But we don't know how long Maverick has been a captain. For all we know, he was promoted not long before the events of this film.
Top Gun sequel is confirmed!
- Thread starter Romulan_spy
- Start date
But we don't know how long Maverick has been a captain. For all we know, he was promoted not long before the events of this film.
But again, it's a timing thing. There's no way he only was only promoted three pay grades over three decades without any red flags. Either you rank up, retire, or get booted. Simple as that.
What has that got to do with it? The clock to 30 years started the day he commissioned as an ensign.
Foxtrot Alpha takes a deep dive on that issue, not to mention other weirdness in the trailer. Maverick could be a professor at the Naval Academy, which is a legal exception to the automatic retirement, but it's unlikely.
Too bad no one ever told this to Will Riker...
Admiral. And I don't think you see too many flag-rank officers who still fly on any sort of regular basis beyond check flights to keep flight-pay status or the like.
Fixed that for ya.
seriously, this is Tom Cruise we're talking about here. Nobody's going to make him play some flag officer stuck behind a desk. Realism be damned, he's going to insist that he be out there in the midst of the action. The plot's just going to have to deal with that.
Some of the concerns raised here have already been addressed.
Back in March of 2018, Variety summed it up thusly:
Kor
Back in March of 2018, Variety summed it up thusly:
Source: https://variety.com/2018/film/news/tom-cruise-top-gun-maverick-photo-1202826439/Variety said:
Kor
When I think of Top Gun I don't think of reality entering the picture. It's just pure 80's cheese.
I'm glad it's not just me and J.T.B. who are taking issue with this problem.
Edited to add: I love the author's suggestion that Maverick was tied up in the Fat Leonard scandal as a reason for his stalled career...even if that's an unlikely explanation, too, considering what happened to many of the personnel involved in that.
Sure, but there's a big difference between a fictional space military several centuries into the future that clearly operates by its own rules (beyond anything, the severe lack of enlisted personnel) and a supposedly somewhat realistic take on a real-life Navy (especially one that benefited hugely from a recruitment when the original film came out).
Which addresses his status as a pilot, but not the lack of ranking up. Granted, I don't know how promotions work for in-service instructors work, but I highly doubt staying a captain for more than a decade or two is acceptable.
I didn't know that there was a law, but when watching the trailer I assumed that at some point Maverick should have been pushed out of the service.
If they bring in Norm MacDonald to play Fat Leonard as the article suggests, then I'll go along with it.
No, no, no. About 70% of O-4s make O-5, about 50% of O-5s make O-6. Of those only 2-3% will be promoted to one star. It is one of the hardest things to accomplish in our society today. There are plenty of brilliant, devoted, accomplished, highly impressive people in that other 97% who have held responsibilites that most of us can't imagine and retire as colonels or captains. There is nothing wrong with them.
Yeah, that's fair. I worded my post very poorly. I was just railing against Star Trek's deification of the captain rank.
Your proably right but I think a little suspension of disbelief can work for the movie. Jason
Considering the big shortages of pilots in all the US armed forces which has resulted in postponing mandatory retirement if requested (which actually had existed previously if a waiver was requested) it's not unusual to see pilots staying longer. Granted Tom Cruise's Maverick is probably a decade past what the 'oldest normal' age would be.