Top Gun (1986)

Directed By Tony Scott

Released May 16th, 1986

Written by Jim Cash, Jack Epps, Jr., Ehud Yonay, &Warren Skaaren

Movie Synopsis Courtesy of IMDB

"As students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be the best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructors that are not taught in the classroom."

Let's see if I remember how to do this. It has been awhile since my last blog. 

Well for starters, as I have pointed out in many of my other blogs, a movie starts from the second the opening credits begin. Even though they are just opening credits, this is the time to get amerced in the world of the movie. So if a movie is not setting you up with the credits then they are not doing their job of getting you ready for the film and getting you, the viewer, into the right mindset for the film. With that said, Tony Scott made a great choice for the opening credit scene. The music used was simple, but it was simple in respect that it was building tension and anticipation which you need for a movie about airplane fighters. The music paired with the images of planes getting ready for take off/returning to base helped to get the viewer ready for a high energy and tension filled opening scene.

With that being said, there are two big things I noticed about the first scene in the movie. First, rewatch the scene again.

So this scene draws my attention for two big video production reasons. Audio and lighting. 

The lighting was the first thing I noticed, mainly in the parts where they are in the air traffic control room (not sure if that is what it is called, but it is what I am going to call it). Lighting that scene must have been extremely difficult. First of all, in most movies an area such as this one is typically dark (I am sure that is how it is in real life, but I have no experience so can't say for sure). The problem with video is that you can't have a scene too dark because then you won't be able to see anything on the camera. There needs to be a certain amount of light present for the images to show up clearly. But on the other hand, you can't over light the area because then (I am guessing) it is not true to how those rooms are in real life, and you lose a sense of the tension that the lighting creates. The use of shadows, partially lit faces, and different colored lights brought an extra sense of tension to the room since most of it was in the dark. This also must have been difficult to shoot/light because you have to have the correct people in a spot light or lighted area at the right time. They are pacing the floor moving around, but they have to hit their mark exactly if they want to be seen at all when they give their line. I feel like I could keep going on about this, but I will stop now to save the none video people. Shout out to my mentor/professor in college who knows lighting was always the vain of my existence. Hey Dave.

The second part of this scene that caught my attention was the creativity of the audio. It would have been really easy for them to just record the audio and then muffled it/made it sound farther away in post production. But to me, it sounds so authentic like what it would sound like coming out from the masks/head sets that pilots wear. The authenticity of it is noticeable and creates an even more realistic world that we are amerced in.

One of the things I love about 80s movies is I feel like a lot of them have kept their relevancy and their fanbase based on the soundtrack choices. Think about it, The Breakfast Club has "Don't You Forget About Me" the Indiana Jones franchise has their theme song, Footloose has it's song in the title, Dirty Dancing "(Iv'e Had) The Time of My Life." All of these movies have stayed in the minds of people well out of the 80s because when they hear these songs they automatically associate them with the films. Same with Top Gun. Except this movie has two hits. The main one obviously being "Danger Zone" and the second being "Take My Breath Away." Music lasts decades past when it comes out and because of that, classic movies (who were smart when they were created) picked the right songs in their movie soundtracks that helped keep these movies alive well past their time. 

I SWEAR EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE IS SWEATING ALL THE TIME! Has anyone else noticed that? Okay, when you are flying a plane I get it, when you are playing volleyball I get it, but it is even when they are standing talking! What's the deal? I think if you made a drinking game out of this, and drink every time you see a sweaty person you would be drunk within the first 25minutes into the movie.

Now I am going to pick on the director's stylistic choices here for a minute (if you don't want to read another video production rant then head to the next paragraph). I felt like the use of the close-ups in this movie was overused and lost the effect that a close-up shot should normally have. He was using this shot more often than a medium shot, which is odd. Normally you show a close-up to show heavy emotion, tension, a detail in a facial expression/object/scene, or to make things more dramatic. But using it as often as he did, especially in casual scenes that were unnecessary, it became too common so that when it was used in the dramatic sense it wasn't as effective because we are used to seeing the shot and our brains are now conditioned to see it as our "new medium" shot or standard shot. 

I don't really have much to say about this scene, but it is just my favorite moment in the movie and I wanted to share it because well, it is my blog and I can do what I want.

 

Not to be that girl, but we do have an important scene and situation to talk about. Tom Cruise vs. Val Kilmer. Personally I am a Val Kilmer girl, probably because I am a sucker for dirty blondes, what can I say? But I also think that in this movie Val Kilmer is cocky, but he is also realistic and more grounded in what is okay/not okay than Tom Cruise. The mixture of never being a huge Tom Cruise fan and his arrogance/cockiness is off putting to me and makes me wish that Iceman was in more scenes and played a bigger role in the film as a whole. 

Pretty much every movie that casts attractive males or females in the main roles, I think have a requirement to show off their actors. Which is why scenes like this are created. It adds nothing to the movies, in fact it wastes good screen time that could have been used to advance the plot line or boost a character's depth. But hey, am I going to complain that it is in there? Nope! Because yes I am a woman, and yes I do like watching attractive shirtless men play beach volleyball, and yes I know this scene was probably heavily advertised in the trailers to attract more females to come see the movie when it was first released. But it is their, so why don't we watch it again! 

Thank you Hollywood for further showing us how men are pieces of meat and woman are just a pretty face. I am sure this is a rant I will go into later, but this blog is already really long. 

Okay, I will try and wrap this up quickly, but here are my last few thoughts. This movie has cheesy pick up lines that would rarely work in real life. Singing in a bar and embarrassing the poor girl? Please. 

Who talks about their dead parents on a first date? Especially a first date with someone who is technically your superior at work. 

Maverick and Charlie's kissing is really awkward throughout the whole movie and makes me uncomfortable every time. Worst than seeing my parents kiss. 

And yeah, those are the main things. I would love to go into depth about Goose and Cougar, but honestly I have probably lost most of my readers by now, so I should stop before I go overboard. 

Maverick: "I feel the need...:

Maverick, Goose: "...the need for speed!"