Dutch postcard by UIP Netherlands BV. Photo: Paramount. Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
French postcard by Edycard, no. 08. Photo: Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
British postcard by New-Line, no. 193. Photo: Paramount. Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Rick Rossovich, and Anthony Edwards in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
A slick exercise in macho flyboy ethics
The idea for Top Gun (1986) came from California Magazine which featured in 1983 an article by Ehud Yonay called 'Top Guns'. Producer Don Simpson read the article about elite training for the Navy's top fighter jet pilots in Miramar, California. It inspired him and his colleague, Jerry Bruckheimer, to make it into a film, in association with Paramount Pictures. The pair had produced megahits like Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance, and they recruited Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. to write the screenplay for their new film.
In his research for inspiration, Jack Epps attended a number of unclassified classes at Miramar and was given the opportunity to do a so-called back-seat ride in a Tomcat. The first rough draft did not meet the wishes of Bruckheimer and Simpson, so the screenplay was rewritten. One of Jerry Bruckheimer's ideas was to make Star Wars on Earth. Also in this film, a boy, with big dreams, wants to learn to fly. He gets help from an older mentor and he completes the mission with the help of someone he didn't trust at first.
Former television commercial director Tony Scott took over the direction. During the shooting, he was fired twice and then rehired again. One of the conflicts was that he gave the character of Kelly McGillis too little class. Art Scholl was hired as a pilot, cameraman, and stuntman to film the stunt work. In the original script, scenes featured a plane that had gone into a spin. Scholl made the toll flight but was unable to control the aircraft. He crashed into the Pacific Ocean and his body was never found. The device was also not recovered and the cause has never become clear. The film is dedicated to Art Scholl.
The first reviews were mixed, but many critics particularly praised the action sequences, the effects, and the aerial stunts. At AllMovie, Lucia Bozzola says it thus: "The quintessential 1980s blockbuster, Top Gun (1986) may be a slick exercise in macho flyboy ethics, but the kinetic aerial sequences and Tom Cruise's cocky superstar presence make it a perennial crowd-pleaser." And Roger Ebert adds: "Top Gun settles fairly quickly into alternating ground and air scenes, and the simplest way to sum up the movie is to declare the air scenes brilliant and the earthbound scenes grimly predictable. This is a movie that comes in two parts: It knows exactly what to do with special effects, but doesn't have a clue as to how two people in love might act and talk and think."
Film critic Pauline Kael wrote in her review in The New Yorker: “the movie is a shiny homoerotic commercial: the pilots strut around the locker room, towels hanging precariously from their waists.” Later, in a memorable speech from the film Sleep with Me, Quentin Tarantino put forward his theory that Top Gun is “a story about a man’s struggle with his own homosexuality.” In 2016, Nico Lang reacted at Consequence: "There’s no mistaking the fact that Top Gun is intensely homoerotic. Although Maverick and Iceman are supposed to be enemies, their repeated jabs at each other are less aggressive than extremely flirty. Even the screenplay seems to hint that there’s an unspoken element to their rivalry. Here’s how Cash and Epps Jr. set the scene in the film’s final moments when the men put aside their differences for a long, intimate hug: “They stare at each other for a moment, eye to eye even as they are buffeted by the crowd. Finally, Ice breaks … a grin.” This description would be more fitting in a romantic comedy than an action film, and an infamous exchange between the two pilots drives that point home. “You can be my wingman anytime,” Iceman smirks. “Bullshit, you can be mine!” Maverick responds."
An Oscar for the film went to the Giorgio Moroder-Tom Whitlock song 'Take My Breath Away', performed by Berlin. It later emerged that the film had a major influence on newer action films. Many critics struggled with the idea that the film glorified warfare. Top Gun grossed approximately $350 million worldwide against a production budget of only US$15 million. Top Gun would dominate theaters for six months and became the best-selling film of 1986. After the film was released, recruiting figures for both the United States Navy and the United States Air Force soared from the so-called 'Top Gun effect'.
A sequel has been in active development since at least 2010. Finally, Top Gun: Maverick was expected in cinemas in mid-2020, but had to be postponed to 19 November 2021 due to the corona crisis. The story takes place thirty years after the events of Top Gun. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell (Tom Cruise) returns to the airbase to train a group of new pilots. The film is directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, and David Ellison. It also stars Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, and Val Kilmer.
Italian postcard by Danrose, no. 660. Photo: Fotex / R. Drechsler / G. Neri. Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
French postcard by Edycard, no. 29. Photo: Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
French postcard, no. 1062. Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
French postcard, no. 1063. Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
Sources: Roger Ebert, Lucia Bozzola (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Nico Lang (Consequence), Wikipedia (English and Dutch), and IMDb.
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