It would deny us the thrill of seeing a pilot try to survive nine Gs, expanding the limits of human skill, endurance, and ingenuity, and becoming, essentially, the Ubermensch, justifying the existence of the human race by defying its limitations. Would drones or cruise missiles or satellite guided bombs work better for destroying that uranium-enrichment facility than supersonic jets and cocksure flyboys? Sure, but it wouldn’t be nearly as inspiring. Maverick and his team don’t need to prove that pilots are the most effective weapons, just that they’re the coolest. This ambiguity gives it all the feel that what these pilots are training for is more like a really dangerous video game or an important air show than a war.
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(Which is maybe an ironic choice in a movie that’s otherwise a sentimental ode to the value of actual humans in battle). The adversary in Top Gun: Maverick is only ever referred to as “The Enemy,” and those “fifth-generation fighter jets” are unmarked, flown by pilots with blacked out helmets conveniently concealing any facial features and hints as to nationality. Which entity actually owns this facility is left unsaid. It’s surrounded by SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) and heavily patrolled by “fifth-generation fighter jets.” Nestled deep in an unnamed mountain range, there’s a uranium enrichment facility which, we learn, will soon be capable of producing nuclear weapons. Most of the movie consists of “Maverick,” in his proverbial “one last shot” at keeping his job as a pilot, training a team of young hotshots for a big mission. It’s notable, in fact, that in Top Gun: Maverick, an adversary is never named.
For which war would we need such a plane? Doesn’t matter, looks cool! This turns out to be an oddly refreshing take on the military-industrial complex. It’s a triumphant moment, even if the part left unsaid is what actual battlefield utility there is in having a fighter plane that goes 7,000-some odd miles per hour. Wouldn’t we rather have Tom Cruise as a national avatar than some pimply drone pilot? Tom Cruise isn’t being badass for him, he’s being badass for us. Guaranteed another paycheck, the ground crew cheer like the brake pad factory workers at the end of Tommy Boy. In effect, Maverick puts himself at great personal risk to save a jobs program. Instead Maverick hijacks the experimental plane (apparently designed specifically for the movie but based on the SR-71) and takes it up to Mach 10, even though they’re barely cleared for Mach 9 (that’s so many Machs!). Tom Cruise eats afterburners and shits sonic booms. The admiral, played by steely Ed Harris, who has looked the same age for even longer than Tom Cruise, is nicknamed “The Drone Ranger,” and he’s determined to shut down this wasteful program, using the fact that they’re behind schedule on hitting their benchmarks for speed as his excuse. Knights made sense as an avatar, regardless of how actually useful they were.Ī similar kind of impending obsolescence and stubborn chivalry suffuses Top Gun: Maverick, which in the very first scene sees its title character (played by Tom Cruise) trying to justify an experimental fighter program to a disapproving admiral. Knights were society’s most glorious gloryboys, and watching them clatter around on their gigantic horses wearing hundreds of pounds of shiny plate armor was an impressive spectacle that no one wanted to give up, no matter how many times they got aerated by commoners with longbows or drowned themselves falling into waist-deep rivers or whatever. In the middle ages, European armies kept investing in heavy cavalry charges long after it had already proven ineffective as a battle strategy, presumably for one simple reason: it looked cool.