Top Gun: Maverick releases tomorrow and the sequel to the Tom Cruise starrer and #1 film from 1986 has me as charged up as I've been for any film since before the pandemic. Why am I so stoked for this pic?... Well first, the trailer simply blows you away. There's the amazing cinematography, the musical cues borrowed from the original film's soundtrack, and several intriguing callbacks to the first movie -- Goose's son, Maverick's motorcycle, "Great Balls of Fire" and more.
Next it's the characters. Val Kilmer is (seemingly) returning as "Iceman", aka, Lieutenant (now Admiral) Tom Kazansky. I'm also fully expecting a cameo by one or two other actors from the first film -- possibly Meg Ryan as Carole Bradshaw.
One character we know we'll see is Penny Benjamin, the admiral's daughter alluded to in the first film as someone with whom Maverick had "a history of high-speed passes." It was throwaway line, a simple quip intended to give us insight into Maverick's reckless nature with both planes and women. But the Top Gun: Maverick screenwriters (Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr., who by the way, also penned the first film) ran with it. Penny Benjamin is now embodied by actress Jennifer Connelly (and by the way, how refreshing is it to see Cruise finally doing a movie where his love interest is age-appropriate instead of 20 years younger than him like Annabelle Wallis was in The Mummy?)
But the main reason I'm so excited for this film is that Top Gun and I have serious history. So allow me if you will to not just provide my usual type of commentary and discussion, but also offer some detailed personal tales and anecdotes about one of the most important films from my youth.
Back to the 80s
In 1986, I was working as an usher at Loews Wayne Sixplex in Wayne, NJ. It was my third summer at the theater, which at the time was one of the premier multiplexes in the state. It was early May and after about a week on the job I showed up for work one day and was greeted in the theater lobby by a roughly 8' high, 6' wide promotional display for some new movie about fighter pilots. It starred Tom Cruise, who was coming off the colossal flop Legend. In fact, at the time Cruise had starred in only one bona fide hit -- Risky Business. Even so, solid performances in All the Right Moves, The Outsiders and Taps, had Cruise on the edge of stardom... but he still needed a breakout hit.
But back to that lobby display. This thing captivated me with both its sheer size and the fact that it wasn't just a static, stand up, cardboard standee; this thing had depth; it lit up and it had moving parts. Thoughts began to stir: "This thing would look great in my room."
The hit of the summer
Top Gun was released on May 16, but few know that its release date was moved up a week from May 23. I know this because the display included a prominent "Coming May 23" declaration. Presumably, the studio (Paramount) felt good about the Top Gun's positive advance previews and also may have feared going head to head against Sylvester Stallone's Cobra, as well as Poltergeist II, which were both also released on May 23rd.
Any such fears soon proved ridiculous. Top Gun was an immediate and massive hit -- a summer popcorn movie driven by young male moviegoers who flocked to see it with their best buds (or girlfriends they'd talked out of seeing Short Circuit instead.)
As for me and my usher brethren (Mike, Steve, Kirk, Lou, John and Marcus) we embraced Top Gun probably more than any other film that played at Loews during our multi-summer tenure there. This included incessantly quoting all the best lines from the film:
- "This is what I call a 'target-rich' environment"
- "The bet is 20 dollars. You have to have carnal knowledge (of a lady this time) on the premises."
- "I don't like you because you're dangerous."
- "Slider... You stink."
- "I feel the need... The need... for speed."
- "That was some of the best flying I've seen yet. Right until the part where you got killed."
- "Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full."
- "We're too close for missiles; I'm switching to guns."
- "Goose you're such a dickhead. Whose butt did you kiss to get in here."
"Well, the list is long but distinguished."
"Yeah, well so's my johnson."
We also re-enacted our favorite scenes -- even going as far as banding together to loudly sing along on "You've Lost That Loving Feelin'" in the back of a packed auditorium. Steve, meanwhile, was obsessed with Kelly McGillis's love scene halfway through the film and would regularly duck into the auditorium to catch it. We even adopted the call signs of all the Top Gun characters. Mike was "Goose"; Steve was "Hollywood"; Kirk was "Wolfman"; Lou was "Slider", John was "Merlin" and Marcus was "Sundown".
And me?... I was a big Val Kilmer fan, so I of course was "Iceman".
But even as Top Gun continued to bring in big audiences week after week, I kept careful eye on that display. Then finally, on one of my off nights, I was out with my friend Brian (who had also worked at Loews for years) and formulated a plan. We came to the theater, seemingly just to say hang out in the lobby for awhile, but as the place was closing, we intentionally left one of the back doors slightly ajar. Then we left, waited about an hour and drove back to the theater.
An inside job
Brian and I crept up on theater door we left cracked. Sure enough, no one had noticed, so we peeled it open and ducked into the lobby. Now because I worked there, I knew the theater had just invested in a new alarm system, complete with motion detectors, but being little more than teenagers, we didn't let that stop us. We crept along the walls to dodge the motion detectors (which we later learned weren't even activated yet) down to the lower lobby where the display sat. To get it out of the theater (and transport it back to my house) we knew we'd first have to disassemble it and put it back in the gigantic box it was shipped in. It wound up taking close to an hour to get the display broken down using tools Brian had brought.
Ultimately, we got the display into the box and were ready. We each grabbed an end and headed out the fire door, then somehow lashed this behemoth to the roof of my car, and I made the half hour drive home early in the AM, at a speed of little more than 35 mph.
Disappointingly, after reassembly, I realized the display was too tall for my converted attic room so I actually had to saw off close to foot of it in order to stand it back up. But finally the deed was done and there my Top Gun display stood for more than a decade -- Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis staring out like sentinels at me all through my twenties.
More history
In 1992, my dad took a business trip to San Diego and brought my mom, sister and me with him to have sort of a mini-vacation. Upon arrival, my mind immediately went to Top Gun and the opportunity I now had to see filming locations for one of my all time favorite movies. I visited the beaches where a lot of second unit stuff was shot, as well as Naval Air Station Miramar, home of the actual TOPGUN (Navy Fighter Weapons School.) The streets near my hotel are seen in the sequence where a pissed off Maverick speeds away on his motorcycle pursued by Charlie (McGillis). It had been six years since the film's release but the city of San Diego, I found, was still using its connection to the movie to appeal to tourists. So yeah, I bought my fair share of Top Gun t-shirts and merchandise.
But the absolute highlight for me was visiting the Kansas City Barbecue. The place is right on Harbor Drive in downtown San Diego and was the location for the Top Gun scenes where Goose (Anthony Edwards) and Maverick drink, play piano and sing "Great Balls of Fire." I stumbled across it purely by accident but visited twice during my trip. Predictably, this bar/restaurant was packed with Top Gun memorabilia -- movie stills, framed photos, the piano Goose plays, and yes, the same exact promotional display I had pilfered from Loews. The place even proudly advertised itself as "Kansas City Barbecue: Top Gun sleazy bar scene filmed here" and sold t-shirts declaring the same.
Eight years later I actually moved to California and my first residence, before eventually planting stakes in the city of San Diego proper, was in Oceanside, which sits way up in north county San Diego. It's famous for its surfing, its pier and of course, its connection to Top Gun. Charlie's cozy little beachside cottage, where Maverick arrives late for dinner, sat literally steps from the beach and the aforementioned pier. During my first few months living in Oceanside, my workout runs took me unknowingly right past this house. I literally jogged by it dozens of times and only later learned of its cinematic pedigree.
Years later, what came to be known as the "Top Gun house" fell into disrepair and when "downtown" and beachfront Oceanside (including the block the house sat on) underwent redevelopment, its future seemed uncertain. Fortunately, the local historical society recognized the home's significance, funded its restoration and had it moved north from its original location to the beachfront courtyard of the Mission Pacific Hotel, about 200 yards up the street. The house was repainted to match its 1986 light blue color, restored close to its classic look, and is now home to (of all things) a specialty pie shop where tourists come to see the Top Gun memorabilia on its walls and take pictures on a replica of Maverick's motorcycle parked out front.
So why was Top Gun such a hit and why does it deserve all this remembrance anyway?
Well for starters, it was a riveting actioner that didn't rely on the usual conventions -- gunplay, speeding cars and the like. Plus, the action didn't take place in the usual (i.e., terrestrial) setting. Instead, Top Gun gave us rarely seen action in the form of supersonic jets -- soaring, dipping, spinning, engaged in aerial combat -- and it gave us this action 40,000 feet in the air. It was an unprecedented offering that appealed to both testosterone-infused young male audiences and military enthusiasts.
Speaking of the military, we shouldn't underestimate Top Gun's leveraging of the Cold War, which in 1986 was still very palpable. Like Rocky 4 and Rambo: First Blood Part II, both released the year prior, Top Gun made villains of the Russians and played to a strong sense of jingoism. Audiences cheered unashamedly when Maverick shot down the Russian MIGs, the same way they did when Rocky knocked out Ivan Drago. Indeed, Cruise's character was seen as something of a modernized Eddie Rickenbacker. In fact, Top Gun's popularity was so rousing and its glamorization of fighter pilots so profound, at the Loews I worked at, representatives from the U.S. Navy showed up one day asking if they could set up a temporary recruiting station outside the theater.
Top Gun also endures due to a perfectly cast ensemble of actors. Cruise was the perfect actor to play the Maverick role: a burgeoning matinee idol with a cocksure persona and shit-eating but lovable grin. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him. Kilmer, who had already starred and impressed in both Top Secret and Real Genius was just as handsome and charismatic. McGillis, Kilmer's classmate at Julliard, also had two major roles on her resume. She had starred in the critically acclaimed Reuben, Reuben and had earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her role in Witness, which at the time put her on the short list of Hollywood's top young dramatic actresses. Anthony Edwards, as Goose, was Maverick's likable, wisecracking sidekick, and Meg Ryan (in her first major role) as Goose's wife was positively adorable. The cast was rounded out by the stern and steady Tom Skerritt as "Viper" and the rough and rugged Michael Ironside as "Jester".
The onscreen chemistry was a byproduct of real life. The cast's principals clicked, formed friendships and sometimes more. Edwards and Ryan would later become a real-life couple, McGillis started a relationship with Barry Tubb (Wolfman) and they and the rest cast would regularly hang out together after shooting wrapped for the day.
Top Gun's music also plays a part in its longstanding popularity. Beginning with the film's opening shot, when Harold Faltemeyer's beacon-like instrumental gives way to searing Steve Stevens guitar work, music is an integral part of the Top Gun experience. Legendary producer Georgio Moroder, one of the architects of disco, was the driving force behind the the Top Gun soundtrack. Moroder had a track record of writing and producing hits for movie soundtracks, including Blondie's "Call Me" from Amercan Gigolo and Irene Cara's "Flashdance... What a Feeling" from Flashdance. For Top Gun, Moroder penned "Danger Zone" which was performed by Kenny Loggins and became a Top 40 radio smash. Moroder also composed Teena Marie's "Lead Me On" (played during the bar scene when Maverick first meets Charlie) and Berlin's "Take My Breath Away", which went to #1 in the U.S. and several other countries and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The rest of the soundtrack featured tunes by heavyweights Cheap Trick and Loverboy, plus another cut by Loggins -- "Playing With The Boys". Though never a radio hit, the song was instantly memorable (and later became something of a gay anthem) due to its placement during Top Gun's famous beach volleyball scene.
So now it's now 36 years later and Top Gun remains an 80's classic and "guy movie" staple, right up there with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. It's sequel is already getting fantastic reviews and being hailed as one of the best movies (not action movies, "movies") in years. There's also been plenty of advertising and promotion -- billboards, bus shelter ads, the works. All of it gets me even more charged for this film. So when I go see it this weekend, fair warning to all the movie chains out there... Keep close tabs on your lobby display.
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