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Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

6/3/22 Tom Secker on the Pentagon’s Control Over Top Gun: Maverick

Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Scott Horton

News, Politics

4.8902 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Scott interviewed British journalist Tom Secker about the Pentagon’s role in producing Top Gun: Maverick. The Department of Defense has an entire office set up to work with Hollywood. They give producers access to some military personnel as well as equipment in exchange for the final say over the script. Secker has gone through many documents over the years to find exactly what the military has changed in popular films. But with the Top Gun movies, the relationship is on a whole other level. Secker lays out the history of the first film, the sequel that got scrapped after the Pentagon pulled out in the 90s, and the eventual production of Top Gun: Maverick. Both Scott and Secker point out that they don’t have a problem with action movies like this being made, just that the military hijacks film productions in order to boost its reputation far beyond what it deserves.  Discussed on the show: “Documents Reveal How Pentagon Shaped ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Into A Recruitment And PR Vehicle” (ShadowProof) “Why does the Pentagon give a helping hand to films like ‘Top Gun’?” (Los Angeles Times) Scott’s previous interview with Secker Tom Secker is a British-based journalist, author, and podcaster specializing in the security services, Hollywood, propaganda, censorship and the history of terrorism. He is the author of National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood. Find him on Twitter @spyculture. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

All right, y'all welcome to the Scott Horton's show.

0:02.0

I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute.

0:09.0

I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute,

0:14.8

editorial director of anti-war.com.

0:17.6

Author of the book, Pools Arren,

0:19.6

time to end the war in Afghanistan,

0:21.6

and the brand new enough already. Time to end the war in Afghanistan and the brand new enough already time to end the war on

0:24.8

terrorism and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003 almost all on

0:31.3

foreign policy and all available for you at

0:34.3

Scott Horton.org you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview

0:39.1

archive is also available at YouTube. YouTube. who runs Spy Culture.com and here he's got this great piece at shadowproof.com

0:57.0

documents reveal how Pentagon shaped top gun maverick into a recruitment and PR vehicle and you know there's a companion piece to this

1:06.7

too by a guy named Roger Stahl in the LA Times that references Tom and his great work here as well. times that

1:13.7

references Tom and his great work here as well that you can read it's called

1:16.3

op-ed. Why does the Pentagon give a helping hand to films like

1:21.1

top gun?

1:25.5

Welcome to the show Tom. How are you doing? Welcome back I should say.

1:29.9

Yeah, thanks for having you back. It's great to be talking with you again.

1:38.0

Good to have you on. All right, so I'm going to start off by fighting with you in the name of other people's fair opinions. Why, you've got to ruin this movie for me. I like flying. I like fighter jets and then you got all these winers

1:45.8

coming and whining about how you take the fighter jet movie and it's all some

1:49.8

kind of bad war propaganda. Sure it is is I already have people saying that on

1:54.2

Twitter and the thing is I have to admit I'm a little bit sympathetic because I was

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