It has been two months since I watched Top Gun: Maverick and four years since I watched the first part for the first time. After watching both those movies my obsession with those two movies has regrown like a seed germinating into a plant. An 11-year-old Chinmay had watched Top Gun for the first time and 4 years later I watched Top Gun: Maverick which I must say is the best movie of the year and the best sequel ever made. Both movies have a commonality which has become a teenage boy’s dream. I don’t know about others but in this case the teen boy is me.
My excitement peaked when I saw the protagonist Maverick Mitchell (played by Tom Cruise) being one of the characters that I would imagine to be. There are multiple reasons why Top Gun is a teenage boy’s dream:
Fast Motorbikes:
Tom Cruise riding swiftly fast and extremely cool-looking black motorbikes in both the movies is very fascinating. Especially the scenes in both the Top Guns where he races against the fighter jets is something that I as a teenager would love to do and is a part of my bucket list to race against a plane or a fighter jet while being on a motorcycle which is a Top Gun-like dream for me. I am not promoting rash driving but the scenes where Tom Cruise rides his motorbike at rapid speed are so thrilling and jumpy when you watch him do that and when Tom Cruise as Maverick does those stunts with a fighter jet even a teenage boy would fantasize about flying a fighter jet like Maverick, however, the pilots have an intense journey of training but as a teenager watching Top Gun I would fantasize myself in the shoes of Maverick doing crazy stunts with a fighter jet as a naval aviator.
Fighter Jets:
Another reason why I am fascinated by the Top Gun franchise is because of the fighter jets. However, more than the fighter jets I am fascinated by the aeronautical movements and stunts that make me sit on the edge of the seat and bite my nails. As Maverick says in the Top Gun sequel ‘It is not the plane, it is the pilot’. I am more delighted with the way how Maverick does the movements with his jets like riding the plane upside down in the beginning scenes of the first Top Gun and such stunts are what make it interesting to watch. Both the movies have this swiftly maneuvering flying sequence and when you watch the movies even you would feel like you are sitting inside a fighter jet. The planes take off in the beginning scenes of the two movies with the song Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins and later on during the climax when the Top Gun theme composed by Hans Zimmer and Harold Faltermeyer is being played in the background making it even more exciting and jumpier.
Cool Jackets and Aviators:
The cool leather jacket customized in a pilot style and black aviators look very cool and also carry the sense of Maverick’s swag. Anyone would look so cool in the black aviators and the pilot-styled leather jackets and I love to be in this kind of a look that is extremely cool, and extremely stylish and it speaks confidence just when someone wears it.
Super Cool Callsigns:
Maverick, Iceman, Goose, Rooster, Viper, Hollywood, Warlock, Fanboy, Payback. Such call signs are genius call signs that one would like to have. I have been wanting to have such kind of a call-sign. When Top Gun Maverick came out, I searched up a site that was the callsign generator with fun questions and my callsign turned out to be Stallion, a mighty, beautiful horse. Considering my tall height, I pretty much feel that the callsign ‘Stallion’ suits me. I got my friends to get a callsign generated for them on that site and now I tend to call them by their callsigns now. The reason why call signs are mentioned in Top Gun is that the call sign tradition is celebrated by aviation communities across all military branches. These pilot nicknames can quickly identify an aircraft or individual, and they also help to confuse the enemy, who might be listening in on your communications. For a teenager like me, hearing those callsigns of pilots over and over again through the course of the movie made me feel so cool and I too felt like having a callsign which is Stallion.
Cool One-Liners:
The one reason that I love Top Gun is because of the music and also because of the cool, witty yet meaningful one-liners in the movie. These one-liners can be pretty much used in real life and I know them by heart. For instance, if I did something that was a little stupid (or way stupid) but I saved myself then I would refer to the song reference that Goose referred to ‘Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire!’ which meant that I did something stupid yet incredibly gutsy. And let’s say that I am too lazy or too scared or nervous to do something then Maverick’s one-liner from Top Gun Maverick hits me which is ‘Don’t Think. Just Do.’ This dialogue should be tattooed because this is one dialogue that is my motto and I live by it (well most of the time). When I score well in my tests or if I play cricket well then I say ‘I feel the need. The need for speed.’ If my dad notices me not studying, and I tell him that I will get good grades then he says exactly what Maverick’s commander said in the first movie ‘Son your ego is writing checks that your body can’t cash.’
These are the reasons why Top Gun is one of the movies that I look up to.
Hope you like both movies. If you haven’t watched it then go watch it right now! Don’t think, just do.
Signing off,
Stallion.
Stories, You & Me 