[imagesource: Paramount]

One doesn’t really go to the movies to watch a blockbuster for the facts.

One goes for the highly intense situations, the pure drama, and the seemingly death-defying stunts.

Top Gun: Maverick is no exception.

Honest Trailers did a decent job of breaking the film down and pointing out the obvious truths in its analysis, including how it’s “a stunning feat of US military propaganda”.

But astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has really cracked the nail on the head with his fact-checking.

As IndieWire notes, the Top Gun sequel begins with Tom Cruise, reprising his role as Navy pilot Maverick, hitting Mach 10,5 and having to eject from the cockpit.

Tyson took to Twitter to point out that Maverick would have been instantly splattered at this speed:

Late to the party here, but In this year’s @TopGunMovie, @TomCruise’s character Maverick ejects from a hypersonic plane at Mach 10.5, before it crashed.

He survived with no injuries.

At that air speed, his body would splatter like a chainmail glove swatting a worm. Just sayin’. pic.twitter.com/YP9IKVc8VS

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 9, 2022

At supersonic speeds, air cannot smoothly part for you. You must pierce it, which largely accounts for the difference in fuselage designs between subsonic and supersonic planes.

For this reason, the air on your body, if ejecting at these speeds, might as well be a brick wall. pic.twitter.com/psN8aoAT2e

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 9, 2022

When Maverick ejected at Mach 10.5, he was going 7,000 mph, giving him 400 million joules of kinetic energy — the explosive power of 100 kg of TNT. A situation that human physiology is not designed to survive.

So, no. Maverick does not walk away from this. He be dead. Very dead.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 9, 2022

Even Elon Musk jumped on this bandwagon:

Indeed, that kinetic energy scales with the square of velocity is not well-appreciated!

A sealed escape pod with a heat shield would probably work.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 9, 2022

Reality means very little when you’re being paid a figure north of $100 million – Cruise’s take-home pay for the role.

Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda filmed over 813 hours of aerial footage with the actors, led by Cruise, really performing their death-defying stunts.

Yeah, that Top Gun Bootcamp sounded incredibly gruelling.

One last, pointed, word from Tyson:

In this year’s @TopGunMovie, they dangerously fly under the radar, through a narrow, winding canyon to destroy a target, avoiding multiple banks of surface-to-air missiles.

But why not first take out the missile banks? Could then fly without daredevil maneuvers. Just sayin’. pic.twitter.com/2FYyUjJdp1

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 9, 2022

The movie might be slightly demystified now, but it doesn’t take away from the more than $1,4 billion it has grossed worldwide since its release.

Tom Cruise is moving on to bigger and better things anyway, teaming up with The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman for a feature set at the International Space Station.

Yes, he is going to film in actual space. I am sure Tyson and Musk will have a few things to say about that.

[source:indiewire]