Top Gun is on the History Channel?!

i absolutely AM from 1986! but i missed this until now. different strokes.

it’s not even a you had to be there thing though, or i didn’t think so
i would have thought the faltermeyer score + Tony Scott namecheck + subsequently followed by TEN MINUTES of “get jets ready for takeoff ad infinitum” would have been all the indication you would need without having to be ~from~ 1986 but maybe not

in the val kilmer doc he talks about how there was kind of a “team val” and “team cruise” on set and delivers an extremely unconvincing line that despite the gossip he and cruise were always supportive of each others’ careers lol yeah buddy ok

well i watched the sequel and i am pretty sure i hate it more than the original.

the positives are much the same as the first one: Full committal by all the actors, Cruise is an eyecatching actor and can mostly get away with the dumbest conceivable dialogue, the dogfight sequences are generally intelligible but holy shit this script though.
STILL predictable and dogshit dumb, daddy-do-you-love-me-now, adolescent small dick power fantasy tech fetishism at its worst. it no longer has the benefit of explicit homoeroticism but the music and score do still suck!

The decision to replicate not only the credits but all the main story beats, all the failson rising white narcissist savior bullshit and at least a dozen scenes note for note doesn't impress me, it only serves to show how utterly creatively bereft and unimaginative the hands on the wheel are. The inclusion of a more diverse cast and a slightly less sex pest relationship are directly undercut by Hangman's hotdog last second bailout (another bloated egotist to the rescue! let's see a woman do that!) and the cynical erasure of all the prior film's female characters. Kilmer can't even speak but he makes the cast while McGillis gets bumped for the unforgivable sin of aging.
The product being sold here isn't the military, it's fucking Tom Cruise. Why the fuck did I just watch a two hour commercial for Tom Cruise? Fuck this series.

i am glad that salahuddin got paid though.

it was dumb

but i am a sucker for the real jet fighter shit
i still go to airshows, i’m a total plane dork

You're good about not making this presumption VG, but it's worth noting that me disliking things anyone else likes is never a personal attack or a referendum on your taste or intelligence. I genuinely wish I had enjoyed this! I invested a lot of time in finally seeing the Top Guns! I tend to read the fact that you found enjoyment in something I could not as something of a failing on my part.

seriously though, how are you gonna have Ed Harris and throw him away like that? The man is a walking dusty wrinkle, let's keep him in the shot for as long as possible!

it isn’t a failing, you see these goofy movies for what they are. super dumb macho militaristic empty vessels

plane vibes are my sole reason for liking these movies & i think i have an unresolved crush on tom cruise that i havent sought therapy for

but electric guitars & barrel rolls & shit like that you can get in better quality from the van halen “ dreams” video if i’m honest

sorry for being overbearing <3

you're not being overbearing, you're defending what you like!

If i had a crush on Cruise, this would be my jam too. He's clearly really in love with himself and trying to share the joy of that experience.

vehicle fetishism rolls right off my back, even stuff like Croneberg's Crash. Mechanical obsession is sort of antithetical to my worldview.

it’s just a sports movie with planes

idk I see nothing positive about the first one; the new one is the first one done right, i.e. a Tom Cruise movie with planes.

you could not make these planes out of clay -- they wouldn't fly!

The sequel is kind of a masterpiece as far as this sort of thing goes. Resuscitation of a decades old property that holds true to the spirit of the original, builds on it in a way that doesn’t feel forced, deftly weaves in the old threads, is an honest-to-god excitingly filmed action movie that relies heavily on actual cameras and planes. And it’s better than the original.

It feels completely removed from current action spectacle. Old Hollywood in a way. Of course it’s dumb as shit and of course you won’t feel certain things if you didn’t see Top Gun as a kid. But this is maybe the first instance of nostalgia filmmaking necromancy done right.

If you’re coming at this with an arms crossed, sneering take at 80s action movie stupidity, of course you’re going to hate it. Let me put on my spectacles and sit down and watch Commando for the first time at 40 something and tell you all what a moronic spectacle it is.

Said spectacle like 8 times there, juggling work texts and hot Top Gun takes simultaneously.

But forks, aren’t you an avowed Cameron hater too? I see the divergence.

i must’ve seen top gun as a kid, i def had the vhs in my movie cabinet, but i can’t imagine i ever made it all the way through it? as an adult it’s boring but it was made by tony scott so it’s gay and beautiful propaganda

whereas maverick is a legit nailbiter in nearly every scene of plane action. also seeing it with a crowd of friends elevates it considerably. the lack of homosexuality is made tolerable by how incredulous the heterosexuality is

i def expressed all of this before on a different thread (was it last year’s sequel/franchise poll?)

Yeah, seeing this in a theater especially was really something. Like I felt the audience responding to it in a way I’ve never really experienced. Maybe partly the post-COVID cinema thing, but everyone from kids to old folks were enthralled and just buzzing walking out of it.

Also lol and on point re: the sexuality of both

I saw it Memorial Day weekend and was one of the best experiences in years.

It’s Hollywood doing its big ole dumb thing better than it’s done it in a very, very long time.

idk I see nothing positive about the first one

some great light by Kimball / Scott

I don’t know how you can watch a Tony Scott movie and see literally nothing to like. They’re beautiful at the very least.

Ready for a Maverick treatment of Days of Thunder.

I like Days of Thunder!

Me too! It’s under appreciated. And gorgeous.

Robert Duvall acts as if it's O'Neill.

The gravitas of a Harris or Duvall is crucial underpinning. No condescension, they’re in it.

None at all! One of his best.

the gravitas of a squinting skerritt

sounds like a mollusk.

circa, I've got to interrogate what "spectacle" means to you in terms of enjoyment and why it not being in CGI somehow gives you a greater thrill. Flynn's Robin Hood or even Spielberg's War of the Worlds, this ain't; it's workshopped and overwrought beyond common sense or spontaneous thrill. I'm not getting any soul or thought beyond obvious fanservice and slavish Cruise hagiography. If what's there is exciting you, more power to you; acting as if these blockbuster hoo-ha qualities are inherently recognizable, positive or even engrained within this work as a matter of fact is fallacious.

I also take umbrage with your conception of me as a curmudgeons shooting fish in a barrel in choosing to engage the work and then positioning myself as holier-than-thou in voicing my objections. I think I've been clear in my intentions to want to find things to enjoy here; I'm simply not seeing them.

oh i thought you longed to see something worthwhile in this and thought the deficiency was within yourself, but now i see finding value in this spectacle is fallacious

no, the argument that the value in the spectacle is inherent is fallacious.

i'm _inclined_ to consider my inability to enjoy this to be a failing and would love to be shown the error in my ways but "Sure it's meaningless and stupid but there's so much of it and it's executed so well!" is not swaying me to the dark side.

there is abundant spectacle to be found in Birth of a Nation (both of em!) but that's not a great selling point (for either of em!)

sidebar but has anybody talked about the obvious visual/plot/script Star Wars lifts, "Don't think, do" and the death star trench run most prominent among them

ohhhh boy

i'm _inclined_ to consider my inability to enjoy this to be a failing and would love to be shown the error in my ways but "Sure it's meaningless and stupid but there's so much of it and it's executed so well!" is not swaying me to the dark side.

― POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu),

So don't post?

it doesn't seem to be stopping you?

I'm not sure what War of the Worlds does in your comparison. Yes, it made money and Spielberg meant it to be seen by a lot of people, but it has nothing in common with TG.

Both star Cruise, both prominently feature spectacle as the primary dish on the menu. One has a (somewhat) more coherent storyline and is filmed with an emphasis on humanity.

I liked the sequel! I didn't like the original, but I'm not going to re-post arguments in goddamn 1986; it's not a big deal. Meanwhile you ARE rehashing those arguments, plus condescending to the rest of us.

an emphasis on humanity.

lol you went to a Top Gun sequel for humanity? Most of us went for spectacle and cool planes.

xp I'm discussing the sequel and comparing it to the original, which is only appropriate considering it is (occasionally a shot-for-shot) remake.

I haven't been condescending to you or anyone else here, I just don't agree with you. On the other hand, your suggestion that I don't post because I disagree with you is explicitly haughty.

it’s like looking for the culinary value in a hotdog, or eating one for the first time and
declsiming this has no value, there’s no good flavor, it’s just salt, it’s cheap and has no value etc

no newsflash. we recognize the experience but we enjoy those things it lacks. that’s what a hotdog is. it’s lack of culinary value is satisfying, scratches an itch. that it is cheap is also a value

top gun isn’t cinemaaaa. it’s just a movie.
lack of depth/value isn’t the headline. we all know what it is.
it’s a movie hotdog

Nothing personal, forks. But it’s not like you haven’t been laying the grumpy out kinda asking for it.

It’s a matter of taste. I’m just as aware of the structure as you are, but I appreciate the artistry of this kind of admittedly goofy thing more than you do. It’s well honed. Exceptionally so. Committee driven or not, it’s impeccably crafted.

If I sit in a theater at nearly 40 years old and physically feel an audience (and myself) electrified by, y’know, CINEMA… it’s a special thing.

Also do not agree that this is just a good hot dog.

i also agree with vegemite.

the original top gun is a very silly movie in many ways. however, i have gotten so much joy in my life by thinking of it. it's hard to describe what it means to have "danger zone" in my head for the vast majority of my life. it is a uniquely postmodern thing to perpetually have in the mind, i think (no one will ask me to explain what i mean by that, thank god)