Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller
Rear Admiral: The end is inevitable, Maverick. Your kind is headed for extinction.
Maverick: Maybe so, sir. But not today.
Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw: My dad believed in you. I'm not going to make the same mistake.
Amelia: Captain, still?
Maverick: Highly decorated Captain.
Maverick: He would always resent me for what I did. Why should he resent her too?
Maverick: You think up there, you're dead, believe me.
Factual error: The radar guided SAMs are consistently evaded/triggered by the pilots' flares, which in reality only work against heat seeking missiles. Radar guided missiles would be defended against using chaff, basically clouds of aluminium foil strips. It was mentioned in some interviews they didn't want use chaff as it wouldn't really be visible for the audience - hence why they only deploy flares.
Trivia: The P-51 Mustang that "Maverick" Mitchell flies in this film is actually Tom Cruise's own airplane.
Question: If these were the best of the best, going on a mission crucial to world peace, why were they in aircraft that were outdated and outgunned? It mentioned several times they would never stand a chance against the dreaded "5th generation" enemy fighters. Why not use the F-35?
Answer: Just my observation, but I got the sense that the F-35 was too fast to make the adjustment to do the steep climb out, and as much as the plane needed to be fast, but it was more important it be capable to throttle lower enough to maneuver through the course, and make the climb...and that the F-35 could do one or the other...just my guess, but that's how I understood it from Maverick's initial analysis, from when he was called in to "Teach".
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Answer: The real-world answer is that F-35s only come in single-seat configuration, so there was no way to put the actors in one seat for filming while pilots flew the plane. It would also make for less of an "underdog" feel of going up against overwhelming odds. The in-universe answer is that F-18s are better suited for the kind of mission it is.