Top Gun 40th Anniversary | Absolute Cinema

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:09][music] >> Welcome in to Absolute Cinema everybody.

[00:00:12]My name's Absolute Cinema.

[00:00:14]Um my name's Chris Winn, a photojournalist here and joining with me Stephanie Cook. How you doing Stephanie?

[00:00:18]>> I'm doing great. This is my wheelhouse.

[00:00:21]Let's go.

[00:00:22]>> Yes, today we're talking about Top Gun.

[00:00:25]It is the 40th anniversary or will be the 40th anniversary of the release of the original Top Gun. May 12th, 1986 was the release date and they're doing a re-release of both Top Gun and in some theaters Top Gun Maverick uh for the 40th anniversary. I don't really feel the need to go into a plot description because you you know what Top Gun is. It is Top Everybody knows Top Gun.

[00:00:47]Uh yeah, let's play the trailer for the re-release.

[00:00:51]His exploits are legendary.

[00:00:58]You will not find a finer fighter pilot anywhere in the world.

[00:01:06]I feel the need the need for speed.

[00:01:13]Maverick, you've been called back to Top Gun.

[00:01:21]Good morning aviators. This is your captain speaking.

[00:01:37]What you do up there feels larger than life.

[00:01:41]Talk to me, Goose.

[00:01:42]>> Talk to me, Goose.

[00:01:54]This is where you belong.

[00:02:05]>> I'm a fighter pilot.

[00:02:07]It's not what I am.

[00:02:10]It's who I am.

[00:02:13]>> [music] >> How long have you been doing this?

[00:02:22]>> Actually, I've only done this uh twice.

[00:02:31]Man, seeing that trailer, I I rewatched the movie both of them last night and even just seeing that's got me got me pumped. So.

[00:02:38]>> I'm so excited about it. I really am.

[00:02:40]Yeah, so it's also I do want to mention the the anniversary's on the 12th, but the the one week starts yeah, on the 13th, so the day after. So it's on a Wednesday. And it's playing around, you know, everywhere. Mhm. Yep. Um so you know, I'm going to take back to the to the spring of 1986.

[00:02:57]>> Oh, okay. Well, you're not going there, but um I am. But I mean, I was in high school and it was the talk of everybody.

[00:03:05]Tom Cruise was it. Mhm. He was the it guy. He was on my wall. He I had a pinup Tom Cruise on my wall.

[00:03:13]>> Um I had I had one of him playing hockey. I don't know what that was about. Okay. Um but I remember I remember um you know, going and getting the pinup books and it was a big thing then. Um but I loved it. I It was something about and of course, you know, I grew up in a navy town um and to see these pilots doing what we you know, it was like going inside what we see, like them just flying overhead. Um but the story and the love story, Kelly McGillis, oh my god. And Goose, stop it.

[00:03:44]>> Oh, Goose. Um and Anthony Edwards was so good in that role and just oh, oh my god, it's so good. Um but I have to say too, like I fell in love with Val Kilmer. Like, what?

[00:03:57]>> Val Kilmer's great. So, um, just the movie itself, like the the the shots that you saw, we just had not seen something like that. Like, just to go inside the cockpit in a way that was so realistic. Like, it just felt like you really were there. Um, and then those flat the flybys and the buzz the tower and all that stuff. Um, those it just was so real. It just felt so real.

[00:04:20]Different than any kind of war kind of movie I had seen before with aircraft.

[00:04:26]Um, and of course it was a pop culture phenomenon. We still quote that film every day.

[00:04:33]>> for speed even before I knew it was from Top Gun. I was like, I knew that that quote and when I saw it for the first time in college, I was like, oh, that's where that's from. There you go. And forever we would say, "Talk to me, Goose." Like, that was our That [laughter] was a thing.

[00:04:45]Um, so yeah, and then I mean, I didn't even remember knowing you've lost that loving feeling, but it was such a thing.

[00:04:52]Like, everybody would sing that. Like, I guess I mean, um, there was a lot of great mu- Take My Breath Away was in that and I mean, it was just so >> I'm rewatching it, I was like, they're really teasing out Take My Breath Away like multiple times throughout. Um, cuz I heard that I was like, oh, the scene's about to happen and like, nope, they tease you for later. And then they whenever Kelly McGillis shows back up and they that music plays, I'm like, when are they going to get the full thing? Um, and then eventually, of course, they do, but >> I mean, if I like, of course, when I first saw it I and I saw it in theaters, um, back then and if I I wasn't a movie reviewer then, I just loved it, you know? I just loved it. Um, but still, I did rewatch it before Maverick came out and I would still give it an A. Like, I really would. Like, if I was on a grading scale, I still I mean, of course, it's not today's standard of movie making.

[00:05:42]Well, we'll talk a little bit more about that in the next block. Yeah, in in the technical advancements that have happened since then.

[00:05:49]>> Yep. Yeah, the nostalgia is definitely like a big part of it. And I think for me as well, like actually doing a little bit of research, you know, recently, you know, in preparation for this about like the fact that they shot on the USS Enterprise, which I didn't know that.

[00:06:02]And you know, living here, um USS Enterprise is parked just right over in in Newport News.

[00:06:09]Um so, learning about some of the specifics and especially like you you mentioned, [snorts] you know, the jets taking off and everything doing work.

[00:06:15]I've done, you know, I've shot stories on like the Gerald R. Ford and how like real that feels and you know, the flybys and everything and how that hits you. I felt that in real life just doing, you know, camera work. And it I would imagine like particularly for people who are interested in in those topics and have had first-hand experience, like that really nails really hard. So.

[00:06:35]>> Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. Um you know, again, like just being able to tie some of your history into the history of it is so cool.

[00:06:45]Um and then and like I was saying, the nostalgia part is just I mean, you just hold on to that and it really resonates with you when you can when you can identify with something in the film, which is a great one. Um okay. Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to go in deep to um Maverick because you can't talk about one without the other, of course. And they're both going to be back in theaters soon. We will be right back with more Absolute Cinema.

[00:07:14]We are back on Absolute Cinema. We are talking today about Top Gun. Top Gun.

[00:07:19]And the anniversary, the 40th anniversary. Again, I'm Stephanie Cook and over there is my pal, uh Chris Wynn.

[00:07:25]>> Hello. Um we are talking about Top Gun because it is 40th anniversary. It is coming back to theaters. Um and it we are very excited about it. One thing I will bring up, too. I remember back in the day, um that I mean, yes, this the special effects, all the stuff, it was a big deal um for people, but there were some critics that did voice the opinion that it felt like a commercial for the Navy. I think well, cuz wasn't there like Navy recruiters that would literally station outside the theater?

[00:07:54]>> Yep. I get that, and it's and it's weird cuz you can you can simultaneously have two thoughts where it's like, yeah, that probably cuz there's a there's a weird relationship in terms of filmmaking of, okay, well, you're using Navy you know, your military equipment and everything and the relationship that studios have to lend certain equipment and whatever. You can simultaneously think that, but also be like, but it's also a great movie.

[00:08:18]And I think it's also so much better than some of the the the you know, in the in the wake of that some of the kind of knockoffs of that. Yeah. Uh one of them is actually that I watched recently was a Navy Seals Yes. uh with Charlie Sheen >> Yes. uh partially shot in this very building right here in Norfolk, Virginia.

[00:08:36]>> Um so, I think it's the best out of that that sort of bunch. But uh we did want to bring up Top Gun Maverick as Yes, let's talk about it.

[00:08:44]>> so controver I this is probably controversial to you. I actually like Top Gun Maverick a bit bit more than than the original Top Gun. Yeah, I can see that. Okay, I think part of it is well, I'm a Back to the Future II fan.

[00:08:56]Understandable. So, I think I think part of it is the dog fights that it masters that sort of storytelling in that I was watching the first one and you know, I think it's decently choreographed in the editing. I think there's a certain thing that I don't love in that like some of the shots are kind of they feel like they're cobbled together a little bit in that something's going this way and then that way and that way. And the visual language of it is a little bit muddled in a way that by the time you get to Maverick is just like, okay. And yes, they use CGI for everything, so that helps and you know, that technology was not available to them back in the '80s. But yeah, they can have wider shots of all the all the planes and everything and they can make the the orchestration of all the dog fights a little bit more seamless for me. But, um so part of that and I think I think I like the character stuff a little bit more. I love the relationship between Maverick and Rooster, the son of Goose.

[00:09:49]I I like that stuff a little bit more.

[00:09:51]And again, I don't have nostalgia for the first one, so maybe that's that's why. And also, I think it the technical filmmaking I think masters the seeds that were planted in the first one. So, maybe for somebody a little bit younger, that's why it resonates with me a little bit more. Yes. And and just it's just a better it's it's more updated. Like it is it's a it's a it better utilizes all of the technology that filmmaking can make. And then and it can expose a story in ways that we never really thought of in the '80s.

[00:10:21]>> I would say the love story in one is probably stronger and more integral than the one that you can you can get rid of General Jennifer Connelly in the in the second one. I mean, she's fine.

[00:10:31]It tried to be the same thing.

[00:10:32]>> Yeah, they tried to do that. And there was also something a little bit weird about like, okay, you're not bringing back Kelly McGillis, which she got a little bit short shrift in that, but I didn't realize this like they they had the whole relationship of like, oh, it's the the teacher.

[00:10:47]Is that Is it also intentional that at the beginning the he says like, "Oh, easy Cougar" at the beginning and then he starts dating Kelly McGillis who's supposed to be like the old teacher.

[00:10:57]But, they're only like 5 years older in real she's only like 5 years older in real life. She's only supposed to be like 28, 29, which also that's a weird existential thing for me being like, "Oh, no, I'm younger than Tom Cruise was during the the shooting of this."

[00:11:08]>> At the risk of sounding totally dumb about this, but Cougar was not a thing that we said back then.

[00:11:15]I wonder if it came from that. I don't know. Well, it's not the same it's a separate part of the movie, so that might just be coincidental looking back. So, maybe I'm not sure about that.

[00:11:26]>> interesting. I did not think about that.

[00:11:27]I don't know. Um okay. Well, I mean, and I loved I loved seeing the storyline of Val Kilmer Val Kilmer's storyline Iceman because how just in real life how how his life was definitely coming to an end and they sought to to finalize that storyline before they couldn't.

[00:11:49]>> It was very well handled in a moment that could be just super like okay like over the top like trying to bring you to tears but I think it's just the perfect amount of subtlety it's they slotted in perfectly for the story and it I think it works really really well. I agree.

[00:12:07]I really do. I think that I think I think having him in there of course okay so let's bring it up.

[00:12:14]He couldn't be in three and we now know there will be a three. So at CinemaCon just a few weeks ago they announced that there is a three in production or in what is it called?

[00:12:27]Pre-production.

[00:12:28]So they're you know they're working it and I can't wait to see what they actually come up Joseph Kosinski will not be returning as director for Top Gun 3 but I don't know we'll see we'll see where that goes hopefully it's hopefully it lives up to Maverick and I love Maverick and I I like the first one decently not as much as as Maverick but hoping for better stuff in the future.

[00:12:48]Well I didn't have a lot of hope for two to live up to one for me but it did. It I mean I just love them separately differently.

[00:12:59]So they both mean something to me and I love that and I will go back and see them in the theaters. It's one of those movies if you have the chance to see it in a theater you should see it in a theater.

[00:13:09]>> Absolutely. It's you can hear the rumble of the jets going by it's great. That's right. All right let's wrap it up.

[00:13:14]That's another episode of Absolute Cinema.

[00:13:17]>> [laughter] >> We will see you next time.

[00:13:33]>> [music] >> Oh.