Series Recommendation: Stealth (2005)

War is a terrible thing, if we take the horror out of it, everyone will be waging war…

It is quite unusual for us to recommend Live action movie, much less an American one from year 2005. But after giving it a watch after a clip randomly pop up on my feed, I know I had to share this movie with you all – especially those who are fans of Ace Combat, Top Gun and Macross. The movie is called Stealth and of course, it features over-the-top aerial combat with very awesome jets that didn’t actually use a lot of stealth (classic!).

The movie was released in 2005. The film follows three top fighter pilots as they join a project to develop an automated robotic stealth aircraft. In the movie, the US has successfully developed a super stealth aircraft – the F/A-37 Talon – but their ambition doesn’t stop there. They want to push the limits further with a UCAV – an unmanned combat aerial vehicle – called EDI (Extreme Deep Invader). The three pilots – Ben Gannon, Kara Wade and Henry Purcell – and their Talons join the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Philippine Sea to “grow” the EDI’s quantum brain. But of course, everything went well until…

+ PLOT: This is literally Macross Plus. We got 2 males, 1 female and they’re pretty much a hybrid of combat pilot and test pilot at the same time. Their relationship in the movie isn’t like Macross Plus though, with no love triangle involved, but it does involve some…romcom protag denseness. The main plot for the movie follows the plan to develop the AI-controlled jet, which of course went AWOL during the development. It is a very straightforward AI-gone-out-of-control movie…for the first half. The 2nd half did something which – at the time – was pretty unconventional. However, it is still a common trope in science fiction. The pacing of the film is a bit disorienting since the main events of the movie took place in one day – which for a jet fighter is a looooong time to stay in the air. But still, the aircrafts featured in the movie are pretty much Super planes anyway, so better throw your logic out the window.

However, the movie got a bit bogged down with some uninteresting side plot. It is the human drama part of the movie, but imo the screentime for it is a little bit unbalanced and also disruptive to the pacing. Well, it is kinda like Macross Plus movie in a way lol.

+ Action: The action in the series is very good – bombastic, dynamic and follows the rule of cool to a T. If Top Gun try to stick to realism, then Stealth is basically a Live-Action adaptation of Macross (without the transforming parts of course). The camera work is really nice, with some very good top-down shots that cover a wide angle. We can feel the speed in the combat scenes and there’s also a ravine chase that is very similar to Top Gun Maverick as well – which I guess is a must-have for most aviation movie. The movie also showcases some insane maneuver only possible by an unmanned AI plane. In addition, the weapon bay deployment on the jets also look very cool.

+ Mechanical Design: Here is where Ace Combat and Macross fans rejoice. If you like the Strike Wyvern or the VF-9 Cutlass, you’d really like the F/A-37 Talon. It’s a futuristic looking jet that looks like a bridge between Ace Combat and Raiden. It’s not too over the top, but it’s still cool looking. The exhaust thruster is pretty insane as well. It also reminds me of the Yukikaze’s Super Sylph, especially with the prominent use of SCRAMJET in the movie. I guess there is a pattern to cool jet design in military movies.

For the Dark St…I mean the EDI – the design is certainly very…futuristic. It’s pretty much a more flat and triangle version of the F-117 Nighthawk, or the VF-171 Nightmare Plus. It’s very aerodynamic and basically fall into the category of “I can’t believe that thing can’t fly” when normal people look at it. But when an aviator experts see it, they’d go “damn, that’s hot!” kinda thing. Overall, it is a pretty cool look.


+ Conclusion: Overall, Stealth is a very entertaining movie. It’s a shame that it was one of the worst flop in the history of filmmaking. With an insane loss of about 50 million dollars, Stealth is about as big a loss as the Sharon Apple project. It doesn’t really do anything incredibly unique, but it does have some very cool dogfights. It’s got a mix of scifi and a bit of realism in it as well (but mostly the cool scifi stuff). The story is pretty much a cautionary tale about automated AI-operated weaponized vehicles. I guess the topic was pretty popular then – and now with the oversaturated world of AI, not many media tackle the topic in a critically provoking angle. And of course, it wouldn’t be a fighter jet movie without the usual pilot demeanor and humourism.

If you want to check out the movie, it’s on Amazon Prime and Youtube for less than 4 USD, which is not a bad spend since the movie is 2 hours. If you’re a fan of futuristic planes set in the current modern world, and if you’re a fan of Sentou Yousei Yukikaze, Macross, Ace Combat or Top Gun, this is a movie worth checking out. But also keep in mind that even though the movie name is Stealth – there’s not a lot of Stealthy thing in the movie – probably why it tanked XD.

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