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Top Gun by somewhat popular demand!!!!

#1 User is offline   Mike Mac from NYU Icon

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Posted 29 October 2004 - 11:09 AM

Time to roast a movie here!!!!

Top Gun!!

Yes you guys remember Top Gun.

**************"HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!****************

Don;'t tell me you guys didn't have that tape blaring in your burnt orange Dodge stingray.

Yeah, I bet a bunch of us were Wang-Chung-ing to that song at Bennigans, fighting the Soviets, reading Dynamite magazine, and gasping at the fact that they changed the formula for Coca Cola!!!!!!!!!

*******Apologies to anyone under 18 on this forum*****************


Well it;s the 21st century, guys. Looking back at this movie what do you all think??
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#2 User is offline   Jordan Icon

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Posted 29 October 2004 - 03:33 PM

The emotional music that plays when Cruise gets back to the Aircraft carrier is hilarious.

Also, who the hell were they fighting in that movie? Random bad guys in MIGs?
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#3 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 29 October 2004 - 06:07 PM

This is a tough one. I always hated that movie, and time has not warmed my heart.

I mostly hated how popular and yet dumb it was. I would have loved a real depiction of a training academy, because it's be interesting to see the inside of a world I ain't gonna visit. Like what I wnated with GI JANE (and didn't get there either). Again, BAND OF BROTHERS. See it.

In the light of the 21st century, I think we're far enough removed from both to say that TOP GUN is technically not as good as COYOTE UGLY.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#4 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 29 October 2004 - 09:36 PM

You know what's funny? I've never seen Top Gun. And I really never intend to. Just one of those movies (actually like Titanic) that I personally have nothing against, have heard mixed things from different people, but that I know I will most likely never see. Maybe if it's on TV one day, but other than that, I won't.
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#5 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 29 October 2004 - 09:58 PM

There is a word we use in Australia called "Try-hard" and I think you guys would be familiar with that term or else have your own equivalent. Try-hards are people who try to hard to be cool and tough. They walk like chimpanzees because that's how rapsters walk on the television, they dress in homie pants (which probably means that they can't walk normally even if they wanted to), they "talk the talk" and listen to whatever mainstream dictates as "cool" music at the time.

They are also an embarrassment - to themselves, their friends, their family and anyone else who happens to be around them.

Top Gun takes this idea of trying too hard to be cool and turns into a movie. I've already mentioned the dialogue in the Tired Movie Cliches thread but I'll include the example here again, with a few others...

"Your ego's writing checks your body can't cash."
"I want somebody's butt. I want it now. I've had it."
"I'm not going to sit around and blow sunshine up your ass, lieutenant."

You get the idea. Nobody says this crap in real life and as Michel Orla said so succinctly in that other thread, if you did, you wouldn't have any friends left.

Now, let's also look at what the movie is about - does anybody know?

I think the message is supposed to be how Maverick (ie. the stereotypical Hollywood loner) learns to stop being a hot shot and work as a team. Aw, that's great, isn't it?

And how does this transpire in the film? In a bit of a hodge-podge plot, to be honest. Maverick goes to Top Gun, the flight school for the best of the best. From here on in, the movie is basically a heap of training dog fights, with more of that aforementioned dialogue.

Maverick falls in love with one of his instructors and they have lots of embarrassing scenes together. That one where Maverick throws the hissing fit and rides away on his motorbike comes to mind.

Kelly McGuiness (or whatever her name was) - "Lieuntenant. My report on your flight assessment was right on -"

Tom Cruise (reving his motorbike like some kind of dick) - "I can't hear you!"


What else? There's plenty of macho rivalry between Maverick and the others, especially Ice-Man. What a call sign!

And we're supposed to believe when we watch it that these guys are cool but something about the way Maverick and Goose go "I feel the need - the need for speed!" makes them seem more like a couple of tenth graders trying to impress the girls.

They're behaviour reminds me a lot of some try-hards on my high school volleyball team. They were shithouse at volleyball, were more of a detriment to the team than a help... but they were always heaping praise on each other.

"You're the man! Yeah!" they'd say when one of them managed to hit the ball.
"Don't worry, man. They were just lucky." they'd say when they, more often than not, missed it.

But all the male characters in Top Gun remind me of these guys and other try-hard types.


Now, let's look at the big emotional moment of the movie - Goose's death. It was very sad and all... but didn't it feel a bit... um, contrived?

Tom Cruise - Oh man, Goose is dead. I'm giving up.
Kelly - Don't give up.
Tom Cruise - Um, Tom Skeritt. What do you reckon?
Tom Skeritt - I'm not going to sit here and blow sunshine up your ass, lieutenant.
Tom Cruise - Um... what?
Tom Skeritt - But if you keep being a pilot, you have to learn to not be the hot-shot. You have to become a team player.
Tom Cruise - A team player... yes... yes, I will do that. Thank you, Tom Skeritt.

And this contrived plot goes right through to that skermish at the end - now, that our pilots all know how to work as a team, let's watch them in action. See, their so much better than before, now that they're working as a ....

.... wait a minute. Tom Cruise saves the day. And he was just as good at the start of the film. So that flight school did....


There's probably more but I've rambled on long enough. I will just say one more thing though. The instructors told the younger pilots that they (the instructors) would be flying planes that were "smaller, faster and more manouvreable, just like the enemy migs." Now, I just wondered... when they finally fought the enemy migs, why didn't they use these superior planes instead of the F-14 Tom-cats?
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#6 User is offline   Paladin Icon

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Posted 30 October 2004 - 09:36 AM

I watched Top Gun a long, long time ago, but I don't remember any of it.

Anyhow, according to the IMDB, the USAF opened recruiting booths in hopes of getting guys who watched the movie to join the Air Force. The plan worked and they had the highest rate of recruitment in years.
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#7 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 30 October 2004 - 09:41 AM

It's funny you mention that, Paladin. I've often thought that the movie was a big recruitment ad.
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#8 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 30 October 2004 - 10:47 AM

Yeah, your argument is no good, MG. TOP GUN is teh suck, but not for the reasons you cite. Those guys actually behave and talk like that - I've known some guys who joined the RCAF, and if guys in Canadian planes think they're Top Guns, then god damn I know the yanks are thinking it.

One of the things I like about ALIENS is the mock bravado among the troops, which is more or less the same stuff that's in TOP GUN. You just happen to buy it because, I think, there's less of it.

And I have head guys say in real life "Your mouth is writing checks your ass can't cash," since that's how the line caught on, accurate or not. It's an inducement to talk about how they ought to fight. They never fight of course, those guys. And no, I haven't heard it lately; I bought a car a long time ago and don't see that public transit demographic nearly as much as I'd like to.


And yeah - no way the US was going to loan a movie all that hardware - along with pilots - and not have the movie be some jingoistic nonsense about the few and the proud, or whetever the slogan is.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#9 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 30 October 2004 - 11:16 AM

QUOTE
Yeah, your argument is no good, MG. TOP GUN is teh suck, but not for the reasons you cite.


Okay, Civilian. Let's hear yours, you big hot shot.
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#10 User is offline   Despondent Icon

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Posted 30 October 2004 - 01:15 PM

Someone needs to do a Top Gun screening room experience. It's got all the classic SW moments. Brooding hothead on super bike, Best pilot ever of skilled lineage. Dack? Dack!

Tomcats are what Aviators (Navy pilots) fly, aren't they? Maybe the Raptor is supposed to phase them out.

I hated the Kenny L song with strong disdain, and stayed away for that reason alone. finally I saw it on TV, and it was ok. Kind of like the taste of vomit in your mouth is acceptable once you've finally thrown up.

I've got to crank out some more chapters I know. But I was working on my mercury astronaut costume last night and watching (of course) some of The Right Stuff. Now there's true representation of fighter-jock bravada.

Fuckin' A, Bubba.
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#11 User is offline   Helena Icon

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Posted 31 October 2004 - 10:30 AM

I've never actually seen Top Gun, but now that I've seen Hot Shots I don't really need to. I love that movie - one of the best spoofs ever.
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The sandpeople had women and children. We know this because Anakin killed them how could he tell? The children might be smaller but I never saw a sandperson with breasts. Did they hike their skirts and show him some leg or something?

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Also, I can see the point of wanting to kidnap a human and use her as a slave, but they didn't. They tied her to a flimsy easel for a month. It's assumed they had to feed and give her water. What for? Was she purely ornamental? I can understand them wanting the droids, you can sell those for a lot of money, but a chick who's only skills are finding non-existand mushrooms and getting randomly pregnant, you're not going to get much.

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#12 User is offline   SimeSublime Icon

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Posted 01 November 2004 - 02:15 AM

Same as Helena. Never saw Top Gun, and don't particularly intend to.
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#13 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 01 November 2004 - 07:38 AM

Sime... you must see Top Gun... just once...

and then watch Hot Shots. cool.gif
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#14 User is offline   SimeSublime Icon

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Posted 01 November 2004 - 08:59 AM

Oh, I've seen Hot Shots, that was brilliant.
The Green Knight, SimeSublime the Puffinesque, liker of chips and hunter of gnomes.
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#15 User is offline   Chefelf Icon

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Posted 05 November 2004 - 10:44 PM

On the subject of Top Gun:

Five shitty movies that everyone loves.

I wish I'd written that.
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