Ridiculous Movie Device - The Forced Real Action at the End of a Training Movie

For years I've noticed certain devices used in movies that seem to get repeated without anyone ever questioning them.  Thus, I've decided to add a new segment to the QBDL, known as Ridiculous Movie Device.

Today's RMD is the Forced Real Action at the End of a Training Movie.

Everyone loves a good war training movie.  Top Gun, Stripes, GI Jane, The Guardian, Pearl Harbor, well, nobody really liked Pearl Harbor, but you get the idea.  What is one thing all these movies have in common?  Great training sequences, followed by ridiculous contrived "real life" scenarios.  Why do the producers of these movies routinely tack on a completely ludicrous one-off half-hour scenario in order to show the cast of characters "in action".  Just end the movie at graduation and let us extrapolate their success after that awesome coming together training piece.

Top Gun may be the most absurd of all of these final half hours.  The film is an iconic 80's classic, it has great training sequences, ahead of its time action and visual effects, emotional highs, emotional lows, questionably homo-erotic volleyball scenes, cool handshakes...its all gravy for a solid hour and a half.  Sadly though, this near masterpiece almost crashes and burns when then these maniacal producers feel the need to incorporate a pre-text for World War III at the end.

Lets set the scene here - its 1986, the Cold War is very much a going concern, and a "stricken communications ship" has drifted into hostile waters.  For the sake of time lets set aside the completely fabricated concept of a "communications ship," and focus on the "drifted into hostile waters".  This ship is apparently in the Indian ocean, and there are Russian MiG's in the area.  Why are Russian MiG's randomly patrolling the Indian ocean?  It's nowhere near the USSR or any Eastern Bloc countries.  I'd MAYBE give you Chinese MiGs, but Russians? Sorry, not buying it.  Furthermore, what waters off the Indian Ocean are hostile to the US? The setting is ludicrous, but fine, lets set aside disbelief on this one and just go with it.

Given this alternate universe with Soviet-controlled waters in the Indian Ocean, and some fake US ship dead in the water drifting towards an enemy with thousands of nukes, we now find ourselves in a potentially huge international crisis.  So what would it make the most sense to do at this point if you're working at the Pentagon?  Why of course let's send our newest recruits with absolutely zero combat experience half way around the world from their school in California to engage Soviet fighter planes before they get close enough to blow up a US aircraft carrier with their exocet missiles.  Excuse me for interrupting this clearly sound logic but DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?!?!?!  How about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident?  Where are the diplomatic channels?  Why are we trying to engage Soviet airplanes?  Why are they trying to blow up US aircraft carriers?  I mean its 1986, tensions are cooled, we have phones and computers, PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL GORBACHEV!! Its a communications ship not a nuclear submarine.  Moreover, there are no existing well-trained fighter pilots on this aircraft carrier already?  Why are we wasting 36 hours getting the clearly spooked and not ready Maverick to this aircraft carrier when this ship is a sitting duck in enemy territory?  Where are all the former TOP GUN graduates?  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?! Am I taking crazy pills or is this not the most poorly handled international conflict escalation since the USS Maine blew up by accident and started the Spanish American War?  And how dismissive is the token bald commander guy at the end?  "The other side is denying it happened," he says.  WHAT?! How was this near-war with fucking RUSSIA being kept under wraps!  Is anyone else concerned that Soviet airplanes are just firing missiles at US planes?  This is declaration of war from our sworn enemy!  Lets not just laugh it off and send Maverick back to the bar to sing Great Balls of Fire.

Terribly absurd scenes like this are routinely added into these great training movies and nobody even blinks to think about how big of a deal some of these things are.  The Stripes guys perform an unauthorized US incursion into Soviet Czechoslovakia with top-secret weapons in 1981! The GI Jane Seal unit just casually orders helicopter gunships into Libya!  These Hollywood producers are the dogs of war.

Get rid of this ridiculous movie device before we end up in a nuclear holocaust.

P.S. Everyone celebrating Maverick's big win at the end, GET BACK TO WORK, your at war now, act like it.  How unprofessional can you get?