Top Gun, Maverick, and Déjà vu

You've seen “Top Gun: Maverick,” right?  And each of you, especially current and former miitary aviators,  couldn't help wincing at the over-the-top story line.  Just as you did with the original “Top Gun.”

Some things never change.  Here’s a passage from Bogeys and Bandits: The Making of a Fighter Pilot, written a few years ago when I accompanied a class of new pilots through F/A-18 training.

 .... Every Navy fighter pilot will tell you that one of the silliest aviation movies ever made was "Top Gun."  He would say the film was cartoonish, adolescent, sexist, technically erroneous, simplistic, farcical.  He would also tell you he had seen the movie maybe, oh, eleven times.

That was the peculiar paradox about "Top Gun."  It had a story line that might have been constructed by Dr. Seuss.  The Tom Cruise leading character was something out of MTV, a cocky, swaggering, motorcycle-riding bad boy named "Maverick" Mitchell, who broke all the rules.  Maverick buzzed towers and ships and busted altitude limits and pursued women into the ladies' room, and he got away with it because everyone thought he was as cute as a cockatoo.  Maverick's only problem was, he wasn't a team player, which caused him a few problems with his work. . .

 
So here we are thirty-six years after “Top Gun,” and Maverick is at it again, filling the screen with the thunder and glamour of Navy fighter pilots in action.  A bit long in the tooth, Maverick still breaks rules and buzzes towers and flashes that dazzling grin at foxy barmaids.  We still wince at the over-the-top antics and farcical story line. 

And we still love it.
 
Maverick endures, and so does Bogey and Bandits.  See the movie, then get Bogey and Bandits from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible.com, Smashwords, and Apple Books.  You'll love it.