Top Gun

Lots of people liked Top Gun. It made over $300 million dollars, at a time when 1/3 of that was a major milestone for movies. Tom Cruise, who had proven himself a solid lead in Risky Business, was now seen as a bona fide bankable star. It even lead to increased recruitment for the U.S. Navy, perhaps due to its view that, a decade after the end of the Vietnam War,  the military was again competent and effective.

Acknowledging that it's not a great movie, though, should be uncontroversial. Critic's reviews are middling at best. It was nominated for no major awards, although it did win an Oscar for Best Song - "Take My Breath Away." The love scene set to that song is probably one of the most memorable things about the movie, along with the impressive aerial sequences and - for a certain segment of the audience - the beefcake volleyball scene. So what went wrong?

Or perhaps, really, what could have gone better?

Maverick could have been a much bigger jerk. And he should have been.

To see why, let's take a look at the possible directions of a movie about a Navy pilot going to Top Gun "best of the best" school:

1) Pushed aside by political forces he can't control, iconoclastic Maverick has to reach inside himself to learn to be the exceptional pilot that nobody believes he is.

2) Bad boy Maverick overcomes his faults of arrogance and impulsiveness to become a true leader.

3) When young but promising Maverick and the rest of the Top Gun team face an unstoppable adversary, they have to learn to fight together for anyone to survive.

The black-visored enemy in the Indian Ocean is ominous but not a real danger to the carrier or the United States. While the Top Gun pilots work together, the real challenges Maverick faces are internal. So, are they about recognizing his strengths (option 1), or overcoming his faults (option 2)?

What would Maverick find if he was to reach inside himself? Probably arrogance and impulsiveness. Besides his natural piloting skills, he has a strong personal / professional relationship with Goose, a way with the ladies, and ... that's about it. Nothing about him - nothing we learn in the entirety of the movie - says that there are strengths inside that he's ignoring, that he just has to let himself go and be free.

What Maverick does have to do,  is learn how not to be an insufferable arrogant jerk who thinks The Man is keeping him down. He needs to realize that a Mach-speed flyby of a busy airfield is not cute. And that in competitions with rules, following the rules is part of winning the competition. Even if they seem arbitrary and pointless, like "hard deck is 10,000 feet"

That this is Maverick's problem should be clearer. While everyone tells Maverick where he's screwing up, he always has an out: 

• Risked his plane in a rescue - from a situation that may have been his fault in the first place - and buzzed the carrier, but manages to get his Top Gun shot anyway.  
• Goes below the hard deck to target Jester and gets off with a warning - even after another dangerous "flyby stunt." 
• Iceman points out that he is "unsafe," and that he should have been helping Cougar and Merlin rather than messing with the MiGs. 
• Charlie tells him his improvised maneuvers are seriously flawed, only to say she's falling in love with him later.
• Loses Goose permanently,  although the official inquiry says it wasn't his fault. 

Maverick really needs Redemption: He needs to be saved, or to save himself. That's difficult, though, if it's not clear that he has significant faults. When his serious and dangerous errors are discounted - ignored, overlooked, missed - we have to find some other way for him to succeed, something else to overcome.  In Maverick's case, there isn't much to work with. Not only does that make his own arc more difficult to manage, it removes effective ways for Charlie or Goose or Iceman to interact with him, too.

It does seems like the movie was meant to go in this direction. Iceman wins the Top Gun award, not Maverick, who learns important lessons like "You Never Leave Your Wingman." The flaws pointed out by characters as noted above are in the movie, so you can get this narrative out of it, if you like.

Still, it would work better if Maverick was more of a pompous ass right from the start, and if his actions had consequences rather than punchlines. Have Cougar's weapon's officer point out right away that hotdogging the MiG-28s was what got them in trouble, rather than waiting until Iceman can suggest it half a movie later. Make the penalties for breaking the rules impact the Top Gun award, which will let the audience (as well as Maverick) know what is really acceptable, and what is not.

It's worth noting that Cruise's character in Edge of Tomorrow doesn't have this problem: With the fate of humanity on the line, he practically refuses an order to go into battle, going so far as to attempt blackmailing the general orchestrating the assault. (Spoiler alert: It doesn't work.) This gives him a huge karmic hole to climb out of, so when Sergeant Farell declares that "Battle is the great redeemer," we know it's the truth and a necessary goal.