Top Gun
Up there with the best of the best.
Top Gun (1986)
Production
Budget
$15 000 000
Revenue
$353 811 728
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Actors
Tom Cruise
Maverick
Kelly McGillis
Charlie
Val Kilmer
Ice
Anthony Edwards
Goose
Tom Skerritt
Viper
Michael Ironside
Jester
John Stockwell
Cougar
Barry Tubb
Wolfman
Short description
Top Gun follows Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a gifted but reckless U.S. Navy fighter pilot flying F-14s. After he and his radar intercept officer, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, disobey orders during a mission to help a fellow aviator, their commander sends them to the Navy's elite Fighter Weapons School, known as Top Gun. There Maverick competes against the best young pilots in the fleet, including the disciplined Tom "Iceman" Kazanski, while his refusal to play by the rules puts his place at the school at risk. He also becomes involved with Charlie, a civilian instructor.
Tony Scott directed the film, the second of the sixteen features listed in his filmography, following The Hunger and preceding Beverly Hills Cop II. Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. wrote the screenplay, and Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer produced. Tom Cruise plays Maverick, with Kelly McGillis as Charlie, Val Kilmer as Ice, Anthony Edwards as Goose, Tom Skerritt as Viper and Michael Ironside as Jester, among twenty-five credited cast members. The film runs 110 minutes.
Made for about 15 million dollars, Top Gun earned roughly 357 million dollars worldwide, a large return on its budget. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7 out of 10 from about 548,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.1 out of 10 from a smaller pool of voters. A critics' rating stands at 6.2 out of 10 from seventy-six reviews, below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The expression 'dogfight' is a term that originated in the era of biplanes. It means an aerial battle.
- During the filming of the movie, pilot and flight instructor, aerial photo operator Art Scholl (1931-1985) died. This happened when he was unable to recover from a spin in the 'Pitts S-2' aircraft used for filming, which subsequently crashed into the Pacific Ocean. His last words, transmitted over the radio, were, "I have a problem. A serious one." The cause of the plane crash remained unclear, and neither the aircraft nor the pilot's body were ever found. The film is dedicated to the memory of Scholl.
- Val Kilmer did not want to appear in this film and only agreed to participate because he was bound by contractual obligations. Director Tony Scott (1944-2012) personally persuaded him to take the role. Ultimately, the actor changed his mind and even came to enjoy the film (and his work in it).
- The U.S. Navy authorized only two missile launches during filming. They were filmed from different angles and distances, and then shown in various scenes of the film as required by the script. In all other cases, footage of miniature models was used. The company responsible for this managed to depict the launches so realistically that military officials became seriously concerned that actual missile launches had been filmed, and launched a special investigation.
- The pilot of the 'F-14' who gave the 'MiG' pilot the middle finger was Scott D. Altman from the U.S. Navy's aviation unit 'VF-51', known as the 'Screaming Eagles'. He later became a NASA astronaut and participated in two space missions as a shuttle pilot, and then in two more as the crew commander.
- The Pentagon demanded the right to approve (or disapprove) the plot to ensure that the US Navy would be portrayed in the best possible light. At the Pentagon's insistence, the cause of the pilot's death, played by Anthony Edwards, was changed from a mid-air collision with another aircraft to a malfunction in the built-in ejection system. There were concerns that viewers would think that too many planes were crashing.
- In the officers' club, the heroine, Kelly McGillis, meets Pete Pettigrew. He is a retired American pilot and one of the instructors of the 'Top Gun' program. During the Vietnam War, Pettigrew shot down a Soviet MiG. He served as a technical consultant on the film's set.
- In the final scene, when Tom Cruise's character is sitting at the bar, someone puts on the 1964 song 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling', and Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis begin to walk towards each other, with the actress walking along a trench dug by the film crew to make the main characters appear to be the same height in the scene.
- At the beginning of the film, Tony Scott wanted to show the takeoff and landing of aircraft on the aircraft carrier, filming against the sun. At one point, the aircraft carrier captain changed course, and when Scott asked him if he could return to the previous course, he replied that each course change cost $25,000. Scott immediately wrote the captain a check for exactly that amount (although it later turned out that the captain's check was not accepted).
- Riding the wave of the film's incredible popularity, the US Navy began recruiting personnel and flight crews directly in movie theaters, approaching excited viewers as they left screenings. As a result, there were no problems with attracting recruits to the US Navy for several years.
- At the request of Paramount Pictures, Grumman aircraft company installed special cameras on the F-14, allowing the filmmakers to obtain authentic footage of the jet carrier-based interceptor in combat, shot directly from the aircraft itself.
- Shortly after the film's release, a script for a sequel, 'Top Gun 2', was written, but the idea of filming a continuation was abandoned during pre-production for the following reasons: 1) military technology had become more advanced than before, and officials at the Ministry of Defense did not want to 'show off' new aircraft to filmmakers; 2) Tom Cruise was categorically opposed to a sequel and would only agree to film it for a huge fee that the filmmakers simply could not afford. The sequel's script had Tom Cruise's character continuing his service as an instructor at a 'Top Gun' program training facility, with a feisty girl among his students, possessing a character similar to his own.
- After filming concluded, some of the F-5s used in the film as 'MiG-28s' retained their black paint scheme and continued to be used as enemy aircraft in simulations within the 'Top Gun' program for some time.
- Tension in the relationship between the characters played by Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer existed not only during filming. Even off-camera, the actors kept their distance from each other and did not communicate informally.
- Even before the film's wide release, it was shown to a focus group, but the audience disliked the lack of romantic scenes. The producers decided to cater to the public, and five months after completing work on the film, they brought Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis to Chicago to shoot a scene in an elevator and a scene depicting these characters making love. During this time, the actress lost over 7 kilograms, while Cruise had already begun filming with Martin Scorsese on the drama 'The Color of Money' (1986), and his hair was noticeably longer than during the filming of 'Top Gun'. McGillis' hair color was darker than it had been during the filming of 'Top Gun', so it was decided to conceal it in the elevator scene in Chicago.
- The prototype for Kelly McGillis’s character was Christina Fox, whom the producers met during pre-production. Fox started as a civilian, a flight instructor, but steadily climbed the career ladder at the Pentagon, and retired in May 2014 as Deputy Secretary of Defense, becoming the first woman to reach such heights.
- Tom Cruise was initially reluctant to star in this film. He was persuaded by producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The actor agreed after taking a flight with the Blue Angels (the U.S. Navy's flight demonstration squadron).
- Anthony Edwards was the only one who didn't get airsick during filming in the aircraft's cockpit.
- For the use of aircraft and aircraft carriers in the film, the film company 'Paramount Pictures' paid the Pentagon $1.8 million.
- The enemy in the film flies MiG-28 aircraft, which do not exist. The Northrop F-5E 'Tiger' II light multirole fighter was used as a MiG.
- When Kelly McGillis’s character confesses to the character played by Tom Cruise that she wouldn’t want to advertise to outsiders the fact that she likes him, Tom Cruise was supposed to react to this line, but he forgot the line, so he simply kissed McGillis. Tony Scott liked this unexpected turn so much that he decided to leave it in the film.
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