US Navy bows to China on Top Gun: Maverick

[Sabretooth]

by Tom Rogan
August 13, 2019 01:21 PM

The U.S. Navy has sadly bowed to China over the upcoming Paramount Pictures movie Top Gun: Maverick. A successor to the 1986 hit starring Tom Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick will follow Cruise's character as he trains a new band of naval aviators.

It should be a great movie. Except for one problem.

I have learned that the Navy has not demanded and thus will not receive a U.S. release version which retains the original deployment patches on Cruise's flight jacket. Those patches represent cruise stops for Taiwan and Japan. Paramount appears to have scrubbed the patches from the sequel to placate the Chinese government to get the movie in Chinese theaters.

I reached out to the Navy to find out whether they had requested a U.S. version that included the original jacket patches.

The response was less than inspiring. A public affairs officer told me that while the Navy will receive a rough cut version of the movie, its agreement with Paramount means that it cannot request adaptions for the final cut unless the changes relate to something that poses "an operational security risk, violates the privacy of [Defense Department] personnel, or doesn’t conform to the script agreed upon by the [Pentagon]." The Navy has not yet received that rough cut.

This is a great shame. The U.S. Navy is the world's finest maritime combat force with a lineage of courage and skill that goes back to the Revolutionary War. U.S. naval aviators are also the finest in their field. China is America's foremost geopolitical adversary, one that the Navy will likely one day have to fight. The Navy should have added a script adaption clause to protect its prestige and reputation.

To therefore bow to China in sacrificing the Navy's prestige is intolerable.

As a concluding side note, however, it is at least positive that the enemy in Top Gun: Maverick won't be China. U.S. aircraft carriers are now good for only two things: operations in a relatively uncontested air and missile environment and, via their nuclear reactors, attracting certain UFOs. Aircraft carriers are not so good for operations against China, which can deny their access to the battlespace under threat of destroying them with a hail of DF-21D anti-ship missiles. Instead, submarines, drones, and long-range air power will be crucial to defeating the Chinese military in any future war.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/us-navy-bows-to-china-on-top-gun-maverick

 

[KungFuLee]

by Tom Rogan
August 13, 2019 01:21 PM

The U.S. Navy has sadly bowed to China over the upcoming Paramount Pictures movie Top Gun: Maverick. A successor to the 1986 hit starring Tom Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick will follow Cruise's character as he trains a new band of naval aviators.

It should be a great movie. Except for one problem.

I have learned that the Navy has not demanded and thus will not receive a U.S. release version which retains the original deployment patches on Cruise's flight jacket. Those patches represent cruise stops for Taiwan and Japan. Paramount appears to have scrubbed the patches from the sequel to placate the Chinese government to get the movie in Chinese theaters.

I reached out to the Navy to find out whether they had requested a U.S. version that included the original jacket patches.

The response was less than inspiring. A public affairs officer told me that while the Navy will receive a rough cut version of the movie, its agreement with Paramount means that it cannot request adaptions for the final cut unless the changes relate to something that poses "an operational security risk, violates the privacy of [Defense Department] personnel, or doesn’t conform to the script agreed upon by the [Pentagon]." The Navy has not yet received that rough cut.

This is a great shame. The U.S. Navy is the world's finest maritime combat force with a lineage of courage and skill that goes back to the Revolutionary War. U.S. naval aviators are also the finest in their field. China is America's foremost geopolitical adversary, one that the Navy will likely one day have to fight. The Navy should have added a script adaption clause to protect its prestige and reputation.

To therefore bow to China in sacrificing the Navy's prestige is intolerable.

As a concluding side note, however, it is at least positive that the enemy in Top Gun: Maverick won't be China. U.S. aircraft carriers are now good for only two things: operations in a relatively uncontested air and missile environment and, via their nuclear reactors, attracting certain UFOs. Aircraft carriers are not so good for operations against China, which can deny their access to the battlespace under threat of destroying them with a hail of DF-21D anti-ship missiles. Instead, submarines, drones, and long-range air power will be crucial to defeating the Chinese military in any future war.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/us-navy-bows-to-china-on-top-gun-maverick

Think I read it somewhere that the original jacket is not of Maverick deployment, but his father, if I remember correctly, that was a tweeter post explaining Cruise character would have been too young to have deployed to Taiwan and Japan, which is roughly in the 1950s. And the sequel jacket represent Cruise's character own deployment

Also, I think tencents finance this movie and distribute it in China.

Well, I don't personally mind all that jacket fiasco, I am just glad that they make a sequel, I was not even born when the first one hit cinema.