You Going to See Top Gun: Maverick?

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Are you going to watch Top Gun: Maverick in theaters?

  • Yes

    Votes: 142 51.4%
  • No

    Votes: 72 26.1%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 36 13.0%
  • Who cares

    Votes: 24 8.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 0.7%

  • Total voters
    276
  • Poll closed .

Sigmapolis

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Nicole Kidman is also better than Kelly McGillis.

Both their characters were pretty ridiculous, though.

McGillis was 29 and pretending to be some expert on air combat that senior naval officers deferred to on the matter. Was she a pilot? Did she have combat experience? Nobody knows...

Kidman is a better actress, definitely. Her successful and varied career since then (which still continues, she did great as the Queen Gertrude character in The Northman) proves that. But she was 23 at the time of Days of Thunder and pretending to be a neurosurgeon specializing in brain trauma.

Umm... assuming somebody starts college when they're 18 then...

AGE
18-21 = undergraduate
22-25 = medical school
26-32 = the SEVEN-YEAR residency required to be an attending neurosurgeon
might even add 1-2 research years or a fellowship to this

So you're not an attending in that field until probably your mid-30s if not late-30s. She's too young to be playing that character by a decade at least. Not sure they thought that casting through...

The script just needed an attractive woman for Tom Cruise to boink in both instances.
 
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Drew0311

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Nov 7, 2019
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Both their characters were pretty ridiculous, though.

McGillis was 29 and pretending to be some expert on air combat that senior naval officers deferred to on the matter. Was she a pilot? Did she have combat experience? Nobody knows...

Kidman is a better actress, definitely. Her successful and varied career since then (which still continues, she did great as the Queen Gertrude character in The Northman) proves that. But she was 23 at the time of Days of Thunder and pretending to be a neurosurgeon specializing in brain trauma.

Umm... assuming somebody starts college when they're 18 then...

AGE
18-21 = undergraduate
22-25 = medical school
26-32 = the SEVEN-YEAR residency required to be an attending neurosurgeon
might even add 1-2 research years or a fellowship to this

So you're not an attending in that field until probably your mid-30s if not late-30s. She's too young to be playing that character by a decade at least. Not sure they thought that casting through...

The script just needed an attractive woman for Tom Cruise to boink in both instances.


As a Marine. You would be suprised in the Military what is considered an Expert and how an Expert can try and teach combat Vets about combat. I get what you are saying though.
 

MeanDean

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Both their characters were pretty ridiculous, though.

McGillis was 29 and pretending to be some expert on air combat that senior naval officers deferred to on the matter. Was she a pilot? Did she have combat experience? Nobody knows...

Kidman is a better actress, definitely. Her successful and varied career since then (which still continues, she did great as the Queen Gertrude character in The Northman) proves that. But she was 23 at the time of Days of Thunder and pretending to be a neurosurgeon specializing in brain trauma.

Umm... assuming somebody starts college when they're 18 then...

AGE
18-21 = undergraduate
22-25 = medical school
26-32 = the SEVEN-YEAR residency required to be an attending neurosurgeon
might even add 1-2 research years or a fellowship to this

So you're not an attending in that field until probably your mid-30s if not late-30s. She's too young to be playing that character by a decade at least. Not sure they thought that casting through...

The script just needed an attractive woman for Tom Cruise to boink in both instances.
Doogie Kidman?
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
Both their characters were pretty ridiculous, though.

McGillis was 29 and pretending to be some expert on air combat that senior naval officers deferred to on the matter. Was she a pilot? Did she have combat experience? Nobody knows...

Kidman is a better actress, definitely. Her successful and varied career since then (which still continues, she did great as the Queen Gertrude character in The Northman) proves that. But she was 23 at the time of Days of Thunder and pretending to be a neurosurgeon specializing in brain trauma.

Umm... assuming somebody starts college when they're 18 then...

AGE
18-21 = undergraduate
22-25 = medical school
26-32 = the SEVEN-YEAR residency required to be an attending neurosurgeon
might even add 1-2 research years or a fellowship to this

So you're not an attending in that field until probably your mid-30s if not late-30s. She's too young to be playing that character by a decade at least. Not sure they thought that casting through...

The script just needed an attractive woman for Tom Cruise to boink in both instances.
Doogie Howser was like 16 or so.
 

Sigmapolis

Minister of Economy
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Doogie Howser was like 16 or so.

If I remember correctly he was a second-year surgery resident.

Add 5-6 years to that to become an attending. And no, residencies and fellowships are not like high school or even college where you can test out of things and skip ahead. You have to put in the time.

Which would put him in the... 23ish range.

Confirmed, Days of Thunder is realistic if Nicole Kidman is a once-in-a-century child prodigy.
 

madguy30

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2011
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Both their characters were pretty ridiculous, though.

McGillis was 29 and pretending to be some expert on air combat that senior naval officers deferred to on the matter. Was she a pilot? Did she have combat experience? Nobody knows...

I'm looking right now but I'm not sure if we were ever really told what the overall conflict was that they engaged in for the 3rd act of Top Gun. I think it had something to do with Russia.

So maybe...there was no reason for anyone to be there?
 

Sigmapolis

Minister of Economy
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Waukee
I'm looking right now but I'm not sure if we were ever really told what the overall conflict was that they engaged in for the 3rd act of Top Gun. I think it had something to do with Russia.

So maybe...there was no reason for anyone to be there?

It was vaguely based on the real life Gulf of Sidra Incident --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Sidra_incident_(1981)

Short version: Libya tried to assert territorial sovereignty over shipping lanes clearly in international waters in the central Mediterranean. President Reagan decided to disabuse them of this notion by sending a carrier task group into "their" territory to assert, "Nah, we can go through here just fine."

Libya sent out some fighter jets to play some chicken with some F-14s, but eventually one of them fired on the Tomcat and well how about we say the Libyan pilots had very bad days after that.

The Top Gun version replaces the inciting incident of a territorial claim with a disabled American intelligence ship drifting towards hostile waters needing assistance from Navy destroyers with Maverick and friends providing air cover. Then the Soviet ally sends some fighters and well you know from there.

Spoilers --

Seems the new one bases its third act on a combination of Operation Babylon, which was the Israeli air raid on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, and a fictional but conceivable raid on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Isfahan. The George W. Bush administration considered an air raid on Isfahan in the 2000s but decided instead to deploy the Stuxnet virus, which had some temporary, limited effect.

You know the "anonymous" country in Maverick is Iran because Iran was the only other country to deploy F-14s besides the U.S. and they might have a few that are still flyable even if very old and hurting for parts. The Iranians might have kept a few going by cannibalizing from the grounded ones.
 

Frak

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My wife always thought the hit Kenny Loggins song said… “I went to the danger zone.” I had to inform her of the real lyrics.

Like, why would you purposely go to the danger zone?

Oh, and Cyclone is going to be a character/call sign in this one! Giddy up!!!
I have a sister in law that thought AC/DC sang a song called Dirty Deeds Dunder Chief.
 
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Frak

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Nicole Kidman is also better than Kelly McGillis.
Man, I don’t know. Back in the day I think I would taken McGillis over Kidman. But she definitely did not age well.
 
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RoseClone

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Oct 18, 2006
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Both their characters were pretty ridiculous, though.

McGillis was 29 and pretending to be some expert on air combat that senior naval officers deferred to on the matter. Was she a pilot? Did she have combat experience? Nobody knows...

Kidman is a better actress, definitely. Her successful and varied career since then (which still continues, she did great as the Queen Gertrude character in The Northman) proves that. But she was 23 at the time of Days of Thunder and pretending to be a neurosurgeon specializing in brain trauma.

Umm... assuming somebody starts college when they're 18 then...

AGE
18-21 = undergraduate
22-25 = medical school
26-32 = the SEVEN-YEAR residency required to be an attending neurosurgeon
might even add 1-2 research years or a fellowship to this

So you're not an attending in that field until probably your mid-30s if not late-30s. She's too young to be playing that character by a decade at least. Not sure they thought that casting through...

The script just needed an attractive woman for Tom Cruise to boink in both instances.
I can't imagine sitting through a movie with you.