In March 2021, when the theaters in Washington were still closed to the public, some friends and I rented out an auditorium at an independent cinema in Tacoma. We paid more, to watch a movie we’d already seen, because we wanted to watch it on the big screen, together. Twenty of us gathered to share a collective experience, the kind that can only be had in person.
The sequel to the 1986 iconic, blockbuster Top Gun has a theatrical beginning like no other. After the previews, the camera does not open on a car chase, a shootout, an aerial dogfight, or even planes. It starts with a still shot of Tom Cruise sitting in a theater. He thanks everyone for watching the movie and describes how it was decades in the making using real F/A18s. Then he looks right in the camera and says, “We made this movie for you.”
The screen turns black, the notes of the title track begin to play, and the silver screen shows the opening sequence on the deck of an aircraft carrier. But before the audience was transported from the theater, we were grounded in it. The intentional message from Cruise is an invitation to experience the power of being present in a place.
At the theater I saw fists pump in the air, heard laughs, and one person even tried to start a round of applause at the closing credits.* It was over three weeks after opening weekend, on a Monday night, but the auditorium was packed.
Top Gun: Maverick has grossed over $900 million dollars worldwide. This despite being snubbed by China, which surpassed the US as the largest movie market in 2020. In the original, Pete Mitchell, callsign Maverick, wears a bomber jacket that has Taiwanese and Japanese patches on it. A 2019 teaser trailer of the film showed that those patches had been removed, likely in an effort to appease Beijing, which claims Taiwan and disapproves of Japan.
Hollywood has a track record of kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party, which controls the China Film Administration. Films such as Titanic (1997) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2019) received a censored Chinese release. The former to remove a shot of Rose’s breasts, the latter to remove references to Mercury’s sexuality, AIDS, Queen crossdressing, and closeup shots of the singers’ tight pants, leading, one assumes, to a much shorter runtime. Films such as Christopher Robin (2018) and Captain Phillips (2013) were banned from the Chinese market outright. Images of Winnie the Pooh, who keen observers have noted bears a passing resemblance to leader Xi Jinping, are illegal and a film that shows a nation marshaling its military to save one citizen might give Chinese citizens ideas.
Last year, American action star John Cena called Taiwan a country while promoting the Fast and the Furious franchise and after being reprimanded, was compelled to record an apology on a Chinese social media in Mandarin.
Such is the level of capitulation to the CCP that it was an unexpected win when Maverick puts on his bomber jacket early in the movie and all the patches are clearly visible, effectively telling Beijing to go pound sand.
In the movie, a team is assembled for an urgent mission. Twelve pilots, who are the best of the best, are chosen, not based on gender, skin color, or sexual orientation, but merit. They are the most skilled fighter pilots in the world, members of the US Navy’s Top Gun. The men and women embrace their masculinity and femininity unapologetically without coerced pronoun declarations.
The sequel pays homage to the original in its soundtrack, reprisals of iconic scenes, and two returning cast members, Tom Cruise as Maverick, and Val Kilmer as Iceman. Everyone who has seen the movie has told me two things, it was good and Tom Cruise looks good. Thirty-six years after the original, Cruise is fit enough to perform his own stunts, including all shots of him flying.
There is no mistaking 23-year-old and 59-year-old Maverick, but if you want evidence that time has passed, look at Iceman. In 2015 Val Kilmer began a two year battle with throat cancer that affected his ability to speak. Instead of glossing over Kilmer’s aliments, the script makes use of them. The reckoning with mortality is rare among public figures. The performance is affecting because it is authentic.
Of the elite mission, Maverick says, “Time is your greatest enemy.” Truer words have never been spoken.
If you live to be 82, you have a total of 30,000 days on this blue rock. During that brief time we need to participate in stories that matter. Stories that better instead of embitter. Stories that are filled with camaraderie, spontaneity, and fun.
This movie is the story of an impossible mission to defeat faceless villainy. It reminds us that exceptionally difficult tasks call for exceptionally determined individuals, that any technology is only as elite as the person operating it, and that great evil is overcome by great courage. There is no liberty without self command, there is no effective way to break the rules without first understanding them, and there are no miracles without mavericks.
Top Gun: Maverick movie poster.
Special thank you, as ever, to Kevin Edgar Ruby for his guitar skills in covering Top Gun Anthem by Harold Faltermeyer.
*This insurance commercial about going to the movies may have put the kibosh on clapping at the end of them.
Receipts:
China surpassed US as largest film market in 2020.
'Top Gun' China Snub Helps 'Maverick' Movie Take Off in Taiwan.
Chinese ‘Titanic’ Fans Balk at Cuts to Rerelease.
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ censored in China.
Disney’s ‘Christopher Robin’ Won’t Get China Release Amid Pooh Crackdown.
Why ‘Captain Phillips’ was banned in China.
John Cena apologizes in Madarin for calling Taiwan a country.
Share this post