History has diverged, presumably as a result of the rescue of the SS Layton in 1986. Nevertheless, most of the training takes place over desert, where they can fly dangerously without annoying people on the ground. Combined with the sparse, wire-frame computer models, this fooled me into thinking they were going to attack a hot, desert environment. On board the aircraft carrier it doesn't look especially cold. So the snowy, evergreen tree lined valley came as a surprise.
So where are they attacking? Not Russia, which has nuclear weapons. Not China for the same reason. North Korea is a possibility. Yet a strike on North Korea could be based out of South Korea, making the use of a carrier even more ridiculous.
(It is, of course, never explained why the Navy has to do it, not the Air Force, why they aren’t sending in one of the US military's many Special Forces to demolish the plant, or having them assist by painting the target with a laser designator, sabotaging the SAMs etc etc etc)
This is an alternate history, so let’s consider some traditional US allies as possibilities. What if a European nation turned hostile? The UK already has nuclear weapons, also France, so they're out. The geography's wrong for Germany, whose mountains do not face the North Sea (a body of water a bit small for a carrier task force to operate in safely). Norway is an option, and the idea of rogue Scandinavia is fun. If all of Europe turned against the US because of their aggression in the [unnamed Asian Sea] in 1986 then there might be no bases or forces in the region... it's a thought.
But Iceman is Commander Pacific Fleet, and he's calling the shots. So scrap Europe. Canada? Even more fun, but almost any attack would be more feasible from a ground base. The US simply don't need to use the Navy for an attack on Canada.
But there's another clue. San Diego doesn't exactly get cold and wet by my standards even in winter, but that's some glorious summer weather when they play dogfight football on the beach. And the target has snow. So it's Southern hemisphere. Southern hemisphere, Pacific, deep valleys from the sea, no local land bases for Americans to operate out of.
Okay, following the SS Layton incident, Top Gun: Maverick posits an alternate history which results in a militant, hostile to the US, nuclear weapon-seeking New Zealand.
** SPOILERS for Top Gun: Maverick: On the mission the two of them each attempt to sacrifice themselves for each other; fail; instead have a spectacular escape in Chekhov’s F-14 Tomcat.
*** Con-liferation?
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