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This week, on Ridiculous and Often Ridiculously Entertaining:
Tom Cruise refuses to age or stop being the main character of reality itself. He can’t stop, because he has to train a bunch of beautiful people to fly into a weirdly specific trench run that’s totally not the Death Star. This is cinema at its most perfectly ridiculous and ridiculously perfect.
What elevation is the hard deck right now? Is that the biggest American flag ever made in their staff room? Is Ed O’Neal in this movie?? We don’t shy away from the difficult conversations on this one. Does Joe think this movie deserves a Best Picture nomination? (He doesn’t.) Can Greg watch a Top Gun movie without thinking of a Hot Shots movies? (He can’t.) What elevation is the hard deck NOW? Has it changed?? Don’t tell Jon Hamm, who is currently looking out his window while speaking to you.
It’s time to shoot at sunset/sunrise, paint on some sweat, and play football with uncomfortable clothing. That’s right, it’s time for TOP GUN: MAVERICK.
Play along with drinking games and trope lightning rounds as Greg and Joe have the only conversation that needed to happen. Meta drinking game every time we confuse Ed Harris and Ed O’Neal.
Joe’s Back of the Box
When the air force must pull off an impossible mission they turn to one man, Maverick (Tom Cruise). Now he must teach those at the Top Gun academy all he knows in three weeks or the world will be at risk. Can he tame their egos long enough to impart what he needs to? Or will his unorthodox methods get him kicked out of the Navy for good? Strap in as this movie jets towards its explosive finale. Maverick is back… And faster than ever.
The REAL Back of the Box
I think this is a 2 hour commercial for the Navy. Throw in some 80’s nostalgia and them saying “talk to me, ________” every two seconds and you get this retread of a movie. It is a pretty film with some fun air to air combat scenes, but this is a B movie desperately trying to convince you it is highbrow…
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watch this week. Tom Cruise is a Navy pilot with a callsign Maverick. If you were a pilot, wait, I should ask you, are you a pilot?
Joe: I’m not a pilot, but I could be.
Greg: Okay, okay. If you were a pilot, what would your callsign be?
Joe: It would probably be really bad for a pilot, but my nickname, when I played on the tennis team for the Skagit Valley College tennis team was Time Bomb. So.
Greg: Oh, that’s amazing.
Joe: Because one day we were playing and I was like, I’m like a time bomb. I could go off at any moment. And then, like, from then on, my nickname was Time Bomb.
Greg: So there has to be at least one pilot on this planet with that callsign. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: It’s got to be. What would your callsign be?
Greg: I feel like my call sign would need to be consistent with my DJ name. In fact, I think I could probably just use the same thing for both. And so I’ve got to go. Muffin tops. Bang.
Joe: What you call deejay muffin top.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. What? I’m deejay and.
Joe: Plural muffin top.
Greg: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s not just lefty loosey. It’s also righty tighty. Okay.
Greg: All right, let’s get the show. Let’s do it.
Clip: 30 plus years of service. Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last 40 years. You can’t get a promotion. Will retire despite your best efforts. You refuse to die.
Clip: The end is inevitable, Maverick. You’re kind of headed for extinction. Maybe so, sir, but not today.
Clip: In the year.
Greg: 2022, director Joseph Kosinski stepped up to the plate with Tom cruise and let’s just say it’s Christopher McQuarrie to make Top Gun Maverick. We are talking about Tom cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles teller, Val Kilmer, Bashir Salahuddin, Jon Hamm, Charles Parnell, Oscar nominated Monica barbaro for a complete unknown. That’s new news this week for us. Lewis Pullman, Jay Ellis, Glen Powell I should also put in Greg Tarzan Davis who played coyote because he was in Mission Impossible seven.
Greg: Joe Sky Tucker what makes Top Gun Maverick a great bad movie?
Joe: I don’t know that this is a great bad movie for me. I’ve seen this movie a couple times, and it is a fun, nostalgia filled romp. Yeah, back through the tropes of Top Gun the first time, drew, but this movie I struggled on the second time watching. So here’s what I appreciate about the movie. I appreciated the story arc and the character arc with Maverick, where in the first one he’s like the best and he’s still the best pilot, but really hasn’t advanced his career because he kind of just does what he wants.
Joe: He’s the best at what he does, not really held accountable for that, but ends up not really advancing, not becoming an admiral, not moving up in the Air Force ranks. So I appreciated that kind of piece of it. I like his character and that’s about it. That I appreciate it with this. Unless you like, really want to see a two hour ad for the Air Force, which is what this basically was.
Greg: Or the Navy.
Joe: Or the Navy. Yeah.
Greg: An effective commercial is what I just learned.
Joe: You know, it was it was fun. It’s like this sequel should have come out five years after the original, not 30. Because, you know, we kind of suffer a little bit from that. They really leaned into the nostalgia. They really. Yeah. Go for what the original was which I appreciate up to a point. But also some of the plot doesn’t hold up on close inspection.
Joe: And I think I would have more grace for this movie if it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture.
Greg: Which I just I just.
Joe: Cannot even come to any sort of anything with this movie of like, how the hell did they nominate this movie for Best Picture? This movie is a B movie at best, and it does what it does well, but it is not a great movie. It is a great bad movie. Okay, why we’re talking about it. Sure, sure. Okay.
Joe: And there’s lots and lots and lots of drinking games that I have come up. To prove my point. Yeah, but yeah, I, I struggled on the second pass of this movie, of what this is and just the veneer of a sequel that is just a nostalgia romp of the original. So I’ll stop there. Greg, sweetheart, what did you think of Top Gun Maverick?
Greg: It’s such an interesting movie in a legacy sense. This is maybe one of the best legacy sequels.
Joe: I would agree with that.
Greg: And we talked about that a couple weeks ago. The filmmaking on this movie is just absolutely knockout. Amazing.
Joe: It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful film to watch.
Greg: I mean, they had such high standards for how amazing every shot should be. The bar was very high on this one for everyone involved, and I think they filmed for almost a year, 11 months or so and for like three months they were just getting in a jet every day and flying around and trying to get all the shots that they needed.
Greg: They had six Imax cameras with them. It’s just an absolute feat in amazing filmmaking. It’s a fairly simple story. It really is just kind of the story of Maverick. And I’ve heard a lot of different people put different lenses on what it’s actually about. I kind of read it as a comment on Tom cruise, and so I felt like every time they were saying, you’re like, you’re too old school, like drones are coming.
Greg: You don’t matter anymore. I felt like they were talking about like, movie stars and Tom cruise. I heard other people saying that about just movies in general. Lots of people were getting different things out of of what the analogies they are making in this movie. So I think this is just an absolute feat in filmmaking. And when you watch Top Gun compared to Top Gun Maverick, this is going to sound like sacrilege, probably.
Greg: But it’s no comparison. What the better movie is? Especially when you realize, oh my gosh, they’re actually in the Jets doing those things. Whereas in the first movie they were like in front of a projected screen. Every time they show the pilots it’s nuts. And so it’s like perfect storytelling. The story weaves together almost two perfectly. It seems simple.
Greg: And that’s Christopher McQuarrie. There’s actually three other writers credited on this, but it was Christopher McQuarrie who was there every day filming making this happen. Joseph Kosinski is just a great director. I think it’s visually interesting. The acting is incredible. I don’t know how much money went into making Tom cruise look young in this movie. I feel like this is a real there are some real digital effects here.
Greg: Like on his face or Jennifer Connolly’s face, or people who just look inhuman in how like thin and attractive they are. It’s really like the ultimate wish fulfillment. As far as like a 60 year old man is concerned. I feel like, yeah. So this is a great movie because it’s just perfect in every way. Can I just say that?
Greg: And there are lots of things that are funny about it and fine about it, but I feel like it saved Hollywood according to Steven Spielberg. That’s what he said to Tom cruise, you know? And so I feel like that’s why it it was nominated for an Oscar. It was one of those movies. It was like avatar. When avatar was nominated for Best Picture, they were just like, well, everybody saw this and everyone marveled at it.
Greg: And cinema’s back. Yeah, I feel like that’s what happened with this, especially because it came out on the tail end of Covid.
Joe: Yeah, I agree with all of that. And I think I think Christopher McQuarrie, I can feel his hand in the writing of it. And there’s a pretty tight yeah story. You know, it doesn’t do anything crazy with the story or anything like that. Like it follows a pretty standard trajectory, but we don’t have any superfluous shots or that feels pretty tight.
Joe: And I appreciated that. I think where I struggle with it is like, you know, it does save Hollywood. So if we remember back to the dark days of Covid, when we couldn’t leave our houses and all of that, and then this was like the first big blockbuster in the theaters. Everything’s coming back. We’re free again kind of moment.
Joe: I get all of that. I think the nostalgia for the first film, as you say, this movie is far superior, and I haven’t seen the first Top Gun in a really long time, but I wouldn’t have said that it was a great movie. I would have said it was, 80s action movie, that I watched and appreciated at the time.
Joe: And yeah, probably doesn’t hold up at all, but as like, we get the band back together again and we bring in some new people and we have a new existential threat of whatever they’re trying to fight. There’s not really a bad guy in this movie.
Greg: Hilarious bad guy in this movie. Who are the bad guys?
Joe: I mean, while there’s the fifth gen airplane,
Greg: Well, that sounds pretty impressive when you see it.
Joe: And then there’s basically everyone who is trying to run Maverick out of the Air Force.
Greg: Oh, sure. Okay, so the man.
Joe: Yeah. So we have the Mads. We have that, represented by Jon Hamm and mainly throughout the movie. And then he’s great. Yeah. And then, Ed O’Neill and that opening. Sure. Yeah. I hope he got paid a lot. I keep getting them checks. That O’Neill. Yeah. For ten minutes worth of work.
Greg: Wait. Not Ed O’Neill. Ed Harris.
Joe: Oh. Ed Harris. Yeah. Ed Harris. All right. Yeah. Ed Harris, but.
Greg: We did need more modern family people in this movie, obviously. I mean, I.
Joe: Don’t know, I would have been fine, too. Yeah. I got to play that role.
Greg: I’m not going to hate. No. Who is that guy in the first movie? The guy who was the principal in back to the future, Ed Harris just looks like that dude and got the job basically. Yeah. And he’s probably, you know, a better actor.
Joe: This is a legacy sequel like there. And it might be in the top three if not the top one. Of that kind of genre of film. Yeah. But it should not be held up on par with some of these other films that are better.
Greg: With like Citizen Kane and exactly like Schindler’s List.
Joe: Like that’s where I, I struggled with it. I have to say, the first time I watched this movie, I was all in, oh, yeah, yeah, this is great.
Greg: It’s exactly what we needed.
Joe: Yeah. And it’s exactly what you’d want from a sequel. Yeah, it’s a little bit bigger. It’s prettier. It is gorgeous. I mean, just the cinematography on this is great.
Greg: Incredible.
Joe: It’s a solid action movie. There are good people attached to it. You’re in good hands. It’s not going to be crazy, but it’s not the best freakin movie of the year. You know, it should not be in the top ten of movies. Up for best Oscar. And that’s where I’m just like, I cannot even begin to fathom how you could think that this.
Greg: Movie would be in that.
Joe: Category.
Greg: And so action movies shouldn’t get Oscars. No. In Best Picture.
Joe: Some of the best movies that we’ve watched do things that we’ve never seen.
Greg: Before.
Joe: And there is nothing in this movie that was like, oh, I’ve never seen that in this movie or I’ve never seen a character development like that. You know, he walks into the room filled with cocky pilots.
Greg: And.
Joe: Wins them over pretty instantaneously because they go up and then there’s a scene of them having a faux dogfight in the air, and he beats all of them because he’s so much better than they are right now. That’s a crowd pleaser of a movie.
Greg: Old people still got it.
Joe: Yeah, old people still got it.
Greg: Yeah. And they sell the good guy pretty well.
Joe: Yeah, at every turn.
Greg: Let’s listen to this other good guessing.
Clip: Your instructor is a Top Gun graduate with real world experience in every mission aspect. You will be expected to master his exploits are legendary, and he is considered to be one of the finest pilots this program has ever produced.
Clip: What he has to teach you may very well mean the difference between life and death. I give you Captain Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick.
Greg: I’m so glad he was in muffin top so that I could take it. Yes. What if this movie was called Top Gun muffin tops? Yeah. And then I’d have to take Maverick. Yeah, man.
Joe: Yeah, you can’t live up to that.
Greg: No, no.
Joe: So I struggle with movies when they’re so highly like everyone loves them.
Greg: You’re starting the backlash.
Joe: And I am the. I’m like, always the naysayer in the room of like, wow, if everyone loves something, well, guess what, I hate it. I haven’t even seen it and I hate it.
Greg: So you’re the central negative. You’re like the devil’s advocate in the room. Make sure we don’t, like, go off a cliff.
Joe: Yeah. Everyone loves the devil’s advocate in the room, right? Right. Am I right?
Greg: I think this movie isn’t as well-regarded and probably doesn’t do as well if it comes out in 2025. The fact that it came out when it did really did accelerate its success and people’s opinions of it. That being said, I don’t think it’s much less. I think this is still a really welcome great movie that the planet wants to see.
Greg: And I didn’t love Top Gun. I think I watched it a few times when I was little. Yeah, but it wasn’t like one of my movies. And so I didn’t rewatch Top Gun before I went to go see Top Gun Maverick, which I think is the way to watch this movie. I actually don’t watch Top Gun beforehand. Yeah, because it reminds you of everything you need to be reminded of.
Greg: It opens essentially shot for shot with Top Gun with Harold Walter Myers music, and then Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins. And like people taking off of carriers in jets and of course at sunset it’s basically the same movie. They changed one thing in the opening card of texts to describe what Top Gun is, and it went from being the best.
Greg: Men go to this, to the best men, and women. That’s the only change they made to that text. And then they were basically copying all of the credit sizes, all of the text sizes, all the fonts they were copying everything so that it would feel like exactly the same thing. And I really, as someone who hadn’t watched Top Gun in forever, I appreciate that.
Greg: It was like, oh yeah, this is great. This is what it is. Then it continues to like basically hit almost every Top Gun beat. Yeah. Which I didn’t realize it was that true to it until after I watched it for this, I started Top Gun and I was kind of like, oh, that’s right. Oh wow. They really did copy it.
Greg: Like beat for beat in a lot of different ways, but it’s more emotionally resilient because it’s 30 whatever years down the line with Tom Cruise’s character and with Tom cruise, that is impactful. You know, this guy has been around for a long time. So there’s there’s a history to it. And it starts with basically the ending of any other movie.
Greg: Yeah, that would have been the end of the best 80s movie in history, you know? And I loved it. I loved the opening to this movie so, so much. Do you think these people thought they were doing anything other than an entertaining popcorn movie?
Joe: If they did, they should be fired because.
Greg: I don’t think they did. I think these people were making a sequel to Top Gun, and they knew. They knew quite well what they were trying to do. Yeah, I wouldn’t put this as best picture, you know, but the Oscars are messed up every year. It’s such a weird thing. I mean, I do think Tom cruise should get more accolades.
Greg: You know, I do think that some of the people who worked on this film should get more attention. It should be noted that the year that this came out, 2022, basically nothing else came out. It was a very, very bizarre year, right?
Joe: There was two other movies that came out.
Greg: Let me just put this into perspective for you. This movie came out in late May of 2022, and this was the number one box office film Labor Day weekend. That’s how few movies came out this year. Okay, it just would not give up. But it was also the benefit from not having much competition. Yeah. Let me tell you something interesting about this movie.
Greg: It had been in production for so long that Tony Scott was the first director of it.
Joe: And wild, Jerry.
Greg: Bruckheimer, who produced this movie. He and Tom cruise have been trying to figure out how to do it. And then, especially after Tony Scott passed away, they weren’t sure what to do with it. One director called them and said, please, please, please let me make Top Gun two. And that director was John Woo.
Joe: Wow, that would be amazing. Yeah, I mean.
Greg: I really don’t understand, you know, I really wanted it so bad. I begged them for it but they didn’t give it to me. Well Tom cruise was in Paris filming Mission Impossible Fallout. Joe Kosinski called up Jerry Bruckheimer and said, I have this idea. And he said, I think you need to tell this to Tom. Joe Kosinski flew to Paris in between shots while they were filming all those, like, motorcycle chases.
Greg: He had 25 minutes in between shots to do this pitch. So he flew to Paris, pitched his idea for what this movie should be in 25 minutes. And it had to do with four tenets. He called it the four tenets of what he thought the second Top Gun should be. And listen. Side note we will get to tenet for sure, but we’re not going to get to it right now.
Greg: And those four tenants were. And we’ll get to Mission Impossible Fallout. Are you kidding me? Of course. Really? Get them. It’s the.
Joe: Best action movie that’s ever.
Greg: Been. Yeah, it’s. Yes. Should it have been nominated?
Joe: If it had been, I would take that away from I don’t know.
Greg: Okay. Okay. Let’s get think about it. Okay. So those four tenets were then these tenants were not in the script that they currently had, that the emotional core of the story is between Maverick and Goose’s son. That was not in the script. The second thing is he wanted to show what Maverick has been doing in that opening sequence.
Greg: I think that plane was called a Dark Star, and so we kind of walked him through what the opening Dark Star sequence would be, and the sequence would be great. It would show who Maverick is now, and it would be a way of looking forward and immediately cutting to the present. From the 80s, the third thing was it would be filmed practically.
Greg: They would figure out how to film in the Jets, which is totally different than the first movie. But much like Mission Impossible Fallout and the, helicopter sequences, and that’s obviously like Tom Cruise’s brand at this point. So, yeah, that’s a no brainer. And the fourth thing was it wouldn’t be called Top Gun two. They had always been referring to it as Top Gun to.
Greg: He said, this isn’t Top Gun story. The point of this movie is to tell where Maverick is right now. So I went to the movies called Top Gun Maverick. After he gave this spiel, Tom cruise picked up the phone and called the president of Paramount and said, hey, it’s Tom, we’re making Top Gun to click. That’s how it gets done with Tom cruise.
Greg: He just tells Paramount what’s happening. Yeah, that’s the beginning of this movie. Then they were off to the races from the Mission Impossible six set. That’s awesome. Pretty cool
Joe: I mean, honestly, this were some heavy tweaks. This could be a mission impossible movie in a lot of ways.
Greg: It really is. It feels like it.
Joe: Boy, did they lean heavily into Goose’s death.
Greg: Yeah, which.
Joe: I remember the first time I watched it. I was shocked, shocked that happened in the movie and I couldn’t believe it. And they reference that they have a flashback to it of of again, kind of like Quantum of Solace, where someone’s grief is really about the main character. So you have.
Greg:
Joe: Meg Ryan basically talking about how much goose loved flying with Maverick, right? Right. This is a moment about you’ve grieving your husband, not about making it about Maverick.
Greg: Yeah. It’s like.
Joe: Take some time for yourself or whatever the line is in Quantum of Solace.
Greg: Totally, totally.
Joe: I love and and appreciate that. Just push it into, like, our kind of movie. Yeah. Yeah. That’s so dumb. That’s awesome. I mean, I.
Greg: Heard an interview with Charles Parnell, who plays Warlock Admiral Warlock, who is kind of like John Hamm’s right hand man, and they apparently know each other from way back, but I don’t think he was in the first movie. Right after this movie, he went to Mission Impossible seven, and he was in that opening scene in Mission Impossible seven, where all the department heads of the government are talking to each other.
Greg: Yeah, he said, it was a very bizarre ordeal because he had been all over the Top Gun set, you know, when they were filming this over the course of a year. And then he went to the Mission Impossible set, and when he was acting opposite Tom cruise, when he was Ethan Hunt, he said it was a completely different scenario in the room.
Greg: He just said, when you think about Pete Mitchell, you kind of know what he’s thinking. All the time. And when you think of Ethan Hunt, he said, I can only describe him as like a nice, like he is just hiding stuff behind his back and you don’t quite know where he’s coming from the whole time. Very different performances.
Joe: Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. Maybe Tom cruise is a better actor as an actor than we give him credit for.
Greg: Oh, I think that’s absolutely true. In fact, the great Amy Nicholson, who writes for the LA times now, she actually wrote a book on Tom cruise, and she has a thesis about his performance in Top Gun. And it is Tom cruise is playing a very self-conscious, fearful person who in the as a character is acting like, braggadocio is acting like the best.
Greg: He’s literally playing a character in the movie that he’s the best, but he shows a peek behind that a couple times in the film where you realize, oh, Pete Mitchell isn’t really that guy. He’s pretending to be that guy in the movie. But of course, like the way he was in Top Gun became what they wanted him to be in every movie.
Greg: Yeah. Anyways.
Joe: Interesting.
Greg: So Ed Harris is perfect. Let’s just cut to that. Ed Harris is amazing. He plays a perfect, chiseled leader in the Navy who hates Pete Mitchell and, can’t believe he’s saying it, but he’s he’s sending him back to Top Gun. And nobody is more displeased that he’s been sent to Top Gun than Jon Hamm. Yeah. Do you think Jon Hamm should just be in every movie?
Joe: Probably.
Greg: I think so too.
Joe: I think we need a new trope, and I may have put it in here, but it’s where the like antagonist who’s kind of on the same side, like Jon Hamm is on on the side of Tom Cruise’s character in this. Yeah, because they’re both in the in the Navy, but like, pushes him, hates him. But like at the end, there’s a knowing respect, that is communicated only with a head nod at the end to convey that.
Greg: Yes, good.
Joe: Job type of a moment. So yeah, whatever that is we need that.
Greg: We don’t we need that. Seattle’s Tom Skerritt was that guy in Top Gun. Yeah. And Jon Hamm and Tom Skerritt do the exact same thing to Pete Mitchell, where when they’re talking about how angry they are to him, their back is turned to him and they’re looking out a window and like, out some blinds. This keeps happening to Pete Mitchell like I’m right here.
Greg: You can turn around. Yeah.
Joe: You look me in the eye and tell me this. How dare you.
Greg: How do you ever do that at work where you’re talking to somebody and you look out the window and have your back to them? I should this is a new move for you.
Joe: Yeah. Unfortunately, all of our meetings are usually on my team, so I would just have to, like, turn away.
Greg: From my camera. Just. Yeah. Put your camera in front of a window and have you staring out the window. Yeah, I’m gonna do this from now on. It seems like a pretty good move. Yeah. And that way, you know, if I don’t really want to work that day, someone else can stand there and look out the window. Yeah, let’s hear Jon Hamm introducing the meeting with Pete Mitchell.
Clip: Captain Pete Maverick Mitchell, your reputation precedes you. Thank you. Sir. Wasn’t a compliment.
Greg: Incredible in this movie has so many funny moments like that. Yeah, there’s, like, a screen behind him, and they show him the mission that needs to be done. It has to be made by the Mission Impossible mission. People like the graphics in this movie, and the description of the thing that needs to happen is exactly mission impossible. It it happens twice in this movie.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the show Naked and Afraid. No two people are naked in the wilderness and they have to survive.
Greg: We’ve all been.
Joe: There. And then basically they have like 21 days and then it’s like to get extracted, they must swim five miles down shark infested waters, and then climb up 1000ft to this road where there are tigers and bears and snakes trying to kill them. It’s the same thing. I’m like when they describe the mission, it’s like, right, you’ve got to fly at 300ft.
Joe: And then if you come above that, there are these missiles that are going to get you and then right, and then there are fifth gen airplanes that are fifth gen.
Greg: So what? Okay, we need a sidebar. Joe explains the movie to Greg. Name the generations for me. Why should fifth Gen mean anything to me? You were asking the wrong person. They kept saying it. I was like, well, that sounds scary. I don’t know what it is, but yeah, these guys must be good.
Joe: I know, it’s like, what generation of aircraft do we have up? We have the most impressive military in the world, but we’re worried about these aircraft.
Greg: I wish they would all have been like, they’re still in five. What are we, animals.
Joe: Over the equating it to like five G. So that’s that I went.
Greg: With flying with cell phones. Never down. Don’t worry about your iPhone. Yeah that’s something that I go along with. But, Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Yeah. I wanted a better explanation of what that meant to because I just assumed it’s advanced. You guys got it’s got some cool technology to it.
Greg: And maybe if it’s to explaining, I resent it for that. I feel like Christopher McQuarrie has got on. This is pretty good, you know? Yeah.
Joe: There were only a couple moments in this movie where it is clearly exposition for the audience. Maybe first Gen could have been one of those where they explain why we should be afraid of these planes because right when we really encounter them, they’re flying the F-14 Tomcat that they they get. What do we know is from the first movie.
Greg: Sure. He shot down three MiGs with that thing.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. So he’s an ace now because he shot down two other ones with this one.
Greg: So we needed Ryan Reynolds to walk and just be like, Pete. Rebecca Mitchell. Yeah. That’s. There is this duo of fully Ryan Reynolds in photo.
Joe: I’m looking at the camera. You got that now okay.
Greg: Five seems high right? No. Yeah, that’s. Go with it.
Joe: Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I’m thinking. All right.
Greg: Goodbye. That’s classic fourth gen thinking. Yeah. Fifth gen. It’s no big deal the first time they say don’t think. Just do in this movie. What was your reaction?
Joe: I feel like that’s really easy to say. And then you’re flying a plane at.
Greg: Like, yeah.
Joe: Mach five or something like that. And you’re supposed to just be like, I know that. That’s the whole point of, Goose’s son’s journey as his own pilot. That is, he thinks too much. He doesn’t just do. So I get it. But also, maybe you should think a little bit because, you know, you’re flying $1 billion aircraft. But I don’t know.
Joe: That’s just me.
Greg: Yeah. I don’t know if this is actually a thing they say in the Navy, but right when they said it the first time, I thought, that seems like really bad advice. I bet that comes back to haunt him. Yeah.
Joe: I know what you say. They’re like athletes. Like, you don’t want to be thinking about it. You want to be just like, in its own, but also the stakes are a little lower when you’re playing, you know, soccer versus, yeah, flying a plane that can kill everybody.
Greg: So there’s this great story that Eddie Hamilton, the editor, said on, you know, have talked about the light, the Fuze Mission Impossible podcast. I mentioned this in the John Wick episode. They did light the wick and talk to those the crew from that when this movie came out, they did light the fuselage.
Joe: Oh, awesome.
Greg: And talked to everybody. And a lot of the people who worked on Mission Impossible seven and eight also worked on this, so that worked out pretty well. So Eddie Hamilton, the editor of those Mission Impossible movies, also edited this. He said that the raw footage of the flight where Tom cruise is super low to the ground and proving that the thing can be done, that was done by a real pilot.
Greg: His callsign was walleye, and he was transitioning out of the Navy out of the Blue Angels. He was the only one capable and allowed to do this capable, and that he was skilled enough to do it. He was the number one pilot in the Blue Angels and allowed in that he needed to be available for like six weeks to fly different things for this movie.
Greg: And nobody in the military is like, yeah, I’m going to peace out for six weeks and do this. So he was in that weird spot where he was on his.
Joe: Way out of.
Greg: But he still have the skills. And so it’s not like there’s only there’s only one man in this, you know, in all of Los Angeles that can fly like that. But he really was like a unique in a unique situation where he was the one that the Navy gave them to do that. And so he did that flight.
Greg: And Eddie Hamilton said, when you were watching the Raffi, they filmed it with six different cameras. When you watched the raw feed of it, you would see him move like the joystick of of the jet, and it would be a half a second before the jet reacted to it and did what he was. And he was like, you know, when you’re 50ft off the ground or whatever, and you’re going 700 miles an hour or whatever, that’s a pretty weird thing to be able to judge a half second, you know, delay to that kind of stuff.
Greg: Frank while I wiser. I can’t watch Top Gun or Top Gun Maverick without thinking about the movie Hot Shots parody of Top Gun. You remember this movie
Joe: And Hot Chad’s fart dude?
Greg: Oh, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of like a naked gun parody. Police story. Airplane.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Top secret was Val Kilmer. They were those kinds of movies. And it had Charlie Sheen and Kerry Elway’s, and Lloyd Bridges and Jon Cryer had a character in that movie. His name was washout, but his big thing was that he had Wally Vision. Do you remember this?
Joe: Vaguely.
Greg: So he had, like, walleye vision where his glasses were like, what do they call it? Like bottle glasses?
Joe: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: So you would see things from his perspective. And it was like that kind of like bubble wind mirror that you see, like in a 7-Eleven. You know, everything looked like that. And so they called him walleye because that’s what the world look like to him. It was like, of course, the guy flying around Maverick in the most, he was the one person who could do it.
Greg: It is the most dangerous flight. And by the way, when he finished that run and he walked in so they could watch the footage, he was like, I’m not sure I can do that again. This might be a one and done right. I love that his name is walleye, which immediately made me think of us. I’m like, well, this all, we can’t have nice things.
Greg: This all works together.
Joe: But I’ll come back to Hot Shots.
Greg: Obviously. Yeah. Where do you stand on those movies these days? What was the last time you saw, like Airplane or Naked Gun or.
Joe: Oh, it’s been like 25 or 30 years on all of those? Yeah.
Greg: Did you know they just remade The Naked Gun? No.
Joe: Oh, my God, that’s crazy.
Greg: Akiva from the Lonely Island directed a Naked Gun reboot. And guess who Frank Drebin is?
Joe: Liam Neeson? Yes, I think I heard that, but that’s also who I’d want to be in that role.
Greg: Yeah, Liam Neeson is Frank Traven. He is our new Leslie Nielsen.
Joe: I mean, I’ve got to watch it. There’s the cards on the table.
Greg: It’ll be interesting to see what the differences are.
Joe: I mean, I love those movies. Yeah. When they came out, I think Hot Shot probably a little less so. I love The Naked Gun, especially the first one. And, Top Secret with Val Kilmer classic is a near-perfect movie in terms of, like, a parody of, all those old movies.
Greg: Well, so we get to Val Kilmer, then?
Joe: Yeah, we should definitely get to Val Kilmer.
Greg: There’s a chance that Iceman actually is the better pilot, and there’s a chance that Iceman was more rooted in reality and Top Gun than Maverick. If you were to buy Amy Nicholson’s Read On, Pete Mitchell is a total phony. Iceman is now in charge of the fleet.
Joe: Yeah, super, super high up admirals. I’m right.
Greg: And anyone who has been tracking with Val Kilmer for the last 20 years knows that he was a throat cancer survivor. Yeah, and kind of doesn’t have a voice anymore and also hasn’t been in movies. So he’s in this movie, he’s kind of pulling the strings so the Maverick can get placed where he needs to be. He’s making Maverick confront the conflict that he has with Miles teller.
Greg: We haven’t talked about yet, but Miles teller is great in this movie. And so just Guy Tucker, is it time to have the conversation that needs to be had about about Val Kilmer? Absolutely worth. What’s your take on Val Kilmer?
Joe: I love Val Kilmer. Yeah, I’m in the tank for Val Kilmer.
Greg: Val Kilmer is better than the movie season. Yeah, I agree that Val Kilmer is great in bad movies. It’s, I guess the way I should put it.
Joe: Absolutely. I loved him and Batman Forever.
Greg: Yeah. Me too.
Joe: That’s definitely a movie we’ll get to for sure. Not universally loved. The soundtrack to that movie is amazing.
Greg: Me, some of the songs on that and some of the artists on that.
Joe: Okay, so we have PJ Harvey. Sure, we have U2, we have Wayne Coyne is his name.
Greg: Flaming.
Joe: Lips, Flaming Lips, Bad day, bad day.
Greg: Yep, off clouds tastes metallic. A great album. Sunny day real estate from Seattle.
Joe: That album is.
Greg: Mid.
Joe: 90s. Everyone who is everyone is on that album and.
Greg: You wouldn’t expect it. What on earth is this soundtrack? Does it have being so good.
Joe: If they get none?
Greg: Absolutely not. It’s.
Joe: But it’s spectacular. But yeah, I’m. I’m in the tank for Val Kilmer. Loved him in the Saint.
Greg: Not a great movie, but he is great. We’ll get to the Saint. Are you kidding me?
Joe: Yeah. You know, he was kind of like the cool guy in a movie. He goes in The Island of Doctor Moreau.
Greg: I never saw that terrible movie.
Joe: Yeah, he’s definitely is, as you said, way better than the movies he in.
Greg: I always think that that’s Sean Connery. Sean Connery was always good and bad movies.
Joe: Yeah, I think that’s a good comparison for him of he could have been the biggest movie star on the planet, but either didn’t want to be in those movies or picked the wrong ones. And yeah, I’m not sure, but I’m in the tank for Val Kilmer. What about you? What are your feelings on Val Kilmer?
Greg: I really like him. I think he was probably a little bit of a difficult person to be around. When you look at his IMDb page, that’s kind of the vibe you get. Yeah, but obviously Top Secret was a big deal for me. I wasn’t a big, real genius guy, but Top Gun was big. Willow was really good.
Greg: The doors great performance in the not great movie True Romance, The Real McCoy, and then Doc Holliday. And in tombstone, which is like the reason to watch that movie at this point, right?
Joe: That’s the only reason. Yeah, yeah, I even tried to watch it for this show. Really? Like in the last six months. Yeah. And it was such a boring movie. But he is incredible. Yeah, yeah. That movie.
Greg: He’s willing to bring his A-game even if other people aren’t. He was in Pollock. Did you ever see that movie Pollock?
Joe: I never did.
Greg: Ed Harris’s movie about the painter. It was pretty good. Kiss kiss Bang bang.
Joe: I have not seen that. That is a movie that’s on our list.
Greg: Oh, we will get to kiss. Kiss bang bang. Yeah. Shane Black.
Joe: Style. Yeah. Shane Black and I’d say.
Greg: The most recent movie I’ve seen him in is MacGruber. Did you ever see MacGruber? He doesn’t tell that person that it’s so much better than you think it’s going to be. Okay, so Val Kilmer is just incredible. If we watch a Val Kilmer movie, we should also watch his documentary that week so we can discuss him. Not that this isn’t the thousand percent conversation that needs to be had about Val Kilmer.
Joe: Obviously.
Greg: But we should also watch that documentary because I heard really good things about it. But the scene in this movie, you know, he’s like typing on a screen because he can’t really talk. I guess they also filmed the scene where he was talking those lines as well, just so they’d have it. But they felt like it was more appropriate to have him speak at the end to really kind of have it build to that.
Greg: I mean, I had chills as tearing up, you know, I feel like watching two grizzled aged actors recognizing what they’ve been through in the last 30 years and seeing what Val Kilmer has been through, man, that scene is just a powerhouse. You know? I bet that scene is why I got Best Picture.
Joe: I could be.
Greg: Without that scene. It couldn’t have gotten.
Joe: Yeah, I remember there was conversations around because he couldn’t really speak because of the throat cancer and all of that.
Greg:
Joe: And they may have digitally recreated his voice at different point. But without that scene this movie’s a totally different movie. He’s kind of like the angel overseeing Maverick’s career and protecting him. Right. And then spoilers. Iceman passes away in this movie.
Greg: Yeah, right.
Joe: Yeah. So long after that scene. So that moment kind of makes the movie. It’s kind of like the break from the macho Air Force flying, you know, fast planes moments.
Greg: Yeah, I got very emotional during that scene. I think because of my granddad’s funeral is pretty amazing. By the way, you know, one of those planes kind of flies forward and up to kind of show that that one is moving on. And that was also Wally in that plane. Interesting. Anyways, I think the the Iceman aspect of this makes this movie singlehandedly better than the first one.
Greg: And I think there’s just a richness to the story. You know, there’s many years later.
Joe: Yeah. For those who haven’t seen the first one, like there’s a real rivalry and tension between Iceman and Maverick throughout the movie until the end. Really? Yeah. Or they just don’t like each other. And so that’s the moment where they are friends. And then Iceman goes on to basically run the entire Navy as what we’re told within him.
Joe: And Maverick just basically is the same character. You know, it’s an interesting arc for the movie. And I appreciated there’s moments early in the film when they’re like, they’re texting back and forth. Yeah. What I always appreciate when movies, when they go completely silent, like you don’t hear anything rare in a movie these days. I’m like that silence.
Joe: Really. I appreciate it when they’re texting back and forth. It’s like, yeah, I don’t know. That stands out to me, though. There are a few scenes in this that stand out to me, and those are the ones that I’m texting their reunion when they’re together. So it also got.
Greg: Something I love about this movie. And every movie is when you hear the vibrating phone like you hear the text come in with it. Yeah. And it’s always hilarious to me when you hear that. Vroom. I was watching a movie, a guy was on a motorcycle and you heard the voice and he answered his phone like that. What?
Greg: It’s like Silent Helicopter. It’s like there’s no way you would hear that. Yeah, it’s not like it’s a reverse silent helicopter. Yeah, you can’t hear a helicopter, but you can hear your phone vibrating. Yeah. And so we watched Edge of Tomorrow. Declared it a great, great movie. We watched Mission Impossible two, and Mission Impossible two is what, 2000?
Greg: Ten years later is Edge of Tomorrow, filmed ten years later is Top Gun Maverick. So are you ready to have the conversation that needs to be had about Tom cruise?
Joe: Absolutely. Let’s do it.
Greg: Who does he remind you of in his kind of like advanced age? Are there any, like, old Hollywood actors that that he reminds you of now?
Joe: I feel like he’s kind of Cary Grant.
Greg: Oh, interesting, square.
Joe: Jawed, handsome movie star in a sense, as you mentioned, kind of at the beginning of this episode. Maybe movie stars, in a way, are a dying breed. Yeah. And movie stars like Tom cruise. We’re not going to see them very often. And so, yeah, that’s the name that jumps to mind.
Greg: That’s incredible.
Joe: I don’t know, what about you? What’s your take on Tom cruise? You’re you’re probably a little bit more in the tank than I am.
Greg: I need to watch more Cary Grant movies. Honestly, it’s interesting that you say Cary Grant because notorious Alfred Hitchcock’s movie from 46 was kind of the base for Mission Impossible two. But we should watch North by Northwest sometime. I get nothing but Robert Redford vibes.
Joe: Oh, I can see that too, for sure.
Greg: He is one double take away from going for a Robert Redford drinking game for Robert Redford movies. If you’re not aware, he does double takes all the time, and it is the greatest. And it might just be because they’re just, like, both extremely attractive older men. But I really think that he’s doing stuff with his eyes that are stolen from over burn.
Joe: Spoiler alert for my drinking games. But he has perfected the, like, teary eyed moments. Sure, you know, his eyes get glassy. You feel the emotion in the moment, and it’s just to me, just like Tom cruise, tears is is what that is.
Greg: So. Sounds like a band. Yeah.
Greg: Tom Cruise tears. Yeah. He’s got like, the vein that kind of pops out in his forehead. He stares into the middle distance. Yeah, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before. There’s like jaw work that he does and like, you can see his tongue moving around in a certain way. This is like he like press is like option 14 and that on his face and this is what happens.
Greg: And he can do it for 100 takes it. He needs to. He does that a few times in this movie, which I really appreciate. Yeah, but let’s talk about the scenes where he’s getting emotional. I feel like some of the emotional beats aren’t just Ice Man. They are kind of centered around Jennifer Connelly. And there’s that one moment where he is leaving Jennifer Connelly’s house out of the window, so that her daughter doesn’t know that he was there.
Greg: And when he drops down, by the way, great stunt by Tom cruise. And then her daughter is just standing there looking at him. And it goes from funny jumping out of the upper window to suddenly like he’s emotional and like responding to the performance that she’s giving. And it’s like, well, why am I crying right now? And she says something like, don’t hurt her again or don’t hurt her this time, or something like that.
Joe: Yeah, don’t break her heart again or something like that.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. How does this movie do that? That is a magic trick I would do. They do that where they go from silly almost like 1980s love scene almost where they do the homage, where, like, Jennifer Connelly is laid backwards on the bench and then they’re just, like, laughing and having a great time, like, you know, great conversation, like grown ups shoving some exposition in about why we haven’t seen Meg Ryan in this movie yet.
Greg: I mean, what’s your take on on his relationship with Jennifer Connelly in and the kind of emotional beats with the with the daughter?
Joe: I like that I love Jennifer Connelly. So I’m in the tank for her. She’s awesome. And I like their relationship. You know, she takes him sailing and then at the end he takes her flying in their small plane and there’s like a moment of, like, circular moment. They’re sure demonstrating that they’re, you know, together and all of that.
Joe: You know, she doesn’t have a lot to do in this movie. You could have cut her out of this movie and that entire side plot out. And I don’t really feel like it changed the movie that much. I’m glad that it’s in the movie. I’m fine with it. I’m not mad about it.
Greg: Okay, well, that’s big, you know, that’s new. Yeah.
Joe: And that scene is is great because it’s, you know, it’s like kind of referencing teenagers jumping out of windows and but they’re old and. That’s right. And he’s caught by the teen daughter.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And he’s got that great moment where like the gravity of the situation where it’s like it’s kind of laughing and having to jump off the second story down. Yeah, but oh, the reality of the situation is like the real feelings here that I don’t want to mess with. So, whether they’re even in the same shot together, who knows?
Joe: But you got the classic Tom cruise, like. Yeah. See, the moment over his face happened. So yeah, it was awesome.
Greg: So if I understand this correctly, Jennifer Connelly’s character is the daughter of an admiral in the Navy, and her name is Penny Benjamin. And in the beginning of the first Top Gun, they reference that Tom cruise has been dating one of the Admiral’s daughters, and goose looks at Tom cruise and says, Penny Benjamin. And you know, he kind of shrugs.
Greg: That’s how we know who Penny is from the first movie. And so they’ve been kind of on again, off again. And, you know, she’s an admiral’s daughter that apparently has, like, millions of dollars. Yeah.
Joe: Oh.
Greg: Good. He had a book career and, you know, was on a lot of boards, but she owns a bar called The Hard Deck, which was in the first movie. Right?
Joe: I think so, yeah.
Greg: And Hard Deck, as a phrase is said 1,000,006 times in this movie.
Joe: I think. So, yeah.
Greg: Both as a bar and as a line. You’re not supposed to fly underneath in a jet. Yeah.
Joe: It acts as like the ground, but so it’s like the hard deck is, you know, 5000ft. And you assume that if that was the real ground, you’d explode. But because you have a buffer of 5000ft or whatever it is. So. Yeah. Yeah. Spoiler alert. And I’m sure you have this too. Hard deck is a drinking game, so you’re drinking a little.
Greg: That didn’t occur to me.
Joe: Oh, okay. That’s weird.
Greg: Where do you stand? And Jennifer Connelly, she’s another one.
Joe: Kind of like Val Kilmer. Where? Yeah, I feel like she could have been a bigger star. You know, she has labyrinth, which is beloved now. It’s almost like cult classic status dance.
Greg: Magic dance.
Joe: Then she’s been in some interesting things. She was in Requiem for a dream and some other. So. Yeah.
Greg: Know. Yeah.
Joe: If you want to. Just like a terrible time and a great movie. But just like a really depressing, awful moment. Watch that movie because that’ll take it down a notch.
Greg: That’s the kind of movie that I describe as one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, and I will never watch it again.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. So she’s one of those actors, character actor talent and maybe like, drive to be a character actor, but kind of have like the leading lady or leading man good looks. And so they kind of get miscast a lot. I don’t see any reason why she could have been like Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock in those, sure.
Joe: But she’s always great. And the things that she’s in. Yeah. What’s your take on Jennifer Connelly?
Greg: Exactly the same. I feel like I haven’t watched a lot of the movies that she’s been in other than, like, the big kind of blockbuster moments that sort of fell flat like Hulk from 2003, Ang Lee’s movie. I saw Requiem for a dream in that she was great in that beautiful mind, you know, kind of a high watermark of what I would have seen her in, but back in the day, like The Rocketeer, you know, but there’s lots of mid-level movies that I haven’t seen.
Greg: Interesting, though, that she was in a movie from 2017 called Only the Brave. Have you heard that movie The True Story Firefighters? I got to say, Jeff Bridges is in it, but it’s Miles teller, Jennifer Connelly, Josh Brolin is in there. And it’s like a like a harrowing true story. Taylor Kitsch is in it. Andie MacDowell and it’s a really well-regarded movie.
Greg: It has pretty high Rotten Tomatoes score. That was in the 80s somewhere, directed by Joseph Kosinski. And so it’s interesting that, like Miles teller made it into this movie, he does look exactly like goose. Yeah. Pretty crazy. So I think that she has friends in high places that would just be like, well, let’s get Jennifer Connelly. She’s amazing.
Greg: Yeah. You know, I worked there in the last thing and she was great. So I feel like we’ll be seeing Jennifer Connelly for a long time, but maybe just every couple of years she’ll be in something where it’s like, oh my gosh. Yeah, she’s always been great. So this year, where do you stand on Miles teller?
Joe: He is amazing in whiplash, which is the story of Greg’s fine arts career as a as a drummer. Sorry you haven’t seen his autobiography of Greg.
Greg: I actually just saw that in the theater for its 10th anniversary.
Joe: Okay, awesome.
Greg: Damien Chazelle it’s an amazing mom. Filmed in, like 19 days or something. Yeah. J.K. Simmons nominated for an Oscar. Did he win I.
Joe: Don’t remember I know that Milo made us watch that movie and loved it. And that’s a hard watch. It’s not an easy movie to watch. J.K. Simmons is incredible as like the worst of what you would think of like basically Juilliard level instructor of like the jazz band would be. And Miles teller is incredible in that, too.
Greg: Yeah, he really is.
Joe: I think Miles teller is an incredible actor in this. He doesn’t get to stretch his legs. Like acting wise, he’s kind of cocky. Flyboy Goose’s son. He has a couple scenes that he has with Tom cruise where he kind of see what it is, but his character doesn’t get to do much.
Greg: It’s not called Top Gun Rooster. Yeah.
Joe: It’s not his. It’s not his movie. So, I mean, he’s fine and it’s like like everybody else in this movie, they do their part to make Tom Cruise and Maverick. My gut. Yeah. And he does a good job of that. But as an actor, I think he’s probably underutilized like every other actor in this who is, you know, worth the salt is so sure.
Joe: I haven’t really seen him in other stuff, have you? What what’s your take on Miles teller?
Greg: I watched that show, The Offer, which was about the making of The Godfather when he played the producer, and he was pretty good in that. I recently just saw whiplash again, which really reminded me of the magic there. He brings a little bit of that into this movie when he loses the bet and has to do what is it, 200 pushups?
Greg: And then they say, okay, you’ve reached 200, you’re good. And he keeps going because he’s gonna harm himself to really learn something. And that was very whiplash vibes. I’ve always kind of want to watch Todd Phillips War Dogs. It’s less of a comedy and more of a drama. It’s got Jonah Hill. I always wanted to circle back to that movie for some reason.
Greg: I don’t know, I didn’t watch the Divergent series. I didn’t see him in Fantastic Four. He was then in Spiderhead, the movie that Joe Kosinski directed after this that came out on Netflix around the same time, which people didn’t seem very good. So I’m interested. I think if I hear good things, I’d be happy to go see Miles teller again.
Greg: When he was cast in this movie, I thought, oh really? And after this movie I thought, oh no, he was really good. And what they needed him for. I’ll tell you who is pissed that Miles teller got this role. Glen Powell was pissed that he got Glen Powell really wanted the wrist to roll and didn’t want to be in the movie because he wasn’t getting the role.
Greg: And Tom cruise sat him down and said, do you want to know why my career has gone the way it’s gone? And he said, because you’ve played great roles, I need great roles. And he has no, because I’m I’ve been in great movies. So be in a great movie with me and you’ll move on. The way I have is pretty good advice.
Greg: Yeah. So Glen Powell shows up. He comes up with the name hangman. He actually designed his helmet with the director. Awesome. And he’s in this movie and I’m not sure Glen Powell knows who he should be in this movie. What’s your take? Agreed. Okay.
Joe: They’re not asking a lot of any of the, like, side characters. They’re really designed to be pretty. One note yeah, he’s like the cocky est of the cocky fighter pilot.
Greg: He’s the iceman.
Joe: Yeah, he’s the young Iceman.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And I think he does a good job of that. And he gets a, you know, a decent arc and he gets to kind of play a little bit of the hero at the end. But that character could have been played by anyone. So I agree with Tom cruise that like being great movies and your your career will move forward.
Joe: But yeah, nobody honestly is memorable in this movie other than Tom cruise and probably Val Kilmer. You know, maybe Jennifer Connelly. Like, yeah, everybody else is pretty interchangeable and what they are in this and and so, you know, he’s kind of on the rise as an actor. Now whatever happens with the sequel, I’m sure he’ll be in it.
Joe: But as far as his character on this. Yeah, that’s pretty one note. You know, probably not on set for very long.
Greg: Let’s hear Glen Powell. Not sure if he should be McConaughey or not in this movie.
Clip: They really don’t get it. On this mission.
Greg: A man flies like Maverick here or a man does not come back. No offense intended. Yet somehow you always manage the I don’t.
Clip: Mean to criticize. You’re conservative and a lieutenant. We’re going into combat zone on a level. No living pilots ever seen.
Greg: I feel like I didn’t capture the moment where he really reminded me of me. Kind of. Hey, but he has, like, a southern accent in that scene. Maybe. And that scene alone?
Joe: Yeah, only. Only in.
Greg: That scene.
Joe: Like I’m from Texas for this moment.
Greg: Absolutely. They overthought every second of this movie, every moment that they spoke in the Jets was overdubbed later. Except for one, it was, Maverick had gotten shot down and Monica barbaro yells like Mavericks down, Mavericks down! They just could never get the performance of her actually yelling that in the jet. And so they use the actual audio from the jet.
Greg: My point is, if they were overdubbing most of this movie, why didn’t they go back and go, hey, remember when you had that southern accent for that one scene? And maybe I’m misremembering this. Maybe. But it was just so noticeable there that I was like, I got to grab this. Yeah. So what’s your theory on why he is the next movie star?
Greg: Glen Powell is arguably the biggest movie star to come out of this movie since 2022. He’s been in.
Joe: A couple movies. He was in the movie with like Sydney Sweeney.
Greg: Yeah. Anyone but you?
Joe: Yeah, anyone but you. Twisters. And I feel like that was like one other, like, for some reason, like this was his springboard into the next Ed boy. Yep. Movie stars.
Greg: I haven’t seen Hit Man yet on Netflix with Richard Linklater, but apparently he’s like the real deal. Like working on the script with Richard Linklater. Yeah.
Joe: So he’s like, this was his star turn that that launched him.
Greg: Well, obviously Expendables three.
Joe: Yeah I well I shouldn’t yeah. Started. Sorry.
Greg: Yeah. These people are coasting on the success of this three obviously. Yeah.
Joe: This could really be Expendables four if we were like really digging into it. But,
Greg: Right. Yeah, totally. And there wasn’t Expendables four, so how dare you?
Joe: Yeah. All right, everyone knows. And the Expendables verse.
Greg: He says, I don’t mean to offend. And somebody says, yet you still manage. All right. And yet here we are, something like that. And that was Bob. That was Lewis Pullman. Bill Pullman son. Oh, did you know that?
Joe: I did not know that awesome.
Greg: Bill Pullman, the president from Independence Day and from while you were sleeping in a gazillion other movies. His son is Lewis Pullman. And in this movie, and he is maybe my favorite character in this movie, it’s probably everybody’s favorite. He’s the most relatable person in this movie. What was your take on on Bob?
Joe: Yeah, he might be the best part in this movie. He’s, he’s a comic relief, kind of break the tension guy in all the scenes where and there’s like the toxic masculinity of, like, yeah, where the best pilots in the world type of stuff. And then he’s he’s there. So yeah, I’m in, I’m in the tank for him.
Greg: I totally agree. We meet him in that initial scene at the hard deck bar. And when the camera rack focuses to show him behind Phoenix, he has a bunch of peanut shells on his lap, and he says, like, wiping his lap, it’s the best way you can introduce this character in history. Yeah, and here is Phoenix. Oscar nominated Monica barbaro had crazy noticing.
Greg: Bob. What do they call you? Bob? No, your call sign. Bob. Bob Floyd, you are my you back seater from the more looks like it. Yeah. I mean and Bob Bob rock.
Greg: Okay, there it is. I was a little bummed you didn’t say. Stack them, pack them and rack them. Yeah, because I assume that she was like the daughter of Fred Thompson from. Heard them. Maybe she is. And she’s like, I’m not going to say that. Yeah. That’s really that’s like 1990 stuff.
Joe: I know.
Greg: 2025 Todd.
Joe: I had to live through every freaking holiday dinner with this guy, saying this every time we brought the turkey out. So I’m not saying that.
Greg: So, okay. I’m just going to assume that Monica barbaro is is Fred Thompson. We used to have a question on this show. Who are you in this movie? I think we are all.
Joe: About we’re all Bob.
Greg: Safe to say Bob is in this movie to be the everyman. Yeah, we can relate to. Yeah. That scene though, when Tom cruise goes to the hard deck, talks to Jennifer Connelly, and then then all of the new Top Gun Kids, I guess, arrive there. They’re supposed to be the best the world has to offer. They all arrive.
Greg: This scene is unbelievable in the amount of things it sets up plot wise. Yeah. When Christopher McQuarrie handed the pages to Joseph Kosinski, he said, this is probably going to be the hardest scene. You need to read this like you’re reading the biggest action set piece you’ve ever directed. Because how you do this, I don’t really know. Yeah.
Greg: Joseph Kosinski had to do it twice. They did it and they didn’t get it. And so they had to do it again. We’re introduced to so many characters in that scene. Yeah, fascinating to me. Yeah.
Joe: That scene is a really pivotal. Like the whole movie kind of builds to that moment and then builds off of that moment from there. And so you kind of see everything. Is that the scene where they’re also he’s like, Miles Teller’s at the piano then, and he’s watching them from the sand after he’s been thrown out. And then they’re flashbacks to the first movie.
Joe: So, so much, so much is happening there.
Greg: This is legacy gold. I mean, if a legacy doesn’t learn from this, shame on you.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: How you do it. Yeah. This is the this is the template.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Absolutely pretty incredible. You know like Star Wars Episode seven was a legacy. Well and it was just reminding us of, of things from the past. And then it also had Leia. And Han I guess maybe that was the template actually. And this just kind of followed it. I feel like we need to move on to, Bashir Salahuddin.
Greg: Hondo, who is the guy that like supports Maverick in the beginning and at the end. And they kind of have a rapport where there’s lots of little jokes that like, they’re totally things my granddad would have said, and they’re all through this movie. So let’s check this out.
Clip: I don’t like that. Look, man.
Clip: It’s the only one I got me.
Greg: There it is. There’s so many lines like that in this movie. Like this right here.
Clip: Please don’t tell me we lost an engine. All right? I won’t tell you that. Okay? I, I have.
Greg: So many stuff that’s clearly like voiceover. Yeah, obviously. All right. I feel like this movie is in two chunks. There’s act one and two. Yeah. And then there’s act three. I do just want to say that when Maverick is sitting there talking to Iceman, it’s just so weird how gray Val Kilmer hair has gotten. And Tom Cruise’s hair is so, like still like super dark brown.
Greg: Yeah. That’s very weird how people age differently.
Joe: Or Tom cruise has really great people that know how to, like, dye his hair perfectly.
Greg: So yeah, there’s that. When Tom cruise sits down on the beach watching them play their modified football game. Did you get jaws vibes from that? No.
Greg: I swear they were alluding to the jaws scene. You know, the famous scene in jaws where, like, he’s sitting and kid gets attacked, but like, Tom cruise puts on a shirt and it’s a dark blue shirt, just like Roy Scheider in that scene, I swear they were going for jaws vibes.
Joe: I mean, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were doing some sort of weird homage to that.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Because there is a color of Money like my homage. Yeah. As well. So. And sure, I’m sure the other film that they’re referencing from either Tom Cruise’s career or just famous movies.
Greg: So totally. I wanted to ask you about that opening scene when Tom cruise shows up to be their teacher for the first time, and Warlock introduces him, they sell the good guy, by the way, they had filmed the scene up until Tom cruise walks in and Tom cruise hadn’t been there yet, and so they filmed it a few times and they were cutting right when Warlock introduced him.
Greg: And they didn’t tell anybody that Tom cruise had arrived and they were going to let the scene play out and let him walk up and they would capture people’s reaction to him actually walking up and giving that speech for the first time. I think some of the shots are not authentic reactions, but when he walked up to the microphone and was actually looking at people, he actually just arrived to the set.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: Yeah. So nice. Little like behind the scenes trickery. When they are getting ready for their mission at the end, they are going through and they all have like codenames. And so they’re like dagger one. They’re all saying like dagger one is ready, dagger three ready. I just want to ask you, did you really believe that all the daggers were ready in that moment?
Joe: No, because we see that one of the daggers is thinking too much and it’s not quite ready.
Greg: So one of those daggers is a dirty liar, is what I learned.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Somewhere around Coffin Corner. I was questioning that.
Joe: Yeah, the dagger for dagger three.
Greg: I don’t can even tell you more with these daggers.
Joe: So many daggers.
Greg: So they go through their mission. They perfectly drop the bombs and they need to. And then bad guy jet starts attacking them.
Joe: Fifth generation jet.
Greg: I’m so sorry to disrespect their generation. Yeah. And they’re also like, smoke in the air is a term that I learned in this movie. Like missiles are flying towards them. This was maybe one of the greatest action scenes in history. Like I don’t know where to look to to to beat this one. Iron Eagle, where do we go back to?
Greg: This is just like the greatest jet pilot flying with missiles going towards them seen in history. As far as I’m concerned.
Joe: Probably in recent memory. I’m sure there there are some World War Two ones that we’ve that I’m blanking on, but, yeah, my guess is we haven’t seen anything like this in a while. And in the 80s we had more of these. We had Top Gun and and you referenced what are the ones with Louis Gossett Jr. That’s irony.
Joe: Yeah. Irony goal. And there’s like a million iron Eagles irons eagle.
Greg: Yeah. Like is have the plural of.
Joe: That where the planes get more and more not military grade. Sure. Yeah I guess is the best way to put it.
Greg: But there’s only one thing you need to know. Does the pilot have a cassette walkman strapped to his leg or not?
Joe: Yeah, that’s the secret. Yeah. If not the you’re in trouble. So yeah, it’s it’s probably some of the best dogfighting action scenes we’ve seen in a while. It’s pretty fun. Like once they get to that final scene, that’s a really fun scene. You know, they get through miracle one and miracle two, and then.
Greg: Coffin corner, coffin.
Joe: Corner comes and they go, yeah, they got to get out of there. And then all hell breaks loose. Tom Cruise is shot down. So as Miles teller saves him. There’s so many awesome things that happened in that last part.
Greg: As the missiles are flying towards them, they keep yelling that they’re defending and they throw like remote flares. It’s like countermeasures in submarine movies. Yeah, to throw off the missiles. Is there anything better than countermeasures or or remote flares?
Joe: Apparently not. They’re really powerful because they seem to work almost every single time.
Greg: So. And they just yell defending when they’re throwing out countermeasures. I was kind of influenced by this. Do you feel like anytime you feel defensive emotionally, you should start yelling that I offending defending?
Joe: I’m going to try that. Like defending the countermeasures countermeasures and then see what happens though. Totally, totally. Next time I’m having a fight with my wife, I’m just going to be like.
Greg: The countermeasures countermeasures. I totally forgot to mention a question that I had for you, and I’m assuming that you do this in real life, that the organization you work for when you are having staff meetings, much like that meeting where where Maverick shows up first to teach them, there was probably the largest American flag that it has ever been made in history.
Greg: Yeah, I’m not joking. It’s like 300ft by 500ft. Do you have that behind you when you talk to the people they work with?
Joe: Of course. Okay. It conveys a sense of authority and purpose. So yeah. I’m sorry.
Greg: Okay. Okay. Great. So that gets us to the third part of this movie, which is a hard pivot for this show. And it’s also a hard pivot for this movie. What happens when Miles teller and Tom cruise are on the ground in enemy territory? And by the way, brilliantly, we have no idea what country we’re dealing with. Yeah, it’s just country X and I adore this movie for being so vague like that.
Joe: Yeah, we don’t ever see, a bad guy.
Greg: Nope.
Joe: We just see their planes and their helicopters and that’s it.
Greg: Yeah, they’re David Leach’s stunt men with helmets on.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. It’s awesome. They’re shot out of the sky, and then they find each other.
Greg: Almost.
Joe: Instantaneously.
Greg: Well, there’s a little bit of running a little better.
Joe: Yeah, a little bit of running. And then again, they find themselves at the bad guys base. That has been bombed by Tomahawk missiles. Which raises a really important question. Couldn’t they have just rained Tomahawk missiles down on this? Really specific spot that they were trying to bomb anyway?
Greg: But up up up up up up up. Yeah.
Joe: So we have a little bit of Hobbs and Shaw like travel time where they find each other after both being shot down in their planes and then are able to navigate themselves to the enemy base almost instantaneously.
Greg: But also the tone of the movie entirely shifts at this moment. Agreed. It’s suddenly no longer like a navy. Stressful. People grow old, and maybe we’re irrelevant now. Drama, too. Like a buddy comedy.
Joe: Yeah, basically. Yeah.
Greg: Let’s hear the scene when they meet up in the snow after they both crashed.
Clip: You’re right. Yeah, good. You’re right. Okay, okay. What the hell? What are you doing here? What am I doing here? I took that initial so you could be down here with me. You should be back on the carrier by now. I saved your life. I saved your life. That’s the whole point. What the hell were you even thinking?
Clip: You told me not to think.
Greg: Okay, well, that’s why it’s good to see.
Clip: It’s good to see you, too.
Greg: This is like a real softening for both of these characters, you know? But at this moment, it’s like a hard pivot for this movie. And they’re like acknowledging the plot point. Like, no, we’re done with this movie. Like, we did the thing I sacrificed myself for you and Miles teller turns back to help him out, and he’s upset about it.
Greg: It’s like, what are we doing here? And this is a moment where you could be like, I am out. Yeah, this is not the movie I’ve been watching for an hour and a half. Or you can sign on to have fun and be like, well, okay, apparently I just got a new ticket to a new. Right. Yeah, we are now, like, in a mission impossible movie where hijinx are happening and comedic beats are everywhere.
Joe: Yeah, I love how in the set up to this one, they’re doing, like the push in and in the hands of the military base that they’re going to bomb with Tomahawk missiles. Sure, sure. They happen to mention the F-14 Tomcat,
Greg: As a.
Joe: Throwaway line. And if you watch any of these movies, you’re like, hold on to that for just a second for a please. I’m sure we’ll be picking that up.
Greg: And lo and behold, cut to them. Yeah.
Joe: My favorite part is like, they’re just running across the enemy base. Nobody is stopping them. They’re in clearly not the same uniforms, right? Nobody cares. Yep. And they’re able to get into and take off in an F-14 Tomcat.
Greg: Like it’s Top Gun one.
Joe: Yeah, like it’s Top Gun one. And here we are reliving the glory days in that. I mean, yeah, it’s a totally different movie.
Greg: Are you okay with me asking you an important question before we actually get to our segment called Important Question.
Joe: Absolutely. Let’s do it.
Greg: All right. So they get to this F-14. Tom Cruise is telling him what to do, like how to get this thing going. And I can’t overemphasize this enough. There is zero pre-check on this F-14 now, we witnessed in Gerard Butler’s plane a couple episodes ago, but he is willing to let everybody die to make sure that, like, the brakes are good and like the chocks are moved away from the wheels or whatever.
Greg: How did you feel about the lack of pre-check in this scene?
Joe: Listen, it’s it’s really concerning.
Greg: Quite frankly. Yeah. Being honest, I have some thoughts.
Joe: Yeah, I have a bad feeling about this. So maybe they should pause and take a.
Greg: Pre-check on this. A real look in the mirror.
Joe: Real look in the mirror.
Greg: Listen, we won. But did.
Joe: We. Yeah. No, no we didn’t.
Greg: So here’s what I’m proposing I think Top Gun three. I mean, if it’s not also an unofficial plane to. I’m not sure what world we live in anymore, I don’t either. I would be pretty upset.
Joe: How could this be fixed? We make plane two slash Top Gun three at the same time.
Greg: Yeah, I think this was set up for how Gerard Butler is going to come in and teach him a thing or two.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Tom Cruise is now one of the gang. And Richard Butlers walking in and standing in front of the American flag. Yeah.
Joe: Perfect.
Greg: Perfect. So they take off in the 14, and then some bad guy planes show up and kind of flank them right.
Joe: First, and it should be.
Greg: Said, is that the generation they were okay.
Joe: Yeah. Fifth gen what.
Greg: Gen is the F-14.
Joe: It’s got to be like negative ten at this point.
Greg: Because if you were in the 60s you don’t really remember the 60s exactly this.
Joe: From 30 years ago. Like who knows, who knows what plane. This is what generation.
Greg: We are so totally so there have been like a million bits already in this movie. And now they take off. They’re being flanked by these. And so they’re kind of like trying to like with hand signals, communicate that they can’t hear anything that they’re saying. They’re pretending like they’re radios broken. Yeah. This is the bit that they go into as the enemy fighters are giving them hand signals.
Greg: What’s that signal? Once you said that an idea? I have no idea what he’s saying, but not having any idea. I’ve never seen that with either. That’s it. That’s all we need.
Joe: That’s all we need.
Greg: Just some bits. And I don’t know if you noticed, but like right after that the wingman moves into weapons envelope. I was that ever happened to you.
Joe: And now I get.
Greg: No I know of.
Joe: Yeah I feel like I wouldn’t know. But you know you know it’s.
Greg: Yeah. And then they beat one of the planes. Some pretty cool maneuvers that happened there. The other plane is about to get them Glen Powell Han Solo’s back and saves them. Yeah. He gets his redemption moment. And then right before they all land back on the carrier Jon Hamm is like about to cry seeing them about to come in.
Greg: I didn’t understand that emotional read from Jon Hamm.
Joe: I didn’t either. That was weird because we get him at the end with the yeah, the nod. Yeah. Where he’s clearly like 300 yards away from them, but they can see each other perfectly right. And oh, that’s awesome. I love those moments.
Greg: Totally. I’m realizing now that they were showing Jon Hamm looking out a window at Tom Cruise’s plane. Is there a chance that he was having a conversation with the person behind him and we weren’t privy to it? Possible. Okay, great.
Joe: I think every time Jon Hamm looks out a window, we need to take a drink.
Greg: I love it. All right, Joe. Well, it occurs to me that maybe some people have not seen 2022 stop Gun Maverick. And so let’s pretend they are walking down the aisles of a video store, and they’re looking at the backs of the boxes of all these different videos. Top Gun one or maybe Hot Shots part do. What am I going to rent tonight?
Greg: How about we give them a synopsis of the movie? That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. When the Air Force must pull off an impossible mission, they turn to one man, maverick Tom cruise. Now he must teach those at the Top Gun Academy all he knows in three weeks, or the world may be at risk. Can he tame their egos long enough to impart what he needs to r well, his unorthodox methods get him kicked out of the Air Force for good.
Joe: Strap in. As this movie jets towards its explosive finale. Maverick is back and faster than ever.
Greg: Amazing.
Joe: I’m renting that every time.
Greg: I am, too. I’m just assuming there, tower flybys happening every five minutes in this movie.
Joe: Absolutely. Now, if you want the real back of the box, I can give that to you, too, you know? Yeah.
Greg: That was like marketing veneer. Let’s give. Let’s give us the real Joe Skywalker actual back of the box.
Joe: All right. I think this is a two hour commercial for the Air Force. Throw in some 80s nostalgia and then saying, talk to me, fill in the blank every two seconds and you get the retread of the movie. It’s a pretty film with some fun air to air combat themes, but this is a B-movie desperately trying to convince you that it’s highbrow.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I think we should get two reviews because I feel like you are not alone in your real back in the box. Let’s get to the box office of this movie and then some reviews, and then we can get to Drinking Game. Perfect. This movie cost somewhere between like 170 and one’s 177 million. Jesus. Okay, so, you know, you got to make, like, a little bit more than double that to break even.
Greg: The good news is that this made $1.5 billion worldwide.
Joe: Okay. So it did. All right. If it okay.
Greg: It saved Hollywood. Yeah. Now a lot of times it’s like it’ll do a little bit in America and a lot overseas. This movie made $718 million domestically, $777 million worldwide.
Joe: That is bonkers.
Greg: Planet Earth needed Hollywood to make it feel good again, and this movie was there to do it. They try to even. I’m sure Paramount was pretty enticed by this. Every streamer called and said, we will give you whatever you want for this movie so we can put it on Netflix or Apple TV+ or Hulu or whatever. And I bet everybody was on board with it except for Tom cruise.
Greg: And he said, no, you made this movie for people in theaters. And I think that was a good idea. His highest grossing movie in history. All right, so massive box office success. But what are the critics think of this movie? What do you think the Rotten Tomatoes critics rating is on this movie?
Joe: Joe feels like a 70. Feels like our movie.
Greg: Yeah. This. No, this movie’s about a 70, isn’t it? Yeah.
Joe: I think it’s a 70. That’s what I’m going with, honestly. Okay, 70. But our joke answer is a 70 because everything is a 70.
Greg: But yeah.
Joe: It’s a 70.
Greg: Okay. It’s a 96% from the critics. And that’s from a 478 review. That’s a lot. That’s like double what we usually get. What do you think the audience score is on this.
Joe: Well I hate the audience already. So let’s go with like.
Greg: 9499, 99 Jesus Christ. Planet Earth needed this movie apparently, and I’m here for it. All right. So let’s talk about what some of the critics said for this movie. Let’s start with The Seattle Times. Our hometown paper, Scott Greenstone, said, a soaring movie if not a particularly self-aware one. But is that what you were expecting from a sequel to Top Gun?
Joe: I don’t know, that’s a good question.
Greg: I think this movie was way better than people thought it was. Kim, because Top Gun lowered the bar. That’s what every first movie should do. Lower the bar so this book can be better. The observer and UK said an eye popping blockbuster that, for all its daft macho contrivances, still manages to take your breath away. Damn it.
Joe: I might allow. Maybe.
Greg: Maybe I think you’re in. You’re in line with this person because they said, damn it, at the end. Yeah, like they were upset that they liked it.
Joe: Yeah, I agree.
Greg: Los Angeles Times Justin Chang said ridiculous and often ridiculously entertaining. That’s a great band. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed.
Greg: Let’s see what you think of this one. John Anderson from the Wall Street Journal said, Top Gun Maverick is not a dislike of a movie by any means, but it’s also a little depressing because of where it says movies are going, what it says about the lack of creativity making its way on screen.
Joe: Yeah, I agree with that.
Greg: Yeah, that seems like kind of in line with what you’re saying. A.O. Scott Tony Scott from The New York Times literally says something that I think, I think you’ll love, and this will be the last one we read. It is a thin, over strenuous and sometimes very enjoyable movie, but it is also, and perhaps more significantly, an earnest statement of the thesis that movies can and should be great.
Greg: I read his full review and he actually says Top Gun Maverick is not great. All your friends are going to tell you it’s great. It’s not awesome, but there’s something to that’s what he’s saying. Yeah.
Joe: I agree.
Greg: All right. Joe, is it time for us to get some drinking games for Top Gun Maverick?
Joe: I think so, I have so many.
Joe: I cannot wait.
Greg: Well, let’s go through, like, our regular ones that we do for every week. And then we’ll get your. Yeah. Super drinking. Yeah.
Joe: That’s right. I may have gone overboard. I fully admit that.
Greg: You we blow the hard deck. Yeah, I did okay I did.
Joe: I went where Eagles dare. And now we’ll find out what happened. But our stopped drinking games. And again you don’t need to be drinking alcohol. It could be water, coffee, juice, soda whatever. Yeah. We’re not we don’t judge much here. So silent helicopter. We do have a silent helicopter and a low flying helicopter in this movie. Yep. So end at the end.
Greg: When it’s a mission impossible movie. Yep.
Joe: Exactly. Yep. It’s great. Pushing and enhance. Oh, absolutely. I gave you this one where they’re looking at the satellite footage of where they have to drop the bombs with the laser lock and all of that.
Greg: And them you’re talking about miracle. What a miracle, too, when you say that.
Joe: That’s a good question. It’s probably miracle. One.
Greg: So you’re a little bit biased towards number one.
Joe: Yeah. Miracle one is the best miracle.
Greg: It’s the best miracle. I’ve always said that.
Greg: Half the crowd always leaves during the second medical.
Joe: You know, you’ve already seen one miracle. You want to see another?
Greg: Come on.
Joe: We do not have a slow motion when people say or share a slow motion. Look, but we do have an explosion with silent suffering and ringing in the ears. It’s not an explosion, but we have the Glock when someone kind of, like, loses it and kind of has some ringing in the ears, opening credit locks in sound with a sound to the score rises.
Joe: It’s pretty common with movies when we watch. It’s not a, sound, but, you know, it can rank or not. We have a lot of flashbacks to the first movie, so drink then.
Greg: Perfect.
Joe: Not a lot of CGI in this movie.
Greg: Not the kind that we talk about, like CGI close calls. I’m sure all of the missile attack stuff was CGI. Probably they were doing all kinds of CGI. It actually changed the story of of the dogfights. The CGI everywhere in this movie, but not the kind that we’re talking about.
Joe: And it’s pretty seamless. Like it looks, it’s a, it is really a pretty movie. So great bad shots. Not as much as in our normal movies. But yeah, there is the scene where Tom cruise jumps behind like a log on the ground as a helicopter shoots like machine guns at him, and it just, like, misses him. So. Right.
Joe: Drinking? Yeah. No inexplicably wet streets or give us the room or Interpol. Missed opportunity is all around for me.
Greg: So what are we going to do about this with a lack of drinking games, Joe?
Joe: Well, I have 25 for us, so don’t worry.
Greg: All right, you should start.
Joe: Then. I’m going to start. I’m going to kind of group some of them together.
Greg: So okay okay.
Joe: I have like hero shots of planes and people on the decks of aircraft carriers where they’re either high fiving silhouetted planes against the setting sun and then slow motion planes like landing and taking off. So those are all kind of one drinking game. If you will, within this, which is at the beginning of this movie, especially like oh my God and nephew here, and this is another drinking game of mine.
Joe: If you hear the Top Gun theme or Danger Zone, take a drink. But within those they love to show. It’s just like an homage to the first movie. So that’s yeah, that’s kind of my first group of drinking game. But what do you have?
Greg: I’m trying to figure out when you wouldn’t be drinking in those first couple minutes.
Joe: Then you’re not. You’re just like, basically you need to have like like a hamster, you know, has the water thing in there. You just need to have that. Just like constantly drinking throughout the like first ten minutes of this movie.
Greg: I have every time they say fifth generation fighter.
Joe: Oh, I have that one too.
Greg: Okay, okay. What’s your next one?
Joe: Oh, and I said that mentioned silhouetted planes against.
Greg: Oh yeah Tony Scott. Yeah. This is basically.
Joe: Exactly. Yeah.
Greg: Very long lenses. It’s it’s constantly sunset or sunrise and people seem to always be sweating. Yeah. Those are the Tony Scott rules. That’s like kids in ski taking to this.
Joe: Movie I have every time Maverick breaks a rule, but he does it in such a cool way that they have to keep him in the Air Force.
Greg: Yeah, take a drink. I love it. Any time you see goose.
Joe: Oh, that’s a good one. I have. Every time they say goose.
Greg: That’s my next one. Okay.
Joe: I have anytime he rides a motorcycle. Take a.
Greg: Drink. Oh, that’s really good. That’s really good. I have every time they say hard deck.
Joe: Oh, I have that one too.
Greg: Which is a drinking game that my friend Chris sent me. I think from the theater. He’s like drinking game card deck. It’ll make sense when you see it.
Joe: Awesome. I have anytime there are control room conversations about Maverick and what he’s doing and like cheers is going up because he did something incredible. Take a drink because there’s lots of, like him flying at Mach ten, right? Killing the bad guys. And everyone in the control room being excited about that.
Greg: Let’s get one. I have every time. They seem to have no idea where Maverick is in the sky. And then he surprises them by like, flying right by them.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: Which I have to think is the thing that doesn’t really happen with these jets. The Jets are pretty aware of where everybody is. Yeah, but it happens like seven times. Yeah.
Joe: And it’s got to be like that.
Greg: Yeah, I have any time.
Joe: There’s a flashback to the original film, a reference to the original film or a reference to the color of money. Take a drink.
Greg: Wow. Okay. So what’s an example of a reference to the first film? Would it be like when he walks in the way Kelly.
Joe: Yeah, any of like the stuff that like, totally mirrors mirrors?
Greg: Okay.
Joe: You know, or him riding his motorcycle without his helmet on, right. Stuff like that, or there’s a Color of Money reference where Glen Powell is playing pool, and there’s not looking at what he’s doing and is looking at, you know, stuff like that. Right, though.
Greg: Okay. What was last time you saw the Color of Money?
Joe: It has been well over 30 years, if not longer.
Greg: I had never seen it. I watched it last year for the first time. Paul Newman movies are always a good idea. Oh wait, what? I’ve learned in the last couple years.
Joe: Is always perfection. And every movie he’s an unbelievable.
Greg: Yeah. Okay, so when they’re flying around in the Jets, which we really can’t say enough, like they’re really in the Jets, they filmed like 16 hours a day for like three months to get these scenes. But something that Tom cruise does a lot when he’s looking around as he puts his hand to the cockpit window to his side.
Greg: When he’s turning, he, like, touches his hand to the glass. He does like quite a bit in the movie. So any time Tom cruise touches his hand to the window of the jet as they’re flying around.
Joe: Awesome. I have any time you hear the washing sound while they’re in the jet, while he’s while they’re flying through the valleys. Take a drink.
Greg: That’s a good one. I have one that is is potentially problematic. Okay. Perfect. It’s it’s a sound effect editing thing that they learned from Tony Scott from the first movie. Whenever they cut to a new scene they would do it with a sound effect. So in this movie when they cut to a new scene, there are so many booms, they had the loudest editing machine in history.
Greg: And Tony Scott was like, every time we need some sound effect to push us into something, we have to never let up on the thing in the booming. And in this movie, it happens time and time again, where we cut to a shot and we get one of those. That’s awesome. So anyways, take a drink every time you notice that.
Joe: Perfect I have, anytime you have shots of them inside the cockpit, take a drink.
Greg: That’s what.
Joe: Yeah, you’re just drinking basically half this movie. The camera’s like right below their face and that’s the shot. Take a drink.
Greg: Okay. My next one is going to be a modified version of the one. You just think, because I’m imagining watching a movie with somebody and having I think if you’ve got like six people at the party, you assign each person a character like your phoenix, your maverick, your rooster, and when they cut to them in a jet, that person.
Greg: That’s okay. Perfect.
Joe: I’ll take it. I have any time. They say, don’t get up like that. Look in reference to Maverick. Take a drink. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah. Good one. Mine is virtually the same. Anytime I say don’t look. Just do or don’t think. Just do I.
Joe: Have another one? Which is the Tom cruise tears. So anytime his eyes get glassy, take a drink.
Greg: That’s just a lifelong Tom cruise drinking game. Honestly, any time we hear a phone vibrate, oh, I love that one and take a drink I have.
Joe: Anytime I say talk to me and then fill in the blank because I have talked to me. Goose and then over use talk to me. And then it’s just like everyone is just using that line. So anytime we hear that, take a drink.
Greg: I wonder if that’s like a common thing in like the Navy. I am so embarrassed that I am out. Okay, so you have 18.
Joe: Yeah. Well, I, I’ve kind of combined a lot of them.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: I have a couple more that I’ll mention here. We do have kind of conversations before the battle. The final scene where there’s Trident making things right. Any time there are, knowing nods of respect and appreciation that erase all prior like strife. Take a drink.
Greg: Amazing. Have you ever done that in life? I think we need to bring that back into real life.
Joe: I feel like we do as well, because, you know.
Greg: Yeah. And everyone around us will be like, what is that look in that? Not. Yeah, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Yeah.
Joe: And then I think my last one that we haven’t mentioned, any time the camera is moving towards a plane and a plane flies over the camera under the camera solid.
Greg: That’s a great one.
Joe: They do that so much and that’s amazing.
Greg: Everybody have a great time. Watch this movie.
Joe: You’re going to be drunk if you’re drinking alcohol. That’s my thing quite frankly.
Greg: But all right Joe it’s time for Joe’s trope Lightning Round aka signs. You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: Oh, I love that. Entering in to this scene with that.
Greg: Tony Scott.
Joe: Style. There are not as many tropes as you might think in this movie that I saw, but we have making grief about the main character. We have a flashback to Meg Ryan talking to Maverick about goose loving flying with him. We have a scene where the good guys are about to be killed, and then so we have Tom cruise is about to be shot by the helicopter, and then he’s saved by goose, sun, Rooster, and then in the F-14 Tomcat, they’re about to be shot.
Joe: They’re missiles launched. And then Glen Powell saves them. So we have that. Yeah we have. He’s the best at something. It’s kind of his last job. One last job.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then we have some of those make it right conversations right before battle. So those are our trope lightning round. Not as many tropes as you might think for a movie that had so many drinking games for me.
Greg: So interesting. Maybe there’s a consistency of, not as many tropes and Best Picture nominees to be, you know, we’ll.
Joe: See what the, the Venn diagram of that looks like.
Greg: All right, Joe, is it time for us to answer some important questions?
Joe: It is. Absolutely. Let’s get into it.
Greg: All right, let’s do it. Joe, did Top Gun Maverick hold up, then way back. And we are almost done celebrating the three year anniversary of this movie. I think.
Joe: It did. I think it held up back then.
Greg: Okay, well, it’s been a while. Does it hold up now? I think.
Joe: Slightly less, but it still holds up.
Greg: They couldn’t have anticipated the magic that would be happening around this movie back then. How hard do they sell the good guy?
Joe: Oh my God, you played a clip of it.
Greg: Yes. It’s so good.
Joe: It’s it’s not John Wick style. Sell the good guy. But it’s close.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: It’s close.
Greg: It’s pretty close. How hard do they sell the bad guy in this movie?
Joe: Who is the bad guy in this movie?
Greg: Fifth generation.
Joe: That’s true. That’s good. They do something so bad that they sell hard.
Greg: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe, can I ask you an important question now?
Joe: Please? Please do.
Greg: Why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: I don’t know, this one. Tired. For me, it’s to prove that Maverick is human. I don’t know what gags. Reiner. Why? Why do you think there’s romance in this movie?
Greg: All right, so this guy has probably had a bazillion relationships. And has it worked for him now he got to like invest with somebody you know like get down the road with somebody. And so this movie isn’t called Top Gun Lonely Maverick. This guy needs to take the risk and like hang out and go sailing for once with Jennifer Connelly you know.
Joe: All right.
Greg: And it seems like it’s a stretch. But he’s like I am really doing it this time. Like, I’m really in this, this time. And I don’t truly believe that he is right. But I like that he says it, and I like that the movie’s trying to tell us that he is. Joe, are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: I mean there’s no question. I feel like probably yes.
Greg: I don’t know, I feel like this one doesn’t hit as hard as it usually does for our movies. Like when we watch shooter. Obviously we’re bad people.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, yeah, if we’re on the shooter like spectrum.
Greg: Yes. I feel like we need to. Are we amazing people for loving this movie? That’s. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Does this movie deserve a sequel?
Joe: Controversial question I mean, does it deserve a sequel? Probably not.
Greg: Yeah, I don’t think it.
Joe: Should I watch a sequel?
Greg: 100% interesting. Okay. I don’t want a sequel to this movie. Yeah, but I didn’t want this sequel either. So, you know, we’re in new territory where the Top Gun series, does it deserve a prequel? I guess that would mean something in between Top Gun one and Top Gun two.
Joe: Yeah. No. Get out of here with that. No way. We don’t need that.
Greg: No. Yeah, I think test pilot Tom cruise. There’s probably a lot of good movies there. Yeah. So just the five, just the five prequels to.
Joe: Five, five prequels.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Mission impossible three, 4 or 5.
Greg: Totally seven. Totally. We don’t really know how much time passes from when he, like, destroys that plane. In the beginning, that was the Dark Star. Yeah. And goes to that diner and then arrives at O’Neill’s base again. That could have been years, but maybe there’s a whole Twin Peaks series of Pete Mitchell in that small town.
Joe: I would watch that. That would be awesome.
Greg: Okay. All right. We’re getting some big questions here. How can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: This might be controversial, but here’s my.
Greg: We.
Joe: Remake this movie. Maverick is kicked out of the Air Force three months after the original Top Gun.
Greg: Okay. Do you mean the Navy?
Joe: The Navy? Yes.
Greg: Wherever he is with the, branch of the military. Blindness. Maybe.
Joe: I can’t, I can never. A member of the Air Force is part of the Navy or not. I know he’s kicked out of the Navy, okay? Or wherever he is. He’s an alcoholic flight instructor now.
Greg: Oh, yes. Okay, I’m on board with this.
Joe: He gets hired to charter a plane for bad guys. He now must remember how to be a Top Gun pilot to get out of this.
Greg: Wait, is this Conair too?
Joe: Maybe. Also, Gerard Butler is the bad guy in this film.
Greg: Yes, Jerry, but that’s the.
Joe: That’s how I make this better. I’ll make it a little bit more realistic because he can’t he can’t hack it in the, in the military anymore.
Greg: Right.
Joe: But what does he do. He gets pulled in by terrorists. And Gerard Butler has to use his wiles to get out of it.
Greg: Last week, I asked you if you thought Vin Diesel would ever be in a movie with Tom cruise, and we both agreed. No, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Do you think Gerard Butler would ever be in a movie with Tom cruise?
Joe: I think he would, because Gerard Butler is the kind of actor that would be like, just put me in there any role and I’ll make it work and it’ll be the best role in the movie. So yeah.
Greg: I think that could happen, I really do.
Joe: How are you making this better? Or who should be in the remake?
Greg: Okay, well, I think the movie should be entirely remade. And this new movie top Gun two, is going to be made with Meg Ryan as Kelly McGillis. And if we need a dude in there, Kenny Loggins. I mean.
Joe: I don’t need any more information. I’m already in on this movie.
Greg: Well, what’s our way into this world? You know, you got to think about that, you know, how do we enter this world? The story is told entirely through the eyes of John Cryer’s character in Hot Shots. While I. And so the film is filmed exclusively through his real life vision. It’s not called Top Gun two. It is called Meet Me Halfway Across the Sky, okay, which is a Kenny Loggins song that he released the next year for the movie Over the Top with spice blown.
Greg: And that’s right. That’s because it also takes place in the same universe as Over the Top.
Joe: I don’t know that any other moment or top of this in the history of this show.
Greg: I had a boss tell me one time you’d be surprised who will let you take them out to lunch. You could call any CEO and say, can I take you out to lunch? And something about executives is they’re extremely cheap. And so I want to take that logic and call up Kenny Loggins and be like, Mr. Loggins, can I call you Kenny?
Greg: Can I take you out to lunch? I have one question for you. Are you honestly telling me that Meet Me Halfway Across the Sky was written for over the top, a movie about a truck driver that’s trying to win his son back through arm wrestling. Coincidentally, is the year after Top Gun came out. You’re telling me Meet Me Halfway Across the Sky was not a rejected song from Top Gun, and it’s a yes no question.
Greg: He walks in. Yeah, maybe he keeps talking, but the yes or no is all I need I walk away, I don’t know how this plays out.
Joe: Mr. Gay, you’ve got to be smoking a cigaret and you have to put that out as you walk away.
Greg: Put it out on my arm, staring at him. Okay. All right. Joe, next. Very important question. What album is Top Gun Maverick?
Joe: Oh, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. You need something that is appropriately like Americana to me. An album that on first pass holds up. You listen to it, don’t you go, oh, that’s pretty good. The more you listen to it, the less you like it. So this is Aerosmith’s Get a Grip.
Greg: Wow.
Joe: Mid 90s has like amazing crying. And then there’s another one that were just like the same song.
Greg: Crazy was crazy. Another song in that I’m yeah crazy.
Joe: Yeah. All the same song. I’m super popular but I heard those songs 8 million times, and the first time I’m like, oh, okay, that’s all right. Yeah. And by the third, fifth, a millionth time, you’re like, this song makes me want to poke my eyes out. And that’s how I feel about this movie. So it’s Aerosmith’s Get a Grip.
Joe: What about you? What’s what album is this for you?
Greg: Eventually you were like, you know what? I do want to miss a thing. In fact, I do want to miss everything.
Joe: Yes, I need to miss everything that you’re saying right now.
Greg: Okay, so I kind of went a different way with this movie because I think I have warmer feelings for this movie than you did. I was surprised how much I like this, because it was a sequel that I didn’t want. And so I was trying to think of a band that I was done with, the Top Gun of bands, but then they released an album that was a near-perfect balance of what I loved about them, and something new and like it reminded me of what I liked about them in the past, but tweaked the knob just enough.
Greg: I was like, okay, I did really like it, and I’m excited that there’s a new version of it. So that got me to the band Jimmy Eat World. Where do you stand with the band Jimmy World?
Joe: I know of them more than I know their stuff, that I’ll be one of those bands that I would like if you played their stuff out like, oh, okay, yeah, that song. But yeah, I don’t know their their catalog very well at all.
Greg: What’s your take on like Joy and friendship and fun.
Joe: Yeah I’m out okay.
Greg: That’s what you have. Let’s go. Yeah. These guys are the the most positive band you’ll ever see live. It’s just like, well yeah. That’s why I love them. You’re out I totally out. They. I didn’t listen to their first album, Static Prevails, but I did listen to their second, third and fourth album quite a bit. Clarity, Bleed American and Futures.
Greg: Then I was like, I think I got it. I think I’m done with my Jimmy Eat World chapter. And then I think it was like 2007. They released an album called Chase This Light, and it just reminded me of everything I loved about them, and I didn’t know I would get back into them, but it made pointed me back to those three albums.
Greg: And now I listen to those four albums by Jimmy World. Kind of often I’m kind of revisiting them and I’ll see them anytime they come through town, and it is just like the biggest, like Joy fest in history. It’s so great. So yeah, so I want to do I want a bit more positive. Yeah a surprise.
Joe: Oh wow. It.
Greg: But that tracks.
Greg: All right Joe it is finally come down to our rating of Top Gun Maverick. We have a scale. Great bad movies good bad movies. Okay. Bad movies, bad bad movies. Awful bad movies. Where do you rank Top Gun Maverick on our scale?
Joe: Based mainly on the audiences love of this movie and my hatred of the audience. This is an okay bad movie. Wow.
Greg: That’s incredible.
Joe: I’m on the fence between is probably a good, bad movie, but I can’t get there. Yeah, it’s just an okay bad movie for me.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: What about you?
Greg: This is awesome. This is such a good episode for us because usually we’re kind of right in line. We rarely disagree with each other. This is a great bad movie. I think this is one of the most solid pieces of entertainment we’ll see in a decade. All right. Wow. It is trope filled and ridiculous, but it has a bunch of characters that I’m interested in spending more time with.
Greg: And most of all, they milked every shot for what it was worth. I mean, they went full Tony Scott on this long lenses everywhere, the sun setting. They are painting sweat on everyone. It’s just a beautiful thing and it’s a movie I did not at all once and then was like, well, it was amazing, I loved it. All right, so I’m going, great bad movie on this one.
Joe: All right, I’ll allow it.
Greg: Finally, we disagree on something. It’s kind of nice. Yeah.
Greg: All right. Yeah, well, we made it.
Joe: Yeah, we did it. Oh, we had the conversation the Navy had about Top Gun Maverick.
Greg: I think at this point, you know, like we gave everybody two and a half years to think about it. But by the time you know 2025 rolls around you know great bad movies is going to jump in this fight. Yeah. And say what that needs to be said.
Joe: Yeah. So stop talking about this movie and listen to this podcast anyway and move on with your life quite frankly.
Greg: Absolutely. We should probably say as always, spoilers for Top Gun Maverick.
Joe: Spoilers for Top Gun Maverick. If you haven’t seen it, I’m sorry for you. And if you have, go back and watch it.
Greg: Press pause here and then you know, after the movie, come back and join us for the rest of this episode.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: I should definitely say that if you have enjoyed the podcast we’ve listened to, there are some ways you can help our show. One is you can tell a friend to is if you’re listening to it on a podcast app, give us, you know, rate and review it. Yeah. If you’re not listening to this on a podcast app, find us on wherever you listen to podcasts and, and follow our show.
Joe: Yeah, like and subscribe. And don’t just have one friend tell all your friends. Tell everybody I’m the maybe the only person with one friend, which is Greg. And you know, it’s probably an indictment on my life, but.
Greg: It’s worked out pretty well. Don’t worry.
Joe: About it.
Greg: Yeah. If you want to reach out to us, you can reach us, through our website. Great. Bad movies.com. You can email us at Great Bad Movies show at gmail. We’ve got some trope submissions from listeners. Matt, thank you so much for that last one on Instagram where Great Bad Movies show on Instagram. So lots of ways you can reach out and follow along.
Greg: So oh my gosh, Joe, listen, this has been great, but, I’ve got to go. My boss just turned around and is looking out the window, and that can only mean bad things from my flight career. So I need to kind of stop being distracted.
Joe: That that that makes sense. I’ve got I’ve got to go to. I accidentally left my phone on the bar, and now I’m being thrown over the railing for some reason.
Greg: Yeah.
Greg: Oh, that works for me, because I, I don’t know how to say this, but I am out of countermeasures. And in case you smoke in the air, I should probably go find some more.
Joe: Yeah, that that makes sense. Anyway, I’ve got to go lower the deck to 300ft, so, Yeah, be careful out there. So what I have to say.
Greg: But it’s very diehard to know that what you just said.
Greg: Actually, I’m not even joking. That actually works for me because I’m a little late to my next thing. In fact, I’m going to go call the real life walleye and see if he can fly me there 50ft off the ground. It’s 700 miles an hour.
Joe: That makes sense. I’ve got to go high five people on the flight deck, so I’ll be right back.
Greg: That’s amazing. I need to go do something privately. Because whenever I say talk to me, old dead friends around people, they get a little bit concerned about my life. So I feel like I should go say, talk to me, ghost in private. Yeah, that’s.
Joe: Probably for the best. Anyway, I’m going to go play football on this earth. I know I should change the shorts, but I’m just going to wear jeans. No. No pants. Not shorts. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be.
Greg: Fine. Yeah, I’ll be fine. That’s great. Because I’ve been playing. I’m sure the listener can’t tell, but I have been flying in my jet this whole time. No it’s not. It’s a fourth gen. I’m not here to brag. Don’t judge me. I’m still fourth gen. But my instructor has disappeared, and I don’t know where he is, so I feel like he’s.
Greg: Oh my gosh, he just flew right by me. I got to go.
Joe: But I’m going to never hold Maverick accountable for his actions. Because he’s really talented. And once again reinforcing that if you’re really talented, the rules don’t apply to you. So that’s.
Greg: Right. And now so does that mean you need to go? Yeah, I gotta go okay okay. Great. You know, it has been really eye opening for me. And this is I have been thinking and not doing. And I realize now that I really think about it, I need to go do something else. Yeah, probably.
Joe: It’s probably for the best. I’ve got to go ride my motorcycle without a helmet. And then I’ve got to go on a date and neither of us are going to ride a helmet. I do what I want, I’m a free man, so don’t worry about it.
Greg: That’s amazing. Okay, well, that works for me. I will see you soon.
Joe: Right? See you.
Greg: Soon.