I don't think that any movie, before or since, has ever rendered air combat in a more convincing and dramatic fashion. But the crème de la crème is surely the flying.
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The team who put this movie together knew exactly how to push all the right buttons.
The plot is pure formula, but executed with consummate professionalism. Guys wanted to be like him, and women of course lusted after him. If "Risky Business" launched his career as a movie star, then "Top Gun" cemented it. Tom Cruise is Maverick, a hotshot pilot but also somewhat unstable. The "Top Gun" school was started as a result, and the rest is history. And, in Vietnam, several American planes were accidentally shot down by their own side by missiles, so, as a safety factor, enemy planes had to be visually identified, meaning American pilots were back to engaging the enemy at short range, hence the need for dogfighting. The problem, they discovered, was their fighter jocks had been trained for purely long-range missile interceptions, meaning they'd lost their dogfighting skills. The Navy, back during Vietnam, was getting sick of losing too many pilots in air-to-air combat. For starters, although this movie takes numerous liberties in order to entertain, the basic setup, in which fighter pilots from the fleet get sent to NAS Miramar, aka, "Top Gun" for intensive training, is 100% accurate. A cynic might argue that it's just a two hour long Navy recruiting ad (one that worked for me, two years later I found my ass in Pensacola sweating through AOCS, short for Aviation Officer Candidate School, the program immortalized in "An Officer and a Gentleman") but by making a pro-Navy movie, the filmmakers also got invaluable technical assistance from top Navy aviators, and it shows. Sure, it's cheesy and corny, but it makes the cheese and corn taste pretty damn good. Those poor Air Force guys got a trio of "Iron Eagle" flicks that went from bad to horrible, whereas the Navy flyboys got this great 1980's classic. If there's ever proof of the cachet of Naval Aviation, this is it.
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