I'd say Top Gun is the best fighter jet movie I've seen so far. Don't forget it's made in 1986, with no CG (computer graphics). To me Top Gun presents a very moving and touching story, and in fact (many of you probably know) makes many people want to join and become figher pilots. At least this movie won't make you wanna join fighter pilots.
If someone were to film Top Gun today, I'm sure it will be a very successful movie. It has a very good story line, very good actors, and very good music. With the VFX we have today we can create missile shots and explosions that look as real as those in Top Gun (which WAS real) but without cleverly making cuts here and there. Top Gun is the most accurate film I've found. I can only recall the terms "boegy" and "ballastic" were wrongly used, but other terms are great.
I'd say movie makes need to make a balance between how exciting or touching the film is and how accurate it is. Films are after all, an artistic creation. If only professionals can understand what is going in a Hollywood film it makes no sense. It isn't a documentation. If someone wants accuracy, check out "IMAX Fighter Pilot - Operation Reg Flag", produced in 2004. It is accurate because it's real, it's 99% real. But then, I won't even call it a "movie", because it doesn't really have a story line, and it's only very little bit exciting. In the "special features" of Top Gun they pointed out that the F-14 pilots actually DID tried to fly the way they would in an actual combact. However "the planes are so far apart, and you couldn't really tell a story, it's just like filming one airplane flying around", as pointed out by one of the F-14 pilots. So in the end, there has to be a compromise between realism and how enjoyable the movie is.
Think about it this way, if things looks very real then it's not a fictional story, it's something that happend, it's true in daily life. The only thing I can think about is National Geographic Channel's Air Crash Investigation. They try to film what has happend in the plane (both in the cockpit and in the cabin) as well as how the control towers responded, how the passengers felt and reacted, what happend to the plane itself (machanically) etc. It's 99% real because they're all based on real incidents, many of them fetal. It isn't exactly in a form of a movie because there has got narration, but yes I do feel tension and I do feel like "are they going to make it?". If someone feels they want to go realistic then check this out, definitely highly recommended. You also get to learn a lot about airplanes when watching this.
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