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kscherer
Which way is up?
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
 
2019-12-17, 12:44

The dude is just that good. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying "good" as in "Tom Cruise is such a good man!" Good is a bit of a loose term here, where by "good" I mean "good actor, good worker, good fan support, good recovery, etc. Short of the tabloid marital exploits and dancing through wives, the guy is pretty clean (as far as Hollywood goes). On top of that, he keeps making one blockbuster film after another, has a loyal fan base, makes smart financial decisions, is a brilliantly good driver (fastest guest star ever around the track on Top Gun Gear). I mean, what's not to like about the guy (aside from Scientology)?

The haters are just jealous, methinks. I'm not a hater, but I'm also not jealous. I am a very private person and actually pretty shy, whereas people like Tom Cruise have to battle through a crap ton of excessive attention and poparazzi-prodding garbage that would drive me into a cave. Granted, popular people tend to bring that on themselves, but it's all in how you handle it, and I think he's done a [mostly] fine job.



I just watched a little Youtube thing a pilot did about the trailer and it's fun to hear a pro talk about the crazy maneuvers and the nostalgia bits. Funny, these "military" movies and how much they typically get wrong, but the reviewer is quick to point out that "it looks good on TV", which is a necessary thing considering the sheer amount of boredom involved in actual "military" things. I mean, have you ever watched a pair of fighters fly over? That straight line stuff sure would be fun! But it's no good on the big screen, so Hollywood injects lots and lots of either A) impossible maneuvers, and B) maneuvers that are possible but the real military would never permit or train for due to the high degree of danger. There are even peculiar aspects of the aircraft in question that Hollywood makes up to entertain the audience. For instance, the compressor stall in the F-14 Tomcat from Top Gun that lead to the flat spin that killed Goose was a semi-real thing with that particular plane due to the wide separation of the engine nacelles, although proper training negated the problem. Whereas the F-18 is a center-line thrust fighter (both engine nacelles are very close together) so an engine flameout does not produce a flat spin, like, ever!

But!

Hollywood needs a bit of creative latitude in order to make military movies exciting, otherwise we would all just go to sleep waiting for something interesting to happen. (All the jabber in foot-soldier type movies is there for us. Soldiers trying to remain undetected don't go about the countryside jabbering about random things, lest they get shot through the big ol' mouth).

Either way, the first movie was brilliant good fun, and I can not wait for #2!

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