You! You are still dangerous.
You can be my wingman any time.
Yeah. There you go. There’s your Top Gun quote. May that be the last one I ever use again for the rest of my life. Year One of the Cinema 52 experiment just officially ended.
I wrapped my final Top Gun viewing of the year on Christmas, but that doesn’t mean I’m free of thinking about the movie for the rest of my life. Or the rest of the week. What follows are the last gasps of Top Gun‘s war on my brain in the year 2012.
Dec. 24, 2012
3am to 11am EST – “Playing With the Boys” with a VENGEANCE. The song will not leave my head.
Dec. 27, 2012
5:18pm EST – Caught myself daydreaming about the 3-D release of Top Gun and the essay I could write on it.
Dec. 28, 2012
7:50pm EST – At a restaurant. Guy at another table said, “We won.” Reminded me of Slider shouting, “We won! We won!”
–END OF NOTES–
My first temptation is to shout, “I AM TRULY FREE!” and walk away. Or at the very least, “EAT A DICK!” and drop the mic.
But okay, last results for Top Gun ever, let’s have ourselves a chat.
You should know that we’re doing end-of-the-year analyses on how accurate our hypotheses turned out and just what the effects are of watching a movie so damned many times, so I don’t want to yak too much and take away from what I hope is a fine article. Charts, graphs, maybe a macaroni diorama; should be fun.
I would like to focus on the December 27th result. I was very excited to get to do one of my viewings in 3-D. The re-release of Top Gun was supposed to happen this year. I can only assume that the death of Tony Scott was one of the major factors in the date being pushed back. Luckily, John will be able to watch Jurassic Park for a 3-D viewing next year. That should be amazing. We’re gonna dress up. I’m Nedry.
Pictured: me copy editing for Cinema 52.
This daydream, this desire to keep writing articles on Top Gun, is a side effect of a side effect. The first side effect is wanting to get to know and analyze the film better, so at least I feel like I have a reason to be watching it. That aspect of this site was never a requirement of the Cinemanauts; indeed, John and I dove headfirst into becoming film scholars for movies we weren’t really that crazy about anyway, while Ty and Nancy (remember her?) coped in other ways (imaginary turtles and incessantly talking about wine).
The Top Gun 3-D date has now been moved to February 8, 2013, and it’s only going to be out for six days. I have no obligation to see it. But I want to. And I want to write an essay about it. I want to speculate on its impact on a generation that may have never even heard of it, and how its severely shortened release will change that. I want to talk about the Star Wars Special Edition theatrical releases, and the similarities and differences between both marketing strategies. I want to talk about how Maverick and Charlie’s bland yet overdramatic relationship could appeal to fans of Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey.
And I probably will. (Where I publish it is another matter.) I can guarantee you I would never have thought of doing this a year ago.
I can foresee this need for analysis as being a long-lasting effect. I will never be able to watch a film and not compare it to Top Gun… and I think that’s for the best. It was an undeniable box office smash, and I now have it filed in my head to compare to other huge trends and gauge the flow of our popular culture.
That’s… that’s pretty cool.
