Movie Retakes

Movie Retakes - Top Gun

April 13, 2020 Matt Sully & Chris Sully Season 1 Episode 2
Movie Retakes
Movie Retakes - Top Gun
Show Notes Transcript

Brothers Matt and Chris Sully take to the skies to refine their elite flying skills & talk Top Gun, then pitch their own Top Gun Retake concepts. Will they fly high, or get grounded?

About the Movie Retakes podcast: In the cinematic sea of prequels, sequels, reboots, and re-imaginings, the Movie Retakes podcast considers the merits and desires for Hollywood's new takes on our beloved movie classics. Brothers Matt and Chris Sully examine the latest retake franchises, pitch their own original retake visions, and share their love for the movies that made them.

Follow us on Twitter & join in the conversation: @MovieRetakes

Chris Sully:   0:15
in the cinematic sea of prequel Sequels, reboots and re imaginings. The movie retakes Podcast considers the merits, needs and desires for Hollywood's new takes on beloved movie classes. Brothers Chris and Matt Sully ask the questions. Should they make it, or should they just leave it alone? 

Matt Sully:   0:29
And this is Sully. This is a regular size sully. I kept waiting for you to say big, silly, but, uh, yeah, we're the cellar brothers. I gotta give you your

Chris Sully:   0:40
dream shot. I'm going to send you up against the best. You two characters are going to Top Gun.

Matt Sully:   0:48
Today's episode is Top Gun. Thanks for joining us.

Chris Sully:   0:51
It's so funny when we're doing stuff with folders and back and forth. I'm used to just be in the only Sully in the room. So now I have to put like, see Sully or M Sully or yeah, that's not true. Not MC Sully.

Matt Sully:   1:03
Well, we have one of those last names. There's just I think people enjoy saying it's a lot of fun to say and ah yeah, I've always been selling a lot of circles as well that we can't both be Sully. I will just be turning around all the time. Some

Chris Sully:   1:17
sort of fight to the finish. Whoever comes out on top gets to keep the selling name.

Matt Sully:   1:20
Ah, I'll probably just be running away.

Chris Sully:   1:23
You can have it. I'll be Roger. Whatever. He just totally changed here. You do have a first name, you could go by. Yeah,

Matt Sully:   1:33
like there's no mats in the world. Well, anyway, um, we are the silly brothers. And we do appreciate you joining us for this episode of movie retakes. We would like you to follow if you're not already following over at movie retakes on Twitter. Gonna be a lot of back and forth conversation and interaction. There s so we do appreciate you joining us. Um, today. Well, first off it Ah, like to talk about what you watching? You watch anything good on TV?

Chris Sully:   2:04
Yeah, we're recording this during Ah, during all the stay at home stuff because of the Corona virus. And ah, well, a lot of people are upset. I'm ah, I I feel bad for anyone who is ill or who has passed. That sucks. It really does hate that we're all going through this If you're those like those of us who are staying at home and honoring the distancing the social distancing. It's giving me a lot of time to catch up on things, eh? So I've been I've been watching a lot of TV and movies I caught up on Ah, new show called Flea Bag. I really like watch. I've heard of Ozark heard. That's funny. Yeah, very funny. Very different than what I expected, based on the trailer and the and the image. The cover image for it on Amazon Prime Season three. Ozark, which, if you're not watching those, are just a spectacular show of Jason Bateman. All drama. Not the typical kind of thing you would expect from Jason Bateman, but he I think he, ah, direct some episodes. You maybe even write on it, and he's It's brilliant. It's so good. That's great. Uh, superstore, one of my favorite comedies. I'm always catching up on that one in Brooklyn. 99 those air, like in my my guaranteed rotation every week and then re watched in game the other day. Ah, and I think I have an emotional breakdown, a different points every time I watch it, and then she's am I was right in the militia Sam, before we started to record today, which I love Zach Levi and I hadn't rewatched it since I saw it at theaters are now seem like the time. But then ah, on top of all that, which seems like plenty, right? I've been getting out and running, Stay in saying distanced, but running and listen to a lot of podcasts. Not only is inspiration, but just because I love the podcast format. So, uh, you got me hooked back on Marc Maron. The W T. F. Podcasts have been listening a lot of interviews on there with John Goodman. And, um, who was I just talking about? Edward Norton has been some real good ones this week. The i d 10 tee podcast with Chris Hardwick. How I built this my brother, my brother and me and then a shout out to my brother to my buddy who runs the ah movie jungle podcast. Brian been listening to his episodes, and they're fantastic as well.

Matt Sully:   4:13
Well, it is a lot. Um, I feel ill prepared or I've just not been watching this stuff. I, um not

Chris Sully:   4:20
a lot

Matt Sully:   4:20
of cross over there. Ah, actually, other than in game I think I haven't seen any of those shows you mentioned, uh, or the movies? Um, yeah, I am interested in both fleabag and Ozark. I've heard a lot of good stuff about both, and I'm a big Jason Bateman fan. I like him a lot. Ah, and him and arrested Development. It's just he's so funny. But he's just a good actor in general, like he nails drama and comedy and everything he should. He's good, man. He's been around. The Bateman's have been around for a long time, too. Like what was

Chris Sully:   4:53
virtuous? An age? Yeah, it's true. He test look really young Still, that's crazy. It's truly amazing. You think? I think he's been around about as long as Keanu Reeves and we call Keanu Reeves the ageless one. But honestly, Jason Bateman looks younger.

Matt Sully:   5:08
Yeah, those jerks, Um, I'm sure they're wonderful men, but ah, yeah, I, uh I haven't been podcast wise. I did actually listened to a couple of Mark and Me's because I was listening to Skip to the End and and those guys were kind of going their own ways and and so I I wanted to listen. It's more of their stuff And so I listen to a couple of market means, and I really enjoyed that. Um, and I followed Mark on Twitter, and he immediately followed me right back. So, uh, kind of excited about that, and, um, hopefully he'll listen to this show as well. And, uh, we'll become podcast pals. If that's a thing. I, uh, have been watching. Ah, we're re watching Breaking bad, which I put off for the longest time because not because it wasn't looking forward to it, but because it's so intense. Like that show is a man. He was a couple episodes where you just when the credits come up, you just you feel it. If you've got some emotions, things happen on that show, you know, and, um and it gets it gets to be a bit much. So this one of those, like we're really enjoying it. We are speeding through it pretty quickly. I think we're probably only like four episodes from the the finale on, and it's still just as good. It's a really good show, like from beginning, and I just I think it's there's nothing. Uh, it never really wanders away from its core elements that never loses its itself. It Ah, it always just seems to have. Um, it's very aware of what it is and where it needs to go. And, uh, I like that about a show.

Chris Sully:   6:56
Vince Gilligan is absolutely underrated. Ah, he is such an amazing creator. Like I will watch anything he makes from now on. Better call, Saul. Have you started that? I

Matt Sully:   7:07
have. Yeah. I really enjoyed that show.

Chris Sully:   7:09
He's nailing it with that, too. Like, how could you take something? You know where it's gonna go. And he's still doing such a wonderful job of telling the story with that.

Matt Sully:   7:16
Yeah, well, I remember Bob Odenkirk on on, uh, breaking bed when he came on the screen. I was already a fan. Has cause I, uh ah. I had seen him as a comedian and other things, and I'm pretty sure he's Did he come from Upright Citizens Brigade? Or was it Ah, one of the other? Um, yeah, I guess we can look it up. You look up Bob Odenkirk and i'll, uh, some other things we did, and we're also I am watching. Ah, Westworld as well. I guess I'm in. Aaron. Paul, a fan, which you know we're watching Breaking bad. And I'm wanting watching Aaron Paul's performance during this whole thing and masterful, because when he's when he first comes on, like, kind of this guy's annoying because he's supposed to be like his character is just you're not supposed to be a big fan of him. He's just, ah gets in the way the way talks. It's just Illinois and you watch him develop throughout. This show was like four seasons or something, and and by the end of it, you're like, Man, this guy's really evolved. I mean, they both have. Everybody has. There's nobody is the same person from the beginning of that show and he does a tremendous job. I was actually really looking forward to seeing them in West World to see you know him as another character, and I think he's doing a great job like I think he's. I'm looking forward to seeing the middle out of things. Ah, also rewatched ah, Isle of dogs. I guess I'm gonna rewatch sort of thing. Ah, this is the second time I think I've seen that movie and man justice so beginning in, that's gotta be I think it might be my favorite Wes Anderson movie right now. Uh, I'm a big fan of Hiss, and I love everything he's done, but I'll if dogs is just spot on Perfect. It's hilarious. If you say so. You see that one?

Chris Sully:   9:01
I sadly have not seen it, but it's been recommended to me many times. So it might be time to break down and do it.

Matt Sully:   9:06
Yeah, he just nailed like there's just so many moments in there. I just burst out laughing. Ah, and then, ah, my wife and I we're gonna do this. Ah, exchange of movies that both of us are. One of us likes that we'd never the other had never seen s So she had me watch Enough Said last night. And that's got Julia Louis Dreyfus. And, um um, I don't know. I don't want a blank on the same Ah, guy from sopranos. Uh, you know, Main Guy. Well,

Chris Sully:   9:40
just that guy James gotta have it up on the screen.

Matt Sully:   9:45
I'm sorry, James. I didn't mean to blank on your name, but it did, um, and it was really good. Ah, I think it's one of those that, um it's It's a drama about basically middle age. Ah, divorced people starting to date someone again. And so it's very appropriate for us at this point, as far as our age group had. I watched it in my twenties. I don't think I would have got it. You know the same way. Um, but you know, now that we're a certain age you get, you get things that you didn't get before. And so I think it's far more meaningful now. Ah, than if something I had watched earlier on. But it was quite good. Both of you are good. I think that was the last anything he'd done movie or television before he died. I think he died the same year it came out.

Chris Sully:   10:34
You know, the notion of ah movie having different meanings that you take away from it throughout your life is not something that dawned on me till the last couple of years when somebody was talking about Christmas Vacation and they're like, Oh, yeah, so Christmas Vacation through the kid's eyes when I first saw it. Now I'm seeing it through the parent's eyes and then down the road. I'll probably see it from the grandparent's perspective and I always thought that was pretty interesting that that a movie could change that way throughout your lifetime. Yeah, I

Matt Sully:   11:01
can't remember if we mentioned then a previous episode or not, but I felt the same way about the movie of parenthood, the Ron Howard Ron Howard movie. And, uh, yeah, I think we did talk about it, but with the same exact thing where we watched that we were younger when it came out. And there is every age bracket in there. You can watch it as a kid and be, you know, Steve Martin's just generally comedic performance. It would be entertaining. You could watch it as a teenager, and you'll connect with the teen drama in there. You can watch it as middle age, and then when we get older, I'm gonna watch it again, and we'll be connecting with all the grandparent's that air in there. Ah, that that movie literally will last our entire lifetime and be meaningful every time. So quickly. A term for that I don't know. We'll have to come up with one. Ah,

Chris Sully:   11:52
back to Bob Odenkirk. He was a writer on SNL from 87 to 91 then it was Mr Show. Mr Shame, bro. That's it. Yeah. Sarah Silverman. Jack Black David Cross. David Cross is what it was. I love that guy. Yeah, my goof green quarter

Matt Sully:   12:09
operate, Systems Brigade. We had a couple other people come out of there and why? I was thinking his He must look somewhat like somebody else on that show, but yeah, Mr Show with Bob and David and ah ah, David Cross was also in Ah, the with Jason Bateman there. And, um, it's arrested Development.

Chris Sully:   12:29
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, very the never nude. I blew myself.

Matt Sully:   12:36
Come help Daddy gets his rocks off. That was the most hilarious and terrible lines of that ship.

Chris Sully:   12:44
Oh, wait, what was, uh, anal rapist? God, so bad. Funny.

Matt Sully:   12:52
That's one of those shows. I think we've rewatched. Ah, that one. Ah, a couple of times. I know we'll watch it again. Arrest development. That's just really 1st 3 seasons. Yeah. No, that's not what I'm talking about. Sorry. I just meant the 1st 3 seasons. I'm not really acknowledging any leader stuff. So one of the things that we talked about before we're getting a Top Gun today to is you mentioned kind of people staying at home, One of those things it's been affecting. It's the theater releases. Um, things are getting pushed back, and we and I know that when we talk about release dates on this, we're probably gonna be wrong. Now. Um, just because things they're not happening, um, at the time when people want them to. So now we're looking at release dates for movies being pushed back by months. Um, I was looking and saw that most of the April in May releases air now not gonna come out until August. So they're going more for Well, that's an end of summer release. Ah, but there's stuff like the new James Bond was supposed to come out at the end of March, and it's signed Come out until the end of November. So huge shift there. And I guess it's one of those things to where you're aiming for a certain time slot like you're either a summer blockbuster or you're that Thanksgiving one. Or, you know, the Christmas or so I guess you can really only move into so many time slots. You don't all of all of a sudden I wanna show up and not near any holiday or any time anybody goes to movies, which I guess is kind of strange. But that's part of the game, I guess.

Chris Sully:   14:33
Yeah. I mean, some of these studios a year, two years, three years advanced will start locking down dates. Ah, and they'll just say, you know, untitled project, even though they know what they're thinking about putting their. But that way they can. They can start scaring everybody else off from that date because you don't want to go up against the next big marvel movie on your opening weekend, if you can avoid it.

Matt Sully:   14:54
Yeah, and some of some of the stuff, if they're not releasing, are whatever the release date might be. There also moving stuff to streaming earlier to like, um, onward, I believe, is already available. And, um, there is gonna be soon. Ah, Frozen II Came out really early. We watched that one. Um, but other other ones, they're gonna come out early to, like, Invisible Man bloodshot birds of prey, which I'm upset that I didn't go. I wanted to go the movies to see that one. Ah, I did. I was not looking forward to it at first, I thought birds of Prey was not gonna be good. Um, even though I'm a big fan of Margot Robbie, I think she's great. Ah, and then it got great reviews, and ah, then I was wanting to go see it and just never did. But so I'm happy that it's gonna kind of early call. The Wild is also listed is coming out early, and I with the, uh, Harrison Ford and terrible looking CG like I don't get it. There's no excuse for that. We were in a time where I can probably put together a seamless CG character into our Skype call here. Ah, within a few minutes, like from the laptop processing power I have. So I don't see how a studio can possibly put out anything with bad CG like, What are you doing?

Chris Sully:   16:22
I tell kid it. And in this day and age to when they couldn't use real dogs like what is this dog doing? They couldn't get real dogs do. I don't get it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would have given that one. Can you spend I don't

Matt Sully:   16:37
know. Go invest in Ah, few more doggy snacks and spend five more minutes with the trainer to get the dog to run through snow, the direction you want to go to. Why did you decide to you all CG on? This is just bad choice. And I feel bad for Harrison like that. That this looks like he's been just jolted into that time in an actor's career were like, Oh, that's who I am. Now I'm going to do either gonna be these terrible family films. Not terrible. But, you know, there is a transition here. We have to acknowledge that. So, is he gonna be the old guy now? Set his his role. The old guy things out with the dog in the, you know, tough

Chris Sully:   17:15
for us to see it. Having grown up with him as the leading sex symbol guy. Ah, and now to see him as a grandfather. But for, like, my niece, your daughter like that just be that's who she sees. And one day she'll be like, Oh, that's the guy that was in the Star Wars movie. I finally learned to love.

Matt Sully:   17:32
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, we look, we look att. It's just not a fan right now. Um, yeah, that's why I'll look at these pictures of old actors and stuff. You know that That we see them is old folks now. Ah, and then you go back and look at him and you're young. That damn he was handsome or ah,

Chris Sully:   17:53
she was hot, right? Betty White when she was young. Stunning. Yeah, she's nice looking lady. I mean, she's still an attractive lady, but I never saw that way. I didn't grow up with her. Has 28 year old Betty White?

Matt Sully:   18:05
Yeah, like, uh, yeah. So that's that's the same thing happens. Us? Yeah. We're watching all these people that used to be young, watching them age and trying not to acknowledge that it's happening to us at the same time. But

Chris Sully:   18:17
I just covered all the mirrors in my house. I don't have to see that in Eire. L yeah, I

Matt Sully:   18:22
could figure I could Ah, you know, stockpile of hair dye. Or I could just stop looking at myself. So no gray hairs here.

Chris Sully:   18:30
I haven't looked in a mirror in a decade. I have no idea what I look like. Speaking

Matt Sully:   18:36
of things, getting older, let's talk about Top Gun.

Chris Sully:   18:39
Ah, are you go?

Matt Sully:   18:40
This came out in 1986. Crazy. That's a long time ago. Yeah, and, ah, Tom, like speaking to getting older. I mean, he still looks good, but the man has aged. He's not a boy anymore. And watching it again, he looked like a kid. Like, didn't he look so totally? Ah, and I think I have in here how old he was, but, uh, so let's go through the facts. Run down the list here. So Top Gun synopsis is as students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that air not taught in the classroom. Oh, actors in this or Tom Cruise. Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Tim Robbins, Clarence Gilyard Jr. John Stockwell on James Tolkien. Who? There's some good folks in there for really. Directed by Tony Scott, this is Ridley's younger brother by about seven years. He died in 2012 at age 68 with 29 directing credits under his belt, along with Top Gun Tony directly directed Beverly Hills Cop to Days of Thunder, the last Boy Scout. True romance Crimson Tide Enemy The state in Man on Fire. Yeah!

Chris Sully:   20:01
Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow.

Matt Sully:   20:03
Wee wah. Prior to Top Gun, however, his only movie was "The Hunger," a vampire love triangle movie starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. I never saw that. I'm pretty sure maybe it was on Showtime or something. One of those late night ones, or I was half asleep. Ah. Hoping there was some nudity or something when I was a kid. But, um, well, nothing's changed. Still hoping for some unity, But, uh, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and take a cue from the fact that David Bowie's in it, um, not to knock on him, but probably not gonna be a top top stuff. Top shelf sort of Top Gun activity here. Susan Sarandon's. Innit? I'd see it for her. I love her same, but

Chris Sully:   20:52
especially in that era, I'll

Matt Sully:   20:54
probably never watch the hunger. I don't I haven't even looked up to see what the rating was on. And I'm assuming it's poor. Let's take a look.

Chris Sully:   21:00
Our next episode should they make a sequel to the hunger even hungry ANAP first that

Matt Sully:   21:06
comes hunger games. Let's see 1983 a 6.7. But that's IMDB. Yeah, I can't trust their rating system. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure when they put a movie up there, it automatically is, is at a five. Like they don't start zero or anything. Nobody has to read anything. It's already like at the midway point. Ah, so the writers of Top Gun is a gym Cash and Jackets Junior, who also collaborated on The secret of My success. That was a funny movie. Turner and Hooch also funny Dick Tracy, which nobody really liked. But, ah, there's some value in that. Like, I don't know, it's, you know, it's another comic book movie like Ah, that was a hard sell. People weren't watching those at the time. Uh, yeah, but it's got some cool visuals. They did a lot of neat stuff with the makeup and everything, but yeah, it was not a great money. Well, there's another example. Madonna's a key role in then. So I guess any time you have ah, you're working off the popularity of your actor as their career is a singer. Yeah, Not a good sign. Ah, these guys also wrote Anaconda, which I don't know how much writing really went into Anaconda.

Chris Sully:   22:20
I mean, really, it was a post it note just outlined basic ideas. That

Matt Sully:   22:27
was snake eats. Person person dies, somebody else freaks out. Snake eats next person. Yeah, I don't know. I'd like to read the script of that one. Ah, but you guys did some good stuff now. Top Gun came out in 1986. This the International Year of Peace. According to the United Nations Ah, it was also the first PC virus came out that year the Channel Challenger and Chernobyl disaster same year. I didn't realize that until I looked at him. Mad cow disease. If anybody remembers out, the Human Genome Project and Oprah Winfrey Show also hands across America. And the average movie ticket costs $3.71. What? Yeah. I was like,

Chris Sully:   23:09
I don't remember that

Matt Sully:   23:10
I got take out a small loan to take the family out of the movie now. Ah, Timothy Dalton has announced to be the next James Bond, which, How many movies that he did? Maybe

Chris Sully:   23:19
two. Yeah, not many. He was. He was

Matt Sully:   23:23
all right, though, like Cary Grant dies at 82. Pixar Animation Studios is founded. That crazy Just one of those things You Feel like he's always been around Disney Studios is saved from bankruptcy by the great mouse detective. Despite losing in the box office to Steven Spielberg's first animated movie, An American Tail on American Tail broke the record for largest financial. Ah oh, Finance, whatever. I guess I wrote that moment. It made a lot of money. Might amount of money. Ah, for an animated movie on opening weekend. So that's that's what it's holding their to. Ah, and of course, Disney was the one who held that record before with the rescuers. So Disney's, you know, not doing so great at the time. Uh, barely barely keeping head above water there, Tom Stock that year. Yeah, right, Yeah, when I remember we talked about that before, it's like the only thing they had going for them was the old stuff. And then they would do is put it back in the vault for a few years to build up demand and then bring it back out. So, you know, slightly enhanced version. The color is slightly more colorful or whatever, like Okay, Great yell, Throw 30 more dollars at you. Thanks a bunch. Um, Tom Cruise hit it big in 1983 with risky business. Great movie. That is a great movie. Um, yeah, yeah. 1985. Did legend with Ridley Scott. I know people are kind of on the fence about that one, but I like it again. It's Ah, it's all about the visuals. That is just incredible looking Film. At 24 he was primed to be a star, and Top Gun was the movie that made him a household name. 24. I can't imagine. Kelly McGillis had co starred in Witness with Harrison Ford in 1985. Val Kilmer come off two comedies, Top Secret in Real Genius, both fantastic movies, Good Edwards Scared and Iron Side or the more experience actors. Anthony Edwards was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High 1982. Revenge of the Nerds and 84 Scared had done about two dozen movies, including Alien and Mash and just as many TV spots. Ironside was Justus busy, Probably most known to American audiences. Is Ham Tyler on the television series "V," Remember that one? Yeah. So good. Yeah, That was pretty cool. That was That was neat. I think that was probably one of the bigger SciFi Siri's. Other than like Battlestar Galactica? No, the original Battlestar Galactica. Before then, it was, but everybody was watching V man. That was cool. Show

Chris Sully:   25:51
it was an actual event. I mean, it was a thing because you had to be there at a certain time and data you There was no recording it unless you were rich and at a VCR.

Matt Sully:   26:01
Yeah, there's no we didn't. Ah, we didn't stream stuff back then. We didn't binge watch anything. You You all got together And you you shut up. You got your popcorn. You sat down. You such? These are starting a

Chris Sully:   26:13
stream streaming back then was taking a whiz. Yeah, I

Matt Sully:   26:17
didn't want them. Ah, so 1986 Bopha box office hits that year A Crocodile Dundee platoon, Karate Kid Part II start Trick for the Voyage Home Back to school Aliens The Golden Child, Ruthless People Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Top Gun came out as its title implied Right on top. So think about that You've got a Star Trek movie. Eddie Murphy Movie James Cameron Film which, Ah, I would say at the time. Maybe his name didn't carry as much weight. Ah, John Hughes, though with Ferris Bueller. I mean, he was pretty well known. Ah, and Ah, and the person that came out on top, the movie that came out on top of Top Gun like beat up all those domestic gross was $176 million worldwide. Ah, the oh, sorry. Yeah, the domestic grosses 160. 76 million worldwide box office, $353 million off $3 tickets. Yeah, yeah, yes, that's bigger.

Chris Sully:   27:22
Now what? What's the average ticket now? Like 15. 16 17 bucks at least. Yeah. So multiply that by five dimensions of a $1,000,000,000 movie.

Matt Sully:   27:33
Yeah, if you need to get into the third through the sixth dimension, then it's gonna be ah, few, few more bucks. Ah, yeah. And that was on a $15 million budget for Taka. So

Chris Sully:   27:44
Wow, that was it, Gang. That's free. They made it with a coupon that's insane. Like that's not whoever does a project. That's that's like

Matt Sully:   27:56
may put into That's like I like a painter going out and spending 20 bucks on paints. Although it's more than that, I'm sure painting something. Okay, let's say he spent a month on it and then he sells it for a $1,000,000. Like that stuff. See, equivalent there. What? Really? I mean, yeah, there's art in it, but $353 million over 15 million? That's insane. But it's

Chris Sully:   28:21
a rare story. Think how many movies barely make back their money or, you know, don't make that much. There's there's, especially in 1986 there were maybe like 10 to 15 movies that made big money. I think

Matt Sully:   28:36
it was becoming more commonplace in this yet. But to that level, no. Yeah, you're right. Like you're hoping for one a year. The studios hoping for one a year they're gonna put out more movies just to kind of offset. But you're right, Some. Sometimes they don't make the money back. Sometimes they they break out even. And I'm sure there's plenty of stories and details we don't know. You know where they're they're gonna fib the numbers a little bit so that studios don't look so bad. But then, you know, we're just talking about Disney was about to go under. So even a powerhouse studio or one's weak we view is that now they're all in danger at some point, like everybody's always on the brink. That only takes a couple of big failures for them. Tow to be in a bad way. And that kind of Segways over into, ah, special thing I want to talk about today is producers. Um, people don't often talk about producers. They're the names we see very often and prominently in movie credits. And we know some of their names. Even if we don't realize we do like Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, Brian Grazer, like you know those names, you see him, You're like, Yeah, I've seen that before. You may not be able to say from what, but you know their names. Ah, there's actors that turned producer like Michael Douglas. He's been a long time producer. I think he jumped in that pretty early. I want to say, like, right after, um ah, one or she boils this rabbit. Uh, I'm blanking on things anyway, but he is the producer pretty early on. And Tom Hanks to, uh, been producer for quite some time. You're not gonna help me out with that one. You didn't. You don't look at it.

Chris Sully:   30:09
I can see the poster in my head and I can't come up with that was No, no and no thought.

Matt Sully:   30:16
Okay, great. It's

Chris Sully:   30:16
not happening.

Matt Sully:   30:17
Well, we'll fix it in post. Sometimes producers just throw money at the movies. They reap the rewards. But the overall influence on how the films made varies quite a bit for Top Gun. However, I feel to producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer deserve special note. Why will you'll hear why soon Bruckheimer and Simpson had on Lee collaborated on one movie before Flashdance. Now a lot of people are gonna hear that and dismiss the film. It's rated 36% by rotten Tomatoes, but it did amazing at the box office, making over $200 million worldwide. And that's the Simpson Bruckheimer M. O is producers. The movies that make aren't great, but they make a lot of money. As a pair, they produced Beverly Hills Cop, Days of Thunder, Bad Boys, Crimson Tide and The Rock. They're all enjoyable action movies, Okay, but apart from Beverly Hills Cop, they put action and my cheese mo far above character and dialogue. I mean, you can't deny, like, a lot of it's about what's gonna blow up next door. You know what's gonna be the best next car chase? Whatever. Don Simpson died in 96. Um, so unfortunately, they didn't get to continue on and do a lot more stuff, and I'm sure they would have. Bruckheimer did continue on producing Armageddon, Gone in 60 Seconds. Remember the Titans Con Air, Pearl Harbor? Black Hawk Down? Ah, whole lot more. But I bring those up those movies up specifically because of how they look and feel. And normally is the director and cinematographer that give a movie. It's visual personality. And yeah, Michael Bay had his hands on a few of those movies, applying his chaotic, Cameron editing style commonly known as bait him. But almost every one of those movies had a different cinematographer. I did actually looked that up because I thought, Well, maybe there's You know a lot of these crews, though, that work together. You know, over and over again because you get a nice It's a family. At some point you figure out what works and you do that. But they had all sent difference in photographers, and that, to me is kind of crazy. But if you think back on all those movies, you see there's a unifying sort of treatment to the world's the people within those films. And that's all Bruckheimer. He's got a commercial vision that seems to feed what audience audiences crave. It's what plants crave this, Uh, so he gave us Pirates of the Caribbean and the national treasure. Siri's. Ah, he crossed into television with C. S. I and the Amazing Race. It's this easy segue into television that made me realize just what Bruckheimer is. He's an ad man. His movies are like lengthy commercials focused on creating a certain image. Having scenes that look cool make a great trailer, but they have little value outside the scene. So imagine the rock condensed into 45 seconds. You got action explosions, car chases, cameras moving all over with the saturated color scheme than a shot of axe body spray or the volleyball sequence from Top Gun, then cut to an open cooler with bud light can spilling up from the ice. I mean, you can see it. It it it's natural in there. These air just big cool commercials. Ah, that sell us things. Even the concept for Top Gun came from a magazine. Bruckheimer says he saw the cover of California magazine with two jets inverted said, This is really cool. This is something we should do. When he was selling the idea to Tom Cruise, Tony Scott showed him photographs of handsome muscly men posing for the cameras said, This is what I want you to look like. Bruckheimer, Scott Bay They all share this quality of concern over what's cool, and I'd say it was wrong if it wasn't so successful. They're all ad guys making visually stimulating commercials to sell products where the product they're selling is the commercial itself. These guys don't make high drama, emotional exploration projects, their movies or flat disposable entertainment value, which gets butts in seats. They're not great movies or television, but they make a lot of money. And as a producer, despite what other influence you may have over the film, making money is your main responsibility. And with Sequels on the horizon for Top Gun by Really Hills Cop, Bad Boys and Pirates of the Caribbean, when is there not a sequel to parents of carrying out making money is exactly what Bruckheimer is gonna be doing. All right, so that's my spiel on Bruckheimer. I did feel it was important to talk about it because you do see it right like it's Ah, that that sort of world he's built.

Chris Sully:   34:25
No, it's interesting that you honed in on that because before we chatted, when I just made my notes watching the film, I just wrote Simpson Bruckheimer because when I started really starting to understand Maura about going to the movies and what I I liked and other movies that I wanted to seek out, I remember watching the openings for movies like The Rock and Con Air and you'd See The Tree With the Lightning and the Simpson Bruckheimer. And I'm like, I like when this comes up on the screen like, Who are these guys? And so I started learned more about the films that they worked on, And still to this day, when I see the Tree of the Lightning and I see Bruckheimer, I'm like, Oh, hey, Leah, I'm no, I'm gonna like this at least for the first viewing and you're right. There is. There's something to the way that they pull their movie together. That is just made to make money at the box office. They just know the process of how to give butts in seats for that event of the movie. They do a wonderful job with

Matt Sully:   35:23
it, and they all have rewatch ability to. I mean, I I'm saying I'm I'm kind of diminishing their Ah, in a lot of ways. I mean, like I said, they're not high drama or anything. You can't Nobody's gonna pull out, Ah, script for any of those movies and teach that as here's how you write a screenplay and I think they're just but they But they put together a good project, and you and you sit down and shit. I've watched the rock. I don't know what dozen times I love it every time because you know what you're gonna get like it's it's It's exactly what you think of an action movie. Well, what was it like when when people got their new, um, sound systems at home, when everybody's buying speakers and stuff at home, there's only a couple movies you put on a test, and I think one of them was the Armageddon like everybody would watch that. Or the right? Absolutely. No. Like these. These are things, you know. You're gonna have some high quality explosions, audio and visual on all that stuff. All right, so that said, Ah, let's talk Top Gun. We both rewatched it. Um, rotten tomatoes says 54%.

Chris Sully:   36:31
What's wrong with them? I'm not in disagreement. I want to know. Okay, So rotten tomatoes gives it that number. Is that bin that number for a long time Or overtime? Is this movie has aged? Has it slipped? Do they have a history button in Brighton? Tomatoes? That's a great idea is to be.

Matt Sully:   36:48
Yeah, you should. They should have a graph to show us over time, because, yeah, there's probably influenced. Like when the new one comes out, there's gonna be a whole lot of people doing like we're doing watching it again. So it would be kind of neat to see Ah, hell, if you kept that up for generations. What does? What does that Yeah, generations say about this movie?

Chris Sully:   37:08
I dare say. If you polled people in 1986 in a similar fashion, this would have ranked in the eighties or nineties pretty easily. I mean, if this was a this was this was it. This is at the center of pop culture. At the time. This was his biggest. It got. Yeah,

Matt Sully:   37:23
it was massive. I mean, the what it made at the box office that says something there was Ah, yeah, everybody coming out of the theater. If you'd ask anybody, they'll be like, That's the best movie I've ever seen. It was It was It was massive blonde. I think I can or if it's in our trivia, that we're gonna get to you later. But this was huge for the Navy or the Air Force or whatever. It was the military sign ups or or big after this and that. Crazy how that works. Like you actually get people that excited like, Yeah, now I want to go fly a jet. No

Chris Sully:   37:54
kidding me. Every time it gets a little damp outside, I'm turning corners and hitting the e brake like it's fast and furious. Man, I want to live that life quarter mile at a time. Yeah, Tigress, We're talking about planes, not cars. Well, cats

Matt Sully:   38:09
all It's all speed, right? Like that's what this was the kind of ties into for me. I, um I you know, I don't think I haven't seen this movie that much. This might be the third time I've seen Top Gun. Um, possibly I don't know. It's been a long time. I'll tell you that much. Ah, probably since before my twenties. I don't think I've watched it in my twenties, maybe, um, but it's it's okay. I mean, it's got some. It's got some action. It's fun with Europe of the Jets. And there's some drama. Ah, not a lot of comedy, really. But, um, mostly, I think it's it's not so good. The script isn't that great. I feel like Tom Cruise might have been miscast. I like Tom Cruise a lot, but I feel like had we gotten Val Kilmer in that main role instead of supporting role, honestly, I think it would've been a lot better. I think we would have got more depth. I think, uh, the relationship with Kelly McGillis, I think, would have made more sense because I look at Tom now. I like looking at him in Top Gun, and he looks so young, like just he looks like he's 18 and I look at Kelly McGillis and like, that's a woman like, what is she doing with this kid? Ah, which you know that has a time and place to, I'm sure, but for believability, of them actually connecting in any sort of real romantic sort of scenario. No, I would I would have put her with that Kilmer before I would have put her with Tom Cruise. And I feel like it was a weird move with, I guess I'm just gonna talk about welcome with Val Kilmer, like, coming off of two comedy roles like that. And then I think people might have expected him to be funny in this, and he doesn't have any funny lines at all. If anything, he's that he's the rock. Um, like the moral compass in this, he's always trying to steer. Ah Mitchell Maverick, huh? In the right direction,

Chris Sully:   40:05
you're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous. That's right, nice man and dangerous.

Matt Sully:   40:17
And that's another thing, too. Is so maverick supposed to be this bad boy that were supposed to support, but

Chris Sully:   40:25
he's a jerk

Matt Sully:   40:26
man. He just keeps doing all these wrong things. Like get on board. I'm Val Kilmer. In this movie. I'm like, Can you just do the right thing? Can you just fly the way you're supposed to fly? Uh, because you're messing everything up. You're gonna get somebody killed. Oh, does he? He's not really responsible. But

Chris Sully:   40:43
you don't spell a lot of coffee. Yeah, that's right. Those fly byes of the tower were dangerous. Terrorists. Is Ghost

Matt Sully:   40:49
Rider requesting a fly by Negative Ghost Rider? The pattern is full. Yeah, but overall, like, you know, uh, I'd say that that the best things that come out of Top Gun is the visuals. It does look cool. Like this was I think some of the beginnings of that look that Bruckheimer sort of looking field s o that for, for the time period was was new. And I think it was pretty neat. There is some decent ah, action sequences with the jets. You to get some, you know, some loud ah noises with all that. Like it's it's kind of exciting. Ah, and I don't know that I went it. Ah, I think the Iron Eagle movies were still new at the same time too. So we didn't have a lot of jet movies for that sort of activity. I want to say the 2nd 1 when I was looking up, stuff was coming out around the same time. But what else? I mean, Tom scare is great in this Michael Ironsides. Great. Would you find the

Chris Sully:   41:46
first iron? Eagle actually came out in January of 86. Okay, so same year, the 1st 1 came out. It was pretty interesting.

Matt Sully:   41:54
Well, in those went on to have, like, five more of those. I think we're pretty sure I remember watching those on VHS. Uh, yeah, there was a hole that was a whole franchise there, but overall Ah, yeah. Not a whole lot of redeeming stuff in this. I mean, it's it's a good one time view, but I'll probably never watch it again. The music's probably the best part. I mean, you throw Kenny Loggins song and anything, and it's gonna be solid gold. Ah, I'll say if if you if you did a different soundtrack nationwide, there'll be a different conversation about this movie. The rating on rotten tomatoes would be like a 30 something percent because it's possible. The music's really, really good.

Chris Sully:   42:31
Yeah, I made some notes as I was watching. I like to try to focus on the film as much as possible, so I'll just have my phone out and I'll jot down just bullet points. But these were the takeaways for me that I do stop long enough to jot down First off, right off the bat, and you said we'd do it nicely. Is the music like again? We've talked about it with other movies in that time period. They knew how to get a song to represent a film in a way, unlike is done today, I think, and the opening music to Top Gun Once again, I could hear somebody off in the distance barely playing. That would be like, Oh, yeah, Top Gun like it instantly you make that connection. Yeah, we already talked about Simpson Bruckheimer. I made a note about that. I find it funny going to imdb. If you look at the main cast. A List stars Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, Kelly McGillis. So on so on. Tim Robbins is in the movie for maybe like, 10 seconds, and we don't really have any interaction with him at all. He's got a few

Matt Sully:   43:31
lines. Yeah, there was a time where I was like, Is

Chris Sully:   43:33
that Tim Robbins

Matt Sully:   43:34
like you're looking at? Exactly? And I don't know, It kind of sounds like kind of looks like him, but I'm not certain

Chris Sully:   43:40
he played Merlin. Ah, and I'm not quite sure, like at the time. I know he wasn't a huge actor by any means, but like he's a good actor, I'm surprised. I feel like he had more parts than they got cut because they weren't important to the story. But that's what happened. James Token, who played Ah, was he Stinger in the film, He's the old bald headed guy that you'll recognize as the principal from back to the future. But you remember one thing you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit outta Hong Kong. I forgot about him to be honest outside of back to the future, so it was pleasant to be reminded that he was in that. And then I looked it up, and he was a part of a lot of great eighties movies, including back to the Future Masters of the universe War games And interestingly enough, on his IMDb page. It was a movie he was in two years later called Viper, huh? And Viper was Tom Scare. It's call sign in Top Gun. Totally unrelated. Like I was like, Oh, is this some sort of spin off? No. Viper was a different character, so But I thought that was interesting. Um, And Cougar played by John Stockwell. Uh, in the movie. When I first saw him, I had deposit. I'm like that. Looks like that's Lucas Black from fast and furious Tokyo drift. Oh, like it looked like the same damn person. I couldn't get over. Like you could put those two pictures side by side all day long, and I'd fight you on which one was which c. I thought you thought that was pretty interesting. I

Matt Sully:   45:05
thought we were gonna recognize him from the same movie. Ah, I think it's called my science project. Do you remember that? Yeah, because I was one of those. I think it was showtime or whatever. That was one of those movies that they play like, a 1,000,000 times. And whenever you catch it on, it didn't matter where it was in the movie, you'd still watch the whole movie because it was like him. And what Fisher Stevens, I think, was in that

Chris Sully:   45:26
I think so, Yeah, I was like it was a classic like be eighties flick.

Matt Sully:   45:30
Yeah, and, um, what's his name? Dennis. Now I can't remember Fatal Attraction. By the way, it was the movie. I was trying to get Thio early.

Chris Sully:   45:42
I got there, but I couldn't find a place to bring it up. Uh, yeah, it was John Stockwell Fisher Stevens. Dennis Hopper's Hopper's are all in the Thing by Science Project, which you know, Come to think of it, I have not thought about that movie in many years, but it was on a lot at the time. I want to go back and re watch that again. It's good

Matt Sully:   45:59
like it's ah, it's It's basically kind of one of those. Every once in a while, a movie comes out and I call these like a special effects sampler where the movie was made just to show off these different special effects that they could do with the time. And that's pretty much what this is. They just had, ah, take it all takes place in the high school, and they make this weird machine that is not totally dissimilar from, Ah, the machine. And, um, you just mentioned masters of the universe. Ah, Oh, yeah. It kind of opens these portals and things like that. And so that's kind of what happens in my science project. And, uh, yeah, just hilarity and weird things ensue. And they have to battle different demons to close this portal in any way yet. But ah, I can't remember. We're talking about with the Top Gun that

Chris Sully:   46:51
came out the year before I was I was going on the how John Stockwell looked like Lucas Black, which that was funny. And I'm like, one of the only people on the planet that could tell you Lucas Black is in a heartbeat just because I love Tokyo drift so much like way more than any human being should. And then the final note getting back to Top Gun that I made and I'm gonna hold to this one. I feel pretty pretty strongly about this. Who the hell plays volleyball in jeans? Yeah, that's weird. What the like I know you guys want to look real good out there. You couldn't. You look real nice shirtless and a pair of O P shorts.

Matt Sully:   47:22
Yeah, I can imagine. Do

Chris Sully:   47:23
they'll just have bad legs?

Matt Sully:   47:25
Maybe Maybe they'll have chicken lady

Chris Sully:   47:27
Skip. They all skipped leg day so they could just look really good. Fromthe waist, That's what That's what Abs.

Matt Sully:   47:33
The vernal equinox escaped like that. Um, yeah, cause I can't imagine the swampy, that sort of activity that results like I hope they didn't get. I think he did go somewhere directly after it. Didn't he drive over to her

Chris Sully:   47:45
house and Kelly McGillis his house? And the first thing he said is I'm gonna go take a shower To which she should have said, Yeah, you reek. Yeah, that's right. And you're tracking all this sand in my house. It was stuck to your wet jeans. A little

Matt Sully:   47:57
point? Yeah, The rest of that movie should have been people stepping aside and be like,

Chris Sully:   48:02
Why is there

Matt Sully:   48:03
sand everywhere? Like I just can't get it out that Cassandra's that way. Like

Chris Sully:   48:09
it's in your clothes, sort of. It's in your hair for some sort of, Ah, like Naked Guniesque pun are making fun of Top Gun. We're like by the end of the movie, you don't see anything but sand on the screen.

Matt Sully:   48:21
Goose is dying in the middle of the Indian Ocean there and just still picking sand office face like it's

Chris Sully:   48:26
in my helmet. That could have been what caused some of the flight problems. Is sand in the quick probably? Yeah, boil the sand. Those were the notes I took away. I mean, as Faras rating the movie goes, I I I'm with you. I had only seen it, I don't know, maybe three or four times before, and it's the first time in probably 15 20 years that every watched it. I felt like All in all, it's a solid film. It definitely was a subject matter, unlike anything that we've seen in a long sense, really, other than Iron Eagle, which is funny that you referenced that cause. I immediately thought of it as well. But like no one's doing, uh, movies like that anymore. What's the last time you saw some sort of plane flying movie jets? I can't recall. They are a small part in other films. They're just usually on a scene where they deployed off a craft in the ocean to go tear something up.

Matt Sully:   49:25
That's true. Making it ah, main focus. I don't think it's happened in a while, you know. Other things, too, is I could remember before watching this again, I could remember enough of the movie. Ah, the gist of it. Basically, you know, there's there's drama and his partner dies. There's a romantic sort of thing. I couldn't remember how big Meg Ryan's part actually was, and it's not really big. I thought it would be actually larger. Um, but I could not for the life of me remember the the last act, like how resolved I'm like, Do they goto?

Chris Sully:   49:58
War is there. Ah, I can't remember who the enemy is and what

Matt Sully:   50:02
actually happens. Ah and spoiler were lured. Basically, it's just like one sort of dog fight at the end. They do finally get called. It's a real mission. People get shot at. There's real bullets and stuff, but it's not a real war like they don't Yeah, it's just some sort of offshoot. People were in the airspace that shouldn't be in, and there's a fight, and that's it. And then apparently he gets a golden past like he's in one. Dogfighting is like now he can retire and do whatever he wants. I didn't understand that part at all. Like, shouldn't he have to serve for quite a

Chris Sully:   50:39
while? He just got out of school. Kids like, Yeah, because he's 18

Matt Sully:   50:45
unless I didn't understand the time frame like where they spend something up. But it looks like they graduate. He goes and immediately is called into a fight. He has, what, two interactions with three or four different planes and then he comes back. It's deemed successful, and they say, Now you can go on and do whatever you want. You can have a career doing anything you want and he decides he's going to go teach the Top Gun school and that's it. That's what you do. Yeah, I don't think that's how it works. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Well, you know, the

Chris Sully:   51:19
movies aren't always exactly documentary. What?

Matt Sully:   51:23
Everything is the truth. I have to believe

Chris Sully:   51:25
everything with the exception of the emcee you all documentary. But all this other stuff added

Matt Sully:   51:30
it. All right, Well, so sorry. Um, now we should get into talking about our own pitches. Obviously there's we bring up Top Gun because they're going to be releasing Top Gun Maverick. This is gonna be a sequel to the original many, many years in the future. Um, and I really mean that, you know, this was 1986 when Top Gun came out, and now it's gonna be 2020. Ah, and as you know, on this show, or as you don't know, uh, we like to come up with our own pitches for what we would see. Uh oh, our right as a sequel to, ah, these original movies And sometimes they're gonna Well, I think every time we've done this, it's been a true sequel. But I imagine at some point somebody's gonna be like, Well, I want to make this animated feature that goes into the history of some side character that was on screen for half a second. But until then, it seems like most of these are straight up Sequels. But the concept is yes, there's a movie that's already going to come out, and it's already been made, and it has its own story. But we're telling a different story, probably different. Maybe at some point it's going to overlap and be the exact same story that they've told. And that'll be amazing. But at this point, uh, with our knowledge of what's actually coming out, this is our pitch on what we would think with movies. Should be. You usually go first. Do you want to go first?

Chris Sully:   52:58
Ah, you go

Matt Sully:   52:59
first. Okay. Um all right. So Ah, few caveats here. If I can remember all these. Ah, please forgive my ignorance of ah, culture. Um Ah. Basically, I know nothing about ah, anything. I don't know anything about jets. I don't know anything about the Air Force or the Navy. Uh, I don't know anything about Ah, very little on this Saudi Arabian culture. I'm going to get into here. So forgive me where all the mistakes I've made, I would obviously do a lot more research if I'm actually gonna write this thing. So other than this, you know, 10 minutes synopsis or however long this is, um so this is Yeah, probably terrible. Uh, I am going to start also by saying that this is, um, way more of a drama. Uh, this is not supposed to be like a Bruckheimer sort of, you know, fast action movie here. This is gonna be straight up drama. There is gonna be Cem Cem jets involved still, but it's not gonna be the same. Same kind of movie is gonna have a different feel. Ah, I never do this, but I'm starting off with a quote because I found this quote and I like it. Terrorism does not belong to any culture or religion or political system. And that's a quote from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabian King. American pilots are zooming at high speeds practiced in skilled formation changes when unidentified planes enter the airspace. These pilots Aaron similar fighter jets. Only the pilots are communicating in Arabic. A chase ensues where several missile locks or evaded and tension is high before anyone is shot down. However, the voice of Air Ops Command calls the pilots to return to base, and we see both American and Saudi fighters descend on the same runway. We're at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida home to the Blue Angels in one of the Navy's largest international aviator training centers. The students from the combat training simulation meat to debrief the American and Saudi pilots, exchanging friend friendly banter and jabs poor class begins on Lee, one of the men appears unable to see the humor in the situation. A Saudi pilot locked into agreements Pete Maverick Mitchell appears before the class older, more of these wedding ring on his finger in a few extra pounds around his middle. He takes the group through their mistakes, highlighting the one dangerous American pilot, Evan, that breaks all the rules yet still gets his enemy Maverick both admires and berate seven, the young, reckless pilot that reminds him too much of himself when the class adjourns. The irate Saudi Sefa. I mean, that's his character name confronts the rogue American. And when the scuffle gets heated, seven pulls a gun and shoot seven down along with two others. Maverick intervenes and kills Sefa. Yeah, Twist didn't see that coming after the funeral. We hear the international students are uneasy. The Saudis actually returning to their home country, international relations are in need of repair. And Maverick is getting orders to go to Saudi Arabia to help with the local training facility, an effort to keep trust among the two peoples. He doesn't want to go, but the higher epics higher ups explained that he and his dog fighting school or outdated concepts that have no place in modern American aviation. Drone and missile technology has made pilots like him obsolete to us needs. But America still needs to sell old Tech to their allies. If they lose those allies, they lose a lot of money. If the Saudis won't come to the U. S. The U. S goes to the Saudis. Maverick travels to Saudi Arabia. We see from a simple packing and leaving his keys in a small apartment that he has no family to leave behind. He finds his new office, King Abdulaziz Airbase in Tehran. His reception is mixed among the Royal Saudi Air Force and all rankings and the other U S Air Force personnel already working there make fun of Maverick for taking the training so seriously. They know how useless traditional jet fighters are and show off their drone control room, even killing a sheep in a field with incredible accuracy. Maverick is troubled by his part in the death of the Saudi pilot, but keeps his focus on training better pilots. Among the squadrons F fifteen's and Belfour 12 Maverick discovers a handful of abandoned F four Phantoms. Decades old fighters like his father flew in Vietnam. I had to look that up. One of the Mavericks top top students who seems just as troubled and distant from his colleagues, joins Maverick and repairing the old planes. While most of the men speak English, Kalid speaks little at all. He's intense, almost frightening. But in helping each other with the planes, they learned enough of each other's languages to get the job done and the pair of men develop a tenuous trust. Eventually, Kalid invites Maverick to dinner. Maverick is unsure, but he sees the man is the closest thing he has to a friend and doesn't want to offend him. Maverick visits Collette's Home Surprising the amend family Colette's parents and younger siblings were all there as well with his knowledge of customs. But Khalid mysteriously leaves maverick behind. The dinner continues and discussions light until panicked. Word comes from a neighbor that there has been a terrorist attack at the local market. The family and maverick rushed to help the wounded and put out fires, and some of the locals are upset by Mavericks presence. The amends invite Maverick to stay with them for the evening rather than going back to the base before settling in for the evening. At the Amend home, Maverick discovers a picture of self of the men who he killed at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. This is his family and college SF His brother Maverick, is caught off guard and ask the family if they know who he is. The amends say they know who he is and claim not to blame. Maverick for his part in seven's death, they say their son was troubled, mixed up with the wrong people, conservative radicals that don't support Western influence. We see how disgusted and fearful they are of the dangerous extremists in their own land and how hopeful they are for change. Cool. It comes home in the middle of the discussion. He's angry and looks like he may have been in a fight. Salads. Odd behavior, confuses and concerns Maverick. He begins to doubt the benign nature of his new friend despite the kindness of the other men's. Then a phone call from college and stuff A sister comes in checking on the family. When she hears Maverick is there, she asked to speak with him. She tells him to stay away and call It agrees. Maverick should go class. The next day is tense, the whole basis. Discussing the bombing, Khalid goes up against maverick and combat training and maverick. It scared images of seven. The market aftermath. Corrupting this concentration Maverick breaks away, but car pulls up and ask him to get in. Inside is a woman. She's beautiful or hairs exposed. She even shakes Merrick's hand. Her name is Miriam and she's Cephus. Sister Miriam takes Maverick to a movie theater where young couples are risking being seen dating. Miriam tells America about the religious traditionalists and government influence. It has kept Saudi Arabian culture so rigid, but she says times must change. There's she's a lawyer and the social activist, and it's made her a target by her own people. The woman the women covered in headscarves and abayas and the men and their phobes sit in the theater and stare at Miriam and Maverick. It's pretty, obviously don't belong there. She tells him that her family has already met with great strife over there, break from traditional views in her out spake outspoken Nature doesn't help, but both seven Kalid have had it the hardest. Defending their family and many physical altercations, Sefa was actively being recruited by a local terrorist group that abruptly went to America for aviation training. She still doesn't know if what he did was a terrorist actor away to keep from coming home. She's afraid that Khalid may be in a similar situation. She knows that the same group has approached him as well. She asked Maverick tow watch and protect her brother. Maverick deals with the tension of his unintended integration into the amend family. And, sure, if he can trust cleared digging into the men. He sees the Saudi pilot meet with off base. He reports back to Miriam, each time becoming more familiar with her and romance blooms. But eventually the drama comes to a head. Maverick discovers too late that Kalid has given a group of men access to the base and with an explosive distraction, the bomber jets air stolen to be used for an air strike on a nearby city. Many a maverick students in the top pilots at the base or wounded or killed, and the drone control center is demolished. Maverick confronts Kalid about what he's done, he says he had no choice. The men had threatened to kill Miriam in the entire men family if he hadn't helped him. Collision. Maverick agree the terrorists must be stopped. There's only a handful of pilots and the only planes left or the old at four phantoms the Saudi and American pilots take to the sky, hasn't tracked down the terrorists. And after a thrilling dogfight, bring them down and save the city. Incidents been reported worldwide, and the international pilots are pouring into American training facilities with renewed interest in traditional dog fighting techniques. Mavericks called back home to help in asked Miriam to go with him. She says No, there's too much to be done for her own people, But she says he's family now. They part, and we close of Maverick on a commercial flight, flying into the sunset, headed back to America for both look and keeping it within the family. I'd like Ridley Scott to direct Uh, Tom would play Maverick. I'd like all Saudi actors for Miriam, Colette and Sefa and as many of the Saudi parts as possible just to give it, you know, that genuine sort of feel, and I know it's a little bit long and detailed, but I kind of had to write out a whole scenes there to get through. It s so it's not a true synopsis, but yeah, that's it on. Actually failed to come up with a name for it. Ah, yeah. So we'll keep Top Gun Maverick, but I don't actually know what that's the title that go

Chris Sully:   1:1:44
with. Yeah, you Ah, you got deep into the weeds on that one. But it's a good story. I feel like I feel like I saw the movie just then. Yeah, I took a different approach this time. Um, and I did something very similar to what you did, because I do feel like I didn't want to miss, step or say the wrong thing and, uh, say just hurt anybody's feelings. So I wrote a little thing That's Ah, morning upfront. I know very little about our military or the subject matter. Aside from what I've learned from movies and the occasional interaction with a friend who served, I've never served myself but respect all men and women who have served for our freedom. So if I say something stupid, just remember what I just said. Um I'm going to skip. But I do have a title. I have a cast. I'm not going to share that with yet, but I am gonna share that. I would like the director to be Michael Bay just given the ah, the experience with Simpson, Bruckheimer and Michael Bay and the number of movies they've done together. Plus, I feel like the original Top Gun like you said, very dramatic. No comedy. It lacked that. I think that would put it over the top. So I'd like to see a little bit of that interjected into this new film. And it's funny that you brought it up before we started. I decided to go a different direction. This time I know what we're getting from Top Gun Maverick from the trailers, and it is just another one of these where the same amount of time has progressed and we're here with the same character. I don't want to do that for this one. I know that. So we're getting but I wrote something different. Eso Tom Cruise is referenced but not featured in the film in 2020. Being invited to the Top Gun Flight school is still one of the highest honors in the American military program. But things have changed drastically since 1986. Today's military still relies on fighter jets, but some of those air now remotely flown by pilots, I put in quotes in military outposts far from their aircraft. The 2020 Top Gun flight school class commences to find a group of 30 new recruits, 15 actual fighter pilots from within the ranks of the military and 15 remote pilots recruited via the simulation video games that they played online and dominated in at EA Sports tournaments. One such game was called Maverick, where players had unknowingly been trying to best the performance of the real life Top Gun graduate and legend from the eighties. Again, he's referenced but never shown, so they don't know that what they're doing is actually a test to see if they'll they'll be invited into the Top Gun program. This is a new thing. As with any film with this genre, there's tension between the two recruit groups, especially between the real pilots and the video game pros who were brought on to replace them, much like in the original film, their exercises and challenges that pithy instructors against the young recruits, and the competitive nature is elevated between those sets of recruits. So you get the same kind attention that you had in the 1st 1 But now you've got two clicks to very defined groups. Within that training, near the end of their training, the new pilots air called into action against an unknown enemy. But on American soil, this anonymous group flies unpiloted jets built right here in the U. S. And has attacked several landmarks around the states simply to show their power. After each mission, their aircraft detonate, leaving our military unable to track them back to their origin or establish who's been deploying them. I wrote that in there cause I'm like we got GPS satellites and all the time it would be easy. Just fine Back home, right? Are tracking back home? Nope. They're like three d printing these things in destroying them. This anonymous group, who have code named Tak Mott ta C mot, which is just Tomcat backwards, has threatened to attack the White House and kill the president unless their demands are met as required by movie law. The line we do not bargain with terrorists is uttered in response to their demands. And it's game on. It's movie long. It is. The two groups of Top Gun pilots come together to fight off the attack. And during the battle, um, one character who I I like the idea of Ah, you know how they have their call signs. And in the first movie, they're all these, like, really masculine badass animals that viper and Ice man all this stuff. I like the idea that these new guys who were brought on have gamer tags, okay, and that would be their call sign. So ah, the main character. His code name is wolf, but it's w 01 ethnic, much like you would see with gamer tags. Now the two groups of Top Tun pilots come together to fight off the attack, and during their battle, ah, one of the characters actually able to track the anonymous signal back to where they're controlling their planes using some of his hidden talents, I put that in air quotes. It turns out that he was a gamer and a hacker who had been arrested and cut a deal to participate in the program to reduce his sentence after defeating the enemy's aircraft. The Top Gun graduates take the battle to the base of the anonymous crew, only to find out that it was all run by the son of a fallen pilot from the Top Gun program. Maybe even someone we were familiar with from the first Top Gun film. So I kept this on more General. I like just the basic idea of it. Instead of being a foreign enemy, it's actually something right here on our soil. And then I like the idea of Yeah, things have changed and we do know there these drone programs, and that's going a step further and where they getting these talented kids from that can fly these planes. So that's the EA sports in the gaming aspect coming in, which I feel like there's some games they put out now some shooter games, and I think you can play some on the official sites for these different military branches. I feel like they already doing this. Yes, I feel like they're looking has the skills that

Matt Sully:   1:7:24
very last Starfighter, like, uh, this is exact of recruiting through the video.

Chris Sully:   1:7:31
Plus that for sure. So Ah, I told you my director's Michael Bay. My cast is Nicholas Hoult as wolf eyes that gamer John Boyega as one of the traditional fighter pilots. And then because I feel like, Okay, you've got you need to work in more people of color. That's why you brought in John Boyega. You need your main character. I feel like Nicholas Hoult kind of comes off and could be that cocky young kid. Yeah, I like. And then you need Yeah, he's great. I just watched Ah, movie on Apple. Plus with him, Sam Jackson and, um, Anthony Mackie. It was really good about banking in the sixties anyway. Ah, and then finally, Jennifer Lawrence. Because I feel like you also need to work in the fact that women are now allowed into the program, which they were not in the eighties. And there were some really sexist remarks by Val Kilmer, Ice Man in that film that were now don't don't play well at all with audiences. So I feel like you gotta bring in Jennifer Lawrence somebody else of that caliber to, ah, to play a female lead in the program, not just the love interest and because I think he'd be great in this role. Jon Hamm as one of their instructors because I just like him. He could be a real dick, which is perfect for this kind of role. And the dude looks good in the uniforms. So and the title of my movie Very simple Top Gun: Need for speed. I'm

Matt Sully:   1:9:09
really surprised that's not the title of this. The new one.

Chris Sully:   1:9:12
I mean, honestly, we talked about it a lot after I watched the movie last weekend. And I really struggled with ah premise for this one because I just don't think we need a sequel. The Top Gun. Honestly, now I may watch the film and go Oh, okay. They figured it out. I'm fine with this. This is cool, but I don't know.

Matt Sully:   1:9:32
Well, I agree. I I think I really like yours. By the way, I think I can totally see that actually being not only a Michael Bay movie, but something that they would want to consider as a nice follow up to the Top Gun story. The only the only problem there is that which I was surprised you did is not having Tom Cruise and it because that obviously they're gonna push for that so not they have to work off the name of the movie. But also Tom Cruise says the actor, like you know, there's no way they're gonna make the Top Gun movie now I think, and in both both are movies. Maybe have a shot at this where they don't necessarily have to be Top Gun movies. They could be movies on their own that don't don't really relate to this franchise. Like my guy could be a washed up. Ah, you know, dogfight instructor. He didn't have to be Top Gun anything. Um and, uh, you're you're telling a unique story with this whole recruitment sort of aspect with modern gaming and everything and all that's very interesting. I could totally see both those being made. I like that. Neither of us, But well, that was kind of my nod was I had the whole thing in there where ah, my new Top gun guy a shot him in the face like within the 1st 10 minutes of the movie, because that was basically saying this is not that movie. And I named him Evan because that's ah, that's his original name in the script. Actually, it wasn't Pete. It was Evan

Chris Sully:   1:10:58
Mitchell. That's why it sounded familiar. That's right.

Matt Sully:   1:11:02
Ah, cool. I really liked both those. Yeah, I agree. I don't I don't think we need another top gun. And we prove this in our re watches that I think we look back on that with way more fondness than deserves. Like it was very much about. We watched that at a time when it was pretty epic and it was big, and we're willing to spend money on that sort of thing. But it's very dated. It's very much like it doesn't have a lot of re watchability. It's it's not a great movie. It's an okay movie and okay, movies you're watching wants in the Utah awesome. You wait for the next movie. That's basically the same thing with a different title, Um, and that I don't that that's all they're going with their using the title on basically our nostalgia against us.

Chris Sully:   1:11:49
I really wonder how many let's call him 25 years old and younger have seen Top Gun and how many have none, and I think you made a reference to it earlier. So the Sequels coming out and I was thought about this like they must have in their formula for making money on these. They must think. Okay, once we produced this equal, what can we do with the original one toe bank and make a ton more money off of it at the same time? Like I just saw the a bunch of Tom Cruise movies are, for the first time ever, becoming available in four K and Tom Top Gun was one of the ones they announced in the last week and 1/2. So there I'm surprised it's on. Any of the streaming service is I would've thought by that they would have taken it off so they could capitalize on the movie sales on disk or on digital. But they're not showing the four K version, so I always thought that was interesting. Did they factor that in when they're making a sequel and okay, we know the sequel's gonna make this, but the original one is now gonna make this much more so as a whole. This is why it's a profitable film,

Matt Sully:   1:12:53
I'm sure. I'm sure there's an uptick in sales, like, especially if it's affordable enough. We have it now or we can you can rent or buy these for Not all that expensive of a price off of a lot of platforms. Right? So we could buy. Probably top gun For what, six or $7 now? Um, probably. I mean, so they're going to see they're gonna make a decent going on on that. Ah, and I think it all factors in I mean, that's why that's why we that's why they do this, right? Like, we've talked about that and we're gonna keep talking about it. That's the whole point of this podcast is that they're gonna build off of what they've already made because there is money to be made off of that original franchise. And, ah, yeah, whether or not we need or want thes movies, they're going to get made because there's money to be made.

Chris Sully:   1:13:42
Yeah, absolutely true. The one thing I will not allow myself to do, there's maybe one exception is go. Nope. It's a sequel I didn't want, so I'm never gonna watch it. I just don't think that makes any sense. I'll at least go give it one try see what it's all about, and I'm gonna watch it to the end I don't care how bad it is. I'm gonna watch it all the way through the closing credits and then maybe go. You know what? That was the one time I'm ever going to see this or hey, turns out it's pretty good. I was wrong. Now we've got a nice two films. When are we getting the trilogy? You know, the one exception might be back to the future. I don't want them to ever re boom back to the future or do some crappy ass sequel,

Matt Sully:   1:14:25
but they will, and we'll probably have to have it is one of our bodies. So the actual top Gun maverick, no matter how awesome our movies will be ah, is coming out it. Yeah, here's the synopsis. After more than 30 years of service, is one of the Navy's top aviators, and this is my first time to read it. A cop I literally copied and pasted it from Wikipedia without really smart. Um, Pete Maverick Mitchell. Tom Cruise is where he belongs. Pushing the envelope is a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement and rank that would ground him when he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen. Maverick encounters Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw, played by Miles Teller Call sign Rooster, the son of Mavericks late best friend and radar intercept officer Lieutenant Nick Bradshaw, known as groups facing an uncertain future. So you had his his son come back, and so are they. Facing an uncertain future in confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it. Okay, So still pretty vague. Yeah. So, basically, he's gonna basically be relieving his his nightmare of of his, uh, his Rio, which I they said Rio a dozen times in the movie where I never actually heard what it stood for. Its radar intercept officer had to read that separately. Rios, like your you're not your wing man, but the guy riding with you, that's it. That's goose for him. So, yeah, he's gonna be a new mission, but same thing where he's gonna be worried the whole time about losing.

Chris Sully:   1:16:09
Can I just say before you go on because I know you got some more info there. But Miles Teller is great casting in this because he's a good actor, but he plays a dick so well, Like everything he's in. I look at him. Go, guy. What a dick, Like immediately. I don't know what it is about. It is this face or the way talks. I don't know what it is, but I think this is perfect to play that role as some some young pissed off kid.

Matt Sully:   1:16:33
Yeah, I agree. He, uh he does have that look, there are some people that you're just like, Oh, well, if if I ever met him at a party, I'd probably instantly go excuse myself, cause I really don't want have a conversation with, And I doubt he would have a conversation with me. Um, but but as an actor, I really get him. Ah, Ah. Whiplash is one of my favorite movies. Oh, that. Ah, that movie is 100%. Like near perfect is a movie you can make like it's it's just excellent. Um, so you apparently nailed it. I don't know if you saw this or not, but Jon Hamm is No. Okay,

Chris Sully:   1:17:14
maybe maybe I saw the trailer and he was in the trailer and I just didn't connect that I had seen it. I bet that's what it was. I'm not that good, but I,

Matt Sully:   1:17:24
uh, I'd have John Hammond every move, right. I agree.

Chris Sully:   1:17:27
And he could do it all to

Matt Sully:   1:17:28
you. He he does. Yeah. Drama comedy. I like him. He's he's great. He's the opposite of Miles Teller, where he's instantly likable. I

Chris Sully:   1:17:35
like Ed Harris. I like it. Harris.

Matt Sully:   1:17:39
Yeah, me, too. It Harris. I would have in a lot of stuff to Jennifer Connelly's in there. I haven't seen her honestly in anything in a long time. I'm trying to remember the last thing I saw her in was maybe what Dark City. That's the last thing

Chris Sully:   1:17:54
she was in. Beautiful mind. Yeah, you want a real interesting fact about Jennifer Connelly is in the M. C. U. Her real life husband, Paul Bettany, played, um Jarvis, the voice of Jarvis, and that eventually became vision. And then, when Jarvis was replaced, Tony Stark had to replace it with Friday. Friday is voiced by Jennifer Connelly. I didn't that cool. I learned that was like that school That's really great. And I

Matt Sully:   1:18:24
always liked her. Um, and yeah, I forgot. She was a beautiful mind. She was really good. The

Chris Sully:   1:18:28
rare opportunity. I could watch that every day for the rest of

Matt Sully:   1:18:30
my life. Uh, yeah, that's one night. I don't want them to redo it, but ah, I do want more people to see them. Amen. Ah, Val Kilmer's also going to be back as ice man, so I mean that there's good people in it. But honestly, I really don't know how this movie's gonna turn out. Um, when the movie was in discussion and 2010 Tony Scott was going to direct again, we talked about Unfortunately, after a suicide, um, Joseph Kosinski is directing. Kosinski's first feature length movie was Tron Legacy, followed by oblivion and on Lee the Brave. I like Tron. Legacy felt there was some CG mishaps there, and but overall, I actually think it's a pretty cool movie and oblivion with Tom Cruise.

Chris Sully:   1:19:17
Yeah, I like that. Actually,

Matt Sully:   1:19:19
May 2. I really enjoy that movie. I've watched it a few times.

Chris Sully:   1:19:22
I don't know why that's not hire on people's radars. I don't

Matt Sully:   1:19:25
know. I don't know, um, writers Jim Cash, writer on the original Top gun, died in 2000. But both he and Epps or given a writer's credits for Top Gun Maverick. The credit is for the characters of the actual writers. For Top Gun Maverick, there are five. Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren, singer Christopher McQuarrie, Peter Craig and Justin Marks and I'm Telling You five Riders is a strong indication of help. Potentially bad this script will be. There was even word that Ashley Miller and Zach Stents, writers of Thor and X Men first class, were supposed to be in negotiations. But that obviously fell through it. Just it's too many. Too many shifts in the kitchen, right? Like it it's not. It's not a good

Chris Sully:   1:20:12
It depends, though. Like over Is it five writing simultaneously? Or did each of these take a stab at it? And somebody like Christopher McQuarrie, who's a established and a very good writer, came in and cleaned it all up in tow. One good story,

Matt Sully:   1:20:27
but that it's a Band Aid, right? Usually it's like unless you have somebody start over and be this hole that the idea Well, I mean, it's the script, obviously wasn't they had to call in somebody, if not two or three other people to be like, How can we make this better? And then they're gonna fix a few scenes here and they're they're gonna maybe add a little bit of depth to a character, but usually it's You can still tell that it was. It was not as cohesive as it would have been with just one or two right. For the benefit of optimism, though, I do want to do a quick rundown on the writers. Kruger has done thrillers, which is ironic and horror, like Arlington Road, The Ring and Scream three. Um, Singer wrote American Hustle. Makor E The Usual Suspects Edge of Tomorrow Valkyrie. Jack Reacher Obviously, he's a time career guy. Ah, Craig wrote the Town and the Hunger Games mocking Jay and Mark. Mark's wrote The Jungle Book. So I mean, there is there's decent stuff in there, right? Like Arlington Road. Not a lot of people talk about that movie, but it's pretty cool. Ah, movie. The ring. I really like, um uh, usual set everything from a coriander enjoy on

Chris Sully:   1:21:41
crazy group of people. Like I would never put them all in a room and say, Hey, we're looking for a top gun sequel. Make it happen.

Matt Sully:   1:21:50
Yeah, All right. So we'll we'll have to see it with the rest of people. And that's gonna come out in July 17th 2020. Maybe we really you

Chris Sully:   1:21:58
know, I saw a thing today that AMC basically publicly stated that they doubt they would be open at all this summer. So I have a feeling this one could get pushback, probably even to 2021 at this point.

Matt Sully:   1:22:14
Yeah, it'll be weird because, you know, especially these people that do want they already know like they've already planned everything. It's gonna be the summer film, right? Like they have. There's a lot of those every summer we know. Everybody knows we're getting these summer films. They're ready to go to theaters. And yet do we What? Bring it out a few months later? Now it's not a summer movie. Or do you literally wait an entire year to do it again? I could see that happening. I could see them pushing it out. Just assault.

Chris Sully:   1:22:42
It'll be really interesting to see and this is not related. Just a top gun. But as these films, Air pushed back that many had already started spending like Top Gun. A lot of money on advertising that we all know that the average American or moviegoer they have a very short attention span. If this ends up coming out in 2021 how does a movie studio that spends probably 2030 $40 million in advertising did they have to start the whole thing over again? And how badly does that hurt the bottom line for the movie or other movies that they were planning on doing? I really wonder, like, could they effectively just pause the advertising and then pick it up a week before the movie comes out again? It's gonna be very interesting to see what they do. And are they going up against Maur movies than ever? Because once production picks back up, they've all pushed these all back. We're gonna get an influx.

Matt Sully:   1:23:36
Yeah, but then I mean, there's only so many studios putting out stuff. So there's there's gonna be there, their own competition at away, so they'll figure out the calendar all over again. That's true. Yeah, All right. Um, I do want to get over into some fun, Truby. Ah, fun fax things. We've learned stuff, and that is about the man.

Chris Sully:   1:24:00
I love this part. I I loved reading these before we ever did one of these podcasts. And now this gives me an excuse to look at it for some of my favorite movies. Which is there's some cool stuff in here for sure.

Matt Sully:   1:24:12
Yeah. Everybody always likes to hear what really happened by and the scenes or what? You know, where does the little tweaks and and funny stuff that happened that that we never would have discovered it

Chris Sully:   1:24:22
Or just do our typical back and forth? Yeah, I kick it off here with him, if that's okay. Uh, Tom Cruise had to wear lifts, no surprise. And his scenes with Kelly McGillis. Cruz is only 57 while McGillis was 5 10

Matt Sully:   1:24:38
Yeah. Nice in the script. Mavericksfirst name was Evan. Oh, I did leave in. It was changed to Pete in The final film is the tip of the hat to the technical advisor, Pete Viper. Pettigrew scene in the film is the man Charlie is meeting at the bar in her first appearance in the film.

Chris Sully:   1:24:51
I wonder who that guy was when I was watching, I was like, That's weird to call him out but not have him in the movie. Um, next one, the Rial Top Gun school imposes a $5 fine to any staff member that quotes the movie. I love this I I can't imagine if I went there, I would try to quote lines from the movie that no one knew just to see if I could get away with it. That's

Matt Sully:   1:25:14
a great well, and it's only $5. You could do the entire script and only spend, like, maybe 100 book. Ah, writing on the back of this film's success, the U. S Navy set up recruiting booths and the major cinemas to try and catch some of the adrenaline charge guys leaving the screenings. They had the highest applications rate for years. As a result,

Chris Sully:   1:25:34
that that really makes sense, honestly, good, good on them. Ah, For the opening of the film, director Tony Scott wanted to shoot aircraft aircraft taking off and landing on the aircraft carrier backlit by the sun. The carrier captain had changed course of this ship, and when Scott asked if the ship could continue on the previous course and speed. He was told that turning the ship cost $25,000. Scott then wrote the captain. A quick $25,000 checks of the ship could be turned and he could keep shooting for another five minutes. According to Scott, the check bounced. I love That s so good,

Matt Sully:   1:26:11
huh? Yeah. 25. Michael Ironside stated in the DVD commentary that he was so convincing as an officer that when he heard someone running toward and below deck, he got on the sailor who was running the sailor saluted and slowed down until he got out of Iron Sides line of sight and started running against the sailor. Never knew that Iran's I was an actor in the film. That's pretty funny. Yeah. If Michael Ironside told me to do anything, I would do it like that Dude is intimidating.

Chris Sully:   1:26:40
Cougar was supposed to have crashed while trying to land back on the carrier, and his death was supposed to be why Maverick slid into Cougars spot. But this was summarily cut by the Navy, as this was intended to be a recruitment tool for the Navy. They didn't want negative attention drawn on a particularly hazardous aspect of serving on a carrier or flying fighters. Interesting.

Matt Sully:   1:27:02
Yep. Yeah, this film is credited with starting the home video industry. Originally, VHS tapes were priced $100 upon their first release and were sold mainly to video stores. The film This film was priced tone immediately upon release made possible by Pepsi Cola buying ads base of the beginning of the tape. Since then, pricing VHS tapes to own right away became a common practice.

Chris Sully:   1:27:25
Well, interesting. I'm gonna call somewhat B s on this since you and I have time working in video stores Many years we were I didn't start working at him until 91. And the only people that were making of available at a normal price was Disney. All the other ones were still crazy priced. This must have been an experiment that didn't really take off until DVD sales many years later. Because remember when we worked at video stores. Do you remember any movies being available for $19 on release day? Other than Disney, not on

Matt Sully:   1:28:01
release day? Yeah, because Well, they tried thio. Ah, span it out. So they get the rentals first and then you then you could buy. Yeah, I don't

Chris Sully:   1:28:12
like 90 days later maybe, but not that they came out for rental cause people when they would lose. I think we talked about this before when somebody would lose her damage, a tape, they would come in and be shocked that that was $110 that they were gonna have to pay. That was gonna be 15 20 bucks. Or people would special order movies and would pay through the nose for the privilege to own a VHS tape that was going to deteriorate over time. Yeah, Yeah, I

Matt Sully:   1:28:37
remember discovering when we saw how much it actually costs to buy these and thinking about Oh, man, we need undies. And you'd see, like, a whole section where they bought, you know, 50 of these copies. Most video stores at the time. These were a moment pop sort of operations that they'd by, like, two copies or something, you know, maybe four. And when they made some money back, they would get rid of a couple of them, you know, like this was this was it wasn't like with blockbuster, whatever. Where they do a whole wall there's, like, 200 of them. Um, yeah, I don't Maybe they mean that. Yeah, it was experimental, but not like the next every movie, then on did it. It's just they tried it and then other people tried it. And

Chris Sully:   1:29:23
it's interesting sidebar, but something that most people probably will never, never have seen or never wills. When I worked at Hastings in college, we rented VHS never DVD while I was there. And, um, I had a report every Monday of all the movies by barcode that I would have to go pull off the shelf because they were running a mathematical formula in the background to show when it had finally made a profit. Like if we paid $100 for it was rented out 50 times and $3 a rental. It had served its purpose. And then I would pull those shrink, wrap them and sell them as the used movies. So would make another 10 bucks and then every Monday and have to pull a bunch and do that with him is very interesting that they had a science and an entire ah ah thing dedicated to that to really make sure they were profiting off. The movie's correctly,

Matt Sully:   1:30:13
Damn is a decent system, but it was a gamble. Sometimes they didn't really know how many copies they should order. You didn't want over order on some stuff and be stuck with 50 copies of something that just wasn't even gonna sell like ever. You price it like two bucks and people weren't.

Chris Sully:   1:30:30
And then there was the real weird time. Do you remember the ah, basically, the self detonating VHS tapes? They they were. Instead, almost all the VHS tapes were black. There were these occasional ones that were either green or red, and inside the VHS tape they were cheaper to buy for the video stores. But inside there was a magnet that, upon every view, would push one step closer to the actual real and after had been viewed, like 50 times, it would essentially self erase the tape. When it played on that 50th time,

Matt Sully:   1:31:00
I didn't know that's what that was. I do remember seeing a red cape that's that there were

Chris Sully:   1:31:05
only a handful. I can't remember a specific movie that we got that did that. I want to say Maybe last Boy Scout was one of those. But I was one of the first. Got him, like, why is this a different color? And then somebody finally told me the story. I thought that was it was an interesting little small trial that I don't think ever saw. Much, much legs. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So is our diet dressed horribly from our cool fax? No gun?

Matt Sully:   1:31:33
No. That's all right.

Chris Sully:   1:31:35
Let's see. I'll do the next work here. The late Tony Scott was fired. Not once, not twice, but three times from the project. Part of the reason the studio sent Scott the pink slip on three different occasions. It was because the film ran over budget. And over time, yes. Oh, fire the guy so he can't finish. That makes sense.

Matt Sully:   1:31:54
Well, I mean, I could see that whenever the you're working with the navy and they're talking about like, I'm not turning this ship around, this is $25,000 So, yeah, probably went over budget.

Chris Sully:   1:32:03
Didn't we start this off by freaking out that it was only 15 mil? Like what? What do they have this guy really expect him to do? I don't

Matt Sully:   1:32:11
know. Well, it was his first. Like a big budget movie, right? So I don't know. Whatever Test audience who saw the movie before it was released were annoyed that there was no love scene. The producers obliged, and five months after the production had wrapped, they summoned Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis to Chicago to film the infamous elevator scene and the sex scene. During their time away from the set, McGillis had lost approximately £16. Cruz is actually filming the color of money, so his hair was much longer in those two scenes. McGillis, his hair was also much darker. Hence why she hid it underneath a cap on the elevator scene. Remember, she's wearing that. Yeah,

Chris Sully:   1:32:45
which, which looked really good. Gonna say the same thing. She actually pulls off a hat. Really Will.

Matt Sully:   1:32:51
Yeah, she's pretty hot. Ah, this year,

Chris Sully:   1:32:54
the enemy is never identified. At the time, many assumed it was the Russians. Others suspected China, but everything was intentionally kept vague, including the insignias of the enemy gear and planes. More than one writer worked on the original script as well, and the treatment of the enemy changed is the story was developed. There's an article from National Interest dot or GE that talks about the finale of an early draft where the North Korea was the proposed.

Matt Sully:   1:33:22
Yeah, I remember. Especially the time period, Cold War and everything. We just all enemies were the Russians, like it was just you walked into a movie and knew it was an easy one, right? Like you always made the villain Russian or some foreign entity that we would easily grasp onto. Sure. Sure. Worked for Rocky four. Yep. Sure did. Until the end, when he unified the two countries single-handedly, which is our single boxing glove. Italy. Yeah, I just took a few punches. Whatever. He loves each other. Now, Um, I did actually find ah mentioned this earlier. Ah, reading the script. Um ah, I didn't I didn't read the entire thing. I did read some of it, though. It's fun to read scripts because just trying to see what this stuff looks like on paper. Ah is interesting. And really think about how you take something like that and then actually develop it into what it becomes. It's just fascinating. You can get the script. This one's by chip pros. Who I don't even think I mentioned two bows on the other writers. Ah, he's not given credit and I am D B, but that's a daily script dot com. You go over there and there's a bunch of stuff they have. But Top Gun is that was

Chris Sully:   1:34:36
the early draft of the original movie. Not the new one, right?

Matt Sully:   1:34:38
Yeah, the original. It's our interesting All right, well, that is it for the Top Gun episode. Hopefully, you guys had a lot of fun learned something's got to hear our pitches. For what? We would like to see our versions of the top gun movie be obviously where when we can we're all gonna rush to the movie theater since C as many things this we we can probably bunch stuff we don't even care to see. But we're excited to be out and see a movie so well, we'll see Top Gun and, uh and, uh, do our own review and see if it's anything like our pitches or hopefully just somewhat entertaining. All right, thanks very much on, and I am Matt Solo. This is Chris silly, and this has been Movie Retakes .