‘Turning and returning to some secret place inside'
This week’s writing …
I didn’t see Top Gun when it came out 40 years ago this week. I was almost 12, but the movie was rated PG so apparently safer for young eyes than the PG-13 rated Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Movie ratings are strange.
I was so unfamiliar with Top Gun that when a college classmate once told me at a party, “Hey, you big stud, take me to bed or lose me forever!” I didn’t recognize the reference. Creativity wasn’t really the point there. She was drunk, though, so I didn’t take her up on the offer. She did slightly resemble Meg Ryan, who says the line in the movie. (Watch below.)
I had seen When Harry Met Sally, though, so if my classmate had ordered a chef's salad with the oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie a la mode with the ice cream on the side, that would’ve definitely worked on me.
Even without seeing Top Gun, I was aware of the soundtrack. Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” was always on the radio, but my favorite song from the film was Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.” In the movie, the song is heard when Maverick (Tom Cruise) and his civilian instructor Charlie (a stunning Kelly McGillis) consummate their relationship, which is obviously inappropriate but it’s the ‘80s. Charlie was critical of Maverick’s unorthodox actions in the air, but deep down, his maverick nature moved her, as she confesses to him after chasing his motorcycle across the city in her Porsche 356.
Maverick: Jesus Christ, and you think I’m reckless? When I fly, I’ll have you know that my crew and my plane come first.
Charlie: Well, I am going to finish my sentence, Lieutenant. My review of your flight performance was right on.
Maverick: Is that right?
Charlie: That is right, but I held something back. I see some real genius in your flying, Maverick, but I can’t say that in there. I was afraid that everyone in the TACTS trailer would see right through me, and I just don’t want anyone to know that I’ve fallen for you.
The next morning, Maverick leaves before Charlie wakes, but he has left her a paper airplane. That was peak romance in the 1980s. Now, a guy would just text her an airplane emoji. (Watch below.)
Charlie Blackwood isn’t mentioned in the sequel Top Gun: Maverick. We don’t see Meg Ryan’s character, Carole, either, even though she’s the mother of Rooster (Miles Teller). The director Joseph Kosinski, who was also 12 when the original hit the screens, said, “We didn’t want to be looking back.”
It was a choice to center the emotional beats in Top Gun: Maverick around Maverick’s relationships with his male friends/colleagues. Teller could easily played Maverick’s estranged son with Charlie. It was a choice to ignore the romance that defined the film for 12-year-old me. Then again, maybe the beach volleyball scene was what really mattered.
“Take My Breath Away” remains a favorite of mine. Berlin lead singer Terri Nunn’s performance is epic. In 1976, Nunn auditioned for the part of Princess Leia in Star Wars. She was 15 at the time, so either she’s lying about her age or George Lucas planned to make Han Solo a galactic sex predator. That’s far worse than shooting Greedo first. The Han and Leia relationship doesn’t really kick off until Empire Strikes Back, so maybe Lucas would’ve gone with a Leia who’s still in space high school.
Unfortunately, the 34-year-old Harrison Ford generates way too much sexual magnetism even in a resting position, so the audition scene between him and Nunn is incredibly uncomfortable to watch.
In fact, let’s just end this with Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” video. Nunn is a legal adult of 24, so when she makes love to that synthesizer bass line, no one needs to call the cops. (Watch below.)
Spring is here at long last. If you haven’t already, please consider taking advantage of my “Spring Fling” subscription sale — 40 percent off the usual annual paid subscriber rate. That’s just $30 a year. Thanks to all who have upgraded to paid subscriber status recently.
Previously on The Play Typer Guy:
Now that the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, Republicans are giving the full Waffle House treatment to majority minority House districts. This might just backfire for them.
Mainstream Democrats, including Barack Obama, think the party’s problem isn’t what they’re saying but how they’re saying it. I personally think they’re biggest issue is that they’re still not convinced that their political opponents are straight up gangsters.
Now that the Voting Rights Act is effectively DOA, should Democrats do more to connect with the working class white voters who once put Bill Clinton in office? Or will we keep trying the Shame Nun from Game of Thrones approach?
A lot of you had thoughts about my piece last week about David French’s late-life discovery that perhaps everything Black people had tried to tell him about racism was rooted in firsthand experience and not mere fantasy. I responded to the suggestion that believing Black culture exists is “racial essentialism.” I argue it’s quite the opposite.
That’s it for this week. See you on Monday.
I honestly hope Anthony Edwards got some dough for the sequel because it's still all about Goose.
Tom Cruise was 59 when he shot the Top Gun sequel. That made him 6 years older than Tom Skerrit when he played the veteran leader of the Miramar flight school in the original.
I can't think really of too many sequels that came decades after the original bring back the first movie's romantic lead. Maybe that's a lack of imagination from Hollywood. Maybe they can't imagine a couple staying together for decades and still being happy and in love. Maybe they don't want to show the "young hot chick" at fifty or fifty-five. Maybe they think their teen and young adult audience don't want to see that. I don't know.
Personally, I wish they would have more stories where the courtship was done and you have two people in a healthy relationship supporting each other through whatever conflicts the plot throws at them.