Comments on: Top Gun Film Review: Can The Fascination Be Explained http://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/ Home Of The Talented And The Interesting Sun, 13 May 2012 17:52:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Yellow Magpiehttp://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/#comment-2804 Yellow Magpie Wed, 04 May 2011 19:41:49 +0000 http://yellowmagpie.com/?p=1700#comment-2804 Thanks for your comment, Bob. It is a highly entertaining film that has a huge number of fans. Thanks for your comment, Bob. It is a highly entertaining film that has a huge number of fans.

]]> By: Bobhttp://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/#comment-2803 Bob Wed, 04 May 2011 19:38:18 +0000 http://yellowmagpie.com/?p=1700#comment-2803 I love this movie...and in a way that most others can only dream of. I've taken it and lived it to it's full extent. I am a naval aviator! I knew from the moment I watched this movie at 8 years old that I would be satisfied with nothing less than being maverick. Call is a cliche, a fantasy...whatever you like; but it is my reality. I had a goal, and I've achieved it. How many people can say they grew up dreaming of doing something and actually did it?Truth is you can do anything you set your mind and efforts towards...fight hard enough and anything you want is within reach. Aim for the stars, fight like hell and you dreams will come true! I love this movie…and in a way that most others can only dream of. I’ve taken it and lived it to it’s full extent. I am a naval aviator! I knew from the moment I watched this movie at 8 years old that I would be satisfied with nothing less than being maverick. Call is a cliche, a fantasy…whatever you like; but it is my reality. I had a goal, and I’ve achieved it. How many people can say they grew up dreaming of doing something and actually did it?

Truth is you can do anything you set your mind and efforts towards…fight hard enough and anything you want is within reach. Aim for the stars, fight like hell and you dreams will come true!

]]> By: Yellow Magpiehttp://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/#comment-2055 Yellow Magpie Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:56:46 +0000 http://yellowmagpie.com/?p=1700#comment-2055 Thanks for your comment, Tim. It was both excellent and insightful.Top Gun captures the fleeting feelings of youth wonderfully. Although probably best to add male youth!Thanks for taking the time and the thought to compose a well-worded and well-written piece. We hope you become a regular commenter.The Yellow Magpie Team. Thanks for your comment, Tim. It was both excellent and insightful.

Top Gun captures the fleeting feelings of youth wonderfully. Although probably best to add male youth!

Thanks for taking the time and the thought to compose a well-worded and well-written piece. We hope you become a regular commenter.

The Yellow Magpie Team.

]]> By: Tim Darehttp://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/#comment-2054 Tim Dare Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:41:03 +0000 http://yellowmagpie.com/?p=1700#comment-2054 Hard as it tries, the main review cannot escape identifying the purpose of the 1980s blockbuster Top Gun. First and foremost, it is entertaining, the principal motive of any movie. Second, it’s unabashedly a recruitment film, possibly the most effective made in peace time. After the picture was released 25 years ago, there was an unprecedented clamour to join the US Navy as pilots (or aviators, as the USN prefers to term them). The best of the best eventually undergo special training at an elite school, but the term Top Gun isn’t official, any more than test pilot is. It's the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School. The accusation that the movie glorifies war sits a little sadly considering what war is---officially authorised large-scale homicide. Training to kill isn’t easy, and among myriad requirements are a measure of self-confidence and active team work. If, in the process of learning or fighting, a warrior finds the experience glorifying or even glamorous, so much the better if that helps him or her succeed (or just survive). Flying is glamorous to some people, but not to the point of unreality if they’re in the USN. For starters, there’s the little matter of statistics: even in peace time, there’s up to a 25 per cent danger of death, with carrier landings (officially, “recoveries”, as there’s no land in sight) a prime cause. There’s nothing glamorous trying to steer 30 tonnes of metal on to a heaving deck at 250 kmh at night in poor weather. It’s more a qualified crash than anything else. Small wonder if a disproportionate number of astronaut commanders have been from the Navy/Marines, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, John Young, John Glenn and Al Shepard among them. It follows that the USN fell over itself to accommodate the makers of Top Gun. The opening scenes are among the most dramatic, thrilling and beautifully filmed you can view. To the chords of a mechanical symphony, the deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier stirs speedily and with split-second attention to detail and efficiency for a succession of take-offs and recoveries. Bolts clank on the end of steel hawsers that can slice a deck hand’s legs from under him if anything goes wrong. A fully-fuelled and armed F-14 Tomcat with its crew of two hurtles along the deck propelled by its twin engines on full afterburn and the gigantic, unseen hand of a steam catapult beneath deck. . Some crews accelerate to well past 200kmh in just two seconds. That’s just the beginning of a mission. Naturally enough, there’s a lot of Boys’ Own Annual in Top Gun, and juvenile emotions run rampant. After all, the biggest gun belongs to “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise, near the height of his action hero career), so he goes to the special talents’ school and into the bargain gets the girl (a flight academic well acted by Kelly McGillis). Val Kilmer, as “Iceman,” is there as a very talented F-14 driver with steel nerves and a Slavic ethnicity suggesting any social boundaries are long gone (the USAF was always different, particularly as regards drinking, banned in carriers). Top Gun is well worth a look. Even if just to see where your tax dollars are going. It won’t turn your kids into war lovers. If Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Jr. all failed to do that, the whole family can view this movie for its generous entertainment value, in complete safety. Hard as it tries, the main review cannot escape identifying the purpose of the 1980s blockbuster Top Gun. First and foremost, it is entertaining, the principal motive of any movie. Second, it’s unabashedly a recruitment film, possibly the most effective made in peace time. After the picture was released 25 years ago, there was an unprecedented clamour to join the US Navy as pilots (or aviators, as the USN prefers to term them).
The best of the best eventually undergo special training at an elite school, but the term Top Gun isn’t official, any more than test pilot is. It’s the US Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. The accusation that the movie glorifies war sits a little sadly considering what war is—officially authorised large-scale homicide. Training to kill isn’t easy, and among myriad requirements are a measure of self-confidence and active team work. If, in the process of learning or fighting, a warrior finds the experience glorifying or even glamorous, so much the better if that helps him or her succeed (or just survive). Flying is glamorous to some people, but not to the point of unreality if they’re in the USN. For starters, there’s the little matter of statistics: even in peace time, there’s up to a 25 per cent danger of death, with carrier landings (officially, “recoveries”, as there’s no land in sight) a prime cause. There’s nothing glamorous trying to steer 30 tonnes of metal on to a heaving deck at 250 kmh at night in poor weather. It’s more a qualified crash than anything else. Small wonder if a disproportionate number of astronaut commanders have been from the Navy/Marines, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, John Young, John Glenn and Al Shepard among them.
It follows that the USN fell over itself to accommodate the makers of Top Gun. The opening scenes are among the most dramatic, thrilling and beautifully filmed you can view. To the chords of a mechanical symphony, the deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier stirs speedily and with split-second attention to detail and efficiency for a succession of take-offs and recoveries. Bolts clank on the end of steel hawsers that can slice a deck hand’s legs from under him if anything goes wrong. A fully-fuelled and armed
F-14 Tomcat with its crew of two hurtles along the deck propelled by its twin engines on full afterburn and the gigantic, unseen hand of a steam catapult beneath deck. . Some crews accelerate to well past 200kmh in just two seconds. That’s just the beginning of a mission.
Naturally enough, there’s a lot of Boys’ Own Annual in Top Gun, and juvenile emotions run rampant. After all, the biggest gun belongs to “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise, near the height of his action hero career), so he goes to the special talents’ school and into the bargain gets the girl (a flight academic well acted by Kelly McGillis). Val Kilmer, as “Iceman,” is there as a very talented F-14 driver with steel nerves and a Slavic ethnicity suggesting any social boundaries are long gone (the USAF was always different, particularly as regards drinking, banned in carriers).
Top Gun is well worth a look. Even if just to see where your tax dollars are going. It won’t turn your kids into war lovers. If Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Jr. all failed to do that, the whole family can view this movie for its generous entertainment value, in complete safety.

]]> By: Yellow Magpiehttp://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/#comment-1207 Yellow Magpie Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:48:44 +0000 http://yellowmagpie.com/?p=1700#comment-1207 Yes, a top actor. Thanks for commenting. We hope hope you visit us soon. Yes, a top actor. Thanks for commenting. We hope hope you visit us soon.

]]> By: Data Recovery :http://yellowmagpie.com/top-gun-film-review-can-the-fascination-be-explained/#comment-1205 Data Recovery : Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:00:55 +0000 http://yellowmagpie.com/?p=1700#comment-1205 Val Kilmer's movie are almost always a box office hit. He is one of the best action actors i know*-" Val Kilmer’s movie are almost always a box office hit. He is one of the best action actors i know*-”

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