What actually make Top Gun a lot more popular than Iron Eagle and Stealth?
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Iron Eagle is mostly stockfootage or gives that feeling of being stockfootage. Lots of wider shots compared to the other two. The effects are a bit low budget...The action is pretty boring as a result.
Top Gun has stock-footage looking parts, but it is better integrated with the rest of the film. It also has wide shots, but a lot more close-ups the IE. The action is a bit more intense.
Stealth has the best footage, everything looks like it has been filmed with the same camera(s). It has really wide shots and also more close-ups then Iron Eagle. The effects are really well integrated into the film. The action keeps you watching, but the horrible designs of the "stealth-fighters" is a big turnoff, you know it is fake.
TG is mostly practically filmed, some miniature effects in the mix ( I presume), IE is a bit too low budget, and Stealth is CG. And Top Gun has F-14's
Top Gun has stock-footage looking parts, but it is better integrated with the rest of the film. It also has wide shots, but a lot more close-ups the IE. The action is a bit more intense.
Stealth has the best footage, everything looks like it has been filmed with the same camera(s). It has really wide shots and also more close-ups then Iron Eagle. The effects are really well integrated into the film. The action keeps you watching, but the horrible designs of the "stealth-fighters" is a big turnoff, you know it is fake.
TG is mostly practically filmed, some miniature effects in the mix ( I presume), IE is a bit too low budget, and Stealth is CG. And Top Gun has F-14's
Personally , I really love the fighter design of Stealth, look pretty cool and have some personality.Iron Eagle is mostly stockfootage or gives that feeling of being stockfootage. Lots of wider shots compared to the other two. The effects are a bit low budget...The action is pretty boring as a result.
Top Gun has stock-footage looking parts, but it is better integrated with the rest of the film. It also has wide shots, but a lot more close-ups the IE. The action is a bit more intense.
Stealth has the best footage, everything looks like it has been filmed with the same camera(s). It has really wide shots and also more close-ups then Iron Eagle. The effects are really well integrated into the film. The action keeps you watching, but the horrible designs of the "stealth-fighters" is a big turnoff, you know it is fake.
TG is mostly practically filmed, some miniature effects in the mix ( I presume), IE is a bit too low budget, and Stealth is CG. And Top Gun has F-14's
Not the same demographical target. First "Iron Eagle" is more a kids/teens flick hence main protagonists age and need to go clean slate in "Iron Eagle 2".
"Stealth" is more a techno-thriller, think "Firefox" with lots of techno-babble and lots of "Michael Bay" style action sequences, with a plot paying "homage" to "Macross Plus". It is aimed at "young adults".
"Top Gun" while being based on 80's action movie formula, was crafted well enough to have a wider market appeal and I think that's why it is more memorable.
"Stealth" is more a techno-thriller, think "Firefox" with lots of techno-babble and lots of "Michael Bay" style action sequences, with a plot paying "homage" to "Macross Plus". It is aimed at "young adults".
"Top Gun" while being based on 80's action movie formula, was crafted well enough to have a wider market appeal and I think that's why it is more memorable.
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Top Gun: Tomcats, actual flying scenes shot specifically for the movie, actual footage shot by the film crew on the carrier deck, Tomcats, Danger Zone, Faltermeyer and Stevens' guitar anthem, and also Tomcats.
I do enjoy Iron Eagle but there's the typical 80s movie complete abandonment of reality, with a teenager blasting off in an F-16 to drop a Hades Bomb on some random dictator so he can land and stage a jail break. They did get some support from the Israeli Air Force for filming though, that's why you've got F-16s and Kfirs in the movie.
Stealth just didn't do much for me.
I do enjoy Iron Eagle but there's the typical 80s movie complete abandonment of reality, with a teenager blasting off in an F-16 to drop a Hades Bomb on some random dictator so he can land and stage a jail break. They did get some support from the Israeli Air Force for filming though, that's why you've got F-16s and Kfirs in the movie.
Stealth just didn't do much for me.
Long term marketing and socioeconomic strategy, specifically the ability to ingrain oneself to existing dominating structures.
Apart from that, I'm perhaps not the right person to answer the poll at all. Being intrigued by and drawn to aviation, these movies unnecessarily fictionalize so much of the known reality and practice of (military) aviation that they're frankly hard for me to watch. This applies equally to technical as human interest stuff. In many instances I feel more realistic depictions would be qualitatively better as plot and storytelling devices than the fabrications that take their place; the effort of playing around with this just seems wasteful and even self-indulgently counterproductive. Just the first minute of that Top Gun clip is replete with absurdities.
This is not to say I disapprove of their success or people who enjoy them (the vast majority of people waste little time on contemplating different facets of aviation) but frankly I'm just constantly taken out of the internal logic and realm (and thus enjoyment) of these movies by the inconsistencies and straight up mistakes within. I don't dispute that the format has seemed to work; air forces actively support and enable aviation cinematography, often at some considerable cost. Sometimes it just makes for some strange wingmates.
Apart from that, I'm perhaps not the right person to answer the poll at all. Being intrigued by and drawn to aviation, these movies unnecessarily fictionalize so much of the known reality and practice of (military) aviation that they're frankly hard for me to watch. This applies equally to technical as human interest stuff. In many instances I feel more realistic depictions would be qualitatively better as plot and storytelling devices than the fabrications that take their place; the effort of playing around with this just seems wasteful and even self-indulgently counterproductive. Just the first minute of that Top Gun clip is replete with absurdities.
This is not to say I disapprove of their success or people who enjoy them (the vast majority of people waste little time on contemplating different facets of aviation) but frankly I'm just constantly taken out of the internal logic and realm (and thus enjoyment) of these movies by the inconsistencies and straight up mistakes within. I don't dispute that the format has seemed to work; air forces actively support and enable aviation cinematography, often at some considerable cost. Sometimes it just makes for some strange wingmates.
I hated Iron Eagle. One of the few movies I've walked out of. When Rebellious Teenager plugs his Walkman into an F-16 and then goes for a joyride. . .well, that was when I bailed.
I liked Stealth just for the eye-candy. (And the fact my brother called me all excited asking about the Navy's new plane. He saw pics of that mockup they were towing around on the carrier and didn't realize it was a movie prop. )
I liked Stealth just for the eye-candy. (And the fact my brother called me all excited asking about the Navy's new plane. He saw pics of that mockup they were towing around on the carrier and didn't realize it was a movie prop.
)
Manuducati
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Well a little bit of everything I'd say.
As Baroba wrote, combat scenes in Iron Eagle are repetitive, basically rolling and turning for minutes. Flat and dull. Teenager movie, Hot Shot is more realistic. Wouldn't watch it again, even for money.
Top Gun shows more variety in combat scenes (use of vertical), better pictures and montage. Music has of course a big impact. The Tomcat steals the show (The Final Countdown was even better in this field IMHO). Simple story for a large audience. Enjoyable.
Air scenes in Stealth are really good dynamically but both the design (and reported performances) are so extreme that it's more sci-fi than aviation. CGI is too noticeable, preventing real immersion. Carrier deck pictures are great, with the real size mock-up bringing realism. Actors are too cartoonish. Some good music. Jessica Biel is a joy to watch, but too much manga between her swimsuit shots and tight flightsuit scenes.
My personal choice would be to watch TopGun, with Jessica Biel next to me.
As Baroba wrote, combat scenes in Iron Eagle are repetitive, basically rolling and turning for minutes. Flat and dull. Teenager movie, Hot Shot is more realistic. Wouldn't watch it again, even for money.
Top Gun shows more variety in combat scenes (use of vertical), better pictures and montage. Music has of course a big impact. The Tomcat steals the show (The Final Countdown was even better in this field IMHO). Simple story for a large audience. Enjoyable.
Air scenes in Stealth are really good dynamically but both the design (and reported performances) are so extreme that it's more sci-fi than aviation. CGI is too noticeable, preventing real immersion. Carrier deck pictures are great, with the real size mock-up bringing realism. Actors are too cartoonish. Some good music. Jessica Biel is a joy to watch, but too much manga between her swimsuit shots and tight flightsuit scenes.
My personal choice would be to watch TopGun, with Jessica Biel next to me.
"What's better: Top Gun, Iron Eagle or Stealth?"
Answer: "The Final Countdown."
Answer: "The Final Countdown."
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Guys, its obvious:
The pure, naive and unintended homoeroticism of volleyball scene)
P.S. And I'm only partially joking... the hyper-masculine homoerotic subtones of "Top Gun" are extremely vibrant.
The pure, naive and unintended homoeroticism of volleyball scene)
P.S. And I'm only partially joking... the hyper-masculine homoerotic subtones of "Top Gun" are extremely vibrant.
Agreed! It's the only one of those movies I watched entirely. T. Cruise is tiresome, Iron Eagle crashed like its namesake, and Stealth should have stayed stealthy.
I'm planning to build an alternate history Nimitz where she doesn't go back to her present.
No need to joke, this has been openly debated and subsequently even acknowledged at least since Quentin Tarantino's "take" on the subject in 1994. The subtext is basically iconic by now; not to say that it's the be all and end all of the thing. Notable nonetheless since it's not an entirely superficial contemplation on the mechanics and modes of bonding; just very silly. It is of course fairly common that highly gendered structures and representations become caricatures of themselves, intentionality or level of self-consciousness aside, and thus unavoidably subversive. Examples of extremely cheesy military recruitment music videos and contemporary shirtless bodybuilder parades abound, mostly from the usual "traditionalist" suspects.
Haven't seen that one. Warships traveling in time - or at least experiencing related "anomalies" - seems to be something of a scifi trope; that the movie involves a fantastical element might indeed relieve the viewing experience of overall expectations of representativeness. Some searches indicate that the work has a documentary value as well, featuring a lot of real Navy aviation equipment.
If you're hearing a dog whistle... maybe you're the dog.
What? As a person who works with professional storytellers, my remark is: This IS Nonsense. Followed by: I don't care what Quentin Tarantino thinks.
As someone more familiar with the period, and storytelling, I can say that individual movies do not ever exist in a vacuum. They are partly reflective and resonant with an actual, existing culture.
The "subversive" aspect is tacked on later by The Usual Subversives.
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Let face it
"Top Gun" is the better movie, Cool Aircraft, cool Actors, cool director and cool Soundtrack
"Iron Eagle" i can't remember that movie, was that a cheap Cannon production ?
"Stealth" was Shit movie, a CGI Orgy with lousy script: Action, action over everything, Logic ? dump it, Audience are Stupid...
"Top Gun" is the better movie, Cool Aircraft, cool Actors, cool director and cool Soundtrack
"Iron Eagle" i can't remember that movie, was that a cheap Cannon production ?
"Stealth" was Shit movie, a CGI Orgy with lousy script: Action, action over everything, Logic ? dump it, Audience are Stupid...
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
That as well, can't be discounted. Only those who find themselves at the converging favorable ends of several bell curves - fortune being one of them - stand to make several times their investment at the box office etc.
It's of course a bit on the nose, fate wise, that a guy whose name is Tom Cruise plays the main character, an F-14 pilot no less, in a hit movie about naval aviation (are the audience thus "naval gazers", btw?). All that's missing is his high school nickname having been "Cat", really. Anyway, presently I feel no need to speedily increase his wealth by seeing the sequel.
Can't really argue with that vague a contention (though am somewhat intrigued by it), but Tarantino is a storyteller in my book. "Jackie Brown" is at least aviation adjacent, otherwise he isn't really what you'd call a flying movie oriented director of course.
They surely can't exist as separate and apart from their living and intended environment, hence my earlier suggestion about "long term marketing and socioeconomic strategy" as the differentiating basis for Top Gun's relative popularity to other fighter pilot features. I admit to being reflexively cynical so can't be too unhappy when the sentiment proves unfounded. With a movie as complicatedly intertwined with its surroundings as Top Gun the dogs and their wagging tails (or should I say tales) sure are hard to tell apart. Perhaps it's a matter of perspective.
That can happen as well. Sometimes society sure works up a sweat to make it easy though.
Umm. An important thing to note regarding the responses of Our Cultural Betters:
1 - A scene of young attractive women in an advanced state of undress playing volleyball: "I'm offended! That's for the Male Gaze! Unrealistic beauty standards!!!"
2 - A scene of young attractive men in an advanced state of undress playing volleyball: "Ur gaaaaay."
Military men play sports, and often do so shirtless. It ain't gay, it's just sports. Sometimes bonding, sometimes competition, often just for the entertainment of it. But some people are *obsessed* with seeing things in the worst or weirdest light, or at least in the way best calculated to ruin it for others.
It's weird that this old edit haven't been posted already
View: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x59vz
Top Gun had full Navy support while Iron Eagle tried to get the Air Force involved and the Air Force stupidly said no. That played a part in Top Gun's much better air sequences.
Final Countdown would have been my first choice but its got the biggest letdown of an ending this side of Game of Thrones.
Final Countdown would have been my first choice but its got the biggest letdown of an ending this side of Game of Thrones.
Easy there cowboy, this sort of discussion about Top Gun is only some three decades old. There's more to it than shirtless volleyball (apparently with some recent acknowledgements), even as a view where a cigar is just a cigar is just as well. Neither is invalidated by the knowledge or consideration of the other. Thought it worthwhile to recount the context as the matter came up somewhat vaguely. At least I don't consider Top Gun lesser or better than "Iron Eagle" or "Stealth" on these grounds. And I won't even get into womens' beach volleyball attire, figuratively or literally: It is for the players themselves to decide.
Going back to the popularity of the original Top Gun, I sort of get that - despite what tragedy is made to befall Maverick's RIO, etc. - for 80's teens and young adults the movie (and the recollection of it) can be a sort of a suspend your disbelief feel good affair. It deftly plays the chords of the then popular culture with the accuracy of a music video produced within an inch of its every beat and in many senses is also an embodiment and affirmation of shared societal prowess. There are many instances during the Cold War where cultural products and projects were consequential in conveying a general ethos and purpose in the "West". As such embodied and detached viewings of the same thing are very different things.
Top Gun doesn't strike me as a movie where its contributors omitted considering either one (though I might be giving them way too much agency here, perhaps @edwest3 can elaborate). Soviet pilots have very little agency and even less personality in the plot and cinematography, reduced almost to timing devices dividing the movie into acts. Even their jets are black; the "color" of the movie is elsewhere. It's not entirely impossible then, in my humble opinion, that in using a full palette, complementary colors are used to accentuate the effect, of course within the confines of social mores with the widest possible acceptability of the time. Call it a very pointed, idealized self-portrait of innocence if you will.
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That may be for the best. I don't know what you look like, but with the standard presumption of "forty-plus doughy nerdy male," yeah, best to not try that sort of thing. Nobody wins.
Now, "Jennifer Connelly in volleyball attire," well, that's a *whole* different ball game.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
So the suggestion of homoerotic undertones is automatically "bad thing" for you? That would "ruin it for you"? Aren't you trying to follow all stereotypes of American right-winger a bit too heavy?
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A lot of people have motivation for pushing an agenda, sometimes it's just button pushing for the hell of it. Rather sad really as we all see something different. Are we getting closer to being more harmonious or further away?
This. This, and their obsession with seeing c0ck everywhere. "Oh he likes guns or has a big truck or a fast car or thinks we need a strong military or space flight?" You know the rest.
I don't care what stereotypes you think I'm following... you take a popular character, historical figure, cultural icon and make them gay, or a pedo, or a furry, or race-swap 'em, or gender-bend 'em... *most* people are going to be annoyed. Here, consider these:
"In the forthcoming bio-pic on the early life of Vladimir Putin, we're going to focus on his time as a gay male escort." It won't be American right wingers annoyed by that.
"In the forthcoming bio-pic of the life of Muhammad, we can't decide yet whether he is going to be portrayed by Desmond is Amazing or Margaret Cho." It won't be American right wingers annoyed by that.
A *lot* of American cultural icons have been recently portrayed as gay, just out of the blue. "Tom Swift" is now a gay black man. James T. Kirk is reportedly going to be gay in "Strange New Worlds."
As for the implied "badness" of being accused of being too much like an American right winger... we are well on the way from the 2021 to 2028 phases .
I have no doubt that someone, somewhere, is looking at submarine movies like "The Hunt for Red October" and "Run Silent Run Deep" and "Hunter Killer" and thinking "hey..."
I assume that's rhetorical.
The main thing the original Top Gun had going for it was, that after watching it I didnt want to kill myself immidiately.
Not something that can be said for many contemporary films, I`m fairly sure that only the lack of any convenient and ready opportunity
in the exits of the cinema is responsible for my continued existence.
The other two "films" mentioned, are, for me - roughly in the same league as RED DAWN, and other similarly obnoxiously inept wastes of celluloid.
The acting is mostly fairly plausible, the script is daft but entirely suitable for the genre, the camera work superb, and has a couple of actual attempts at character progression. Most telling is that it contains characters who are -within the narrative- believable and human, who you actually dont want to die.
I`ve lost count of how many films I`ve seen in the last 3 or 4 years, where not only did I not care at all who died, but I was actually visibly irritated to see the cast survive to the credit-roll. When nobody cares when your characters die, you know you`ve made a REAL pile of ***t film.
Not something that can be said for many contemporary films, I`m fairly sure that only the lack of any convenient and ready opportunity
in the exits of the cinema is responsible for my continued existence.
The other two "films" mentioned, are, for me - roughly in the same league as RED DAWN, and other similarly obnoxiously inept wastes of celluloid.
The acting is mostly fairly plausible, the script is daft but entirely suitable for the genre, the camera work superb, and has a couple of actual attempts at character progression. Most telling is that it contains characters who are -within the narrative- believable and human, who you actually dont want to die.
I`ve lost count of how many films I`ve seen in the last 3 or 4 years, where not only did I not care at all who died, but I was actually visibly irritated to see the cast survive to the credit-roll. When nobody cares when your characters die, you know you`ve made a REAL pile of ***t film.
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The pendulum swings. How soon that'll happen, dunno. Who gets knocked over by that pendulum, dunno.
There are rumors of a turn in entertainment. We'll see.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Your desperate attempts to avoid being called homophobe while being incapable to not act as one are highly amusing)
We've now passed the "I don't care" stage and have reached the "Thank you for noticing!" stage. Call me what you like, since words have no meaning anymore.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
It would be really funny when you would reach "I don't meant it, honestly!" stage.
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When a unit DOES sports there is only one way to identify teams, Skins or Shirts.
It would be really funny when you would reach "I don't meant it, honestly!" stage.
What is it you think I don't mean?
We use darks and whites all the time... also that does not matter one bit for volleyball, heck players on the same team in pro volleyball wear different color shirts.
Also no one in Top Gun was wearing shirts.
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