Did the Chinese Military Use Top Gun Footage?

heidaro writes "'As part of its ongoing expansion, has the People's Liberation Army signed up Goose and Maverick? Chinese bloggers are accusing state broadcaster CCTV of using re-purposed footage from the 1986 film Top Gun for a story on a recent air force drill.' Is it just me or are communist nations very skilled at embarrassing themselves?"

Comments

What does communist have to do with it?

[Rinnon]

Seriously, I don't see what being communist has to do with embarrassing yourself. Capitalist nations embarrass themselves pretty damn often too.

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[MightyMartian]

The difference being that most capitalist nations are democracies, and everybody rather expects that impermanent governments are going to bugger things up. I'd say fuck-ups are the life blood of democracy.

In states like China, where the government asserts that it knows best, these sorts of stupid stunts have somewhat more dramatic connotations. Particularly in this case, it not only raises the question as to what kind of people it has in its military and PR that think it's a bright idea to rip off footage from a Hollywood film, it also raises the more important question as to why they would even need to.

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[h4rm0ny]

In states like China, where the government asserts that it knows best

The US and UK governments assert that they no best through a never ending flood of requirements on educational practices, telling Doctors how to practice, how to manage land, what drugs and herbal remedies are legal and illegal, how local authorities may spend their money. There's no end to it really. In the US, it even decides who may or may not vote! All of which are direct assertions that they know best.

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[MoonBuggy]

By voting for representatives, you are seen as having had your say - it's not "the government" making the rules, it's "the people" doing so by proxy. Or so the theory goes.

Those in power might well act as if they know best, but at the end of the day they are, to some extent, beholden to the people. We can and do get rid of them if they piss us off too badly. I know it doesn't work that well, but it's still a damn sight better than being told "We are right, if you disagree you are a dangerous subversive, and there's not a thing you can do about it.".

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[euroq]

First of all, I think you meant to cast the Author into a Troll, not the return value of Feed into a Troll.

((Troll*)(&comment.GetAuthor()))->Feed( false );

Second of all, that is an unnecessarily complicated way to cast it by dereferencing the item, and then using pointers. It probably would have made more sense if GetAuthor() returned a pointer (then it could possibly be null sometimes), but that is not the case. The easiest syntax, then, would be as follows:

((Troll)comment.GetAuthor()).Feed(false);

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really thing that a government body is THAT stupid? Its probably misinformation to look stupid - a very common political tactic, especially if you cross it with the current spotlight on whether or not they created a space plane. Just look at it this way: how does this make you perceive them, as a gut reaction - I know my first reaction was "well if they doctored footage with Top Gun as a basis for avionics propaganda, surely they couldn't have a space plane"

My tin foil hat has multiple layers - for foil-penetrating mind-control.

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[royallthefourth]

The difference being that most capitalist nations are democracies,

You're making a false distinction here. China is ruled by a nominally communist party and doesn't have open elections, but the actual form of the economy is quite capitalist. There's huge factories with workers getting paid $10/day to work 16 hours in horrible conditions with no union. The factory is owned not by the state or the workers, but by a billionaire living in Shanghai. For the peasant farmers living in the country, they have little access to electricity, running water, medicine, or education. The state provides them with nothing and sometimes even takes their land to hand directly to real estate developers.
Nothing communist about it.

Also, the various dictatorships of the Middle East and South America from the past and present century were/are nearly all capitalist. What's the king of Saudi Arabia? A communist? Franco? Pinochet? Qaddafi? The kleptocrat nepotist Mohammad Karzai? Just a democratic facade. I don't have time to prove you wrong about the majority of capitalist economies existing in democracies, but it's a huge and highly suspect assumption.

Re:What does communist have to do with it?

[cdp0]

The difference is, in the US or the UK, if you feel that you have a better idea than the government you can run for office and try to change things.

Do you really believe that ? I mean really, give it a try. Without money, without support from "big business", nobody will ever hear about you. And even if people hear about you, you won't be one of their favorites, mostly because they don't know you. Running for office involves much more than just the will to do it.

And the kind of people that have the will, the money and the support are in the game for power, for their own benefit, not for ours.

so where's the RIAA now?

[v1]

this ought to be good... I want to see the suits show up at a door, knock, and open it to see a tank barrel in their face. (sort of like in the Simpsons episode)

oh wait I forgot, the RIAA doesn't pick on anyone that can defend themselves.

Re:"Commies skilled an(sic) embarrassing themselve

[egamma]

First, this seems to be the work of a TV broadcaster, not a nation (certainly not a communist one...) ... does anyone here really think "non-commie" media are any better?

The difference is that in China, that TV broadcaster IS the government, or at least highly controlled by them. The American media are stupid all by themselves.

In Communist China...

[kerskine]

...Maverick Gooses You

Re:Embaras? You dont get it..

[MightyMartian]

I beg to differ. China has made all sorts of bellowing noises against things they felt would embarrass them on the international stage. I'm thinking here of the film about the Uighur leader that China demanded an Australian film festival not show, and the film festival's website was suddenly the victim of cyberattacks pretty obviously coming from China.

China is extremely sensitive of its reputation.

WSJ report and comparison video

[Novus]

The Wall Street Journal has a report including a comparison video.

Damn!

[PPH]

I was looking forward to a video of a Chinese pilot lip-syncing You've Lost That Loving Feeling.

Re:Damn!

[halivar]

"You've rost... dat ruvvving feering... whoah dat ruvving feering...."

Re:"Commies skilled an(sic) embarrassing themselve

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You post appears to be propaganda masquerading as sarcasm. So just in case, I'd like to make the following points:

CCTV stands for China Central Television which is a state run television network. It is communist.

CCTV is the main outlet of propaganda for the government. Western broadcasters may at times use film scenes or in-house produced animations to illustrate a story, but they disclose it as a animation or for illustration purposes only. They are a third-party entity reporting an event, not part of the government trying to fabricate the event.

Your example of Powell's UN presentation doesn't seem applicable, since Powell wasn't the media and that the slide was produced by analysts and not a scene from a movie.

Riceman?

[locutus53]

Riceman?

Re:"Commies skilled an(sic) embarrassing themselve

[advid.net]

PS. BTW, regarding such movies - Les Chevaliers du ciel (aka Sky Fighters), while obviously also with completely redundant plot, is much more enjoyable all-flash-no-substance kind of deal - it has much more spectacular cinematography, nvm lots more minutes of actual flying. Unlike Top Gun (where most flight sequences filming was done from the ground) - in Les Chevaliers du ciel the majority of filming was done from the air, largely via cameras hidden in modified fuel tanks of fighters, to great effect.

Anyone who like technology, fighters, sonic boom at ground level, real footage from fighters, post-combustion by night, ... in widescreen should see this awesome movie.

Re:"Commies skilled an(sic) embarrassing themselve

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, regarding such movies - Les Chevaliers du ciel (aka Sky Fighters), while obviously also with completely redundant plot, is much more enjoyable all-flash-no-substance kind of deal - it has much more spectacular cinematography, nvm lots more minutes of actual flying.

A movie made 20 years after Top Gun has better effects? Shocking!

Unfortunately, I'm no longer 10 years old, so I doubt I'll enjoy it as much.

Re:"Commies skilled an(sic) embarrassing themselve

[sznupi]

Actual cinematography (in this case the results of most basic choices about camera placement) = effects? Since when?

Re:Chinese Innovation

[Minwee]

I love it when the economy comes together.

Re:You haven't experienced

[blackbear]

I would have written:
You haven't fully experienced Top Gun unless you've watched it in the original Chinese.

With the above you allude to the original joke without hitting us over the head with it. Thus giving all of us who "get it" a chance to look down our collective noses at those of less depth in Sci-Fi pop culture.