Asas de Aço

I was an extra in a scene in the berthing compartment of the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67. It was a drug bust scene, it took forever to finish because the actor couldn't get the simple lines right. He kept messing them up, it took no less than 6-10 shots per scene to get it right, and then the director wanted to shoot it from 5 different angles. They filmed a ton of flight deck footage while we were out. If I remember right we left Norfolk and did "Doughnuts" for like 4 days just for this show to shoot. The crew was psyched to do the shoot, when they first got there. But after we saw the episodes no one was happy with the result. Another reviewer stated the fact, it was a good idea, but the Navy did not like how the characters portrayed the service.

Loosely based on the account of the late George C. Wilson in his book of the same name and right on the wake of the popularity of the movie, "Top Gun" this highly anticipated, made-for-TV series attempted to portray the life aboard a modern day U.S. aircraft carrier.

Apparently, the creators had tons of money for this tale as they were able to shoot aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy for the pilot episode; original flight scenes were shot (the production company had to pay for aviation fuel); U.S. Naval Bases on both the U.S. east and west coasts stood in for the fictional "San Miguel Naval Air Station"; and as they were available, other real Navy ships (both aircraft carriers and others) were able to stand in for the fictional "USS Georgetown." In addition, there was a big advertising campaign by ABC touting it as "Top Gun" for T.V. With the United States Navy and Department of Defense giving this program full support and all that money laying around to shoot this (hopefully) next highly acclaimed T.V. military drama, they were ready to set sail.

So what can go wrong? Sad to say,lots.

The plots and stories left little to be desired (for both military and non-military viewers alike). For the real Sailors who were excited to be extras in the production, their excitement turned into dismay as they saw the finished product in the first few episodes that the Navy had so graciously supported. In other words, they saw that they were being portrayed in a less-than-flattering light. When the Navy saw the final product they subsequently dropped their support (it's evident in the latter episodes).

I was sixteen when I saw this and my dad, a Navy carrier veteran watched with me. He kept saying, "That can't happen!" I even saw the mistakes, even without my dad's help! In portrayals of real life people and/or careers (the Navy in this case) I am a believer in "Artistic License" as it makes the story more interesting. It doesn't mean the subject matter is "less interesting," but it will make for more interest especially for the part of the audience who has little to no familiarity with the subject. But when it starts to go off course and portrays the subject in a less-than-flattering light, or embellishes too much, then you lose the respect of the people you are trying to depict and the ones who are on the "outside" will have no interest.

Life aboard an aircraft carrier needs to be told (and not just in documentaries). A Navy ship can be wonderful platform (look at today's successful post-apocalyptic T.V. series, "The Last Ship" series about life aboard a U.S. Navy Destroyer). Even with artistic liberties, this one could have pulled it off if they portrayed the Sailors and Pilots better, and it would have been a highly acclaimed military T.V. drama. "Top Gun's" popularity would have helped it big time. But it seemed like the creators were only intrigued by and invested more in the visuals of the aircraft carrier and its awesome arsenal of fighter and attack planes. As a result, the characters were very forgettable. They didn't invest well in the writers.

I feel bad for the then young 20-30 something members of the cast. This was a chance for them to be a part of something real special that could have been critically acclaimed. They would have been household names. After "Supercarrier" a lot of them just seem to have faded away from the Hollywood scene; after only five other roles (post "Supercarrier,") and what appeared to be a struggling acting career, one of them passed away at the young age of 34; some continued to act mostly on guest TV roles and B movies until they appeared to no longer be able to get roles; and for those who continued acting into the new millennium, their roles are/were mostly guest parts in TV and movies that people forget after the last credit rolls.

"Supercarrier" may or may not have "jinxed" their careers, but one thing is for certain, it did NOT help as the characters were very forgettable.

The veteran actors of the cast like Robert Hooks and the late Richard Jaeckel would have had added another great work to their resume, but to no avail.

The creators of "Supercarrier" had a good idea and apparently, lots of money and the popularity of "Top Gun" to build on to make this a memorable and highly acclaimed military drama. Unfortunately, they squandered that opportunity when they only invested in the visuals and not in the stories and characters.

The show was obviously trying to fill the gaps between commercials for people needing a Top Gun fix. I saw two minutes of one episode to confirm this. In the episode the carrier had to sail through a narrow canal, and the fear was that the enemy could be anywhere in the jungle below. Worse was that the jungle was so close that the carrier's guns couldn't depress far enough to engage them, should they appear. So the crew was just standing around in dread. I guess "hoping while dreading" can be considered a military tactic, right up there with praying and crossing fingers. I can't see how that kind of writing could engage any viewers over the age of nine. The show seemed to belong on Saturday mornings. Maybe if there was a red LED going back and forth between the bridle catchers, and the carrier's AI would converse with the crew. These are sarcastic suggestions alluding to Knight Rider.

I will never understand why Hollywood half bakes a show. If one wants to make a show about naval aviation, get people who know something about the topic, write dialog that people in the military would actually say, get the conops close to correct, and don't have any "big red levers that will destroy the reactor" or any other "the ship is in great danger again this week" formula.

I had the good fortune to have worked with the crew for the movie "Final Countdown" and managed to get a couple speaking parts and several visual scenes. One thing I can tell you is that the crew of the Nimitz edited a lot of dialog that would have been....un-realistic. Peter Douglas (producer) and Don Taylor (Director) were onboard for this and in fact encouraged our participation in the production of as authentic scenes as we could without taking away from the story line. THAT'S why the Final Countdown has become a favorite cult classic. We also enjoyed working with this crew. They treated us with respect and seemed to enjoy working with us as much as we enjoyed working with them. Peter Douglas was like a kid in a candy shop and his dad, Martin Sheen and Farentino were the same. It was a blast. I was in this show as well (right place right time......again) This show????? Not so much. The acting was weak and there was not a single big name in the cast that could hold the show together. The cast were all snotty wannabes who at no time seemed to genuinely enjoy what they were doing or working with us. The one guy that even talked with us was playing the part of an enlisted sailor whose job was similar to ours but even then I felt like it was mostly condescension rather than an interest in what we did. The premises of how the ships systems, crew and the Navy in general worked were ludicrous. I remember one scene in particular where the lead, sh!t hot, Ops Specialist had diagnosed a radar contact as being a Russian bomber and when the captain (who was in CIC despite the fact that the captain's job is on the bridge) asked "how do you know that". The dialog had the actor telling the captain something like "Do you hear that 'ping, doyng doot' sound that we're getting on the radar? That's the sound that this Russian bomber makes." First of all radar doesn't make sounds in the radar operators headset. Second only Electronic Warfare techs "listen" to RF emitters, not Op Specs. To add a humorous note to that episode: The consoles we worked from had intercom communications between them. We were all manned up making CIC look like we were on an underway footing and we all kept activating our intercom to this actor's console and telling him "ping doyng doot" over and over. We were driving him crazy and it was pretty much the only time we enjoyed doing this show. We hated this show and we hated being associated with it because it was stupid. And as was correctly pointed out in a previous comment/review the Navy did eventually pull their endorsement BUT it is important to understand that the ONLY episode that was actually filmed on the aircraft carrier was the pilot show. There were 8 episodes and none of the other 7 episodes were filmed onboard the ship. They were filmed in sets to emulate the ship. So just because the Navy pulled its endorsement there was no reason they couldn't continue to film the show. There are lots of military shows that have no military endorsement. But it was just an awful show and they knew it.

"USS Vandegrift FFG 48 which is a Parry class frigate."

No, the USS VANDERGRIFT is an OLIVER HAZARD PERRY class frigate, and the word "Parry" doesn't have anything to do with it. Besides that, the Secretary of the Navy is a proper noun, and it is capitalized, instead of the uncapitalized way that he wrote it.

The TV series was awful, but that still does not justify writing "Parry" instead of OLIVER HAZARD PERRY. The real Oliver Hazard Perry was the largest naval hero of the War of 1812, and he won the Battle of Lake Erie, giving the United States control of that Great Lake during the war. Oliver Hazard Perry was also the father of the naval hero Matthew Perry of the 1850s.