Top Gun is on the History Channel?!

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)

not sure how i became the movie rockist in this scenario. I love all kinds of garbage and kitsch, mass produced and small scale.

this film isn't garbage and it's not a hot dog and it's not goofy. it's a carefully constructed device built by a team of specialists at a cost of over 200 million dollars, "impeccably crafted" with the obvious intention of re-engaging the movie public in the post covid era by preying on nostalgia for the eighties (a time, I'm sure you remember, of bleak conservatism, xenophobia and warmongering), that's comes freighted with sexism, cynicism and militarism. it's the second most popular film of the year in the united states (behind another that could also easily be described in all the same terms if you switch out 80's with aughties) and is being acclaimed as a masterpiece by the motion picture academy, the critical establishment, and the vox populi. It won!

I'm not being grumpy and i'm not being condescending or placing any kind of judgement on your enjoyment or acting like i'm telling you anything you all don't already know by pointing out its significant flaws on a thread where people are meant to discuss the film. I took the time to watch the first film after literal decades of avoiding it in preparation of giving this franchise a shot, which I daresay puts me in a pretty unique position to offer an appraisal. I thought that might be worthwhile but it sure feels like you all disagree. Anyways, I've seen two movies since and I'm fine moving on.

The Cruise will be with you always

Amen

forks you are correct about the film (it’s the first McQuarrie I’ve sorta hated) but I think most ppl itt who like it have made active, conscious decisions to not care about various of the things that annoy you, wrt to this piece of entertainment, so there’s not much to interrogate

plane go fast

the gravitas of a squinting skerritt

otm

i think

firstly

that coming into a movie deciding that you are going to analyse it through if not a primary lens of then certainly let's say with one of the lenses you have knowingly engaged being that of 2023 political hot points critique is something you should tbh question in yourself if that movie is top gun: maverick

the movie is a lot better than a hot dog but lets say for instance we're going with the hot dog analogy

you are not just critiquing the hot dog as if it ought to have been a fine dining experience, you have in fact shown up to a hot dog stand dressed in smart casual attire and demanded a table before complaining that all you have been offered is hot dog.

this is with reference to your criticisms of top gun: maverick only

to have attempted the same with top gun is to have turned up to where you are aware a hot dog stand was almost forty years ago, dressed in smart casual attire and demanded a table before complaining that the hot dog you have somehow thereby obtained is old.

the standard applied is a fucking nonsense, frankly and furtermore it not only adds nothing, the possibility that it might have added anything is plainly ridiculous- you are reviewing the ghost of a hotdog. aint nobody got time to read that no matter how they feel about that hotdog stand as it existed once, were they aware of it, nor indeed how they feel about hot dogs now.

the other general criticisms arent invalid insofar as they are in some places correct but they come from a position of holding yourself above the material (and crucially everything the material promised to be) which is a cardinal sin if the point of the movie is immersion.

i dont as a rule post on ilx anymore ofc but even before that id stopped posting mean things about shite that had 100% advertised they would be shite unless people insisted they were not shite outside of threads dedicated to the shite in question

but the critique offered of top gun original is dreadfully boring as well as 100% wrong- it's a technically superb hugely entertaining ridiculous and knowingly so macho homo warthrobbing planefest

it might be that people took the politics, it might even be that some people took the character of maverick- there is btw a subtle hint in the name that i believe you may have missed throughout, ask if stuck - seriously. i believe wholeheartedly that those people are watching the movie incorrectly and if your main beef about it is that none of it makes sense or that the sexual politics- disregarding the incredible charisma of the fictional character maverick played by the famous sex symbol of the time tom cruise, for context, remember- are less than you find personally credible or laudable remember you are critiquing the movie incorrectly not just because nobody is going to disagree but really because nobody has thought about top gun as an important primer for sexual nor international relations since the day it was released at least certainly not in a manner that in any way demanded a review somehow based around that aspect in february the year of our forks 2023

now so much for the ghost of hot dog. on to hot dog: maverick

its just a brilliant film. even if you were bent towards criticising a movie based on what it wasnt- speaking of traits that render a criticism invalid- youd be straight up wrong that this movie wasnt smart, almost uncanny in how it handles itself as a sequence of nostalgic touchpoints for a film that you couldnt make today and not be subject to a million reviews of the kind you dropped in with about the original above.

it vibes man. it vibes cheesy it vibes fun it vibes knowingly it vibes like you really didnt believe it could after so long it transports all but the least willing to a state of viewing where even your few valid criticisms (for a movie released now) are subject to the massive caveat that this is top gun island where topless ass smack volleyball sessions never went away where dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun slow motion pans let you know you're about to see some real shit baby where maverick has kept not only his liberty and his hairline but his ability to fly jets crash jets steal jets and shoot jets where jennifer connolly runs a bar just to keep herself in yacht and classic porsche money while awaiting the arrival of a cheshire cat cosplaying richard gere for forty odd years and theres no real need to think about any of that because you bought the ticket to top gun island having been there only a week ago and hating it and you sat there fuming that you still hate it but everyone around you has grins just like that same cheshire cat and each of them is totally immersed thinking

son of a bitch i think theyre gonna try to pull it off those crazy bastards they are gonna try to pull it off holy shit they might actually pull it off OH MY GOD THEYVE PULLED IT OFF

and this same cycle of incredulous disbelief occurs im going to say at least six times maybe ten during the movie with a crescendo mission that genuinely ranks up there with anything an action movie has put on screen in decades in terms of im moving in my seat ducking rocks here and i havent breathed in going on two minutes.

and that is the correct way to watch these movies.

dont call it a comeback

<3 u deems

Booming post. Post of the year.

The original still sucks :). I sat google-eyed and enraptured during the new one, which couldn't exist without the original.