Midweek Mention... Top Gun

Top Gun

Sidey: But Tom cruise action for us this week. Pete. Yeah,

You nominated

Pete: I did know it ain't this. And I think that you probably thought I was nominating this purely out of spite and to tell you, but that wasn't the only reason that was obviously partially

Sidey: a factor. It's definitely a factor.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, it does definitely come into it. But your dislike for this film or for what you had previously watched of this film, which I think was about 10 minutes, did you say 10 50 half an hour.

Okay. And it's obviously a film that people of our generation will have seen unless they've chosen to switch it off. Like you

Reegs: Well, 1986 it was released wasn't it?

So, yeah,

Pete: then. Like growing up loads of cultural references and came from it and so on. But it's, it's a pretty famous film and you not liking it.

Got me thinking and I was probably sticking up for it at times. And I thought, I don't think I've seen this for 20 plus years.

Reegs: I've

Pete: I definitely have seen this and know the story, knew the story, but I wanted to go back and revisit it just to see, as we often do in these mid-week is if it's if it's a shit decided he thinks, or if it's as good as I had remembered it or other people, I've got friends who this is, you know, in their top five favorites and stuffs.

That's what I

Reegs: you've got friends and top gun is in their top five

Pete: all gov one. Yeah,

yeah Gav Wow.

Yeah And there'll be like back to

Reegs: Will he be less? Does he listen to the

Pete: I think he does sporadically, but I will put it once he sees top gun as a, as a conversation piece that he will definitely jump on it. So I'll find.

Yeah.

Reegs: want to hear everything. I've got to say.

Pete: Wow. Okay. It's very easy to poke fun at these things.

Reegs: Really, really, really, really easy.

Pete: Yep. we've yeah, we've got we've got Tom cruise and he is Pete Peter, Peter.

Pete Peter Mitchell. Mitchell. Yeah, but he's otherwise known as Maverick and that is his call sign. I think they're called. Is it

Reegs: it's his coolest Homebase also describes his personality a little bit though. Is that

Pete: Yeah, it's very appropriate because he is a little bit of a

Sidey: jazz

Maverick

Pete: Maverick, and he's got his navigator.

I'm going to say,

Reegs: Yeah. Well, I wasn't really sure what his function was weapons. He looks around the

Pete: his, name's not weapons.

Reegs: no goose. He definitely doesn't. And the movie is definitely not hinting all the time that he'll die.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: And we'll come onto that, I think later on, because it did spawn some some, some spoofs let's say which w w which we can talk about briefly, but yeah. So Tom cruise is Maverick and him and his panel goose. Flying at a cat, some kind of academy slash schools slash something or other

Sidey: well, there's a, there's a to do.

Cause that

was straight away. Got some Ariel. what's it?

Pete: Yeah, they

Sidey: it goes to MIGS.

Pete: or they encounter some MIGS.

Sidey: And they have to chase them off and then. They do an upside down.

bear flying.

Reegs: Well, they split up and they're chasing for missile locks.

It's one of the things that you see a few times in this movie where it's like computer generated things, but it's over real shots of these F fourteens flying, which is pretty cool. And eventually Maverick gets the missile lock and he, the guy bugs out and goes home, sends him away.

But then suddenly another plane has a lock on Cougar.

That's his sorry. I was getting excited. Cause it was very exciting in the

Sidey: He was something to do with they're supposed to be wing men,

you know, you're supposed to leave them on the road and he's, he's repaired. He does it, throughout the film so cougars on his Todd

Reegs: And so he does, he goes

Sidey: a complete fucking meltdown

Reegs: He goes vertically above him and then rotates and takes a photo of him.

Pete: Polaroid

Sidey: got a Polaroid camera there and Yeah. Of

him giving him the. Upside down. is so fucking lovable.

Pete: Well, I don't know. I mean, I've seen the red arrows and they can perform some fairly epic stunts.

So,

so

Reegs: Cougar is lost it at this point as well. Eat this. He does this thing

Pete: a, an attractive older

lady is it

Reegs: it's not. It's another cool sign. You're right, Peter.

I should have clarified that cause I'm sure that is probably what people were thinking.

There's a few times in the movie where, and it's impossible not to think of hot shots,

Sidey: that's

Pete: was what I was

Sidey: getting

Pete: before he

Reegs: takes his mask off and starts sweating and breathing and stuff. And it's just this whole movie you could refill. You could just send it out now as it is and say, it's a comedy and everybody would believe it.

I think,

Sidey: that bit was like airplane to over Metro

day But yeah, he, so Maverick actually goes, he actually does land doesn't he on the aircraft character and has to go back. He like disobeys an order and goes back up to how it Cougar town because he's having a real

shit storm. up there

Reegs: Well, he's told he did an incredibly brave thing, but he should have just landed the plane because your ego is writing checks your body can't cash.

Pete: Another line that's reused in a hot shots.

Reegs: Yeah, but what does it mean though? Because it's, it doesn't, it doesn't have anything to do with what's and he literally used his body to fly the plane in an incredibly dangerous circumstance. Albeit he caused it himself because he was also low on fuel and disobeyed, direct orders and endangered many people.

This is

Pete: thing. I mean, this is where, you know, he he's earned the Monica Maverick because he's, he's clearly that he's clearly very talented. But he he's often breaking protocol.

And I imagine in those sorts of situations, you want people that are gonna stick to

Sidey: generally speaking in the military. You want people to you know,

Reegs: if you're flying a multi-million dollar instrument of death, I believe there are rules you should follow and they should always be followed probably.

Yeah. Not just when you feel that.

Yeah. But

the movie constantly tells us that we're a prick as his ice man, who we're going to meet later for thinking that because we're supposed to be enjoying how

Pete: but remember this was the eighties.

And so what I, what I want you both to do is judge this by the I guess the, the themes of the time. And we've already reviewed loads of films. Well, the eighties films were like, you know, breeze and disregard for like the rules and everything like that.

Reegs: I think it's just in this, the whole central idea of the movie is kind of, we should be supporting him and, but he's

Sidey: never

Reegs: doing everything wrong at every point. And the antagonist, you know, who keeps pointing this out and says, you're dangerous. And I don't want to be with you is a hundred percent, right?

Every time he says, it's just impossible not to see that must've been true in 1986 as

Pete: Now, watching it through adult eyes. Val Kilmer is character.

Iceman is, is nowhere near as much of a con. As I, as I grew up thinking that he was like one because of what you just said there, but two, it's not, you know, in my head he's like sabotaging, you know, he's doing like Soboba is impo and pod racing. He's like snapping bits off his plane and shit. He's not doing any of that.

He's just doing his thing. He is quite smug and righteous and pompous, but you know, he's doing the right thing and he's the talented one.

Find out he actually wins the trophy. Yeah. Which again was, was like, you know, a shock or a surprise to me. But yeah, anyway, because of Maverick's performance in, in, you know, in his academy or

Reegs: KUKA quits as well. Cause Cougar goes to see the

Pete: because he ends up with like PTSD or whatever.

Sidey: he's never seen, so he fucks off,

Pete: Yeah. But he has a wobble doesn't he gets, it gets the, it gets the sweats, which I mean, I imagine like every now and again, I've driven with a hangover or whatever, and I've thought Jesus Christ stuff. You know, I'm a little bit on edge here. I could crash at any minute. You mentioned flying at a thousand miles an hour, whatever the fuck.

In one of the like, surely the, you know, the amount of thoughts that go through your head of like, I could just a slight misjudgment here and I'm like fucking plummeting into the earth or the sun

Sidey: don't you ever get home.

And you can't remember any of the journey where you can't really do that when you're, think you'd go up

Pete: yeah. Yeah. Your wits about you. So he gets into top gun and he's got a motorbike.

Reegs: is led by Michael Ironside and Tom Skerritt as jester and Viper or Viper and jester, jester imbibe that we run two great

Pete: quite cool. Yeah. Yeah

Reegs: and

Sidey: Michael for sure.

Pete: Had you seen Michaeline side before? What, what point did you checked out of this film before? So that's what, so hang on, hang on.

That is I, if someone would have said right, a hundred quid, what his side, his favorite, like homoerotic scene of all time, I would have put money on the volleyball scene. How did you not get kicked out?

Sidey: I could just watch men. Fuck

on the internet. I don't need some idiots playing volleyball.

Reegs: probably should address this

Pete: love, you do like a well put together guy on your TV set and all of these guys are in great shape and they're all hot. They don't get Sandy at all, even though they're diving.

Reegs: Yeah. It's not just the, I mean, we should address this though, because everybody talks about top gun being a homoerotic movie, and then they talk about the beach, the beach, the volleyball thing.

And that is, you know, I think they're playing, I can't remember what the song is saying on. This down in a minute. playing with the

Pete: playing with the boys.

Reegs: right? So they are playing and they're all glistening, as they are many times in this movie, glistening and oiled up as they are in the lockers, like you say, and then the really baffling, baffling seduction of Charlotte.

Is that a name Blackwood? I don't think related to Kelly McGillis.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: It's a very baffling seduction. This, that starts baffling and gets weirder.

Pete: He seems to win her over just by like being an arrogant prick, but also playing hard to get.

And she falls for that But again you know he's a,

Reegs: when you

Pete: a good looking geezer.

Reegs: when you say hard to get, though, when he first meets her, he does this, obviously well-rehearsed seduction routine where he sings a song from 20 years.

In the bar where they do, she's lost that loving

Sidey: those

Reegs: and everybody joins in, you know but she does turn him down. Then he follows her into the

Sidey: toilet.

Reegs: which is pretty weird. And then there's a bit of like cat and mouse with their relationship. She's a civilian.

Sidey: Yeah. She's like a consultant who's coming to assess their performance

and she, so she works the Pentagon.

Is that? right?

Pete: Yeah, probably a lot of their psychological profiles. She'll be keeping an eye on because yeah, there's a lot of pressure on these guys, but there are, there are scenes where like she invites him rounds and he rocks up late. And then, but then, but then at the end of the scene, he just, he just fucks off

Reegs: Well, yeah, not before though.

Twice. He says right as he turns up, he say,

Pete: Yeah

Reegs: they have a weird thing where he fi he rides his motorbike and she chases him in his car and it shot like a chase scene. Then they get there and he's like, he keeps banging on about needing a shower. There's a kind of seduction thing going on. Then he says, again, I need a shower and leaves.

Then she gets dressed up like a dude in a flight jacket with Ava, a glasses, and a cap on and sees him in the lift. And she's like, do you fancy a fuck? And he's like, yeah. Okay. You look kind of like a dude I'm into that. I don't know. I mean, it's not, it sounds like we've been homophobic, but it's all there in the movie.

Pete: No, I don't think it's homophobia.

I thing it's pointing out that the, the homoerotic undertones that the earth throughout this film and I'm on board with that.

Sidey: yeah. I'm done with it, but

It's just, I'd rather just see them. Fuck.

Reegs: I don't know. I find it. I found it baffling watching it. This, I enjoyed it, but it's a baffling, baffling story.

They don't make them like

Pete: it. Is it doesn't?

Yeah. The, the,

Sidey: I mean, it is essentially a Michael bay movie, even

though it's not,

a

Michael bay

Reegs: it's got all the hallmarks.

Sidey: Scott did it, but he's better than this, but you know, it's the proton Michael bay, like totally fetishizing the military.

and

we can get into, we can get into all the military stuff afterwards, but we'll go through the rest of the film.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, w w we're jumping a little or John Muir a little bit, but pretty much everybody knows this story.

Reegs: It's a competition ice man is winning a bit. Maverick's winning a bit. What do you need? You

Sidey: he keeps doing the, not doing the

wing man

thing.

He's rogue. So he's not just Maverick. He's actually fucking disobedient prick and he keeps leaving people on.

their own.

It's not weird. So he, is it just. the molester. One of them goes,

and he he's like, I've got

to get him. I've got to get him. I've got to get this fucking mess. I lock on

him

Reegs: Yeah. So he goes under the 10,000 meter range, which you're not supposed to do or

Sidey: And then he goes after the

big boss, man

and fucks it.

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: yeah,

Pete: Yeah, he does. Fuck it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now he fucks there.

Then he kills his mate.

Sidey: bangs his head.

Reegs: It's bizarre that scene because. He, he knows that the canopy isn't going to go, but he just injects himself into it anyway.

Pete: but then they're going to, he doesn't have a choice. Yeah. He's definitely going to die if he goes down with the plane. So he has.

Reegs: th I don't know, it felt a bit anyway. Yes, he does eject

Pete: I feel like, I feel like you, you to society, right? We all know Saudi once he's made a decision on something, even as like a three-year-old that's it, you can never, ever, ever change

Sidey: his mind,

Pete: just share belligerence.

Sidey: I just didn't like, I don't like the film.

so

Pete: much of this film. That

Sidey: you think I should like

Pete: I, yeah, I do. I like it. Like you're picking it, you know, like you're, you're, you're saying that the volleyball scene is a negative, but there were other, other scenes in films that are similar, have a similar sort of elk that you'll be like, oh, wow, this is great.

I would like to strap myself in

Sidey: yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean, I, I like Tom cruise I

like airplanes sort of I like Val coma. I like like Kenny Loggins.

but it didn't, it doesn't work for me

in this, in this scenario,

you know, I you know that I've watched it. I've tried to watch it. I didn't like it. So

Pete: when did you watch it?

Sidey: Wednesday?

I don't know.

Pete: no, When did you watch it? When did you try watching it for the first time?

Sidey: I was like 30 or something? I don't know.

Pete: Right. So I think that, I think, again, it's a little bit of a problem. Like, don't get me wrong. I liked the

Sidey: I should have watched it when I was 15.

Pete: on the unbelievable film that everyone else seems to think it is because I never watched it as a kid.

I only watch it for the first time. And I think if you've watched it as a kid and you're just like, you're not, you're not picking up all these things that we're now picking up about like, oh, well it keeps breaking the rules. It seems like a bit of a balance. You're like what a cool of like, I want to be him.

Sidey: me? Watch this now

It's

pretty boring. I hate, I fucking hate that kind of singing bar shit hate that.

And There's a lot of that.

And then there's just lots of like the same shots of airplanes go around it. Who gives a

Reegs: Well, actually I enjoyed those

Sidey: I

Reegs: They were real and you know that it will all be CGI and maybe it'll look good and stuff, but these were real shots of real jets flying in between canyons and stuff and dogfights, and that stuff still holds up pretty good.

Pete: Cause they remake or they remaking this film or is it a reboot or a sequel

Sidey: No, it's top gun Maverick?

Pete: Well

Sidey: And it's been delayed.

delayed, delayed because of COVID cause they want.

it to be Massive. I think it's him as the like in top gardeners, the.

coach.

Reegs: It's not an obvious story to tell because yeah, I mean, we, I don't know how long we're going for here now, but did we raise, we could raise three, they have the ceremony, don't they?

Pete: they do. W which, cause they, after goose dies Mavericks all for like Gibby net. But he kind of gets coerced into like,

Reegs: Well, Tom Skerritt tells him, oh, your father, he tells him that your father wasn't a deadbeat. He is again, it's hot

Sidey: shot.

Reegs: again. And he tells him that he flew with him and it was just because he went down the wrong

Pete: Yeah You know, hot shots came after this.

Reegs: I know, but.

Pete: it's like hotels. Cause hot shots like pat, like lampooned, this unbelievable and hot sauce is a better film. I'm saying it right here. It's it is a better film than this, but without this, you wouldn't have had hot shots. Yeah. So, and like you say, you're absolutely right.

You could watch it now and consider it to be like you know, a light comedy, because, because of how laughable a lot of it is. But yeah, like you say Maverick comes back and then they have to go, they get called really early. Yeah. To some genuine action out in some Gulf somewhere

Reegs: it's important actually, because the most of the movie has been not flying against enemies. It's been internal training and stuff. So there's a little encounter at the beginning.

And there is an encounter at the end that does end with a couple of planes being shot down. It's never quite clear who the enemies were, but obviously Russian, but,

Pete: yeah. In, in hot shot. So called things like falafel and stuff like that on their helmet, their call signs.

Reegs: I did actually find it weirdly for such a jingoistic movie. That was about how great America is. It was quite a political about who its enemies were. And that was quite novel as well

Pete: They didn't have flags

Sidey: But that's probably because they just want to sell it

to more countries.

Not because they're.

Pete: Ah the cynical it's just,

Reegs: It's an echo. But anyway, yeah, he shoots a couple of planes down and pulls a coat

Pete: well he gets called, he he's like, he's like first reserve isn't he he's on the bench and someone has a wobble or something happens.

And then there's some more like jet stream stuff that he recovers this time. Is that what it's called? Cause that's how it goes. So, yeah. Yeah. Even,

Reegs: no jet wash,

Pete: jet wash, but he gets his like What's it called? Yeah, no. When before he goes out there, He Viper says, I'll listen, if there's no one to flow that you give me a call, I'll fly with you.

And this is like the main guy. So he's kind of had it, like he's been validated his endorsement, I guess.

Reegs: But even still, when they go up ice man is still a bit like Maverick's a bit of a prick. Do you want him up there? And I was a hundred percent with ice man. Like he's dangerous. Ease in directly responsible for two or three playing.

They actually lost a plane in one of the encounters. So that's like, what? I dunno how much plane is a few. 30 $40 million or something. But yeah, just throw them up there in tobacco.

Pete: but he he saves the day,

Sidey: this time.

he refuses to leave ice man without a wing man.

Pete: Well, it's

Sidey: full circle. Yeah. Same time

Pete: of, of everything else ending in disaster.

He's finally landed.

And then we get, when they get back to the aircraft carrier, Iceland does the big you, and then you think, oh, is he still going to be angry? Oh no, he's forgiving him. And they

Reegs: you are still dangerous, but you can be my wing man anytime.

And he says, bullshit, you can be mine. It's like, and you just want him to kiss. You just wanted me to kiss. And just before they did it as well, and they did it at the beginning of the movie, they did this thing. That's supposed to be funny where they dry the.

Where they fly past the control tower and make the guy spill his coffee.

It's like, you can't fuck about like, you're in a like Vox or Lester or whatever. Like you're in a

Pete: But again, if they hadn't done that, you wouldn't have had the fly by, in hot shots where like Admiral Benson goes like, oh, Jesus, that's loud takes it.

Gives him some what's it called? Some. Earplugs. And so that's, so we have these for the noise. So he put some in his mouth and watches them down with a glass of water and goes, let's hope they do the trick.

Reegs: So anyway, when he gets out, after they finished late jerking each other off, and they have a little cuddle in the locker room, I think there's another one. The principal from back to the future offers him a job to be the trainer.

Top gun academy. And you're

Sidey: not appropriate

Reegs: it's ridiculous idea. There's nothing that justifies

Pete: We haven't covered like all of it. So that like the absolute walk-on part that Tim Robbins has

Reegs: Yeah I he's credited about fourth in the movie as well.

Pete: had to actually go that's him. Or is that the same? Is that, is that been Val Kilmer's wing man the whole way through or so I'm like, yeah.

Cause yeah, Tim Robbins was in it right at the death

Merlin

Yeah, he was, yeah. Tim Robbins.

Sidey: I also like anti Edwards cause I'm big ER, fan he was he was in that. So another thing that you think I would like about it, but I just, it just don't go on. I Just, you know, sometimes you just do it. doesn't

Pete: I th I think maybe, yeah, for me, if I'm going to try and be as objective as possible, had I watched it as a 30 year old knowing by that time, how good a lot of the films. Not necessarily of this silk, cause this type of film isn't really massively interesting to me. But as a kid, this was definitely something that I watched and really enjoyed. I wouldn't, you know, it's not like right up there for me, but I really enjoyed it. And I, in my head, Iceman was always a fucking asshole.

Like he was just nasty vindictive, but he's nothing of the sort at all. He does nothing wrong.

Sidey: doesn't want some idiot to

crash into.

Pete: Yeah, no, I, I.

Reegs: Also speaking of being very objective about this movie, take my breath away. Is the single worst song ever written in human history?

Pete: No, no, no. Cause it's not, it's not written by the streets, so it's not, but

Reegs: pretty bad in it.

Pete: do you know what it is?

It is bad, but it was compounded by the fact that it was, it was like the Brian Adams where I'm, where it was. Number one. Six or seven years,

Reegs: But the crazy thing is this has got a great score by Harold Faltermeyer and

Sidey: Kenny Loggins, right at the outset.

Reegs: Kenny Loggins.

Hang on. It's also got, oh, for fuck sake. Oh, Georgiou Moroto did the soundtrack for Scarface. So you know, it, it, and it is really good.

I listened to it today. It's all like crunching synths and keyboards and stuff. It's great.

Sidey: Tom cruise as he often does, I suppose it had to where they're called lifts.

Pete: Oh, like platform shoes.

Sidey: orthopedic shoes because Kelly McGillis has five foot 10 and he's only five

foot seven.

Pete: Can I say McGinnis is a lot hotter than I remember her from the, from the yeah, in the original, I guess I was probably too young

Sidey: when she walked in and you see how, like the camera does Liz at her,

she walks down,

there. she's got stockings on and a slice secretary for important terms. I was like, yeah, she's hot.

Reegs: when she comes out the toilet. She just Yeah. Wait. Right. So my follows her into the BHAG to continue this reduction routine, wherever it was.

Yeah. And I say, walk out, she walks past a male colleague of hers and she strongly insinuates to him that she's just had sex with Maverick in the bathroom.

This is written by a man who has never even spoken to a woman before, let alone tried to write dialogue for

Pete: a goose. He was like, oh yeah, your friend was good. Or something like that or something along those lines,

Reegs: baffling, baffling. Tony Scott committed suicide in 2012. Didn't he?

No, I don't think it was related.

Sidey: It might be.

Reegs: He,

Sidey: I considered it when I was watching it

Pete: That's not fair. No, your, your you're having that up.

Reegs: okay. Do you remember the similarly themed iron Eagle that was released the same year?

Sidey: It

Reegs: it was like the chintzy ripoff of,

I cannot, I would say no would be my remembrance.

Sidey: A lot of critics complained that it was basically a Navy recruitment film.

Reegs: Except the Navy, but never want a guy like him flying their planes.

Sidey: and the Navy actually set up recruiting boosts in major cinemas, As people would come out of the cinema and they would, go and fucking,

sign up for the Nike faceless.

Reegs: and be Tom

Sidey: The film resulted in a 500% increase in the number of recruits wanting to enter the aviation program.

Pete: Okay. I say would have appealed to total deck heads at the time. Yeah.

Sidey: it's Also the film that is credited with starting the home video industry.

Pete: Well

Sidey: Do you see this.

Pete: sorry, go on.

Sidey: Originally. VH VHS tapes were priced at a hundred.

dollars Upon when the, when they were first released. And they were mainly just sold to video stores. This film was priced to own immediately upon release. So it, this like start a slew of like films being available to buy for like, you know, $10 or not a hundred dollars. Wow. And that was made possible by Pepsi Cola buying ad space at the beginning of the

Pete: Yeah,

Sidey: Pepsi, partial credit.

Pete: I mean, regardless for all its flaws.

Of which like you know, obviously you think there are far more than, than I do, but for, for all its flaws, it is a, it is a,

It's a classic in, in some

Reegs: No it's bafflingly stupid, but it, but it was enjoyable.

This

Pete: in the world and say top gun, and most people would

know

Sidey: places in the world and say Hitler in most places, most

people will know who hell it doesn't make a

good

Pete: And he wasn't all bad either. So there's,

Sidey: It was made for just 15 million pounds and 1.8 million of that they had to pay to.

No, to, to the Pentagon for allowing them to use all their planes and aircraft. But do

you think

it won or lost at the

Pete: box,

Sidey: office?

It makes you think

357 million,

Pete: which

Sidey: It seems low. I think it's probably a lot more

than that

Nowadays.

Pete: That's

Reegs: going to be big, big,

Pete: yeah. That's big money for the time.

Sidey: big kahuna

Pete: I th I think, I think that this film had all the right ingredients for you. So I just, the recipe wasn't right.

Sidey: It

wasn't cooked

Well,

Pete: yeah. It, or maybe, yeah. You ended up with a pudding instead of a pie.

Reegs: Yeah, I enjoyed it, but it's baffling time, capsule of outdated views and weird Subutex and just crazy plot decisions and all sorts of stuff.

But yeah, it's the sort of thing that if it comes on Netflix, you go I'll watch that. Not I'm going to spend three pound 99 to rent it.

Pete: Yeah, that's a fair assessment.