Top Gun Turns 40: Why Maverick’s Celebration Scenes Are Total Bullshit | Mac Engel

It was about thirty years ago my oldest brother told my mom, hey. Come on up to the deck with me, and we'll lie to each other about how great it is to get older. I now know what he means. Mac Engel, Fort Worth star telegram, Ingle Angle podcast here on, let's see if I get this right, Stolen Water Media, Sunset Lounge, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, Patreon, and all other kinds of platforms. Instagram. I don't have TikTok yet. Maybe I need Periscope. Well, it's somebody's birthday this month. Not mine. The movie Top Gun turns 40 this month. Top Gun is 40 years old. Top Gun came out in movie theaters in 1986, and it completely changed the motion picture industry and specifically what was possible with cameras in f 16 fighter jets. Now, why am I dedicating an entire episode to top gun and top gun maverick? Because I've got a real problem with Maverick and Top Gun, and they're not the problems that you think of. Or the same problems that everybody else has with this iconic movie franchise that apparently is in the works for a Top Gun three. I have no idea what they're going to do with Tom Cruise. He's like 63 years old. And even though he takes some he he takes great care of himself. But the idea of a fighter jet pilot being like 65 years old, okay, that might be a little much. And I'm a guy who sat there and watched and enjoyed the last Indiana Jones movie when Harrison Ford was like 110 years old and still running around with a bullwhip and a pistol. We will stomach a lot for nostalgia, but I'm not sure producers are going to sit there and say, Tom, you can go back in the Navy fighter jet thing and do your thing. I don't think so. It's probably gonna be Glenn Powell, but I digress. I have had problems with Top Gun since it came out in 1986, and here is why. But they're not really the problems. They were more forced than they were real. So let's go back to 1986, shall we? '86. I am in middle school, and I am working for the student newspaper. And at the time, I was an aspiring movie critic. Remember movie critics before Rotten Tomatoes and all that? Movie critics were a huge thing for a long, long time. I'm talking about Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. Certainly Janet Massillon of the New York Times was renownedly famous and feared for her acid pen that she would lethally use to describe films. That's what I wanted to be. I loved movies. I loved sophisticated movies. I loved adult movies. I loved movies that somebody my age should not be watching. No seventh grader or eighth grader should have been enjoying the movies that I liked, but I did. Because I wanted to be smarter than everybody else or because what probably really happened back then was I was living in a much older house. So the movies that I was exposed to was, were rather a little more advanced than say for somebody my age. And when Top Gun came out, I would have been 14 years old, I think 13 or 14 years old. And that's a movie that at 13 or 14 years So like, this is amazing. Oh my God. Look at all these fighter jets and flying all over the place. And there's Tom Cruise and there's Val Kilmer and there's Kelly McGillis and Rick Rosovich and all these other things. That's a movie I should like. And then we're going to win the cold war with just a couple young pilots by themselves. That's a movie I should have liked, but I didn't at the time. So for my student newspaper, I went to Eastwood Middle School. We had a section for me called Max Movies. I even spelled it correctly, where I would write a movie review of the latest films coming out. And as a window, I should have seen what was coming because I thought, oh, I've got an idea. Pop gun is coming out on VHS. That was a big deal back then. When movies, they would be in the theater for a long time and then they would have to go through this sort of period of darkness and then they would be released on home video cassette. You get in your car, you would drive to a store dedicated to movie rentals. And when that movie came out, that was gonna be a big buy. They used to charge like $75 to buy a film on a VHS tape. Thinking, I'm thinking, like, what, what can I, how can I write about this? Because I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to kill Top Gun. So I did. I write this scathing movie review of Top Gun because that's what critics do. They criticize it. They shit all over it. And this sucks. And this is bad. And this is awful. And anything that's popular is bad to a critic. Right? Just garbage. It's junk food. Why would we like this? This is awful. Blah. So I'm right in that wheelhouse of reading all these different critics and watching critic shows and thinking, yeah, that's what I'm gonna be. So I'm gonna emulate these people and I'm just gonna rip the living crap out of Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Rick Rosovich. Tim Robbins was in that. I'm just gonna slaughter Top Gun. So I do. And including there's a scene there's a line in the review I remember I wrote. The movie cruises down the drain. Thank you. I was quite proud of myself at that. And, well, needless to say, I got the reaction I was looking for. We printed up the student newspaper and people read it and they are not happy with me. People would come up to me. And I remember at the time when I was in middle school, I was not exactly the most popular. I was kind of a weird kid. Imagine that. And, but people were coming up to me saying your reviews stunk. I don't totally agree with it. I don't agree with it. The movie's great. You're wrong. And I'm thinking to myself in the back of my head, okay, I kind of got the reaction that I wanted, but I was genuine in my thoughts and feelings about the movie. I didn't think it was any good back then. But that was dumb. So then fast forward fifteen, twenty years later, I'm watching it one night on AMC or whatever it is, Paramount Network. I thought this is pretty good. This is pretty fun. This was way ahead of its time. Certainly I was able to appreciate as a kid then the amazing work that the filmmakers did by putting a camera inside a fighter jet and shooting those aerial sequences. That was amazing. We had never, never seen anything like that. To go to a big screen and to be put in the cockpit of a fighter jet for some sequences was truly remarkable. And then later as I got older, segue into something that I'm very reluctant to share is that I got a chance to fly with the Blue Angels. I have a contract with myself that I have to bring this experience up at least once a month to somebody. Any breathing entity, dog, goldfish, human being, senior citizen who is deaf or blind, anybody, I have to sit there and tell them I flew with the Blue Angels. Did the whole thing. Thank you very much. I got the whole Blue Angels experience. I suffered whiplash on the inverted climb. And there's three forty. 45 views. I went and saw a masseuse or not a masseuse, but a chiropractor. And the chiropractor said, yeah. That's what you experienced right there because you watched the video that you can see now. When you watched the video, he said, that's basically a car crash or two. That was that was cool. Let's see. I blacked out. I thought I died. Legitimately, I thought I'd died. I thought I'd gone to heaven, and I was worried about what my daughter was what was gonna happen to my daughter. Yep. I I can't make that up. And I dry heaved for two minutes. But but but before then, I also I did the full inversion Top Gun thing. My pilot, who I think by I think his I think his number was seven. He did the four g negative g inverted dive, and I didn't have my Polaroid camera like they did in Top Gun, and I couldn't give the MiG Pilot my finger. Now I was basically holding on for dear life at that point. I wasn't thinking about doing a Top Gun move. But as you can see here, I did it. I did it. I was a Top Gun passenger. And I gotta tell you, as somebody who did fly with the Blue Angels, I don't know if I mentioned that or not, I didn't have a problem with the accuracy of the aerial sequences. And this is my real problem with Top Gun. Now that I'm older, I appreciate that was a fun badass movie. It was awesome. Yeah. Know Tom Cruise is only five seven and that's ridiculous. And there's some other facets to it that if you go online, you can find actual Navy pilots who will just cut these movies up. And it's actually really, really funny. I'm not here to do that. There cause there are particular parts to this movie that really confound me. It's not the volleyball scene. I I get it. Clearly people who are associated with that movie want to see young, good looking guys in like, just coming out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel. I wasn't one of them. Clearly, there were a whole bunch of people associated with that movie who wanted to put young, good looking guys in shorts playing a very competitive beach volleyball match, by the way. We never did get the score. I'm a little befuddled by the fact. And we don't even know what kind of scoring they were doing. Were they doing rally scoring? And we don't even know. I have a problem with those kinds of things. Like, where who's keeping score? Why isn't there a scoreboard? Those are the problems that I have really with top gun. And this, these are the real problems that I have with top gun and top gun maverick. When the pilots are flying around, they're wearing oxygen masks. Oxygen masks typically deliver oxygen to you to help you breathe at altitude. When I flew with the Blue Angels, I don't know I mentioned that. When I flew with the Blue Angels, I didn't need oxygen. Probably would have helped preventing me from blacking out. Pulling a G is no joke, by the way, because I flew with the Blue Angels. Don't know if I mentioned that. So when these pilots are flying around and they do these maneuver, what's what's the first thing they do? Low on gas. We gotta get out of here. They they pull off the mask. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Why are you pulling the mask up? That's ridiculous. Put the mask back on. You need oxygen. But they do it because it's some cool visual. I'm talking about the person who's flying in Top Gun in a fictional movie saying, why were you wearing it in the first place? Okay. So I have that issue, but there's a much bigger one with Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick I'm gonna get into here after the break. Hello. It's Mike Reiner of your dark companion here. Let me ask you. Are you looking for something to fill the long dead air hours of your day? Well, join the Sunset Lounge DFW and Your Dark Companion on patreon.com, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Replace those sad, slow hours with sports, pop culture, woven into interesting conversations. So step inside the green door, have a seat at the bar, and get in the groove with those shows and so very much more. My hair never wants to cooperate. It's probably the burden of having hair still at my age. I'm not gonna rub that in anybody's faces. So here's my problem with Top Gun. My big problems with Top Gun in terms of accuracy and all, it's not realistic. And I I hate those people. God, I hate those people who sit there and watch fucking Star Wars. I'm like, oh, that would never happen. Yeah. Okay. You can believe the other parts where you've got space cowboys and robots and everybody else who can talk freely and understand a Wookiee. Yeah. That part you can deal with. But the other part that totally well, that's totally that's too much for this suspension of disbelief. Really? You can believe this robot that has two joints on it and little things that aren't even will have ball bearings and can move anywhere seamlessly. That part you buy. So this is a lot. Yeah. Give me a break. I'm not that guy, but this is where I am. This guy. And I have an issue with top gun, both top gun, the original and top gun maverick. Okay. So if you remember at the end of top gun, forty years ago, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer have graduated from Top Gun. They're celebrating. And then during the celebration, commanding officer says we're going to war. Now at that time, we could say who we are going to war with. The Soviet Union and communism was still very much the wrong side of the tracks and the bad guys. That's who we were going to war with. And instead of sending our best, established veteran crew to go fight the best, they go send college graduates. In what planet and what do we sit there and send the ones who just finished school two days ago? Can you name me an investment firm that sits there and says, we gotta close a big deal, gentlemen. We here at Wells Fargo or Charles Schwab, we gotta get the best. Who's the best here in the room? I got it. How about Bill and Tom? They just finished school yesterday from the Wharton School of Business. Done. It's ridiculous. You would never do that. If you're gonna make a movie, we gotta get established big name stars. You're gonna make the devil wears Prada too. Who you gonna get? Meryl Streep or Meryl Johnson, who's in her second year at Juilliard? Gotta sell tickets. You're going with Meryl Streep. You're going to do something like that. You're going to somebody who's got name and credentials and some skins. You're not going to, hey, Val Kilmer. Yeah. Listen, you're exceptionally good looking, man. And you guys, you kicked ass in that volleyball match on the sand without anybody keeping official score. Yeah. We've got a bit of an issue in The Gulf or pardon me in the in The Pacific. Yeah. There's a couple of Mig planes flying around that are maybe a threat to the American way of life. Do me a favor. We're gonna put you on this plane, put you on a boat, and then you're gonna go up there and and knock these guys out of the sky. Don't you think Val Kilmer iceman would say gee whiz captain. Yeah, I just finished school forty eight hours ago. Do we think I'm the best one for this job? And yet we're stupid enough to believe that they're gonna ask those guys, including Tom Cruise, who by the way, his partner just died like two months ago. The Navy just got done exonerating him, which I think is bullshit, but that's for a different argument. They're gonna send him up for that. So that's one of my problems. Now here's the other one. And this one, like, one bleeds this one bleeds into Top Gun. So as you can see here, I was wrong. Tom Cruise, Maverick, Iceman have figured out how to work together as a team, and they have defeated the Soviet Union by themselves. No different than rocky, stunning Ivan Drago on Christmas in The Soviet Union and turning the entire crowd from pro communism to pro America, pro capitalism during a 15 round fight. And as you can see here on this clip, look at the excitement between Iceman and Maverick as they put aside their differences and they realized they have a lot more in common, and they are now partying. Look at the people behind them. Look at the support crew. Look at the fandom going on here as they celebrate. And here's my problem. Look how long it lasts. Look at the enthusiasm. That's ridiculous. This one goes on for almost sixty or seventy seconds of everybody just surrounding everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Give me a fucking break. That's ridiculous. I can buy everything else about the excitement of defeating the Soviet Union and supporting these college grads going out there against all odds and figuring it out and getting through your shit to knock them off. That I get, but it's not gonna last at that intensity celebrating for seventy seconds. It's preposterous, and it really bothers me. Like, fuck, cut it off. Give it twenty seconds. Give it thirty seconds. But at minute and ten, I'm not buying it. It's bullshit. I'm not buying it. And neither should you. It's offensive to the movie, Gutwork. Now I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but I do say, give me a break. How do they keep on everybody around them? Like the hourly wage in place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would think eventually like, man, we got stuff to do. We better go secure the plane. That thing's getting ready to roll on the Pacific. We might wanna go secure it. Like, what are we doing for dinner? Like it's nothing. It's just like it kept up. And then at the very end of that partying scene, this guy walks away by himself. Like, where's he going? Like, is there like an invisible rope? Like nobody can follow him. Maybe he's gotta go to the bathroom. So that's the first part that bothers me. And I don't think I'm out. I don't think I'm out of bounds to express that concern. So now here's another one. We go into Maverick, which let me give you Max Movies' reviews. Badass, kickass, loved it. It was so much better than it needed to be. All credit Tom Cruise. All credit the cast, the producers, everybody. That movie was great. That is summer popcorn junk, and it was a really good movie. That's a movie that makes you say this was worth the time, effort, and energy to go to the theaters. I loved it. I'd see it again. I have seen it again. It never gets tiresome. The movie blazes on even though it's over two hours and it is quick and you don't even know you're there. That movie rocks. And it totally deserved to be nominated for best picture because those are the movies that make people want to go to the movies and watch a movie. So, put that out of the way. However, I'm sitting here watching this and I'm enjoying it. You're the very, it's the last scene in the whole movie. Now we see Anthony Edwards' son who has figured out his stuff with Tom Cruise and Maverick. And now he's in the hangar working on planes while Tom Cruise is flying up with Jennifer Connelly. And then Rooster looks at the wall and he sees a photo of himself celebrating with Maverick after they defeated the unannounced opposition because we didn't want to offend anybody. This is in 1986. And then my first reaction is, who's the photographer? Like, do you have somebody in charge of social media influencing on the deck when the plane lands that there's a photographer running around to capture moments to put on TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, anything. It's total bullshit. And if you look at so I have a real problem with that. I'm like, where's the who's who's holding that camera? Look at the picture. The picture's phenomenal. Perfect clarity captures Tom Cruise, Maverick in an embrace. He's very happy that he's done it again. And then there's rooster saying, oh, it's all right. You killed my dad. This is awesome. Like, I want to know who the photographer was and specifically what kind of camera we're using. That's a phenomenal shot. It was not an iPhone. Although iPhones have gotten pretty good a bit these days. So I've got a bit of an issue with that. Now before that, here's my other issue with this film. Once again, for the second time, Tom Cruise and his partner have heroically defeated the enemy, and now they need to land on an aircraft carrier someplace in the world. And this this plane's in bad shape. Right? Landing gear's fucked up. Doesn't have a lot of space. Somehow, Maverick manages to land safely. And even John Hamm, who didn't like Maverick, has to concede, dude got the job done. I can buy all that. Even if he did the flyby, I can buy all that. It's cool. However, here's my issue. And by the way, the aerial sequences in this movie are unbelievable. You could have made the outtakes a full ninety minute film in and of itself. So here are my issue. And as I'm sitting here looking at this clip on my phone and I'm playing it for you on here on hopefully, you're watching this. Here's my issue. Now the plane has gotta land. It lands. Yeah. It's amazing. Tom Cruise gets out. Maverick has done it again. Rooster has done it again. He's honored his dead dad that Maverick killed. And look at the celebration. Look at the party. Like, this is going on. This is like Mardi Gras plus San Fermin, which runs between, for the running of the bulls. Everybody's excited. Look at the excitement. Everybody else clapping their hands at the same level of intensity for more than a minute. I can't buy it. It's total bullshit. You don't do that, but from go watch touchdowns. Go watch teams that win Super Bowls. They're excited for about ten to fifteen seconds, and then it just kinda settles down a little bit. Not this one. Now this just keeps going and going and going even as these two have conversations and sit there and pay their respects to the great Maverick. Look at the people in the background just going bananas. Then there's John Ham, like, good job, Maverick. I think you suck, but okay. It's alright. And everybody look at everybody waving their pump in their arms. Like, who are the poor extras in the background sitting there saying, okay. Get excited for about a minute and twenty seconds constantly. Nobody's doing that for anything. And yet somehow, they want us to believe that this goes on for almost two full minutes, that the people celebrating this big win maintain that level of excitement and expression and jubilation for two minutes. I don't buy it. Thank you for saying It's bullshit. I can buy everything else about Maverick. I can buy everything else about Top Gun. You know that scene? Badass scene, by the way, where they get ready to do the final aerial assault and do the the run, and they gotta do all this other stuff. And you got these four planes flying in insanely tight formation. They're like three feet apart. And then for some reason, the navy decides, okay. We're gonna send in the missiles now ahead of time to knock out their radars. And the missiles are like eight feet from them. Seems a little tight. I don't care. I can buy it. Or some of these other things that happened in the course of these first two films that I'm like, okay. That's a little ridiculous, but I can buy it, and I enjoy it. Now more than ever, as an adult, I can sit there and say that the teenage version, the Max movie movie critic that ripped apart Top Gun in 1986 is dead wrong here in 2026 because that's why people wanna go to the movies. And I loved it, I hope they make another one, I get really excited about it. My only request is the next time the next time that we win the war, however that's going to look like, and they get on the tarmac, whether it's a tarmac or an aircraft carrier, Do not make me believe that the celebration's gonna go on for two straight minutes. Or that somehow you've got a cameraman right there to capture the moments. I don't buy it. See you next time. This is a Stolen Water Media production.