Mum's Monday: Top Gun

A few months back, Top Gun 2 has been announced to be in the works. With that in mind, I thought I would look back at the first one, and why it still stands the test of time.

Recently, Looper.com released an article exploring films that has allegedly aged badly, and in among the list is the classic, Top Gun. Looper’s opinion on the film was a little scattered. They started off by saying that it is still a great film, before listing a few bits that it deemed to be silly, when instead it came across as if they were nit-picking. Their main concern was about how it hadn’t crossed over into the 21^st century well, by means of cartoonish characters and awful one-liners. The characters are what make the film what it is, and Looper has stated a couple of sentences earlier that they still enjoyed it, which is a little contradictory. The article below explores why the film still holds up as good as it did when it first came out.

I still use some of the lines from the film about feeling the “need for speed” and “great balls of fire” and the dangers shown are still relevant today; men and women have asked people out and have not known who they really are, in some places an office romance is frowned upon or forbidden completely and how many women have let slip something their husband, partner or friend have told them in confidence? Answer loads still today. The soundtrack is also memorable and when I hear “Take My Breathe Away” by Berlin, and “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins always reminds me of this film.

This film goes straight in with the action, as we see Lieutenant Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and his co-pilot Goose (Anthony Edwards) flying a Tomcat in a dog fight with 2 MIGS. Maverick manoeuvres the plane into a previously thought impossible position, upside down above 1 of the MIGS. Maverick and Goose, are pilots in the Navy and this should make it seem that Maverick is mature and responsible, but the opposite is true. Mavericks character comes across as immature, irresponsible and with not a care in the world - although he does show some selflessness when he helps down a fellow pilot who has lost his nerve and when he has limited fuel. His job is hanging by a thread, he is a good pilot even though he takes risks (a legacy from his late father), and likes doing a fly by near the control towers whenever he gets the chance.

After a stern talking to, Maverick and Goose are sent to a top naval training school, which is known as Top Gun. At the beginning of this film I thought, “Yes, Maverick with Goose is going to win the Top Gun trophy at the end” as with most films, the main character comes out on top. This film is better than that and does it in such a way that risk takers have to work harder to end up where they want to be.

This film is clever in that it shows the dangers of having a group of pilots in a bar when a woman is present. The unique chat up line Maverick uses gets everyone involved, much to the embarrassment of the woman, however, the next day the embarrassment turns right back on Maverick. The woman he was chatting up is a civilian instructor at Top Gun, Charlie (Kelly Mcgillis). Despite knowing about the upside down manoeuvre, Charlie tells the pilots it still cannot be done, to which Maverick tells her it was him who pulled it off, to which Charlie gradually responds by being interested in his story, making him stand out above the rest. This leads to a potential danger as after a flying training session, at the debriefing, Charlie cannot reveal how she really feels about his flying, because she’s paranoid that the other pilots will discover that she has fallen for him, and sometimes, a romantic relationship is frowned upon in a professional workplace, and that rule is still strong today. This may seem a little paranoid as the pilots would be more focused on the job they are doing and not just two people.

Lastly, the dangers of telling your wife too much information. When Goose’s wife Carole (Meg Ryan) and his son comes to visit him at Top Gun, one of the first things she says to Maverick is that he is in love with one of the instructors. This is a funny scene but awkward for Goose.

The film shows that sometimes to get the job done you may have to take risks but if you want to succeed you have to do things by the book which is what Iceman (Val Kilmer) did. Maverick learns this when tragedy strikes, even though he is cleared of all wrong doing, this changes his perspective on taking risks. This however, turns him into not such a good pilot as before. We see a real in-depth look into the character of Maverick and we then understand it is the risks that make him a good pilot.

One of my favourite scenes is in a classroom when Maverick asks Charlie out on a date. She flatly refuses but she is holding a clip board and writing. When she drops a piece of paper in front of him it has her address on it and time. One of the other pilots makes a snide comment about him being rejected and Maverick smugly tells him he stinks.

After all the pilots graduated from Top Gun they had immediate orders to go out into the real world and had a real combat dog fight to contend with. The character Maverick showed his true colours as a pilot and won the day and it was nice to see Iceman compliment him.

In the end it was nice to see Maverick where he wanted to be, a nice feel good ending to an action packed film.