The Final Countdown (1980) - Prime Video

Need to rewatch this.

Oh...and Katherine Ross was such a babe

Filmed on the actual Nimitz.

I listened to a whole podcast series with the guys that ran top gun during the filming of the first movie. Basically when Final Countdown came out there was a fairly high ranking guy that got his arse handed to him because of several safety incidents (like the Tomcat losing lift during that scene with the T-6s posing as Zeros) and the budget they blew through. So when it came time to film Top Gun, no one wanted anything to do with it.

So they gave it to a bunch of Lieutenants and LTCMs to run the production. And none of the senior officers wanted any updates so they could claim ignorance if SHTF.

For what it worth, the aviators running Miramar at the time were a very professional group and did a very good job. They used almost none of the actual cockpit footage of the actors. There’s a pretty cool story about the first cut of the film had almost no dialogue in the air combat scenes. Test screenings were awful. Don Simpson was pissed. “None of this makes sense. You can’t tell what’s going on.” The top gun guys were like “Why aren’t they talking?” Simpson was yelling “No one wants to hear them talk.” “We talk to each other.” “Well how the hell are we going to do that?”

So all the scenes of Mav and Goose & co in the cockpit are in a mockup on a gimbal. And they added scenes and dialogue when they are talking and communicating like real naval aviators would do. And the scenes made sense, and this the movie was made.

If you’ve never heard the audio of the F-14 engagements against the Libyan MiGS, go listen on YouTube. It sounds like a fight scene from Top Gun. Pretty cool how you can build a picture of the action in your head.

Check out the F14 Tomcast episode 19 with Bozo and Smegs. Awesome listen.

So, it’s not a documentary?