Top Gun: Maverick

Revealing mistake: When Maverick and the team are heading into enemy territory after leaving the carrier, they start dropping below enemy radar. There is a shot from a "belly camera" under a plane facing rearwards. The wings are moving around, then disappear upwards out of the picture. This is because the low flying aircraft (supposedly not an F-18F) pulled up in the shot, while the belly of an F-18F was overlaid / pasted into this cut in post. (01:31:45)

Revealing mistake: When Maverick uses the Cobra Maneuver in the F-14 he was piloting and being chased by the 5th-Gen Fighter and moves above it, the onboard camera in the 5th-Gen fighter captures the supposedly F-14 moving back from above. Only that it does not look like an F-14 with its movable wings spread out. The scene is fast and so a normal user might not notice this infraction. (01:52:40)

Revealing mistake: During the scene with Maverick and Rooster in the F-14A, you can see the cockpit of the F-18F being reflected off Rooster's visor on the helmet.

Revealing mistake: Tom Cruise is placing his right hand on the cockpit canopy during an ACM training. The Rhino takes 2 hands to fly at all times unless you are in a straight and level flight. Since they were in ACM and his hands were on the canopy, this tells you that Tom Cruise was actually in the RIO position of the aircraft.

Movie Medic

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It does not take two hands at all times. The throttle can be set for short periods, allowing the aircrew to brace themselves against the canopy to turn around and look behind them.

True IF you are in straight/level flight. They were in ACM at the time which would require both hands on stick and throttle.

Movie Medic

There's a former Navy pilot on YT that confirms this.

Confirms that a pilot can or can't fly one handed like that scene?

Cannot. The channel is called Mover Ruins Movies.

Movie Medic

Revealing mistake: When Maverick is chasing the 5th Gen fighter in the canyon, it cuts to a shot above his left shoulder. You can see a Gold, Red, and White Flag patch reflected in the canopy. Neither Maverick nor Rooster are wearing flag patches during the mission.

Matdan97

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.

Jon Sandys

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Trivia: Despite long being one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, this was the first Tom Cruise film to earn more than $100 million at the domestic box office on its opening weekend. It also went on to become his highest grossing film, as well as his first film to gross $1 billion worldwide.

Phaneron

More trivia for Top Gun: Maverick

Question: Isn't Hangman's ammo still full after he hits the bandit chasing Mav and Rooster? Shouldn't it be short of the fired rocket?

Answer: You're correct - when you see Hangman's loadout before he lands back on the deck - he still has all weapons on the rails - it should be that he is short an AIM-9 or an AIM-120 AMRAAM depending on what was fired.

In all shots of Hangman's F/A-18E after the final battle (especially in the close-up right before he lands on the carrier), it is shown that there is an AIM-120 loaded onto the right air intake weapon station. The left air intake station is empty - indicating either no weapon was loaded or an AIM-7/AIM-120 was fired.

You can see that all his missiles are still intact and even if one is missing it would be very unlike to only load on the right and not the left as well. But where he says "This is your savior speaking" you can see all missiles are still on the plane and unfired.

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