Top Gun: Maverick Shows Off Insane, CGI-Free Effects

When Top Gun hit theaters back in 1986, it blew audiences away with its compelling aerial dogfights, and while CGI and visual effects have come a long way since that film hit theaters, a new behind-the-scenes video shows off just how impressive the practical effects utilized for the new sequel Top Gun: Maverick are. The brief clip sees a plane flying close to the ground at tremendous speed, kicking up massive amounts of dust and even causing the camera monitors to rattle and shake as the crew reacts in disbelief. Check out the video above and see Top Gun: Maverick in theaters on December 23rd.

In the film, “After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: ‘Rooster,’ the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka ‘Goose.’ Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.”

The film was originally slated to hit theaters this summer, only for the coronavirus pandemic to force the film to push its release date back to the holiday season. Despite having more months to work on the film, director Joseph Kosinski confirmed that he was still working on the project at a pace that would have allowed him to hit its original release date.

“We’re sticking to our schedule and finishing the movie just as if it were coming out on its original release date,” Kosinski shared with ComicBook.com. “Luckily, I’m in the home stretch of post-production where, despite all the restrictions of how you can work now, I’m able to continue doing my job and finish the movie, which is pretty amazing. If I were in any other phase of the project, it would be hard to do that, but because I’m in the tail-end of post, I’m able to do everything I need to to be able to to finish it.”

He added, “We’re sticking to our schedule and finishing the movie and just holding it for six months, which is such an interesting thing to do but it’s the right decision because this is a movie that people need to see on the big screen and if there’s no big screen, then you don’t want to release this movie. We want this to be a shared experience on as big a screen as possible.”

Top Gun: Maverick hits theaters on December 23rd.

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