Why ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ is an affront to the memory of Tony Scott!
- Prashant Kavi (PK)
- Sep 5, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 2, 2024
[Walter whipping out a gun and shouting].. Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?
-Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski 1998
Upon reading many of the ‘expert’ reviews for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, that unanimously gave the movie high scores (not to mention 6 Oscar nominations!), I felt a searing anguish much in the same way that John Goodman’s character, Walter Sobchak exhibits in the Coen Brothers 1998 cult classic, The Big Lebowski, when a rival player steps off the line and still claims points in a game of bowling.
What's all the fuss about?!
Following my own first viewing of the movie, I was bewildered, for I just couldn’t come to terms with the seemingly and uniformly, yet shockingly over-the-top praise for the movie in most quarters versus my own derisive first impression of the movie!
And I was left scared, consumed in dark thoughts that I had perhaps entered a premature state of senility to have completely missed out on what the world could see, interpret and appreciate better and I, could not!
Watching the movie a few more times thereafter, to understand what I may have missed and reading some slightly more balanced reviews later, came a reassuring realization that whilst I was in a minority against the near global adulation for the movie, yet Top Gun: Maverick, was one of the most overrated blockbusters to come out of Hollywood in recent times.
Tony Scott, the ‘Maverick’ movie director, best identified with the original ‘Top Gun (1986)’ among his many works, committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in Los Angeles 12-years ago on 19th August 2012, supposedly in a state of depression. From his perch above he would most likely be taking it in all (the buzz around the sequel), with a characteristic chuckle and a wry smile, very heartbroken and disappointed, I
am sure!
Top Gun: Maverick is a degenerate sequel that shouldn’t have seen the light of day in the manner in which it has been conceived and executed. Sequels and especially those that follow a highly successful original, are inherently fraught with risk for not being able to match the reputation of the predecessor. And Top Gun: Maverick, sadly, is a shoddy retread that comes nowhere close to the original, in setting either a high cultural or creative bar.
The problem with Top Gun: Maverick is that neither the Director (Joseph Kosinski) nor the Producers (Tom Cruise himself apart from Jerry Bruckheimer and others) appear to be invested passionately or emotionally enough in this venture. The result is visionless rehashed fluff, that simply glides in the nostalgic slipstream of the original without breaking any new ground, creatively or otherwise.
For example, you’d be forgiven to think you were watching the original as the opening sequence of the movie unfolds with a frame-by-frame replication of the original, including the iconic Top Gun anthem background score and even on-screen notes, right down to the identical font!
Barring some genuinely good and interesting aerial action sequences, Top Gun: Maverick fails to take-off at any level for lack of novelty (clearly, it takes more than just fancy flying..!). A tired storyline that chases the loose ends of the original to bring relevance to the plot, like the Penny Benjamin track which was a mere side note in the original but amplified here to generate some regulation romance. Geriatric actors (Ed Harris) made to don uniform and look perpetually grumpy when they should have been long pensioned off. A bunch of unruly kids donning flight gear and romping around to out-swagger each other on the back of some very-very insipid dialogues. Wholly contrived sequences such as the one featuring Miles Teller ('Rooster') on the piano trying hard but failing, to replicate a performance (Great balls of fire) essayed by his father with great panache and verve in the original. Or the beach football sequence inspired by the beach volleyball sequence of the original, entirely underwhelming and unwanted, including the background score (I ain't worried by One Republic) which is no match for Kenny Loggins' bass thumping, adrenaline pumping 'Playing with the Boys' from the original!
Why then would a whole bunch of cinema lovers and seasoned critics gravitate so heavily towards something so mediocre, remains a bit of a mystery!
The Late Great Tony Scott
Tony Scott was to have helmed the sequel when it was announced by the studio in 2010 but alas, it was not to be given his untimely demise in 2012. Commissioned to direct the original by the producer duo of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer primarily on the back of his flamboyant ad film for SAAB featuring a Viggen fighter, Tony set about creating an iconic masterpiece on a miniscule budget that catapulted (literally) Naval Aviation and young Tom Cruise to stratospheric heights.
Meredith Johnson writes in her diligently put-together, definitive account, of the making of the movie, 'TOP GUN MEMOS (THE MAKING AND LEGACY OF AN ICONIC MOVIE)':
"Many people involved in making the movie note a perceived assumption, built over the years because of Cruise’s stature, that Top Gun was Cruise’s movie. The actor was obviously key to its success. But it was Scott who made the movie — supported by a lot of below-the-line talent — and it is Scott’s fingerprints that are all over it."
“Scott paid that intense attention to detail in making Top Gun. He weighed in on everything from how many planes were towed to a scene as props to whether the actors should be in jeans for the volleyball game. He helped place the patches on what became the famous leather jacket worn by Cruise.”
A complete package for its time and place, Top Gun had it all covered, from pulsating never before projected aerial action sequences of fighter jets on a big screen (particularly involving the venerable F-14 Tomcat); a scintillating background score that remains effervescent and iconic to this day; catchy dialogues that are now well entrenched in the social lexicon; crackling chemistry between the lead pair and an overload of chiseled male bodies on rampant display to reinforce the 'oh so desirable fighter pilot' image! And not to mention that this was perhaps the breakout movie for then relatively lesser known stars, such as Tom Skerritt, Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins, besides Tom Cruise and Kelly Mc Gillis, all of whom went on to become hugely successful Hollywood A-listers. Tony’s vision for the movie was very clear from the outset, he had wanted to make a “MTV style rock n’ roll movie on fighter jets and pilots”, and he stayed true to that!
And while the original did not impress the critics of the time (including being contemptuously dubbed a “110-minute commercial for the Navy”) but went on to become a blockbuster commercial success and has over time, gained cult status including being selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry for being, "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Tony Scott's legacy as one of the finest action-thriller directors, while never endorsed with an Academy Award in his lifetime, is best epitomized by his eclectic body of work (Crimson Tide remains a huge personal favorite) that has gained even more admirers after his demise. The fact that close to four decades later, Top Gun remains the most highlighted work on his resumé, is an ode to the style of filmmaking that he introduced to mainstream commercial cinema with his magnum opus; in the process creating the archetype for the military-aviation/aerial-action thriller movie genre.
And despite the eulogy to Tony Scott at the end of the movie, Top Gun: Maverick comes across as the quintessential 'commerce over creativity' project, Tony would have scorned at.
Understand that a third sequel is also in the offing; well, Tom 'Maverick' Cruise would do well to remember Capt. Tom 'Stinger' Jordan's admonishing words to him in the original, "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash"!
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