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Top Gun Chapter IV: A New Hope (MAJOR SPOILERS)

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
2 replies | jump to latest

Overall, its a great big whopping action success, in which Mr. Cruise has transformed what was a traditional "Navy training saga" in 1986 into a variation on his "Mission: Impossible" series in 2022. These Navy flyers are, essentially, an "impossible missions team" running an assault on a fortress that is clearly laid out for us with computer graphics so that we know EXACTLY where they are going and what they are doing when they actually do it.

And rather as with the last coupla M:I films for Cruise, this Top Gun turns into wall to wall incredible action sequences as it goes on.

For older folks, there is a touch of the old WWII actioner, "The Guns of Navarone" in how the flyers must get past the guns and into a deep cave to attack.

There's even a nod to the recent "Licorice Pizza" where Sean Penn's aging movie star "Jack Holden" quotes lines about HIS aerial attack on a "fortified" fortress in the fictional movie "The Bridges at Toko San"(based on the real "Bridges at Toki Ri," starring WILLIAM Holden.)

But most of all -- and aint it an inspiring hoot when you feel it all happening -- the actual final mission is very much an "homage to the trench attack on the Death Star" in the original Star Wars. In some ways, that great climax is the key to ALL of Star Wars, whichever wayward directions the series went from there, you can't beat that first rush of aerial combat, Obi Wan's "trust the force" (here, "Don't think it, just do it" ; the "killer hit" going down and into the death star weak point -- and Han Solo flying in just in the nick of time to blast away the final obstacle.

It all happens here, right up to Glen Powell's "Hangman" doing the Han Solo honors.

So you get a Top Gun sequel, a new Mission:Impossible entry, AND an exhilarating "Star Wars" remake, all in one.

Well played, Mr. Cruise.

PS. You also get the poignant return of "Iceman" (Val Kilmer) in a new, aged, and ill form, but with memories of the young fit Kilmer who was Iceman in 1986....and also with memories of the young and ill Doc Holliday upon whom Val Kilmer created his true legacy. Wyatt and Doc -- meet Maverick and Iceman.

PPS. And Jennifer Connelly. So gorgeous -- so fittingly the "final girl" for Maverick(With thei matching dark hair, pretty faces, and smiles, its a better fit than Kelly McGilles was). Nice to see Connelly smiling after so many downer roles.

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

So you get a Top Gun sequel, a new Mission:Impossible entry, AND an exhilarating "Star Wars" remake, all in one.

Well played, Mr. Cruise.

Nicely observed EC. The breathtaking-ness of the Imax-shot aerial sequences in the new movie (such an advance on the sequences in the 1986 original) seems to be delivering that 'showing audiences something they've never seen before' charge that was at the core of Star Wars (1977)'s impact (and at the core of the whole Lucas-Spielberg-Cameron goldrush at the movies in the '70s, '80s and '90s). People *like* going to movies when everyone in the audience is wowed, psyched.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Hi, swanstep

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The breathtaking-ness of the Imax-shot aerial sequences in the new movie (such an advance on the sequences in the 1986 original) seems to be delivering that 'showing audiences something they've never seen before' charge that was at the core of Star Wars (1977)'s impact (and at the core of the whole Lucas-Spielberg-Cameron goldrush at the movies in the '70s, '80s and '90s). People *like* going to movies when everyone in the audience is wowed, psyched.

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Yep. Mr. Cruise has closely followed "where the movies have gone" since the original Top Gun and he was already using his "Mission:Impossible" franchise to give audiences the biggest, most walloping action sequences(with him often pefforming his own stunds) imaginable.

He has "superimposed" the M:I IMAX formula ONTO Top Gun...while keeping enough of the original roots intact to install nostalgia. Plus the Star Wars references, and (for us older folks), The Guns of Navarone and The Bridges at Toko Ri.

As I recall, they never even name "the enemy" whose fortress must be breached. Might as well have been Kllingons. Its just as well.

I will note that after the terrible COVID Ghost Town at the Movie Theaters of 2020 and much of 2021, Hollywood is trying to reinstall its old Summer Blockbuster atmostphere. We've had Top Gun, another Jurrassic movie is coming(this one with ALL the leads from ALL the movies in one "package") Then Elvis as only Baz Luhrmann can give him to us(with Tom Hanks under a ton of Elmer Fudd makeup as Colonel Parker -- and remember how COVID began for movie stars when Hanks got it filming this movie), and some Marvel stuff (Thor, aka "the funny Marvel guy other than Deadpool.")

I had a full house for my Top Gun showing. Whatever lies ahead, people want back into their lives.