This week, we feel the need for speed all over again with Joseph Kosinski’s much-delayed, hugely successful Top Gun: Maverick! Is Pete Mitchell the same guy, so many years later? How does the film respond to the legacy of the original? Is Kosinski maybe too good at his job?

Unanswered Questions:

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• Is Top Gun about patriotism? Militarism? Commercialism? All or none of the above?
  
  
• How does the marketing and production material mythologize the making of the film?
  
  
• Is there anything thematic happing in Maverick’s technological regression from the fictional DarkStar to the Boeing F/A-18E to the Grumman F-14?
  

Further reading:

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• Playboy (January, 1990)
  
  
• Budweiser, PBR, Coop F5 Grapefruit, Voodoo Ranger IPA
  
  
• F1 Official Trailer
  
  
• Regal 4DX
  
  
• “‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Cinematographer Pushed Camera Technology Limits to Put Audiences in Pilot’s Seat” (Variety)
  
  
• Tenet
  
  
• “3 Rounds with the Cast of ‘Top Gun: Maverick'” (Entertainment Weekly)
  
  
• “Garth Marenghi – Writing“
  
  
• The Last Star In Hollywood Definitive List Of Tom Cruise Films
  
  
• The Last Star In Hollywood: Production Schedule
  

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Join us next week as we close out Tom Cruise’s filmography — for now — with Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning!

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