Top Gun: Maverick with Tom Cruise vs. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Top Gun: Maverick is one of the dumbest movies that I’ve watched in a long time. I mean, I sat through it and kind of liked it (I don’t sit through movies that I don’t like), so I’m not complaining. But it was pretty dumb.
Especially dumb was the opening sequence when the Tom Cruise character (whatever his name is) breaks Mach 10 and then destroys his aircraft by trying to push things one step (or three steps) too far. Yeah, it reveals an important character trait, but it’s a bit far fetched.
The following scene from the movie The Right Stuff where Chuck Yeager (at least I remember his name) breaks Mach 1. Supposedly this is more accurate than the scene in Top Gun. I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t alive back then (I was alive when The Right Stuff was released but not when Chuck Yeager broke Mach 1).
Here’s where author Tom Wolfe describes Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in his book The Right Stuff.
I hope you like reading long block paragraphs.
In the movie, Chuck Yeager’s peers on the ground act like they think something bad has happened when they hear the BOOM. In the book, everybody knows what the BOOM means.
Typical Hollywood, thinking they have to make everything overly dramatic.
Hollywood. Pffft.
The Right Stuff is still a pretty good movie, though. That’s my review; it’s pretty good, and I like it.
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe is pretty good too, but the long block paragraphs gave me a headache. If you don’t like headache-inducing long block paragraphs, then watch the movie.
Dysfunctional Literacy 
Hi.
I think you should compare Maverick’s Mach 10 flight screenplay and cinematographical choices with Right’s Stuff’s (book and movie) parts of Yeager’s Mach 2,4 something flight with X-1A and the high altitude flight with Starfighter at the end of the story, and you would see more similarities.
I mean, that from the point of character development, on his Mach 1 flight Yeager was like Maverick on the original Top Gun, having some fame among their peers, but they were still unknown to big audiences.
On yeager’s flight with X-1A he was “pushing the envelope”, (like Maverick on Mach 10 flight), lost control and almost crashed. (In irl too). And the depiction of his high altitude flight with Starfighter on Right Stuff book and movie (much dramatized compared with irl events) bore many similarities with Maverick’s Mach 10 flight, like unauthorized mission and crash. And both characters were had already gained their fame, and had a reputation as kind of lone wolfs.
Generally I share your opinion, “dumb” yet entertaining movie with a lot of references and tributes to original Top Gun, and also for the “The Right Stuff”. An personally I have enjoyed both of those older movies, and they have had a big influence for me.