In Top Gun: Maverick’s premiere trailer, Tom Cruise flies very high, very fast ~ USA Latest Games

It's happening.

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 and co. 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 actor Ed Harris, who plays an apparent commanding officer. 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. (Ars's Navy heads wonder why they didn't go for "full admiral" as the choice of phrase, but, hey, it's Ed Harris delivering the line.) 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.

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