Top Gun- Okay, Boomer!

I love movies. Especially in the theater. Over the years, I developed a simple rating system to which most people can relate. I assume every movie is worth the time comitment and full price of admission from the outset. It will stay that way if it doesn’t make major goofs, the story is conveyed well, the acting, music and effects are appropriate, etc, etc. I assign grades like this-

It’s worth paying full price.

It’s worth a matinee admission.

Wait to see it at home.

Don’t bother, it’s a waste of time.

Subjective evaluation is easy to get wrong. To help overcome that, I borrowed an idea from figure skating. For example, if a skater’s program includes a triple axle, and they only do a double, or they fall, there is a mandatory deduction. Similarly, I use some mandatory deductions for films. 1 ) Re-makes and sequels start with an automatic mark-down. Lack of imagination, do-overs, and plain old money grubbing are the hallmarks of countless crap movies. Re-makes and sequels have to be absolutely fabulous to be worthwhile. 2) Casting must be on point. Picking a big name star over the right actor is a no-no. The usual mistake is somebody obviously age inapropriate, especially when the audience knows or can easily figure out the desparity between the actor’s age and the age of the character. For example, watching the 60 year old John Wayne hobble around in the 1968 film The Green Berets just doesn’t look good. 3) Models and Computer generated images should not be mixed with live-action unless there is absolutely no other way to get the image, otherwise it’s just a feature length cartoon, like so many of the recent super hero franchises. Movie producers keep pretending that the audience can’t tell the difference, but it’s just not true. Each improvement in CGI is matched by viewers who are increasingly savvy to it.

Prior to Top Gun- Maverick, the last movie I saw in the theater was Dune. I mention it here because it is a good benchmark. It came out last fall, and I really enjoyed the experience. Like the figure skating analogy, it landed the jump it attempted. Dune was a remake movie from a good book(1965) and an okay predecesor (1984), so it’s not an unreasonable comparison to Top Gun (1987) and Top Gun- Maverick. The two new movies had a similar time between productions, changes in film making technology, audience age gap, etc. I think Dune hit the nail on the head with its re-imaging of Frank Herbert’s world of Arrakis, but Tom Cruise and his decades late sequel left me a bit queasy.

Let’s start with the mandatory deductions.

It could be argued that since there was a long, long break between films, it’s not a sequal. Nope. No way around it. If the producers had gone for another location, say Virginia Beach and NAS Oceana, or a forward based air wing in Japan (or used some imagination!), I might have let them off the hook, but they chose the same California, and same Tom Cruise, so that knocks it down a peg.

Next is the use of an old actor in the big role. At 58 years of age during production, he isn’t believable as an active duty US Navy Captain on flight status, flying a tactical jet or testing secret hypersonic aircraft. He is just too old, except for the line to the head, or the early seating at the officer’s mess. Generally speaking, Naval Aviators who take flying billets for their whole career, as is implied in the film, self-limit their promotability. They peak at Lieutenant Commander, or maybe Commander, then they punch out at twenty years (40-45 years of age) for a civilian flying job. (Like the airlines, or test flying for a defence contractor.) Just like John Wayne, it’s a deduction for sure.

The last of the automatic deductions- CGI. The write-ups for this film brag about all the great shots of real airplanes, doing real stuff. Yep, they started with that, then digitally re-touched practically every frame in the 2 hours and 11 minutes. Disappointing. In fact, the whole first flying sequence, and the back half of the film, the “mission,” had so much CGI it was practically a cartoon. Boo.

So basically, that leaves this film in the “don’t bother” category within ten minutes of the opening credits, but there are some good things.

The film starts on a really solid demonstration of the pilot “hangar culture.” Many pilots dream of a man-cave hangar for their personal aircraft. Maybe store a motorcycle, or classic car there, too. Maverick’s got a pretty sweet set-up, complete with a WWII P-51 Mustang for his Sunday flying. The images were beautiful, and it reminded me of a few hangars I’ve visited. (But wait. I know how much bank a Navy Captain makes. How’s he affording a P-51? Flight pay ain’t that good.)

There is a great sailing sequence! Maverick gets to learn about speed while double-handing (very hard and unlikely to go well with a newbie) a J/125 racing sailboat on San Francisco Bay! But wait. This movie is set in San Diego. How did that happen? (https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2022/05/26/video-top-gun-maverick-sailboat-scene/)

The Porsche is cool and authentic. (Something they didn’t screw-up! https://fortune.com/2022/05/28/porsche-911-detail-top-gun-maverick-car-geeks-love/)

The mandatory shirtless music montage part of the film depicts the old guy boomer playing “dog fight football” on the beach with his gen-z minions. As movie making goes, it isn’t as good as the original’s volleyball scene, but the game they played was cool.

NAS North Island is depicted in the film! It is a place I know and love. I spent much of my formative aviation years flying from its runways. So here’s my issues- It’s actualy called the I Bar, not the Hard Deck. It isn’t on the beach, and it’s tiny. Like 25 people would be crowded tiny. (https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-i-bar-coronado) Finally, F/A-18s have just one connection to the base. NAS North Island is not Fightertown USA. (Sad carry over from Miramar in the first film.) It is the west coast depot level maintenance facilty for the F/A-18. If you see a Hornet there, it’s getting stripped down, repaired, and returned to service at some other base, like NAS Lemoore or MCAS Miramar. So what do they actually do at that base? Fly unglamorous work-horse Seahawks and Ospreys, and provide a dock for aircraft carriers.

Last critical observation. The enemy is never named. It is obvious who it is, but the producers won’t say IRAN. It is the only country in the world with F-14s besides the USA, and ours are in museums.

Where did Tom and company go wrong? A few things. This film doesn’t speak to Gen-Z, who probably haven’t seen or don’t care about the original. It was aimed at boomers and Gen-X, and their disposable income. This film rises to the “Wait to see it at home” ranking only because they included a few beauty shots. It’s not a culture changing film. It’s not as good as the original. It’s basically a rehash combined with elements of 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, The Bridges of Toko-ri, and Star Wars-A New Hope. It is a relative box office “hit” because everything post-rona is lame. In my mind, the US Navy got snookered on this one. They cooperated for the recruiting benefit, but the only people I saw in the theater were oldies. The film demonstrates that the young pilots can’t be trusted to do anything without a two or three star Admiral directly supervising them. Again, more boomers. Based on this story, the Navy recruiting slogan should be “Join the Navy and serve... pudding to angry old dudes who micro-manage everything.”

UPDATE: As of June 7, 2022, the producer/distributor of this film is preparing to defend this production in court, claiming it is not a sequel.

https://news.yahoo.com/paramount-hit-apos-top-gun-184943575.html