Top Gun: Maverick world premiere trailer: It’s not just F-18s this time

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  It’s happening… in “2020.”

San Diego Comic Con’s tentpole Thursday morning panel, dedicated to the Paramount and Skydance film Terminator: Dark Fate, saw an interruption from another big face at that combined film company: Tom Cruise. Tom, apparently, couldn’t let Arnold Schwarzenegger have all the fun, as he used the opportunity to reveal the first public footage of next year’s Top Gun: Maverick.

The two-minute trailer is at its most impressive when we see Cruise continuing his streak for performing his own stunts, as he’s established in so many Mission: Impossible films up until now. Unless Cruise and company have figured out a whole new level of CGI and green-screen trickery, that sure looks like the actor himself piloting an F-18 as it takes off from a Naval aircraft carrier at sea—and then pulling some serious Gs while flying over a snowy mountainside in formation.

In terms of plot, we see a face-off with a rear admiral played by actor Ed Harris. Harris is angry about Cruise’s unwillingness to retire after “30-plus years of service” and his continued status as a Navy captain. “You should at least be a two-star admiral by now,” Harris says. Eventually, Harris insists that “your kind is headed for extinction,” which might hint to the Navy’s increased emphasis on automation or remotely controlled crafts.