The Three Narratives of TOP GUN: MAVERICK (Patreon)

Note: I tried to write this as spoiler-free as possible, but there will be one sentence and one paragraph that are clearly marked!

NARRATIVE #1: THE ENTERTAINMENT

“They don’t make ‘em like that anymore!”

This is a sentiment that gets tossed around a lot when discussing older movies. It has all the trappings of conservative thinking, but sometimes it also happens to be true. It happens not just when I’m catching the gorgeous vistas of an old Western or the harsh contrast of a moody black and white Noir. It’s the approach on the page, too. I often think it when I turn to TCM in the middle of some random scene of a Doris Day comedy I’ve never seen and I can tell exactly what the plot is, not because it’s explained, but because the dialogue is so clear about the character conflict that you can pick up on it immediately. It’s always communicating to you that this is who they are! This is what they want! This is what they need to get over! And because these elements are all established, here’s where the tension and stakes are! Movies of the era couldn’t rely on a lot of tricks, so they grounded everything in these basic principles of drama. But as we get better at all the tricks, so much of that foundational understanding goes by the wayside as films coast by on attitude and affectation. So yes. I miss the way that old films anchored everything in it. I really do. But what’s funny about this observation is that…

I’m not sure how much the original Top Gun really counts?

Because it was almost immediately defined by its pastiche. We’re talking smokey jets, golden sunsets, sweaty hunks, and a weirdly shaggy story that was anchored by the manic energy of a fresh-faced Tom Cruise. In some ways, its loose stylization was actually a harbinger of much to come in the 90’s style / Bayhem. But at the same time, the film was always anchored by the things that matter. Because central to everything was Anthony Edwards' essential performance as Goose and his relationship with Meg Ryan. They are absolutely exceptional in that film, utterly crucial to the balance of Cruise’s unwieldy force of nature. And for a young kid who watched the movie because he liked fighter jets? Well, Goose’s death was a foundational emotional moment for me and a lot of kids my age. Maybe it’s just time and place, but the film had an undeniable impact and so many of us grew up unironically loving it. What’s funny is that just a generation later the film actually got re-embraced for its aching gay subtext (we’ll come back to this). It’s honestly the kind of film that makes you ask, “how could it not be aware?” Well, Tony Scott isn’t afraid to be puckish so it was and wasn’t. But at the same exact time, there’s a ton of 80’s ego in all of it and so much of the boundary-crossing machismo does NOT play for a modern audience. Point is the original film has become an odd artifact. Depending on who you ask it’s a classic action film, a homoerotic touchstone, or a sexist dinosaur, which probably means it’s all three. But it all leads to a simple question…

Why resurrect it?

The realistic and boring answer is capitalism / IP culture / career moves / the rise of legacy sequels / yada yada yada. We all get it. But with those realities of the industry taken as givens, like all art within commerce, you then always have to invent a meaningful reason for the new thing to exist. So far, most of the results have been lackluster. We’ve gotten a lot of nostalgic retreads of properties that feel like pale, flat imitations, often turned into a lumbering TV show or something. But every once and awhile you get a diamond in the rough. Something like Matrix Resurrections, which is an unrepentant love it or hate it film that’s hell bent on contextualizing the past while imagining a brighter future, all while creating a sincere artistic statement from someone who has been living inside the franchise for decades now. And now, Top Gun: Maverick has to answer the same pesky question of why… Why does it exist?

Somehow, it answers it damn well, many times over.

First, it answers that question logically. In the era of drone warfare, there is that inevitable question of why use manned pilots at all? Well, Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is asked this very directly in the film. He knows that all this is going the way of the dodo, but all it takes is the simple declaration to get the buy-in: “It will, but not today.” Here and now, we will squeeze every last bit of value and wonder out of the act of piloting these craft. And lo and behold, there is an urgent reason that these pilots need to take action. However much the film’s seemingly “impossible mission” is a manufactured construction to justify manned pilots (and it very much is), the film understands that this exists because it is what the audience wants to see - but it will backup its logic succinctly because it wants us to see it with great impact. All because…

Second, it answers that question viscerally. We all know that Tom Cruise has become the unlikely king of modern practical stunt work, but this is a film that was built and marketed on the thrill of watching these people fly real aircrafts. And hoo boy, you can feel it. I joked on twitter how I was excited to watch “planes go vroom vroom” and then I got in there and was like THEY’RE GOING VROOM VROOM REAL FAST. I am not above such a gleeful embrace of spectacle. The movie is outstanding on this kinetic front of viscera. And it doesn’t get there through overt stylization, but through that grounded power of documenting the act itself and editing it all cleanly. It’s so good at making you feel the same G’s that the actors are feeling. If we go to movies to feel things we haven’t felt in real life, then this certainly does the trick.

Thirdly, it answers that question dramatically. Because it does all the things I like in action storytelling. It sets objectives. It uses ticking clocks. It creates stakes. It introduces wrinkles. And it all leads to real moments of exchange and power en route to bringing us to the goals of the story. But key to the function of all of this is how it’s grounded in dramatic relationships. The core story between Cruise and Miles Teller is both abundantly clear and yet not overplayed in any maudlin sense at all (vague spoilers for the rest of the parenthetical: first, the decision for it to be about the papers and not his dad is SO smart - and two - the moment of the two of them getting angry in the snow is SUCH a great way of handling the tone of that moment, en route to bigger catharsis that allows for the emotional payoff END SPOILER). Even what feels like it could be a perfunctory romance with Maverick’s old flame Penny (played by Jennifer Connelly) is both refreshingly well-observed and remarkably functional, all because it’s all about giving him something that feels like it could be lost. Everything, everything, everything is grounded in function. Including the fact that…

Lastly, it answers that question of existence in the meta sense. Because so many legacy sequels seem at a loss in terms of how to properly integrate nostalgia. It will either feel half-baked or crammed in. What’s weirdly refreshing about Top Gun: Maverick is how plain-faced it is. It’s not trying to play coy or get clever with it. It is immediately up front about all of it, often using the same exact pieces of soundtrack, fonts, jackets, pictures, moments, and memories of the first film. But despite my initial worries, crucially, these are not empty references. They are foundational pieces of the ding-dang story. Because remembrance is at the core of what drives everyone here. It is NOT a story about nostalgia, but a story about regret. The difference is everything. Because that means it can be about atoning for the things we are sorry for and also learning the things we have to forgive ourselves for. This doesn’t just invoke the past, but lends further meaning to it.

But this also comes with acknowledgement that nostalgia is largely about saturation. I mean, if we never opened the Star Wars vault again after the original trilogy, we’d be having very different conversations about it today. And as much as I talk about the inherent dangers of a pure-nostalgia diet, the entire point of that worry is that I’m not above it either. None of us are. Which is why Igot a tingle when I saw gonzo Don Simpson’s name in the opening credits (RIP), along with someone’s different dedication card at the end. Perhaps it’s that they are aimed at a time and place of my young life. Perhaps it’s that we are not currently saturated in these specific names and signifiers. Perhaps there are cycles of things that feel like they are timed right. But for whatever it’s worth, to me, almost everything about this film feels like it's timed right.

So when you put it all together to make a piece of entertaining filmmaking like this, I can’t help  but get the urge to put on a folksy voice and say: “we don’t make em like this anymore!” But given that the film is even more functional than its predecessor, it gives way to the fun realization that maybe we never really did. And at the same exact time, there are ways that the statement is true in more ways than one…

NARRATIVE #2: THE MOVIE STAR

“They don’t make ‘em like that anymore!”

This is a sentiment that gets tossed around a lot when discussing Tom Cruise and his movie stardom. After all, he came to prominence in an era where STARDOM was very much a thing. You may not believe it, kids, but people would look at a given movie and say, “Oh, Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts or Will Smith is in it? I’m going to go see it!” It really used to be that way. And now it’s not. So many movie stars have fallen by the wayside and to be fair, it also seemed like Cruise’s stardom was in danger of going the same way. To be clear, I have absolutely no interest in rehashing the Oprah couch crud (especially when there’s a great episode of “You’re Wrong About” which obliterates the conventional wisdom surrounding it), but there was that awkward period after Mission: Impossible - III that went from 2006-2011 where Cruise was trying various comedic or dramatic forms to figure out his changing star identity. And while he was actually forming important creative relationships in that time, things weren’t quite landing with folks… And then came Ghost Protocol and all those absurd shots of Tom Cruise hanging off the Burj Khalifa like a mad man.

We all collectively, went “whoa, wait, what the fuck?” And then watched with rabid glee as he leapt and jumped to his nearing death. And just like that, the next stage of Cruise’s movie star identity was born: He became the unlikely compatriot of Jackie Chan, I.E. the dedicated professional who will do a positively insane stunt just to entertain us even though, as the meme goes, he’s “older than Wilfred Brimley in Cocoon.” To be clear, I take all this as it is. Because I have little interest in establishing a hagiography of any actor, least of all people ensconced in large scale organizations like Scientology. There are people who rightfully can’t get beyond that. And that’s okay. I know what cognitive dissonance is. Just as I know that Tom Cruise The Movie Star feels like he is single-handedly trying to save a kind of Hollywood filmmaking that is dying.

Cue the central meta-metaphor of the movie.

I’m not just talking thematically, but methodology. As aerial combat moves more and more toward unmanned drones, Hollywood becomes MCU-ified in much the same way. We’re talking about the danger of never having actors never on set together, often standing in plain clothes, while every single shot of the movie green screened - always by overworked, underpaid, and non-unionized VFX artists who should be allowed to push their craft instead of getting trapped in the morass of the grind to produce “that’s fine” quality work. Believe me, I know them, they want better conditions IN ORDER to do better, more inventive work. Part of this is knowing there is a certain power in practicality. It’s the power of knowing “that’s the actor” as they jump off a motorcycle and into a ravine, because then it becomes a performance. What you are seeing is real. Even with the presence of CGI, it isn’t animation, but the work of touch-up and integration all to add the believability of the stunt itself. It’s all wrapped up in this is the power to make you believe a thing. And as I watch a film like Top Gun: Maverick, there’s this convincing power where I’m watching along and feeling that TOM CRUISE IS THE BEST FIGHTER PILOT IN THE WORLD, DAMMIT. Which is ridiculous, but the entire goal is to make you believe the ridiculous.

What’s also interesting about Top Gun: Maverick is the fact that this is the first time we’ve gotten to see him return to something overtly romantic in awhile. Few mention it, but as he’s gotten older, he’s wisely stayed away from such romantic plotting. And I’ve particularly enjoyed Ethan Hunt’s turn into constant exhaustion and comic dead-panning. But his early career was practically defined by sex symbol status. He had this rabid, cocky energy with this naive, easily-wounded boyishness. And it was the role of Maverick that perhaps defined those very qualities. So if you’re coming back to Top Gun? There’s no way to avoid these elements of the character. They are integral.

Luckily, the film crafts a version of the Maverick that feels very much of a piece because he’s changed and not changed. Yeah, he’s still rocking the motorcycle and the jacket, still cocksure, and that smile, that FUCKING SMILE - but there’s a more quiet groundedness to it. It’s as if these new certainties come in tow with an acceptance of what he doesn’t know. But he’s still trapped in certain cycles. Which is why it’s a great decision to have his romance be about an old on-again-off-again flame in Jennifer Connelly. How does it play? Well, it helps to have a costar who is an excellent scene partner and Jennifer Connelly might be one of the best actresses flirting on the planet? She’s also great at being tragically sad and somehow it feels like she’s both had a great career AND been underutilized for both. Either way, here in Top Gun: Maverick we see it come out. No, it’s not overtly sexual. But it is emotionally charged and realistic. We see how they’re both great at putting up veils of cools, despite the beating, broken heart that lies at the center of her actions. Because dammit, she plays it real. It works. Especially because it gives us something to lose. And it’s worth noting that I honestly can’t think of a time a big blockbuster had two stars go romantic when both in their 50s? Granted, I’m constantly amazed while watching that they both look like they’re in their 30s, but still, point stands. Now, is there a part of me that’s sad we’re not going to get the homoerotic undertones that imbued the first film with its second life? Of course, but I understood we were never going to get something that was originally part of a happy accident - especially when the context of his age makes the role in this film so radically different.

But what is that role, exactly?

At the center of both Cruise and Maverick there is a thematic question of “why?” that I admit I don’t quite have the fullest grasp of, all because it’s a character / actor whose entire modus operandi is about pushing your limits. And in an age where capitalism is downright predatory and “pushing your limits” is often about devaluing your work, there’s been a very important push-back against this kind of thinking. But the notion of what good work and dedication CAN mean, especially to yourself, still lingers inside me. When I think of the genuine lessons that came from sports or school for work ethic, I find that I am thankful for more than a few of them. But the “pushing of limits” mantra also taps into the filmmaking notion of what is actually dangerous when it comes to stunt work and I think it takes an important note of clarification.

Because within the industry you know INSTANTLY the sets that feel safe versus sets that don’t. It’s NEVER the intensity of the stunt. It’s the loosey goosey fudging and run-and-gun rushing that is dangerous. Big films have smart, dedicated people approach a stunt with NASA-like concentration to try and pull something off with a million safety guidelines and protocols. And it’s the same stunt people who will tell you that the “simple” ones with less time are more dangerous, purely because they allow for casualness. An actor diving off a building with a million wires and harnesses? That’s safe. A director throwing an unrehearsed move into an actor’s simple grapple throw? That’s a dislocated shoulder and a shutdown of production. The working people of the industry know this. Which is why, for Cruise, who is on the edge of 60, the notion of “pushing limits” feels more like the upholding of standards. They just really, really, really give a shit about the values of these kinds of movies and craftspeople - specifically putting the time, effort, and care into pulling off the things that make them seem “impossible.” That is what reaching for highs is about. And to their credit, they don’t solely rely on the craft of spectacle to do so.

Because the film’s emotional high point comes instead from another character.

[Spoilers for rest of paragraph and such but I want to talk about it]. The effect of Val Kilmer’s Iceman hangs over the entire film. The actor, stricken with cancer that permanently affected his voice. Thus we see that name in the credits and think, what role is he going to have here, exactly? At first, he seems the mere instrument of all of it. But we ask ourselves, is this what it’s going to be? Some text message exchanges? (Fun tangent: I often don’t like when we haven’t seen the last conversation in text chat because it implies this is the first time they’re talking? I know it’s potentially distracting, but I’d love that easter egg moment that shows how the last thing they texted about was the latest episode of Better Call Saul or something). Then the big in-person scene came and I spent most of it crying. Because it’s really a great scene. You walk in already loaded with emotion, but it’s mercifully funny and wistful. Both in the way it plays with Kilmer’s inability to speak, and the way he’s so clearly playing the complete range of emotions with his eyes. There’s genuinely something here in understanding the legacy of friendship that came for these two characters afterward and it’s honestly the kind of thing that makes the original Top Gun even better. Then when you add in the subtext between two stars recognizing what this movie did for them? It’s just a really weighty thing, both an incredible tribute to Kilmer and a great send off for the character (END SPOILERS).

It’s great stuff like that which elevates the movie from “really entertaining” to “actually meaningful and emotional.” But it’s also not as if there aren’t little things to pick at, too. Jon Hamm has to play the fuddy duddy who is integral to the conflict, but I still feel like that role needs a third heat. And the initial darts / piano scene requires a loose, sweaty energy that Kosinski just might be a bit too sterile for. But again, both elements are still functional. They're part of the way everything is built to purpose. In fact, it helps you realize that these two narratives - the film’s narrative and the movie star narrative - are not competing at all. They are synergized to a common purpose.

But it’s the fact that it’s all so effective that gets me to worry about the one last synergized effect of all this. One that I can’t help talking about. Because the film’s SO good…

That I worry about the grand old party-sized elephant in the room…

NARRATIVE #3: THE MILITARY OF IT ALL

“They don’t make ‘em like that anymore!”

This is a sentiment that gets tossed around a lot when discussing the role of the military and American patriotism in blockbuster filmmaking. It is the belief that American films were once more boldly patriotic and now they are now. That they’ve become more “global” and thus afraid to echo traditional (read: conservative) American values. But 1) that stuff hasn’t actually gone anywhere and 2) as Americans, we almost never really talk about it. But that’s probably because we can’t see how glaring it is.

To echo an adage that’s been used in a different context before, there’s the old joke about two fish swimming in the ocean and one says “the water’s nice today!” and the other asks, “what the hell is water?” The point is that there are things you’re in the middle of everyday that you don’t notice or think about. And American films are so draped in the military entertainment complex that we rarely think about it. I mean, did you know that you can’t show the military in your film without military approval? And yes, they will hold their lines of script approval. And on the flip-side, when you suddenly watch a Chinese military action film like Wolf Warrior 2 or something, the average conservative American would go, “gasp! this is propaganda!” when they are literally just using the American storytelling playbook. But when you’re not from “here,” wherever here is, you instantly feel it. And there are so many American films that my international friends will see and they rightfully make their blood boil.

I also understand this is not an inherently reflexive thing that’s true for the push-pull between countries. There are countries that have done far more damage than others. I know this. And I know that within America, most of our thoughtful examinations were more on the inward cost upon soldiers, like the wave of anti-war films that came out of the American invasion of Iraq. And I know there’s all these conversations of how there’s no such thing as an anti-war war film. Just as I know that I DON’T know how to talk about all this without trying to insinuate one thing or another, particularly to all the people I’ve known in my life who have served. Especially because none of them feel the same way about their military experience, nor the military at large. I know that I’m trying to split this weird hair here because I’m trying to be sensitive to the spectrum of the conversation. Service is based on a genuine ideal. In practice, it can get used to disastrous effects. American Foreign Policy is a nightmare, especially for those most caught up in the breadth of it. I don’t have “a take” on all of this.

I just know that I feel the complication of it while watching Top Gun: Maverick.

To be clear, the original Top Gun was initially heralded as a conservative anthem. And boy howdy did it work: “According to the US Navy, the box office success of Top Gun saw their recruitment rates balloon by a massive 500% in the year following the original movie’s release.” When it later became thought of as the kitschy 80’s artifact with gay subtext, much of the teeth were taken out of this recruitment reality. But the question of how to deal with this aspect in the modern context still clearly hung over the filmmakers. For we live in a time in which the audience’s thoughts on American Foreign Policy are so radically divided, so how do you even engage in the conversation of modern war? After all, Mission: Impossible movies so divided from political reality that it’s always some rogue cabal of international terrorists who hate the world or something. But this is engaging something so much more rooted in the actual behavior of the American military.

Thus, there are forward-facing elements there, whether it’s the giant American flags or the longing shots of aircraft readying. But in practice, it all starts with being vague. There’s a looming nuclear threat, but it’s not even built yet, and we never say which country we’re talking about. We just show obscure locations of varying topography, nationless flags, and even enemy fighters are caked in black glass helmets. Yes, we KNOW there’s always people being killed in this, but the film is not interested in reminding you. It is interested in the mechanics of dramatic threats that these things provide, like objectives and stakes. Thus, these things are mere happenstance en route to the thrill of entertainment. Everything that could make it more complicated is shoved out of the text. Even when it comes to the pilots themselves, the film eschews the boys club and instead offers a modern mix of different kinds of people, all of whom are good in the film by the way. But there’s always the danger of invoking the old LGBT bomber meme or the Richard Lawson joke where he clapped and echoed: “More! Female! Guards! At Guantanamo!” It’s that essential fear - behind all the vague allusion - what are we really rooting for here? And isn’t there an obvious, gnawing reason we’re so desperate to avoid specificity?

Weirdly, the film I thought about a lot about while watching this was Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises. Granted, it’s a film about the dream to design airplanes and one day it starts getting perverted toward the use of horrific warfare - a perversion that Miyazaki clearly says doubles for the corruption of artistic intent - but even in the midst of destruction, the film can’t help wonder in awe about the dreaming that got them there. It asks “but aren’t airplanes beautiful?” Yes, they are. And that beauty can ultimately get you into a lot of trouble. The same sentiment is actually true for Top Gun: Maverick, with that ever so slight difference of “aren’t they cool?” Yes, they are cool. They are cool as all hell. And you will feel the pulse pounding thrill of that coolness at every moment. But again, to what point?

I know the question I am asking is a bummer.

I also have little interest in being a bummer. It’s just a reminder that this cognitive dissonance exists. In one way, it exists innocuously as it always does. I love movies because they are a safe place to have dangerous experiences. I don’t want to be an astronaut. I don’t want to scale mountains. But I can watch Gravity or Free Solo and feel the viscera of those experiences. Then there are things that invite a little more hypocrisy, particularly when it comes to our own values. I abhor guns. They should be illegal. Full stop. And yet, I love action movies. I always have. They’re kinetic and cathartic and entertaining and yet, especially after weeks like this nightmare one, I feel the frays of that cognitive dissonance more than ever. Which is why it always comes back to asking, “what’s the point?”

The point of Top Gun: Maverick is to entertain the heck out of you. To show planes flying with dramatic gusto. To make you feel the danger of an experience in the safety of a movie seat, all while upholding a kind of tangible, real blockbuster filmmaking that is slowly dying. I believe that is the singular, most clear intent. And it absolutely can be enjoyed as such. Heck, I DID enjoy it as such. And I still do. But I also know that it sideswipes a cognitive dissonance that will always be a little harder to shake, especially in a time where America is so radically broken. And as much as movies are an escape, it comes with the innate understanding that such escapes are powerful acts of thought enforcement. And that may be the entire problem with how damn good Top Gun: Maverick really is. So I sit here and I’m reminded of that Adam Driver line in Blackkklansman, “I never used to think about this stuff and now I think about it all the time.” When I was a young kid with model fighter planes I never thought about it. Now I think about it all the time. Especially while watching a film that strives to make everything feel as realistic as possible… but that’s the problem.

Everything IS real.

<3HULK