MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated PG
110 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

Top Gun (1986)

Top Gun will be preceded by a talk by MIT Professor Missy Cummings. This FREE event is part of the Giant Leaps: The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing series, and is sponsored by the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Maverick (Tom Cruise) is a reckless F-14 pilot who flies by instinct and breaks all of the rules. While attending the Navy's elite air combat training academy, affectionately known as "Top Gun," Maverick romances the civilian astrophysics instructor (Kelly McGillis) and competes with crackerjack pilot Ice (Val Kilmer) for top honors. He is the quintessential rebel, upsetting senior officers with his antics and risk-taking while simultaneously amazing them with his skill. Anthony Edwards stars as Maverick's best friend and co-pilot, Goose, and Meg Ryan first garnered attention as Goose's wife, Carole. Superb state-of-the-art aerial photography makes Top Gun, directed by Tony Scott, one of the most exciting and entertaining films of its genre. This top grossing movie of 1986 is based on a Navy fighter pilot program at the Miramar Naval Base in San Diego, California, and was filmed on location at the base. [www.rottentomatoes.com]

Top Gun is the type of movie that turns the screen into an altar. Kneeling before its slick facade of 1980s magnificence, you are in the shadow of a film that has defined the modern day action blockbuster.
      -- Almar Haflidason, BBC. Read this review.

Mary (Missy) Cummings received her B.S. in Mathematics from the United States Naval Academy in 1988, her M.S. in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994, and her Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2003. A naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999, she was one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Aeronautics & Astronautics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her previous teaching experience includes instructing for the U.S. Navy at Pennsylvania State University and as an assistant professor for the Virginia Tech Engineering Fundamentals Division. Her research interests include human interaction with autonomous vehicle systems, modeling human interaction with complex systems, decision support design for time-pressured, uncertain systems, and the ethical and social impact of technology.