Top Gun corrections

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Top Gun (1986) - 52 corrections

Directed by Tony Scott, starring Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis, Michael Ironside, Tom Cruise, Tom Skerritt, Val Kilmer

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "make changes" when viewing mistakes, and click "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

In the scene in the bathroom, you see Maverick walking through the doors, they say 'ladies room'. When they are in the bathroom, though, the writing should be backwards, as it is the back of the door and reflected in the mirror but it is written exactly the same, the words are on the wrong side of the doors as well. [The writing on the back of the door would be backwards from the inside, but because it is reflected in the mirror it looks as if it is written properly.]

In the scene where Goose dies, when he is getting carried up to the helicopter his arm moves up to his chest and then itches it. [He isn't dead at that stage, just seriously injured. He dies later in the base hospital.]

In the whole movie the pilots are controlling the throttle with their right hand. But in reality, the throttle is placed on the left hand side and the right hand is used to control the stick. [At no time do the pilots control the throttle & joystick with the opposite hands, it only looks like it when they shoot the scene from the front looking back.]

Maverick is seen riding his motorcycle down the runway while jets go whipping by and he is not wearing a helmet. Wearing a helmet on a naval base is mandatory, even in states which permit riders to go helmetless on the public streets. [But we already know that Maverick is a rebel- he does a flyby after 'killing' Jester even though he was ordered not to.]

At Top Gun, when Ice confronts Mav wondering who was covering Cougar while Mav was "show boating" with the MiG, Mav should have pointed out that the first MiG had already "bugged out" and he was, in fact, covering Cougar by engaging the second MiG. [There is no training school in the world that tells the pilot to engage an enemy aircraft by flying inverted above it. Maverick should have flown behind the plane and illuminated it with his missile control radar and attempted to achieve a lockon in order to send a message to the Mig pilot. If the Mig pilot had fired at Cougar, Maverick would not have been able to engage the Mig from his position ( apart from kamikazeing into it). He would therefore not have been able to stop the Mig from shooting again or to get revenge if Cougar had been hit. Iceman is correct when he asks who was covering Cougar.]

The guy in the tower drinking coffee works at both Mirimar and the Enterprise? [The air traffic control officer is a different person in the two scenes. It is just an amusing coincidence that they both happen to take a drink just before Maverick does his flyby.]

In the bar scene at the beginning of the movie when Iceman is talking to Maverick the camera is behind Maverick and shows him drinking a beer. The scene switches views to where the camera is behind Iceman and Mav is not drinking, then the scene switches back behind Mav and he is drinking from the bottle again. [The bottle is merely being held out of frame. The bottle wouldn't have been held up to his face during the length of the conversation.]

Any pilot that disobeyed a direction by air traffic control and conducted a "fly by" would immediately lose their flying status, yet Maverick does it twice. [Viper made it clear that he was cutting Maverick a break the first time he did a fly by, by not losing his flying status. The second time was at the end of the movie, so we don't see if he lost his flying status or not, although it is doubtful that they would take it away from him since he was a hero.]

In the scene where Charlie is introduced, you would not have to tell a bunch of experienced officers (ie Lieutenants), that they don't have to salute civilians. [Jester is informing them that the woman is a civilian, and not military personnel. They already know you don't salute civilians.] Corrected by Grumpy Scot

Maverick followed Jester below the Hard Deck, yet only Maverick got into trouble. [Because Jester was the target and could do that - Maverick followed him below the Hard Deck and then engaged his weapons - a direct violation of the rules.] Corrected by wolfchild

If Viper had flown with Maverick's father in Vietnam then he would have rushed up and slapped Maverick on the back at the first chance, rather than being aloof and only finally putting his mind at rest about what happened after Maverick crashes a plane and loses the edge. Also as whatever happened to Maverick's father occurred some fifteen years previously, Viper wouldn't have hesitated in telling his dead mate's son what happened even if for some strange reason it was still classified. [This isn't a film mistake - it's your opinion on how Viper should behave. Maybe he didn't like Maverick (or his father?) and wanted him to be uncomfortable.]

In the ejection scene where Goose buys the farm his helmet is clearly seen flying off during the sequence (it's even in slo-mo) yet when Maverick reaches him in the water he's wearing it. [Goose's helmet does not go flying off. In the slo-mo section of the ejection scene look closely and you will see Goose's head (which is still in the helmet) get forecd forward when it comes in contact with the canopy. At no time does the helmet ever come off his head.]

In the opening dog fight scene, the wings on his F-14 change continuously from "swept" to "unswept". "Swept" wings are a delta shape and "unswept" are more clearly open. The changes in shape are dependent upon speed and would not change so quickly between scenes. [The wing sweep feature of the F-14 can be either computer controlled or pilot controlled, allowing for greater manuverability during dogfights. Un-swept wings allow for tighter turns during a dogfight, especially when using the 20mm cannon.]

In the briefing just before the final dogfight the pilots are told that the "MiGs" carry the exocet anti ship missile. This is actually a French missile. [The French have sold this missile to countries that do not like us... for this reason the USS Stark, a Navy Frigate, was hit by an Exocet missile back some years ago.]

At the end Tom Cruise asks permission for a flyby. He is told "No, the pattern is full." There are only two planes and a helicopter in the air and the pattern is full? I think not. [Could it be that he was giving a convenient excuse (and plausible to anyone not within visiblity range to see for themselves)? It's obvious he isn't a fan of Maverick's fly-bys.]

In real life Maverick would have been about 5 inches too short to get into the navy as height restrictions still applied in the mid 1980s. [Tom Cruise is 5'7". That average american man is only 5'10". I have a hard time believing that the Navy would have turned away everyone under 6'0" tall. That would have seriously limited their pool to choose from.]

In the opening dogfight, Cougar says "I'm gonna break high and right, see if he's really alone". During actual patrols, the two aircraft would never be on each others wingtip. Normal operation call for them to be about a mile apart and a thousand feet different in altitude - the better to see each others "six". [When jet fighters come into battles in pairs, as the MiGs did in the first fight, they will often fly in tight formation to appear as one aircraft on radar so that when the battle begins, the enemy thinks that they're dealing with a single bogey, but are really dealing with two. When Cougar breaks away to see if he's really alone, this advantage continues because the MiG gets Cougar out of position at the beginning of the dogfight.]

In the final celebration scene aboard the carrier, there is a crowd of flight deck crewmen cheering, and if you listen and watch carefully, you can hear and see one of them yell, 'All right, Tom'. [That could be due to the fact that Iceman's real name is Tom Kaczansky.]

While the Goose is falling to the water after having broken his neck and died, he puts his arms up to direct his parachute. [I just finished watching this movie and i'm pretty sure that the person directing the parachute is supposed to be Maverick.]

At the end of the movie, when Maverick's aircraft is launched, there's a shot from an F-14 looking back from at the ship. Maverick was supposedly launched from one of the bow catapults, but the shot was clearly taken from an aircraft that had just come off one of the waist cats. Also, the pilot of the aircraft does a roll as he climbs away from the ship, a useless maneuver that the movie's director insisted on because it looked cool. [The shot was not take from an aircraft that had taken off from one of the waist cats, it was taken from an aircraft doing a fly by (look at the exhaust trail) on the carrier. An aircraft doesnt have the airspeed that short after take off to do a roll.]