The Big Picture - ‘Top Gun: Maverick’: 100 Things We Loved About It

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Movies are back, Maverick is back, Tom Cruise is back, and Sean and Amanda are back to dive deep into the movie phenomenon of this young summer: ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’ Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys? Rachel Lindsay here, and I am teaming up with your favorite Ringer podcasters to deliver the Bravo drama and news that you've been craving on Morally Corrupt. It's the show about all things Bravo, from The Housewives to Summer House and everything in between. We'll be mentioning it all every week. Check it out on Spotify and TheRinger.com. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture. And you have been called back to Top Gun Maverick.

Movies are back. Maverick is back. Tom Cruise is back. We're back to deep dive into the movie phenomenon of this young summer. It's Top Gun Maverick is back. Tom Cruise is back. We're back to deep dive into the movie phenomenon of this young summer. It's Top Gun Maverick. It earned $282 million around the globe this weekend.

$156 million in the United States. This is the biggest opening in Memorial Day weekend history in Tom Cruise's history in Paramount Pictures history. So we're celebrating. We're celebrating this awesome movie by highlighting every single thing

we loved about it. Smallest moments of the biggest payoffs let's start with our producer bobby wagner who um is second only to amanda dobbins in terms of anticipating this movie wags you did not see it when we recorded our episode about the film last week you did see it over the weekend what'd you think of top gun maverick? It's going to be a hell yeah for me, brother. It was incredible. I think that three hell yes. I'm in the top 1% of people who was anticipating this movie. And my expectations were really high

because you guys raised them even further with the conversations that we've had both on and off mic. And I texted you guys right after the movie ended. It still far exceeded my expectations. I was expecting to need a little bit of nostalgia to gloss over certain moments of the movie, and I didn't need it at all.

Like, I didn't find myself thinking back to... I didn't need to reconnect with necessarily my love for all of the cliches and the camp of the first movie to even enjoy it in the moment. I loved it start to finish. Not really any misses, to be honest. Yeah. And unironically, you know, like that's the thing I love about it. Bobby, can you believe how right we got this? Like, do you feel amazing? Not only did it live up to our expectations, which is really, really hard. I was steeled for a little

disappointment, but just like, God, we call this you and I call this like, which is really, really hard. And I was steeled for a little disappointment. But just like, God, we call this, you and I call this like, and Sean. Sean, you did. But like, we made this a bit, like three years ago. Play the song, play the song again. And I just like- Play you getting excited about the song again.

Welcome to being so right, you know? Like, it feels fucking amazing. Like Tom Cruise saved movies. And then Bobby and I are number two. Just like an incredible like Babe Ruth call. Like here we are. You are welcome world. It's such a cold shot.

And my partner, Phoebe, she's not a big action movie person. She had not seen the original Top Gun all the way through before this week. And we watched it on Thursday night in preparation for going to see Maverick on Friday. And she was like, I would say like a four out of 10 on the original. Because if you don't come to it with a love

or you're not maybe ready for the certain, you know, set that they are creating there, then I can see how you might get a little bit bored, a little bit tired by the end of it. And then Friday night, she's like, Maverick, put it on my list. This is one of my movies. And I was just, I was so blown away by that, that it had so much cross appeal that someone who doesn't like action movies and doesn't even particularly care for the first one can come out of the Dolby Theater at AMC. Thank you to the fine folks at Dolby in the AMC Corporation. And just be blown away by it.

Yeah, I think we're hearing that a lot, right? A lot of people obviously had a really sincere connection to this movie who didn't even necessarily have a big connection to the original, which is pretty remarkable in these times that we live in where everything is interconnected and you have to be following these serialized stories over decades. This was different. This is very different.

It's a, this is like we said on the, on the show last week, this is just frankly a better movie. And people are walking out excited about that and excited about the idea of going to the movies, which of course is really the mission of this podcast, you know, is to just get people excited about movies and going out to the movies and having a communal experience. Amanda, you saw it a second time on Thursday night, as did I, with a full crowd. I'm curious

for the three of us, did you guys have the applause at the big moments and at the end of the movie? Yeah, continued for five minutes straight. I had people yelling at the screen um it was it was glorious my crowd was not quite as rambunctious as it sounds like amanda's was but i saw it in the greater philadelphia area so not quite as much of a you know vocalization of your appreciation of cinema not a company either yeah no not a company town but uh i mean we'll touch on this a little bit later but they handed out cinema scorecards and everybody was really excited about ripping those off and handing them in after the fact i got to participate in the democracy of movies this was such a movie for movies sake like you didn't see any like pointless low-hanging fruit with like creating action figures or

anything like this like they weren't they weren't trying to to cheat their way into making it a popular popcorn wide appeal thing. It was just a movie putting together loud noises and moving images that you didn't expect to happen. And I really felt like the crowd felt that coming out of it. That they were just like, I just got my world rocked a little bit. So to celebrate, like I said, we're going to go through a lot of little stuff. So this is going to be a very, very spoilery conversation that we're going to have here we're going to tell we're going to spoil every little detail of the movie over the weekend the three of us put together a long list nearing 100 things about this movie that we loved i also sent a call to

to listeners of the show so many hundreds of people replied with very, very specific replies. If you haven't seen this movie, I hope you did not look at that thread because the whole movie has been spoiled inside of it. I wanted to talk about this as much in a chronological fashion as possible at the top.

And then we can kind of get to the bigger takeaways as we get to the end of our conversation. Let's start at the beginning because this movie really works like from from go not even before the title start tom cruise delivers a psa to the audience in his earnest tom cruise way explaining how passionate he is about this film that they worked so hard on

which he did for us i love this relationship that he's created. He is the god king of movies, working tirelessly to deliver mana from movie heaven. And I bought in. I hook, line, and sinker. I was into it from the very get-go. The slightly longer hair that he's had for this PSA and press tour, I'm into it. I mean, it differentiates from Maverick but i think it's flattering um it helps you know whatever the tom cruise face of 2022 looks like which i think looks great shout out to my man uh yeah perfect we see the brookheimer simpson logo as the movie starts and uh that that brought back some some deep feelings for a lot of kids of the 80s i gotta say um seeing don simpson's name in that big font seeing that lightning crash logo very powerful obviously for fans of the original it's

a big deal too and then that's just like the first of a series of callbacks and so we can kind of flag um callbacks as we roll through our conversation here um wags were you did that seeing the um the the sort of full-blown recreation of the original title sequence give you any pause that get you excited because i was a little bit like i'm not sure that i want to replicate the experience of the first movie when it started i don't think it gave me pause necessarily if they had recreated the entire film i think i would have been bothered but they very clearly added in nuance. And as we'll talk about, many different characters that sort of split the personalities of the characters from the original films, I think.

But, you know, you brought up the first of the newest Star Wars trilogy, Force Awakens, which was in many ways a recreation of the very original Star Wars. In the theater for that movie, I was like, that's the same shot. That's almost the same line of dialogue. After the opening credit sequence in this, I didn't find myself really thinking much about that. Guys, they recreated a lot of the same stuff and even some shots, which we'll talk about. And I was not mad at all. I was thrilled, but they recreated a lot of stuff. Amanda, what else? Well, I'll just say that I thought for a minute I was like,

are they just replaying the original credit sequence? Because like the stuff on the aircraft carrier with the, what do we call, is there a specialized name for the man who helps you land

on an aircraft carrier, you know, and does like the cool kicks and like waving with the sun setting behind him? I identify with that man. He's like the cool kicks and like waving with the sun setting behind him. I identify with that man. He's like the producer of taking off and landing. Yeah.

Yeah, I think he's called Wags. I think he's the Wags. Okay, great. So the Wags of the aircraft carrier. I was like, oh, is this the same one? Because even the transition from the theme song, which I have to be honest, as soon as they hit that first, does it start with a gong? Yeah. Bobby, please, again, feel free to put gongs wherever in this movie, in this podcast.

And then they give you the text. They added and women to the text, which we can talk about later on. And then they do the flying and transition i was like oh i guess you just like you know brought us back to 1986 and did the did the same shots but also i wasn't mad because again i appreciate every single one of the callbacks um i love the top gun title card that explains what top gun is sure every movie should have a title card that's just like here's what we're doing here. Here's the world we're entering.

Here's a hundred words about where we're going. It's like the preface to a novel. You know, I never realized how much I wanted something like that, but I do really like it in this instance. The movie is not very Top Gun-y at the beginning.

It's, of course, a Tom Cruise about flying movie, but it opens with this kind of extraordinary dark star, Mach 10, Mach 11 flying sequence in which we're introduced to Bashir Salahuddin as, as Hondo. And we see that right away, Maverick still up to his old tricks of not following the rules.

And I guess he's still a captain because he wants to be able to still fly planes and so he's set to take this what looks like a kind of stealth bomber into into mach 10 and ed harris's character beloved ed harris's character who i guess is an admiral shows up to halt the flight and to reset the trajectory of Maverick's mission in the Navy. And he's too late. And the Dark Star, they're taking off. Or Maverick's early.

He's always early. Is there a single movie that wouldn't be improved by a scene with rolling down a car window and Ed Harris is behind it wearing sunglasses? Think of how that would improve Endgame. You know, just like the scene

when they're all fighting Thanos and then just Ed Harris rolls through. That would be wonderful. Sure. I really, really like this bit because obviously it reminds us that Maverick's whole thing is that he doesn't listen to authority.

It shows us that there's somebody who is ostensibly in control. A bald admiral is like the heavy in the original Top Gun film. So that's a beautiful callback. It immediately makes us think of the right stuff, you know, and Ed Harris is rolling the right stuff. We get this amazing moment when the Dark Star flies in the desert over Ed

Harris after he gets out of the car, like blows everything back and it sends the dust swirling. But Ed Harris doesn't move. I loved that little detail of him just standing stock still. What else did you guys like about the Dark Star part? I appreciate that when Maverick is getting ready for the Dark Star part,

he taps his paper calendar with Mach 9 circled on it, and then you notice also next Sunday, he's having dinner with, I believe, Joe. Not sure on the name, but I do know next Sunday he's having dinner. Maverick still uses a paper calendar guys old school guy that's the kind of detail I'm looking for um the his relationship with the Hondo character is really nice that's kind of his

sidekick and that that great line of um I don't like that look it's the only one I've got with Tom Cruise you know and like this whole sequence to your like right stuff point is very much like almost Tom Cruise getting ready to go to space instead of going to Top Gun, you know, like with the helmet. And it reminds me a lot of the all the like Apollo 13 preparations. Another great Ed Harris callback. Thank you so much. What else? The oh, the whole bit once they're doing the Mach 9 do you guys understand like what's really going on with Mach Mach speeds I gotta be honest I don't Mach 1 is the speed of sound and

then it's just multiplicative after that so that's 10 times the speed of sound is what they're trying to do just like trying to like be the fastest man ever right which which he makes and then he decides to keep going because he's maverick but when ed harris comes in to try to stop him he does like the classic oh i'm losing cell phone service bit so good which was really good i just also you know things like that make me think about tom cruise like using cell phones and then like having bad cell phone service and enough to like get in the joke like to me tom cruise doesn't seem like a regular enough person to understand the humor in that but he does also sell it so i very much enjoyed it and then um once it goes well the uh the landing and tom cruise

wandering into a random town and the small child where am i earth really good i like describing it as going well because it actually does not go well yeah it explodes and yeah he hits mach 10 and then he hits mach 11 and 11.1 and 11 is that what he does he goes to like 10.4 oh 10.4 okay yeah um so it's a lot of like drama about decimal points which you gotta hand it to them that they create intensity about it. Just like 0.1, 0.2. It's very simple, though, in a very effective way. Because we see this kind of over and over again as this is a very mission-oriented movie. And hitting your checkpoint is a big part of understanding what the characters are trying to do.

And we don't see the entire cockpit of the of the dark star we just see this little box with numbers in it that's all that really matters that's all that the audience needs to know to understand what he's trying to accomplish which is really really smart and the movie does stuff like that over and over again um he does it he does explode uh he does explode but not before um weird white guy with glasses like jumps out of his seat and says put that in your pentagon budget oh right he crosses mach 10 which is very funny like so many of the lines in this movie and i would love to know how they were written but so many of the lines of dialogue are are like dad jokes you know are just like pure 80s corn you know that like really kind of corny syrupy sincere stuff that movies are so past that now movies are so winking and so afraid to be seen

as hokey this movie is like full hoke it's it's kind of amazing that every line of dialogue operates this way the same is true for where am i earth you know like that is that's goofy you know it's like it's all shucksie it's steven spielberg ish you know that little kid looking at the spaceman who crashed down down to earth and I loved it I thought that it really it really set the tone

for the kind of story that they were going to tell just a quick five second shout out for Tom Cruise running on a treadmill while hooked up to an EKG machine

yeah just that was it only happened for like five seconds but you know what I'm all about training he's probably

Tom Cruise was in his cut you know he was trying to get nice and lean for this for this Mach 10 Cruise was in his cut, you know, he was trying to get nice and lean for this, for this Mach 10 and I supported it. I supported it. It looks like he was

taking it very seriously both on and off screen. He looked like 50 Cent in the club video, you know, like on the treadmill with all the gear on. I really enjoyed that.

The conversation with Ed Harris which is teased heavily in the trailer is sick. It's like, this is how you set a movie up, is you put two guys who are magnetic on the screen, you make them oppositional,

and you just give one of the best actors alive a lot of exposition. Everything that Ed Harris does is like, let me just sum up the last 35 years of your life in six lines of dialogue. It's really, really wonderful, especially, you should be a two-star general by now, yet here you are. And then Cruise says, I am where I belong, sir. It's just fantastic. It's also a direct callback to how Tom Cruise gets to Top Gun in the first movie, which is does something that he's not supposed to do,

but it's like pretty amazing, is about to get kicked out of the program, but Top Gun needs him. And so Ed Harris is like, you you're going back but Ed Harris doesn't say Top Gun and they milk it and then Tom Cruise gets to say Top Gun and they just hit that chime they hit it and like that was like everyone in my screening like started cheering immediately it's so great because you know exactly what it means uh And even Tom Cruise is having fun doing it. There was something very kind of like Western John Wayne-ish too about your kind is headed for extinction

and Cruise's character says, maybe so, sir. Maybe so, sir. But not today. But not today. This was really good. The Hondo character is so important in this respect because he's kind of playing the emotional goose role for the first five or 10 minutes of the movie

where you have to understand that Maverick still is charismatic enough for a lot of people in his life to like him. He's not just the hot shot prick who the Davey wants to completely get rid of. The people in his corner

are super in his corner. Same with the guy standing up and yelling, put that in your Pentagon budget. These are his ride or dies and they exist. So then you're automatically on his side now. You understand that there is a side that likes what he's doing and there is a side that

does not like what he's doing. And the side that does not like it is a bunch of stuffy old generals, which are easy to direct your eye at. Incredible segue to Jon Hamm. Yeah. I was just going to say that these movies are about fighting bureaucracy and uh you know defiance in the face of obvious power and the representation of that power is ham we go to san diego we return to top gun he gets on his motorcycle yeah i was gonna say the motorcycles i promised i'd um identify every time i cried so i did cry. Upon seeing it a second time, there are two motorcycle shots. And I think that I cried at the first one when he was on his way to the Mach 10 trial. But then he does also once again race a plane at Miramar when he makes it back to Top Gun. So that's just beautiful. Tom

Cruise is not wearing a helmet in either shot. That's not good safety but uh he looks great so congratulations he looks only against california law yeah he looks deliriously happy on that motorcycle like almost unnervingly happy to be riding around with no helmet on we as you said we can't prove that but otherwise so he meets up with with warlock and cyclone um yeah warlock is in the original film but not played by Charles Parnell, right? I don't believe so. I thought Charles Parnell was great in this. He was.

And Jon Hamm, of course, is introduced as the Air Boss. And really the heavy of this movie. Who put down the Air Boss note here? Oh, I did. I just like, that's a funny name. You know, that's a funny concept. I didn't know that that was a thing.

Uh, and I, I also feel like I'm the air boss. So, you know, and it's just like the way that John Hamm is like, I'm the air boss of this, you know,

station or whatever. I'm like, okay, John Hamm. Yeah. Have some decency. Just walking around calling yourself the air boss. Sean,

do you call yourself the pod boss when you go into the Spotify studios? No, as you know, that's Bill Simmons Bobby come on well I thought maybe pod father was like one above pod boss

because you know Pam's not the president come on I'm like pod nephew I think something like that okay I think this whole sequence is really

clever again because it's very obvious but it essentially sets up that maverick is not a dick like he the way that he engages with this assignment is he has like his vision for how it should be executed but the way that the chemistry that he has with ham where ham is constantly undercutting him and constantly trying to like bust him down to size and maverick is like oddly respectful in the circumstances he has his rye rhetorical returns but he doesn't really do a lot other than to just say like i'm here to do what i've been asked to do which is interesting

and it kind of explains how he survived for 30 plus years in the military despite being somebody who breaks the rules um I thought that in general, the whole like the setup of how this world works was really good. Like the return to the bar and then ultimately the training sequence beginning was really smart. What did you guys like about that whole setup?

I thought the Penny callback was very clever. Not that I even remembered it the first time. That's definitely something that's been pointed out to me because it's like a throwaway line in the original Top Gun, right? That he had an affair with an admiral's daughter or something and that got him in trouble so that's who the Jennifer Connelly character is but you know it's it's continuous but as Bobby said you don't like have to actually know that to enjoy it it's just I guess an easter egg which I hate saying um just think the hard deck is a great bar name congratulations to them

killer name um also no cell phones on the bar as a rule is a just great bar rule that i think we should bring back um i just i really appreciated it and then tom cruise having to buy everyone several rounds is also very funny but uh let's let's take that wide you know what i'm saying tom cruise having to buy everyone drinks or no cell phones on the bar i mean both i'm open to all of it i love the resonance of like the circle of life of him you know pulling a fast one on the the hot shot pilots not realizing who he was in the bar calling back to the first one when he does the exact same thing to charlie and then he has to wear that the bar, calling back to the first one when he does the exact same thing to Charlie and then he has to wear that the next day,

just like the Glenn Powell character has to wear it the next day in the airplane hangar, where they've vastly improved their seating. You know, they were sitting on metal folding chairs back in 1986. They got movie theater style seats in there as they're learning their training in Top Gun Maverick. That's just, I think, a microcosm of the

Department of Defense budget, which this film did a good job proving has grown larger over the decades. Bobby, that's also one where it's like the literal, the shot is the same. The focus on the clipboard or the binder, and you don't see who it is walking down the aisle, but it is in fact the instructor who you, uh, you know, said some rude things to at the bar the previous night. Indeed. Yes.

Let's, uh, let's talk about the new crew. Let's talk about all these, these young pilots. Um, we meet them at the hard deck. They're playing a game in nine ball,

uh, which is, it feels like a call back to the color of money. Um, even though that if you look and see the balls on the table I don't think they're the right balls

that they should be playing which you know a little continuity error that you see there. Is that something that you yourself noticed or is that like on the

internet? Someone tweeted that at us. Someone tweeted that at us. I mean it's good but it's like that that seems like a level of

familiarity that just I guess it's a picking nits for future rewatchables just flag that um first guy we see of course is uh is glenn powell who is one of our absolute favorite people on this podcast and we have been waiting for years to see glenn powell get the chance to be one of the stars of the top gun movie he plays hangman and from the moments we see him he is throwing three darts directly into the bullseye instantaneously and we know exactly what this guy's about which is precision and execution and a little bit of um

selfishness you know and yeah and i think that character and what he represents is a really interesting talking point maybe we'll wait it's a little later in the episode to talk about like who he is in the top gun um astronomy essentially uh but then you know we meet a few other figures uh among them phoenix played by monica barbaro who i i really really enjoyed uh we meet bob played by lewis pullman you know we meet uh Ellis's character is J Ellis payback that sounds right yeah that's correct yeah and and and we meet Miles Teller as rooster and another guy

who we talked a lot about really since the ringer started he was a big topic of conversation because we thought he should play young Han Solo I think we wrote a whole newsletter post about this

in the early days of The Ringer. You know who actually wrote that post is me, hilariously. Did you? I did. I somehow became the person who wrote that. And I stand by it. And I think the events of Solo, the movie, and also everything else that happened with Miles Teller,

once again, proved us right this is about this is a podcast about calling your shots and then having them be right seven to ten years later you know it's about perseverance and and patience but just think of how many shady quotes you could have saved the disney corporation amanda it's really where they just continuously come out and just hammer alden aaron rick's performance in that movie for no reason just catching strays my man Alden I it's been it's been a very complicated 10 years for Miles Teller I just want to put this out there and put a little context behind this conversation about Rooster who is in many ways the second most important character in the movie behind Maverick. In 2010, Miles Teller shocked people by showing up with this film called Rabbit Hole

with opposite Nicole Kidman, where he played a young boy, like a teenager who has done something terrible and they're kind of coping with or I believe Nicole Kidman's child has done something terrible and they kind of forge this complicated relationship. And then he makes a couple of teen comedies and dramas like Project X, which is a lot of fun. He's wonderful in The Spectacular Now. And then he appears in Whiplash and kind of like sweeps Sundance off his feet. That's one of the best movies that year. One of my favorite movies the last 20 years. And then he spends basically like six or seven years making a

lot of junk. He made a lot of mediocre teen comedies like That Awkward Moment. He made a couple of Divergent movies. He made a bad fantastic four movie you know war dogs is okay bleed for this is okay and then i think the most significant movie that he's made it's one of the only movies he's made in the last five years is only the brave and which is joseph kaczynski's movie about um you know a series of uh you know like firefighters fire jumpers guys who fight massive fires um who who you know, like firefighters, fire jumpers, guys who fight massive fires who, you know, tragically perished. We talked a little bit

about the movie with Kaczynski and he clearly forged a bond with Teller on this movie who gives an amazing performance. And now, Miles Teller's next movie is a movie called Spiderhead, which is coming out

in less than a month. And he is also the star. It's an impressive scene. We have seen it. Real movie. It's real. Yeah, confirmed. It's real.

It's real. It's good too we'll talk about it on the show um and tell her somebody tweeted at us is tell her trying to beat kaczynski's de niro uh which i thought was pretty funny because this is not three movies in a row i wouldn't say spider head is necessarily on the level of like king of comedy but um he he brings an interesting energy to this movie and it's a different kind of performance for Teller. What'd you guys think of him? I thought he was great. I think it's a little tricky to be

the younger generation Maverick in a movie when Tom Cruise is also in the movie as Maverick. And it is like the first half of the movie in particular, Tom Cruise is absolutely just the star of the show, and there's barely any room for the younger generation. And I will say like the one, I don't even want to call it negative thing, but a friend who saw it, her review was there's like a tremendous amount of Tom Cruise in this and not as much of the younger people, which I, which is true. I see that as like Tom Cruise just thriving and being Tom Cruise again. But it is true that like once he lets Miles Teller into the movie, particularly in the third act, it's really fun and they have a great dynamic, I think. And Miles Teller just like has more to do. He doesn't really have a lot to do for the first half of the movie yeah he doesn't i mean he has

barely any dialogue and i think that that's meant to sort of pay off more in the third act when you understand why he doesn't want to talk and you kind of the nuance of their relationship develops a little more which i thought that their relationship was clever and that it wasn't just you killed my dad like it was more than that it went beyond that and they seem to have a real relationship until he got but then of course that is once you dig under the surface it is you killed my dad by the way you fly and that's why i don't fly like you but teller i think was reserved in letting that out until the third act a couple of other things about that bar sequence one teller's mustache uh is worth citing for sure

yeah i wouldn't say it's he does look so much like young anthony edwards yes in insofar as like it's not really like a good mustache but neither was anthony edwards's mustache so that's kind of perfect as well um the music in this scene is great the music and throughout the movie is great it's all very obvious stuff it's all stuff songs you've heard a million times and even in other movies and yet it's somehow i don't know why i was so forgiving of this i'm usually very hard on this decision making but like teller or excuse me hangman plays fog hat slow ride which is of course like this weird kind of callback to richard linklater's dazed and confused and glenn powell's big break as everybody wants some which is kind of a spiritualater's Dazed and Confused and Glenn Powell's Big Break as Everybody Wants Some, which is kind of a spiritual sequel

to Dazed and Confused. So I love the connectivity of that. And then Jennifer Connelly's character is introduced to David Bowie's Let's Dance. And of course, her breakthrough is in Labyrinth with David Bowie. So that's a weird callback. All this stuff

is very, very clever. And then, speaking of callbacksbacks they pull the jukebox plug and miles teller sits down and he starts singing great balls of fire just like maverick and goose did once upon time in top gun yeah very emotional then they actually that's they do the flashbacks which like a little like heavy-handed touch they really milk it you know they put it through like 45 instagram filters um but also still tugged at my emotions so i don't really care and then you know tom cruise like staring through the window of the bar after he's been you know thrown out because he can't pay everybody's bar tab on his credit card um that like they milk those stares but they also they worked for me i was

moved i'm like i'm fine with the obviousness of the emotion in these scenes and throughout top gun top gun is obvious that's the whole point so we cut to um instructor day and as you guys noted the the guy that you insulted the bar is the same guy who's teaching you um that's a call back to the you know the original film with kelly mcgillis's character and i really like this whole setup you know i which one of you pointed out that he literally throws the rule book that was me he literally i mean and that's like a sign chris has been going on this like long thing about how you know a movie's good if someone um like has to call out the timer, you know,

in like a heist situation. And I'll say another sign that a movie is really good is when someone like physically throws out the rule book, you know, and they like put it

in the trash can. And it's obviously like a great metaphor for like Tom Cruise's movies or whatever, but it's just kind of like, oh shit, we're really in for it.

He put the rule book in the trash can safety's off yes safety is off yeah your enemy knows it front to back too yeah they do tom cruise throw it away i did think that that was funny like generationally where he was like your generation is a bunch of nerds basically you guys all go by the book you've never had to actually do anything in real life congratulations on winning your little practices but this is this is real shit right here so i'm gonna throw out the rule book and they do also they cut to john ham they cut to warlock like everyone is like really startled when he throws the like rule book literally into the trash can they're like oh my god

he just threw it into the trash can incredible stuff that's really great um the whole explanation i think of the what the mission is is pretty critical to this movie um it's so critical in fact that they show us over and over and over again and that's really smart because it sets us up for what the third act of the movie is going to be and it's not illegible that's something you know like you said amanda this is obvious and making it obvious to the audience is part of what makes it so effective movies like this are often difficult to follow and the action is often difficult to understand and this movie almost literally has a blueprint explanation of what these pilots are going to be expected to do that they show us multiple times so i really

liked that um and i was somebody also here pointed out that enriched uranium serving as a shorthand for geopolitical bad actors was that you wax yeah that was me uh the fact that you never i mean kaczynski talked about this and you asked him about this specifically in the interview but not naming the enemy necessarily but that we've just that this is a nod to every mission impossible style movie where you're like uh-oh some uranium that's not supposed to be enriched is being enriched time to end it and then that's just very slick writing it's just done it's over now we know that it's important the stakes are high that we need to do this and it's a nod to the original top gun as well which uh just really aggressively avoids any specifics or political commentary beyond like

america rules and so you know this i think they say nato at one point that's the closest as you get to it so this is like an anti-nato thing where that's the closest you get to any sort of like even like gesture at politics but otherwise they just they're they're not getting involved which you know we can analyze this as a political American statement if you want to, or we could just, you know, appreciate planes going fast, which is the spirit of Top Gun. Yeah, I think some people are bothered by the apolitical nature of it and the kind of blind lack of commentary on the Department of Defense and the weaponization and militarization of our culture. And all of those things are kind of endemic to this

story. These are films that are basically approved by the Navy and they know that they make these people seem heroic. That is part and parcel of the story. I do think that there was a little bit of cynicism involved in the decision to not identify a nation that

should be the quote-unquote villain. I appreciated what Kaczynski said when I talked to him about it when he just said i want people to be able to watch this movie 20 years from now and not be bogged down by like the historical aspect of it um right and i think that there is a little bit of like good good business mind going into that and there's also some sincerity into that decision too so i wasn't ultimately bothered by that and you know there's something kind of valiant about you know trying to stop nuclear proliferation right that's what this mission is about is trying to disallow a nation from developing nuclear weapons which is of course something that we've seen happen over quite often over the last 40 years um around the world so you know very quickly we get into the actual training

sequences where maverick is up in the air with these young pilots and uh this this part is great like the the the the push-ups being the penalty for being shot down quote-unquote shot down in the video game experience of top gun via maverick is really really fun once again an extremely obvious needle drop that worked so well for me. The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again, which I feel like has been in like 14 car commercials in the last 20 years. And still I was like, man, The Who, sick band. Love this song. Really, really just excited.

I assume you guys like the sequence a lot. Yeah, the banter between everybody is very fun. And then, listen, real mountains, real deserts, real sun, real sky. A lot of this was done practically in the real world and it's not CGI'd. And you can tell. And it makes such a difference. It was like exhilarating. Just, you know, what's beautiful? The natural world.

Thanks so much for showing it to us. Just a deep, deep appreciation for sunrises and sunsets. You know, horizons. Just wonderful stuff. Let's and sunsets you know horizons just wonderful stuff and let's take sunsets back you know people like get clowned for put you for like posting on instagram like inspirational really been advocating for this and i agree with her and i agree with joseph kaczynski like and and tony scott you know like give us sunsets it's there's there's beauty there let's appreciate it let's not mock each other.

It's great. Obvious works. Where do we go from here? Obviously the aerial sequences throughout are breathtaking. As you said, Amanda, it's largely all practical. I thought the way Kazintsi explained the number of cameras they used,

where they were mounted on the planes, how they cut together the performances. The editing is really, really good in this movie too. That's something we haven't cited is the fact that that dialogue, that banter works so well, cutting from plane to plane. That's really not easy to do.

It's really clean, Bobby. And, you know, we learn that like these kids are not ready for this mission and maybe no one is ready. And that's part of the great storytelling

is you get the sense that like this is not really achievable. We start learning about what the hard deck is and about taking risks and you know there's something kind of like dare we say it's impossible yeah there it is there it is i mean that that's the that's the shadow i think looming over this movie we just so happen to love mission impossible movies so there's really nothing wrong with the fact that maverick is at times Ethan Hunt-ish and the storytelling is a little Ethan Hunt-ish throughout the movie, but I enjoy

it. Team building is really the point of this second act, is really like getting all of these guys together, introducing us to them and then showing how they do or don't work together. This obvious tension between Rooster and Hangman, who are kind of the two alphas of the group. Hangman, the overt, brash, talky guy,

and then Rooster, the sort of more reserved but seemingly ultimately heroic figure. You know, one thing I want to ask you about with Hangman, did you think they took it too far with how much of a dick he was? Because the sequence where he's kind of needling Rooster about his father and about his relationship to Maverick is really on the line of like, this is kind of unforgivable. Like if, if somebody I worked with ever did this to me, I might punch him in the face. Um,

and I'm not a violent person. So that would, that's really saying something. No, it's fine. You, you need some real stakes. And to me,

this is honestly, this makes more sense than frankly, the cruise like ultimate rooster beef which is i pulled his papers because i cared too much you know like the emotional stakes of of uh maverick and rooster is obviously like the the father son stuff um but it's also basically that version of the like job interview which is like what's a time where you failed? Or, you know, what's one of your weaknesses? I just tried way too hard. I tried too hard.

I just can't let go. You know? Which is literally a quote in the movie as well. So, you know, that's fine. It's fraught. I was moved by all of it. But there is something just like purely testosterone-y and like edgy about Hangman just being a dick that makes sense. And you do need a little edge. It can't all be sweetness and I love you so much and like and echoes of, you know, Lost Fathers and Goose or whatever.

You need something. So I was fine with it. Let's talk about the other thing that is not Lost Fathers, which is the romance between Penny and Maverick in this movie, which is a fascinating object of discussion. And a lot of people had a lot of thoughts about Penny on Twitter when I put out the call. One, let me just be just plain about this. Jennifer Connelly might be the most beautiful person alive. She is shot like a goddess in this movie from the moment we see her. And she's like a barmaid.

And she looks impeccable. You don't have to be rude. She owns the bar. And she's enforcing rules about cell phones and respecting the Navy and women. Okay? Sean, small businesses are the backbone of this country. Please respect Jennifer Connelly and her small business.

Trust me that I do. You know, Amanda, you pointed it out last week. Her styling is remarkably good in this movie. She looks like an adult. You know, this is not like a sex pot. This is not like a seductress. She's just a mom who's really hot. Yeah, she's like a really hot, really stylish mom.

Let's talk about that Navy fisherman sweater. Let's talk about the boat shoes. Let's talk about the boat, a beautiful ass boat that she knows how to sail that Tom Cruise definitely does not. Let's talk about the beach bungalow, which is like a callback to Charlie's bungalow in the original. I mean, $8 million, are Are we thinking for the price of that, that piece of estate right now?

More. We'll get, we'll get to her. We'll get to her car at the end of the episode too. But, um, is I get, I know Penny's the daughter of an Admiral and admirals have a nice

salary, but like, is she also like an oil heiress or something? Like she has all of her shit is so nice. The hard deck must be a cash business. Yeah. And do you think that that house was in the family you know and so it's admirable they they often go on to to very very lucrative consulting careers after they retire sean that's that's true maybe she's inherited

that's where the real money is a great fortune from her father the admiral um the crews and connelly are interesting um you know they've never been opposite one another despite largely mostly being from the same generation and i'm not they have chemistry which i think is hard one from connelly i think connelly is really good in the movie and really good at like playing a kind of underwritten character as most of these love interests are and there is something very chaste about the way that their romance is told. They have kind of an awkward, like, non-sex scene in Penny's house after kind of their second date after the boating trip, and a lot of people flagged that, too,

and it has a kind of, it treats the characters like they're 15. You know, there's something like, you know, especially jumping out the window and, you know, not wanting to embarrass themselves in front of the daughter, but the daughter takes on the role of like an adult in a teen drama. What did you think about the way that they told their romance? I mean, there is a precedent here,

which is the Tom Cruise, Kelly McIntyre sex scene in the original Top Gun, which is the most awkward thing that you've ever seen in your entire life. But I think this is very self-conscious, right? That they're not trying to recreate because that scene has been referenced and parodied and it's like a thing on its own. I recommend listening to the original

Top Gun Rewatchables if you just want 20 minutes on eating each other's faces as part of that experience. So I do have to think that someone made the decision to uh not to to get as far away from that as possible but that was okay with me like i don't know did you like really need you know 10 adrian line minutes in the middle of this movie is that like the 80s that's not the eighties that you're like hungry for when you're watching this. So it like,

I thought they were sweet. I thought the chemistry was better than the original. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it worked well. I, I think it's, this is a PG 13 movie and it's very PG 13 in more ways than one.

You know, as the team is being built, Maverick realizes he needs another exercise. And we need, as viewers of this movie, a callback to the beach volleyball sequence. And we get that in offense-defense football, which is something I will admit I have never heard of. Is that a thing?

Wags, is that a generational gap for me? No, it's not a thing. When I was watching it, I was like, do they just not know what football is? Why are there two balls? I heard a couple sitting next to me at my second screening of the movie say the exact same thing while the sequence was happening and I had already seen the movie but they were like they don't even know what football is this is so ridiculous and it called back to the like Tom Cruise you know in Oblivion or Tom Cruise and War of the Worlds like sure generic sports fan Tom Cruise right

nevertheless they invented this game and it seemed like team building worked. I mean, great excuse for all of those guys to train for six to 12 months for 90 seconds of not wearing shirts. They all look amazing. I mean, it's like an abs off like you have never seen.

Those guys committed. I don't want to speculate on what substances were taken but i just like i hope that's my corner right there i i hope that everyone had their panels done afterwards you know what i'm saying let's come on in healthy come on into hgh corner with wags whatever and let's talk about it because you just don't get like that i mean i don't know they're all very fit gentlemen to begin with. They look great. They look great.

They look, they're charismatic. They're shiny. I don't know if they're as fully oiled up as the original volleyball scene, but a very nice thing is famously in the extremely, you know, homoerotic classic volleyball scene. Everyone's wearing jeans or at least tom cruise is wearing just like jeans to play beach volleyball very confusing in top gun maverick they are all wearing jeans or rolled up jeans or like or jorts rolled up jeans and shirtless playing like almost to a person and i was very touched by that I thought that that was a weird choice. Again, like athleisure is like thriving in 2022.

Never bigger than now. Yeah, we really could, you know, not wear jeans. But I was very touched by the fact that they all stuck to the jeans. Well, I felt seen by that. Like the people who made the movie were like, well, we would never dare to take the jeans off of these guys. You have to. It's ridiculous. They live in San Diego, though.

You know, just put on some Under Armour. What are you doing? Like, I mean, I agree. But actually, it goes back to the original. I'm going to cut the other way. Beach people do weirder stuff than normal people on the beach. Beach people are like, I'll sit on the beach in my jeans because they don't care about sand because they're at the beach all the time. It's all in their house.

It's in their bed. They don't give a shit about it. But I see sand and I'm like, please keep that as far away from anywhere that I'm going to be residing inside. Truly. One of the things about this sequence is they got me to like a One Republic song. I really don't like the band One Republic, but this weird pop song, which I guess was written. Was this song written for the movie? I think it was.

Thought it was good. A lot of wh lot of like no you didn't like it it's i mean it's like a little cheesy i'm really sensitive to like new music in movies that i like because this this is a constant rom-com problem where everything is perfect and really top shelf and then they spend four dollars on the music and so it's like a lot of deodorant commercial music in movies I otherwise really love. And this like kind of veered towards deodorant commercial music. I would have liked something old school, but I didn't hate it. It was fun. I guess they looked like they were having a great time. I would go to this party and sit on the side with Jennifer Connelly in front of my very

successful bar and watch them play. This reminded me a little bit of how the NBA playoffs right now is doing yacht rock in every in and out of every commercial, which The Ringer's Brian Curtis has just been on. He's like, what producer just got way too much power with the yacht rock Sirius XM and is

just pressing that for every bumper on NBA, on TNT or whatever. But I agree with Amanda that it's a much safer move to use an older song that you know is going to age well because otherwise then you get that song, The Man, that played for two straight years for NBA

commercials. That was tough. It was really tough. We're about halfway through the movie and about halfway through this pod. So why don't we take a break and when we come back

we're going to talk about Velokum. Okay, let's talk about probably the most emotional aspect of the story which is the return of Iceman in the form of Val Kilmer who we see early on in the film in a big portrait he is ascended to the rank of admiral and he's a person who is continuously protecting and bringing Maverick back into the fold. And, you know, the original Top Gun ended in this unexpected alliance between Ice and Maverick.

And we see that they have like, they've maintained this friendship over the years, this kind of like partnership and this emotional bond. And, you know, Val Kilmer, of course, has been very sick for many years. And there was a documentary last year about, you know, his life and career and everything he's been going through,

especially in the last 10 years or so. And I thought this was a just a really um touching and beautiful rendition of like a relationship that was kind of odd in the original movie yeah and obviously like you know if you saw sleep with me for example and you saw quentin tarantino's character in that movie do his exegesis on the homosexual and homoerotic undertones of the original film you know the the legacy of those two characters is interesting and i thought that they gave it a kind of like a very sentimental but very elegiac and very nice um kind of follow-through on the storytelling and it was honestly just good to see val kilmer looking good in a movie bobby was saying um during the break

just like the cardigan that he's wearing is really great, which it is. He looks great. This is the second time I cried, obviously. I think, Sean, you've been pointing out that movies kind of meta awareness of the various actors career actors careers, including Tom Cruise, but also Jennifer Connelly and Gunn Powell. And so this is definitely commenting on Val Kilmer and the last 10 years of his life. And I thought that they, even the way that they incorporate,

you know, Val Kilmer can't really speak anymore. So they use the, they incorporate that into the movie and they use, I guess like a computer screen. And his dialogue by the computer is like spare but like really effective and even the way they cut back to it and they've built the script around that I thought was really affecting I thought he was really lovely in it and so there's like this meta emotional

moment of having him back as Iceman on the screen and then I also thought Cruz in that scene was unbelievably good um and like he tears up and he like does the sad blinking thing that he does but there's something um very emotional in terms of him working through things and working through time and you know maybe the end of things and the next generation and whatever he has with Val Kilmer himself. And I was just like, holy shit, this is amazing. And I was really moved by it. So yeah, just... Bobby, was it a surprise for you? I know we said that Val Kilmer was in it, but did you know what was coming? No, I didn't know it in that respect. I think I was expecting some sort of callback,

and I thought that they handled it really nicely. Because the thing that I love about the Val Kilmer character, the ice character from the original movies, is, of course, all of the ludicrous machismo that they show towards each other. But then what makes him, I think, a resonant character is that he cuts through Maverick's BS better than anybody does in the original movie. He's like, you're dangerous. I'm scared up there when we're

flying together. And they sort of inverted that relationship in the new movie where Ice is like, I need you to be a little bit dangerous because this mission is insane. And the only person that can do it is the person who has that part of their brain that you have. And I thought that the relationship as as ridiculous as it sounds like was earnestly i think emotionally resonant because of that because this is a guy who understands maverick and maverick now has come to understand and respect ice which he definitely did not do when they first met and of course it made me just want to walk around my house for the next 48 hours saying you you are still dangerous but you

can be my wingman anytime it's a reminder that like you can make the case that val is kind of the best love interest that tom's ever had you know and i don't mean that in some kind of like snarky way like they have this interesting chemistry that you're right amanda you can see crew's kind of working through in these scenes. He really plays them very, very well. We had that conversation about like, is Tom Cruise a great actor? And we did our Hall of Fame episode. And I think some people might have misconstrued what we were trying to say there. I think we obviously all think he's a great actor, but he is often so reliant on persona to kind of validate his performance.

And this was a good example of that. This was a good example of using like external forces to interpret like interior experience. And he's really good. I mean, he has a couple of other moments like this in the movie where he's not just like, God damn, isn't Tom Cruise cool.

Like he relies on that a lot in a lot of these movies, but that's not what the scene was about. It's more internal. Like he, and he is lot in a lot of these movies, but that's not what this scene was about. It's more internal. And he is one of the most charismatic people in the world. But this is one where he's not, you know, it's not a charm offensive. He's like really doing a lot of the quiet work.

No, it was so good. Can I do some other Val Kilmer things? Yeah. Before he shows up, Maverick is texting with Ice man or ice as he saved in the phone which is really great i appreciate how all the old people use full punctuation throughout their text messages that just felt like really generationally accurate um if like foreboding like when will my mother understand that every time she sends an email with a period

it's just like sounds like i'm in trouble. Never. When she hears this podcast, that's when she'll get it. She won't, but, um, they, they nail that. And even the way that they incorporate the text messages,

um, is again, I think like just a very clever way of getting Val Kilmer in the movie. Um, so I was very moved by all of it. And the last line, um, went after they have this like intense, fraughtly emotion, of it. And the last line, um, went after they have this like

intense, fraughtly emotion, you know, fraught emotional experience, uh, that they do this. So who's the better pilot, um, and, and, and make a joke out of it. We don't need to get into it. So it was great. It was a nice moment. Let's not ruin it. That line from Chris. I feel like that line has been said by the two of you to each other countless times in the big picture yes we we do have an Iceman Maverick mentality here on the show this

obviously sets up Kilmer's character's death which is very you know is is sad but also somewhat predictable and it's kind of like the narrative propulsion for the rest of the story in

some ways it sets up that you know this is life and death is real and then it reminds him of his relationship to goose and it reminds him of what he's doing with his life and his own mortality and um i thought that that funeral sequence in particular is very powerful and him kind of bashing the wings into the coffin time to the 21 gun salute at the funeral um i thought all of that worked really, really well. And you get Tom Cruise in his dress whites, right? Love it. Yeah.

He also is wearing them when he goes to see Penny, I guess later on in the, right? But before he decides that he's gonna go on his big adventure, not to jump too far ahead. But yeah, Tom Cruise in dress whites, just important to me historically. We do find out after ice man dies though that cruise's character has basically lost his power and protector and the air boss is here now and he's in charge and he's sending maverick out to pasture and cyclone's taken over and he's extending the time window for the mission and the pilots are not happy about any of this and there's only one thing

that can happen and that's for Maverick to steal a plane and fly it and show them how it's done. It's awesome. Slightly illogical sequence here, but absolutely riveting and pure sports movie. I think Kaczynski might have said that too. Pure sports movie.

Rip roaring perfection. I think this is the height of the movie for me because you expect the final sequence you you know that the movie is going to culminate in that but this one i don't know why but i i don't know whether it was just that i had been lulled to sleep by sort of the the emotional down of the kilmer death happening not that long before this but i was not expecting this scene to just him to to actually show the pilots that they could do it or that it could be done by a human man if you want to call crews that in this film it's just incredible also to chris's point about every good

movie just has a guy or any movie that has a guy counting down the time. Four minutes! I know, but then they cut it down to 2.15. And because, Sean, as you pointed out, they've run the sequence so many times and they've established two minutes and 30 seconds in our head. When it goes down to 2.15, you're just like, oh my God, this guy's going to do it in 2.15. Can you believe it? It's like the same feeling of watching Michael Phelps

shatter every world record while winning seven gold medals or whatever. It is true. It is like that nbc sports like we have managed in four minutes to communicate all of like the the time dynamics like at stake here for you and now you're super invested for no reason the the crew's deep breathing work in these scenes is just unbelievable stuff every turn that he's going there there's like, just like leaning into it. I just can't even imagine being in the plane with him while he's taking that

so goddamn seriously. It's just incredible stuff. And knowing that they shot those not knowing what it was going to be like, and then they came back down to the ground and all watched them together, as Kaczynski explained. Just getting to watch Tom

take that so seriously. It's incredible stuff. The grunting and the groaning is really effective. And also it ages him. We don't hear as much grunting or groaning from Hangman. He's pretty smooth up there. That's true. And Tom's 60. If he's going to pull that trigger back, it's going to be harder for him. It's going to be more intense. But he does show the pilots what they can do and there's some great reactive acting from the pilots watching crews accomplish the mission which is really really fun like crumpling of like paper and a lot of people like oh my god it's so cheesy and it works beautifully um and that leads to one obvious decision which is actually delivered very

well and like sort of surprisingly, even though it's so obvious where we were all headed here, which is that the Airbus decides that rather than, you know, court martial Maverick, he is in fact the team leader and he will be executing the mission. But it's such a classic speech

by Jon Hamm of the, you know, he's like angry and it sets up that, you know, do I risk all my pilots lives or do I risk my career by letting this like crazy guy. And then, and then, and then they have that great moment of Tom Cruise is like about to answer. And Warlock is like, I think that was a rhetorical question. Just classic, just like great person in charge being like, well, I was wrong, but I won't actually say i was wrong just i i love that by this point um rooster and maverick are are still unreconciled now

they we see that rooster has been chosen for the mission um along with payback bob phoenix and who am i forgetting there's one other character. Who's in Payback's backseat? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Is it Fanboy? LOL. Fanboy, yes. Fanboy rides again.

So we've got our pilots picked. Kangman is not selected in a major upset. And Rooster looks terrified to be picked. Right. So we mentioned this already, that the Rooster and Tom Cruise thing is about how Tom Cruise pulled his papers, Maverick pulled his papers,

to try to protect him because he cared too much, but also because his mother, who was played in the first film by Meg Ryan, never wanted him to fly. And before she died, Maverick promised her that she would keep Rooster from flying. I know we don't have a nitpick section here, but like, did Meg Ryan have to die? You know, I know she wasn't going to come back. I just, I would have liked to see Meg Ryan in this movie somehow. I get it. I understand

Tom Cruise, you know, just is everyone's protector. But I thought she was great in the first Top Gun. Thank you for your time. I think narratively, it's cleaner to make, put the entire burden of this relationship on Maverick.

Because if she's there, there's an outlet. You know, Rooster can go ask her questions and force her to speak to the issue. Instead, he has to operate in this purgatory of frustration, which then leads, you know, Rooster can go ask her questions and force her to speak to the issue. Instead, he has to operate in this purgatory of frustration, which then leads, you know, to the big climax. They really just, they kill Meg Ryan

in the space of half a line, you know? It's really just expositionally. She's just like, goodbye. And I was sad. She's great in the first movie. She is great. She's so cute in the first movie, you know, in that very early stage of her career.

We get a lot of I guess meditative moments here near the end. We see Rooster and Maverick talk before they take flight

and they don't say very much. You know, the I'll talk to you when we get back line. We see Rooster and Hangman

have this kind of detente before they go up in the air. And you can see the longing in Hangman's eyes to want to be a part of it, but also wanting to support his frenemy. And then, you know, we haven't talked about Talk to Me Goose yet, which I think some people really loved and some people didn't love as a callback line of dialogue. Who didn't love it? I saw a little bit of feedback on the internet that people didn't,

they felt like it was a little overdone. But the thing that worked really well was talk to me dad, which is what Rooster says when he's, you know, executing the mission.

But you gotta set up the talk to me dad with the talk to me goose. Come on, guys. It's screenwriting, you know? I agree. I thought it worked really, really well.

As I thought most of the dialogue talk to me goose in script, like maybe on Tom Cruise's tricep with that gratuitous shot, like he has it tattooed on him. No, you need the echo and you have to establish it. I know, I know. Come on. The mission itself is pretty remarkable.

Many people pointed out that this is effectively the Kessel Run from Star Wars that we heard about so many times in that film and that they're actually doing it. They're actually creating this high speed chase sequence into a gully in a very narrow area where missile fire is potentially in front of them. And it's just told so well because of the way that the film has been set up. It shows us that this mission is really hard to accomplish, that everybody needs to be flying at a certain speed, that there are narrow pathways to executing, and it's the highest stakes possible. And it's ridiculous, you know, the idea of both planes landing their missiles directly into the hole where the uranium is being stored is absurd. And it's a bit video game-ish, but in a good way, I thought.

I was captivated. Again, the screenwriting of the number of times that they emphasize miracle number one and miracle number two, so that when they're actually doing the mission, all you need in narration is like, that's miracle number one, that's miracle number two.

And like the stakes are built in, but you also do as you said sean understand what's going on so they don't have to be like over explaining at that point you can just be with the tension and and the planes flying fast big question for you both here so um maverick obviously is leading the charge he executes on his end of the bargain. And then he needs to evade the fighters, the bandits who have arrived. And Miles Teller eventually completes the mission as well or executes his part of the mission. And then he's under fire. And Maverick sacrifices himself to save Rooster.

He flies his plane in front of the missile that the bandit fires. And Maverick's plane explodes. Is there any part of you, either of you, that thought Maverick was dead? Yeah, I did the first time. And that was stupid because Tom Cruise can't die in a movie. Lol, we know that. Or not in this movie anyway. But I certainly did it first. And I was like, oh, that's really smart. They're really going for it. And then they went for a different thing. Yeah, I thought he it first. And I was like, oh, that's really smart. They're really going for it. And then they went for a different thing. Yeah, I thought he was cooked.

I thought it was like, you know, closing the chapter, Goose died. And then he sacrificed himself for Goose's son, Rooster. And it made sense from a storytelling perspective. And then I had this creeping thought in my head that I was like, I kind of feel like I would have heard about this if he died in the movie because I heard a guy talking about this yesterday at the barbershop and he didn't say anything about the guy about Cruz dying in the movie so yeah I had the same line of thought and I

definitely teared up and I was like damn they closed the emotional arc on this story they did a great job and then two seconds later I was like no way he's dead not a chance and he wasn't. The movie from this point on, it takes on a completely different shape

and a slightly different tone because this is where I can feel Christopher McQuarrie's influence really seeping in because, you know, obviously Cruz's crash landed and he's seeking refuge, breaking off his parachute and a helicopter identifies him and traces him and follows him around this fallen tree trunk. which then leads to Rooster getting blown up, which then leads to both men being stranded in this indeterminate country, needing to find a way to escape. And we're in a mission impossible movie. Now we're in a real, we're in a James Bond movie.

You know, we're not in Top Gun anymore. One, we're on the ground, so we're not fighting in the air to, it does let Tom Cruise run through forest again. So you can see Tom Cruise running at hyperspeed. I cackled when I saw that.

I just, good for them. His running form is just, it's too good. Like it's what, it's what it would say in a textbook if you looked up how to run,

but nobody actually runs like that. Particularly not anybody who's actually fast. Yeah. So it's just very funny. Hands sharply at his sides, hands open. He, a lot of people made reference to red

dawn too with this sequence that if it really recalls the idea of kind of like blending in with the you know in that case soviet influence but um in this case we don't know what country they're in but what they do is they identify an f-14 and they're gonna steal it and they're gonna fly it which is a 40 year old plane and they do and it works and they're going to steal it and they're going to fly it, which is a 40 year old plane. And they do. And it works. And they get up in the air and they fly the F-14 out with no runway. And it's all wildly implausible, but tremendously fun. Speaking of Star Wars, and I can't believe that I'm about to say this, but you guys have already compared it to this movie to The Force Awakens several times. But there is a moment in The Force awakens where they uncover the millennium

Falcon. Right. And it's like the old ship that you haven't seen before. I only know this because when I saw it, um, Zach, my husband very kindly leaned over to me and whispered, that's the millennium Falcon.

So that I would understand why everyone was cheering, but it's the same thing of like, Oh, it's our old plane again. Like the F 14 is back. Um, but in, I, I still thought it was very clever. why everyone was cheering but it's the same thing of like oh it's our old plane again like the f-14 is back um but in i i still thought it was very clever i i was amused by it and then they also make a lot of hay about how old it is specifically miles teller making a bunch of like holy shit this is old jokes it really does become a buddy comedy between them for about 20 minutes even from like

when they find each other on the ground. And it's like, I saved your life. No, I saved your life. And then there's. What were you thinking? You told me not to think. They have great timing. Like it's really good, like screwball pattern.

And then even as they're getting the plane ready and Mavericks like using it's using the taxiway as a runway and Rooster's yelling at him don't do that and you can also tell that they're doing some version of this for real because Miles Teller just yells holy shit like 14 times in a way that's definitely Miles Teller no longer acting and just being like holy shit we're about to do something we're not supposed to do but I found it very endearing by this point in the movie the wall has completely come down with rooster and maverick and he's it was so nice he was calling him mav repeatedly saying mav yeah we can't do this mav we can't do this mav and it's exactly like anthony edwards in the first movie as he's about to buzz the tower or he's about to do something

that he shouldn't do or he's about to flip off a mig or anything like that it was so it was such good recreation of that uh relationship i really liked the final flight back too i thought it was um you know again highly implausible that they could outmaneuver these fifth generation fighters by the way fifth generation fighters a phrase that got a lot of work in this movie that i'm not totally sure i understand but nevertheless um I guess those are fast fast planes um and I really love that Tom Cruise not dying is this amazing metaphor for Tom Cruise not letting movies die you know like we can just read into that so clearly that he continues to outlast and survive fifth generation fighters you know which I guess is either Netflix or Chris Hemsworth or I don't know what that represents,

but it's definitely something trying to kill him. himself die. Yeah. I mean, it's about like saving movies, but also like you can't, you know,

you're kind of headed for extinction. Maybe so, but not today. Like, you know, Tom Cruise is still here. That final flight

is also really genuinely exciting because we have a character in Rooster who doesn't really understand these planes and it seems like the plane's kind of broken so he's like constantly looking around for different switches that mav is asking him to turn on which he doesn't he can't do because he's not his dad um and he has that cruise has that great line where he's like that was your dad's job um they also have the good stuff with what are the hand signals

called that they use in the i'm doing them now in the zoom not that anyone listening to a podcast can see that but um when they're trying to come when the fifth generation fighter shows up and is like doing the hand signals oh yeah and both like tom but tom cruise and miles teller are doing like weird baseball signs you know be like nope trying to fake it't know what that is. Yeah. I just, I just remembered one other thing that I love that happened

a little bit earlier right at the beginning of the mission, which is just the speed and intensity of Cruz's salute and thumbs up,

you know, where it's just like, yeah, really fast, which is very similar to the thumbs up he gives the fifth generation fighter

who completely blanks him after he gives a thumbs up or that there's thumbs down to like our columns are dead. Anyway, that is great um the the use of one fuck in a pg-13 movie happens during this sequence which is when teller's character gets really freaked out when you are making a pg-13 movie you only get one fuck the mpa says and so you have to be very artful in the way that you deploy it and it's right when things are going really sideways. We see this fifth generation fighter use this evasion trick where it seems like Maverick's got him right where he wants him.

And then the plane just kind of like floats into the air and like flips upside down. And you're like, what the hell is that? Is that a real aerial tactic? Is that something you can do in one of these fighters? I don't know. Seems plausible. It's fifth generation, Sean. You can do whatever you want.

Cool. Not in the fourth generation. You're not doing that move in the fourth plausible. It's fifth generation, Sean. You can do whatever you want. Cool. Not in a fourth generation. You're not doing that move in a fourth generation. That's for sure. I know they have to count the fucks in a PG-13 movie, but this also feels, once again, like Miles Teller just accidentally let one fly in the middle of building sequences. And they were like, okay, well, this is our one.

We can't edit around it. So here we go. And it worked out. It would cost us $6 million to get another of these shots. Exactly. Obviously, this culminates in something that I saw coming

probably 20 minutes earlier. I don't know if you guys saw it coming, but Hangman coming in to save the day, which I was glad they did it. It's so obvious. And yet I think I was surprised the first time and just immediately, you know, the whole was surprised the first time and just immediately,

you know, the whole theater, the second time I saw it, like burst into applause. And I was just, I'm so happy for Glenn Powell. I'm happy for Glenn Powell in general. I think he's great in this movie.

He's like very winning, even though he is a total asshole. It's a good combination of homage to Val Kilmer and just total Glenn Powell charisma. And that he gets that moment. And even like, I think he's like, you know, hello, ladies and gentlemen, like this is your savior speaking, which is like a callback to some of the other banter. It's just like a big smile on my face.

A plus. Congratulations to Glenn Powell. How nice is it to have a dramatic conclusion to a big summer blockbuster that doesn't feature cgi monsters punching each other wasn't that nice really nice no monsters in general a big win for the the real material world here this movie i liked how even at the end of the uh even after a hangman comes in to save them, we still have an engine go out just as he's about to land.

And Maverick says, please don't tell me we lost an engine. And Rooster says, all right, I won't tell you that. One last dad joke at the end of a movie, just riddled with dad jokes. Really wonderful. And then buzzing the tower, Amanda.

I think you pointed that out, which I didn't even really realize that that's what he was doing. But of course that's what he was doing but of course that's what he was doing that's what he was doing and they even do like the Jon Hamm does like the startled reaction that he doesn't spill any coffee but they buzz the tower I was thrilled

the final sequence on the aircraft carrier including the kind of the callback recreation to the Iceman Maverick embrace features the Maverick and Rooster hug. And it's what my dad would have done. I just burst into tears. Yep. Same. That was the third time I cried. This is unbelievable stuff. Just play me like a fiddle. I love you movies. I'm just so glad

that you pulled this off. 1000%. No doubts. I imagine you just putting both hands in the air and saying, Movies! Movies! In the theater and everybody's looking around at you. I definitely just quietly fist pumped to myself with tears and streaming down a mask. What was the scene at the draft house? Were people cheering at this point? Yeah, the crowd was pretty giddy, but it was also maybe 10% too self-aware for me.

Because that's a very movie literate crew that tends to go to screenings there. That's why I was asking. It was the Thursday night. So there was a lot of like, I really don't like talking in movies. And the draft house is really good about kind of marshalling talking during movies. But for this movie in particular, a lot of people chatting during the movie about like pointing out the callbacks and stuff like that.

And then I think in the last 15 minutes, everyone got so swept up. And so we had, we had multiple applause moments, which was nice. Mine was pretty much continuous from the minute that Glenn Powell showed up, which again, just like thrilled for hangman and through, through all of this.

And then you could hear once Maverick and Rooster were hugging, you could hear like the awws with the applause. Like people were doing everything at once. It was great. Let me get this little end note on the movie here. And I guess Tom Cruise owns an airplane hangar that he lives in with Rooster. Yes, that's where he keeps the paper calendar. It's so good.

It's really great and uh and then we see amelia who is jennifer connelly's character's daughter through the the arm of a plane and we do see tom cruise's absolutely jacked bicep there as he's and and tricep because it's the shot from above and it really i mean from below and so he's like holding the thing up so you can just look at all of the various muscles glistening. Good for him. This whole sequence feels like literalizing the punchline to a joke about Maverick, where it's like, what does he do at home? Where does he live? Well, the guy just, you know, he eats and breathes airplanes.

So he lives in an airplane hangar. He knows how to print out photos so he can update his photo collage on a weekly basis because like a minute after yeah he's got the rooster shot that the rooster shot is like front and center in the photo collage you guys one of those like at home kodak printers amanda physical media i hope so because bobby i had to have some photos printed recently let me tell you not easy it's not cheap or easy. Yeah. Yeah. And especially not at high quality.

That's some beautiful work that he has going there. But he's like a seriously attended to it. You think he's like photography is his hobby? He's got a dark room in that airplane hangar somewhere. Amanda, this would be like if you came over the house tomorrow and I had like 30 photos of the Knox Alice meeting yesterday, you know, just like plastered on the wall. Those are really good.

They are classic. They are. Those photos are good. No one will ever see them except for us. Man, this is a good movie. This movie is 131 minutes long and it actually is really more like 120 minutes long before the credits.

We do get the beautiful callback to the Top Gun call sign credit sequence, which was very nice. Wait skipped penny's porsche oh and her immaculate designer jeans man so she's got a silver classic porsche it's awesome and how does she afford all this shit we got to get some answers on this i got to get kaczynski back in here i mean she does say that she only bought the bar three years ago so perhaps this is like a retirement scheme after you know some lucrative private sector career i'm not really sure okay she does that's good that's a good theory yeah but she does seem to have been around maverick on and off as he gets like shipped around the world so maybe she was like at miramar doing some other stuff i

mean a lot of people make a lot of money uh doing that sort of thing maybe she's nice houses maybe she secured like a lot of predatory loans for people you know circa like 2007 2008 and just profited greatly okay oh come on is that a new porsche or could it like be inherited it's not it's 1970s porsche 911 it's a it's listening like hand-me-downs yeah yeah could it like be inherited it's not it's 1970s Porsche 911 it's a listening like hand-me-downs yeah yeah could be could be could be dad's Admiral dad's got taste though that's the right she does to be driving around

maybe she just made like maybe she took the ex-husband who's in Hawaii with his wife for all he was worth Oh another good okay yeah she's either way she's living right and and and by by for all he was worth. Oh, another good theory. Okay. Yeah. Either way, she's living right. And by connection, Maverick is living right too. Yeah.

Seems like a true happy ending for these guys. How do we talk about this movie in total? Well, what I wanted to ask about Teller, because I went through his CV earlier,

and it's been an up and down period. He's also on the offer right now on Paramount Plus, which I would say has been really hit or miss as a series. He's got Spider-Head coming. So this is a big year for him after not really doing very much

for a few years. Did he fulfill his promise as like a new school leading man for us? Wow, like a pregnant pause from both me and Bobby. That's notable. Yeah. I mean, I thought he was great in this movie.

And I think any, you know, wavering is because the movie doesn't fully let him be the leading man. Like, once again, this is Tom Cruise's movie. And then I think he and Glenn Powell really do kind of have second billing together. And I think they're great together. I will say this. If they want to make just a Miles Teller and Glenn Powell movie, whether it's Top Gun related or not, I would watch it. And I think that charisma really works.

And I think Miles Teller is kind of the leading man and Glenn Powell as the foil works for me. So I think it's auspicious. But this is still a Tom Cruise movie so I don't totally know how you evaluate it Bobby would you want to see a Teller and Powell Top Gun 3 I don't know I thought about this on the way out I kind of thought that this was a nice wrap up like I thought that it it gave me it scratched the itch and now i don't have the itch anymore i don't know 30 years from now maybe i will but then i can just go back and re-watch these movies together like that they have a very rewatchable quality that makes me makes me wary

of needing a third one i'll say i thought the teller was amazing i don't think that he like sucked up sucked up enough of the oxygen for me to be like, he's Hollywood's new leading man. It felt very similar to when Henry Cavill was very excellent alongside Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible Fallout. Whatever momentum that that gives you, you can kind of take it whichever direction you want. I think the next few choices will be very important for him. Okay. Well, I think we're going to have to seriously entertain the idea of a sequel because like I said, this movie made over $250 million over the weekend. It far exceeded predictions

and expectations. Now that seems a little bit strange, but we forget that while Tom Cruise was the most consistent $100 million man in Hollywood for near on 20 years, he wasn't ever like a billion dollar man. He wasn't somebody who made movies that were avatar-esque or marvel-esque that wasn't really his stock and trade his stock and trade was himself and it was making him the center of the story this movie got an a plus cinema score people love it we're doing two episodes in four days of this movie for a reason because we loved it and i wonder you know we know we've got Mission Impossible 7 and 8 coming. And I'm really curious to see if they leave this well enough alone.

Because I agree with everything you just said, Bobby. I feel like it was a really nice wrap on the story. And it's a really great story that crews can tell. I saw a friend of mine who works at Paramount

over the weekend. And she was like, the people at Paramount are like, we did it. Like, we fucking did it. This is like their eighth movie in a row that has been a big hit for them they held out on theatrical for all this time they've

been holding this movie for years and it hit it hit like a like a like a ton of bricks it's just wonderful so I don't know do you think we'll see three Amanda I really don't know I I agree with you guys that there is something

you know perfect about the way this was tied up. It is like the color of money to the hustler in a lot. But, you know, with planes and the need for speed, which I thought it was amazing restraint. They didn't do need for speed in this movie, despite everything else that they did. And that maybe indicates that they have some awareness of like how far to go and not to push it too far. Cause I do think it would lose its power in a, in a third movie.

And also you can't do Top Gun without Tom Cruise. Like you just can't. So I don't think I would want it though. Obviously I would watch it, but I wonder it made so much money, you know, and Hollywood traditionally is not good about saying no to things that will make them a lot of money. It's sort of how we got into the predicament that we were in

RE superheroes and IP and stuff before Top Gun. So I wouldn't be surprised necessarily. The comma, though I would watch it feels like the answer right there. Yeah, exactly. Right. This is the insidious power of Hollywood in the last 40 years, too. That's really the danger. Any closing thoughts about this movie? You want to start Oscar watch now? Man.

Oh, I'm glad you brought this up. I don't want to get into another Spider-Man No Way Home situation here. And the Academy historically does not love Tom Cruise as we talked about on the Hall of Fame episode. But there's a good story to tell here. You know, there's like really a very clear,

this is what people want from movies story to tell here. And it's not Marvel. You know, it's not superheroes. It's... And it's practical. I mean, there's so much craft below the line stuff that you could do here.

Plus the feel good aspect of some more recent winners, which you and I will discuss at some point. I mean, you're right. They the Academy never actually accepts things that would be that are fun and would be good for it. So that's a real problem. But I don't know. We have nine months should we

start it here should we start the campaign here what do you okay so let's let's just pick them all out here Bobby you help us with this best picture should it be nominated yes yeah best actor Tom Cruise should he be nominated I mean I haven't seen you know it's only May so I haven't seen all the other

movies but I would be less bullish on that one than i would about best picture same best best supporting actor miles teller i would more get i mean it's a classic glenn powell as like the fun supporting character who gets nominated from the blockbuster he doesn't have the emotional weight though i don't think i don't think they would give it to him i mean they're not going to give it to any of these guys so i don't know why we're doing this but anyway uh they're gonna they're gonna give it to him. I mean, they're not going to give it to any of these guys, so I don't know why we're doing this. But anyway, they're going to give it to every below the line category, right?

I think, you know, Kaczynski is an interesting one. He definitely won't be nominated. Action movie directors are never nominated for best director. But this is a really hard job. Like one of the reasons why people, I think people really like are alighted to his talent now because of this,

because they know that those aerial sequences with very little green screen, if any at all, is all is amazing i mean it's really a huge accomplishment and it'd be cool to recognize that too to your point about the crafts amanda um best sound i mean no give it away it's gonna wait now it's gonna win give it now yeah i think this has a really strong chance to just be the dune of this year which is to say like a lot everything other than visual effects because actually this is not a huge visual effects movie um right but uh i think it would be a lot of fun if it was in a best picture race you know i think it has zero chance to win obviously given where the academy leans these days there's a lot of uneasiness i think about crews in general

in the culture and so it's possible that that would be held against it sure but especially over nine months and especially given recent events at the Oscars. Yeah, and he's not going to campaign. He did this kind of unbelievable dance of evasion through the last three months of promotion where he really never faced a single meaningful question through this entire promotional tour and walked out of it with the biggest movie of his career,

which is really quite something. I don't know whether that should be celebrated or not, it's certainly up for debate. But I do think it would be really good for the Oscars. And I know I'm guilty of saying that dumb thing like over and over again these last five years, but people really, really love this movie. They have an emotional attachment to this movie

that I think would be really good for the Academy. Whether or not they care to recognize it and allow it into the tent, we shall see. I vote yes. And once again, I'm available to be a part of the Academy or to fix the Oscars if anyone would like to email me and ask. The Academy expanded its membership to publicists and to executives and to a number of other people over the last few years as they looked to diversify their ranks. Do you think they should have podcasters in as well? Yes, I think they should have us.

I think no. Board of directors, I'll take it. I'm going to vote no. But not everyone, Bobby, just us. We started this podcast by talking about how right we were. Just embrace it. Lean into it, Bobby. Oh, yes.

We've got the answers. My final thought on this movie is that we we fucking won yeah we won big big W well thanks everyone for listening to this episode we are we stay winning we're continuing to win

thanks to wax for his work on this episode not just as a producer but as a as a talker as a podcaster appreciate you Bobby Amanda I'll see you very soon thanks for

listening as a podcaster. Appreciate you, Bobby. Amanda, I'll see you very soon. Thanks for listening.