‘It looked like Star Wars on Earth’: making Top Gun at 40 | Top Gun

Met might be one of the most important airplanes in movie history. When the 5ft 7in young actor with long hair and a ponytail swung around on a motorcycle, a group of US military pilots were more than happy to test his need for speed.

He looks at her and doesn’t know who it is Tom Cruise and,” recalls filmmaker Jack Epps Jr. “They do what they love to do: pick him up, shake him, knock him down, and come out and say, ‘I like this. Since then, he has been there. “

Cruise’s experience that day with the Blue Angels, the US Navy’s pilot squadron, would inspire him to become a licensed pilot. He will also accept the role of Maverick in the Top Guna film about cold war flying aces that redefined modern cinema. Co-written by Epps and Jim Cash, directed by Tony Scott and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, it turns 40 on Saturday.

Top Gun charts a reckless naval battle between Maverick and Iceman (Val Kilmer), boyfriend and mentor Charlie (Kelly McGillis) and blame himself for the death of pilot Goose (Anthony Edwards) in a training accident. He is sent on a dangerous rescue mission, to save Iceman and is rescued, Iceman tells him: “You can be my wings anytime.”

The high-testosterone section of Ronald Reagan-era Americana — and the homoerotic game of beach volleyball thrown in – made the 23-year-old Cruise a star and drove a spike in the military; the navy even set up recruiting tables in the movies. It later brought more in 2022, with a third installment on the way.

It all started in 1983 when Bruckheimer was looking in the May magazine of California. “Top Guns” read the headlinefeaturing a large image from inside the cockpit of an F-14 fighter jet. The story began: “At Mach 2 and 40,000 feet in California, it’s always daylight.”

Speaking from Los Angeles, Bruckheimer, 82, recalls: “I saw an article in the magazine and it looked like Star Wars on Earth and I pitched it to my friend, Don Simpson, and then he called one of our bosses and said, ‘Let’s get the rights to this,’ and that’s how it started.”

The two pitched the idea to the producer Jeffrey Katzenberghe’s the head of production at Paramount, and he was impressed. When Katzenberg floated five or six ideas to cartoonists Cash and Epps over breakfast one day, Top Gun was one of them. Epps, who had a private pilot’s license, took over.

The 76-year-old, who lives in Santa Monica, recalls: “I said, ‘Oh, this is going to be great, I’m going to get on a jet plane!’ We didn’t make a movie. Even though it wasn’t built I could get on a plane from there, that’s a very special thing. My friend didn’t like to travel by plane so I just explained it to him but there was no problem.

“We met with producer Simpson. Bruckheimer and I said my concern is that if we’re going to do this, we have to go on real airplanes. We can’t have airplane special effects; it has to be real stuff.”

This requirement was central to the Pentagon’s efforts to secure military cooperation. “I pitched the idea of ​​how we could watch these young American heroes and he said, ‘That sounds fun and we’re letting them use our equipment. I said, ‘Oh, no, really?! How fast can I get there?'”

Epps was sent to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar to induct himself into the elite ranks of naval aviators. They interviewed 30 pilots but the real revelation came when they were tied to the back of the jet after it crashed.

He said: “I had to do a course, which gave me a lot of ideas. “Before I got on board, I knew how to get out and go through a place called the hell dunker, where they put you under water and you have to come out very orderly. All these crazy things were good because they gave me a complete feeling.

“We went up and they told me, ‘We don’t have to do this but we’re going to do it anyway,’ so they did very close-ups. We pulled six Gs and I learned that, when you’re pulling Gs, even though you have a special uniform that compresses your legs, you have to grunt to keep the blood flowing to your brain.

Epps continues: “It was amazing and the speed was amazing. I had never heard that in my life. The ability of these guys to pull a hard G, climb up, cross each other, barrel roll again, back and forth in fast passes was amazing.

“When I got off, I called my friend and said, ‘Jim, this is not what we think it is, these guys are fast, they’re strong, and the speed we’ve never seen in our lives. We were all athletes – Jim played football in high school, I played ice hockey until my 30s – so we took an athlete’s perspective on this. These guys were very special and athletes love to compete with each other.'”

But when Epps saw the F-14s taking off and landing, he realized there was still a plot hole in the middle of the operation. Drama calls for controversy, but the pilots at Miramar were united. “I’m looking at these guys and they’re all getting along because they’re all working in teams and I’m like, ‘What am I going to write, what’s the story here?

“I shake my head and I say, ‘Oh, what if one guy disagrees? What if one guy becomes a star? That’s the beginning of the Maverick guy where we said, ‘Okay, this is where the disagreement comes from within. Someone wants to do well at a top gun school.'”

The emotional anchor of the film – the central paradox The death of Maverick Goose’s radar officer – was a threat expressed directly by the deep sadness that Epps saw among real pilots.

“We went out and had coffee together and I was sitting next to six, seven guys and they started talking about the friends they lost in Vietnam. This was 15 years later and I saw that they were still crying because of the loss of my friends and fellow pilots and I was very touched by their true feelings that they had.

“I had an idea for myself as a writer: if I could make the audience feel what they feel, the feeling of loss, I will have achieved something. That’s when I got the idea to lose Goose in the middle because it would bring the audience, they feel lost, as it means to lose a pilot, to lose a friend, and so we went with it and it’s a short moment.”

When the script started, the most important filming question loomed large. The role of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell required an actor with charisma and charisma. For Epps, there was only one choice. “I was a Tom Cruise fan at the time – still am – so we wrote this with Tom Cruise in mind as Maverick. I loved his videos: he’s a great actor, he connects with the audience.

“We were finishing the script and I handed it to Jerry Bruckheimer at the gates of Bel Air on Saturday night. I said, ‘Jerry, think Tom Cruise when you read this.’ He read it and so did Don and they both said, ‘Yeah, love the script. Tom Cruise: good idea.’“

Bruckheimer agrees, confirming that Cruise was their target. However, finding a young star – who grew his hair for the sake of Ridley Scott’s interesting film Myth – was not a straightforward task.

Bruckheimer says: “We couldn’t get him to commit so I arranged for him to fly with the Blue Angels in El Centro, California. He had long hair and a ponytail and he saw this guy walking by and said, ‘We’re going to take this hippy on a real trip.’ He did and he got out of the plane, walked to the phone booth, because there were no cell phones at that time, called me, and said, ‘I’m in.’

Pete Pettigrew, a former top gunnery adviser, was an important technical advisor. When the production begins Scott’s visionary eyethe film had to balance its dramatic aesthetic ambitions with its idealism. Bruckheimer admits that the process of adapting Top Gun was a simple negotiation between visual aesthetics and story.

“We looked at it in different stages. We saw the early edits, which were more of a look than a thing, and that’s where Tony comes from. He’s an amazing artist and marketing director and he’s a great visionary and he showed in the area, and then we sat with him, the editor, and went through each stage together and brought it back to the movie where it’s at.”

After the first refusal, the US military saw the possibility of Top Gun to destroy his reputation and encourage young people to sign up. But the alliance has fueled a persistent criticism from the left over the next few decades: that Top Gun is a highly motivated, pro-war weapon wrapped in a pop song.

Epps rejects this reading, preferring to view the film through the lens of the cast members he interviewed. “These are America’s greatest heroes and they put their lives on the line every day for America. They love the country and are there to protect us so it’s a little silly to disrespect our veterans and our people in the war that protect us.

“These are heroes. You always hear someone say that, but it didn’t mean they were starting a war. They are there to protect. They are the tip of the spear and they risk their lives every day for us.”

Although the filmmakers were confident, the release process was full of unknowns. First trial in Houston, just after graduation the explosion of the space shuttle Challengerleft the production team worried. Bruckheimer admits: “There was no laughter, there was nothing, it was just dead and we thought it was a disaster.

Epps remembers the first time he saw the film in person. “It was impressive.” What was great about Tony Scott’s control was that he understood this speed, the concept of G-force, and he was able to shoot, change.“

Although critic Pauline Kael called it a “glowing commercial”, Top Gun grossed $357m worldwide to become the No 1 film of 1986 while its follow-up album was a best-seller. This song Take My Breath Away and Berlin won an Oscar for best original song.

While Bruckheimer continues to work on the much awaited third filmpoints to one reason why Top Gun continues to endure. “Tom Cruise,” the producer says emphatically. “He’s a very hardworking actor in Hollywood and has an amazing instinct.