Top Gun photoshop fail

Imagine running propaganda and forgetting to blur the Top Gun logo. Peak CCTV. Even the Chinese can’t bear to see it! #TopGun pic.twitter.com/p0gs5X1MK7

— The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动 (@TGTM_Official) September 23, 2025

The comments in green sinographs are those of netizens who posted this howler on social media.  The green lines in English simply translate the netizen comments say.

Here's what the original propaganda / crawler lines at the bottom in white say:

Dōngbù zhànqū kōngjūn hángkōngbīng mǒu lǚ fēixíngyuán zhōuxiǎofēng: 东部战区空军航空兵某旅飞行员周晓峰: "Zhou Xiaofeng, a pilot from an aviation brigade of the Eastern Theater Command Air Force"

'Wǒ xiāngxìn wǒ de zǔguó yīdìng néng zài bèihòu gěi wǒ qiángdà de zhīchí'" '我相信我的祖国一定能在背后给我强大的支持'" 'I believe that my motherland will give me strong support behind the scenes.'"

Before the advent of The Great Translation Movement (TGTM), which Xi Jinping and Wang Yi viscerally loathe, I myself — as a dedicated amateur — used to find countless gaffes and goofs, booboos and blunders of this sort in Chinese propaganda photos and videos about space probes, military aviation, naval maneuvers, underwater exploration, etc., etc., etc. — so much so that I barely believe any of their claims in these affairs.

Selected readings

• "Translation strategies: open protest at Sitong (Four-Way) Bridge" (10/20/22)
• "Political regulation of Chinese languages" (10/5/22)
• "The Great Translation Movement" (4/19/22)
• "Malign Woodpeckers and Other Hegemonic Behavior" (4/18/22) — with lengthy bibliography

[Thanks to Mark Metcalf]