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In 1990, Tom Cruise, star of the 1986 blockbuster, \u2018Top Gun\u2019,\u00a0said<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018Some people felt that \u201cTop Gun\u201d was a right-wing film to promote the Navy. And a lot of kids loved it. But I want the kids to know that\u2019s not the way war is \u2013 that \u201cTop Gun\u201d was just an amusement park ride, a fun film with a PG-13 rating that was not supposed to be reality. That\u2019s why I didn\u2019t go on and make \u201cTop Gun II\u201d and \u201cIII\u201d and \u201cIV\u201d and \u201cV.\u201d That would have been irresponsible.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n It would indeed, and one can only admire Cruise\u2019s honesty and selfless determination\u2026 in 1990\u2026 \u00a0not to mislead young people.Why, then, 32 years later, would Cruise decide to appear in \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019? The Daily Mail\u00a0provides<\/a>\u00a0a clue:<\/p>\n \u2018The 59-year-old superstar was \u201conly\u201d paid $13million, although he will also earn a percentage of every dollar taken at the global box office. He made $100million for the original Mission: Impossible film \u2013 and could earn even more if Top Gun: Maverick is a box office smash.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Which it is already. Associated Press\u00a0reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018\u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d has already grossed $548.6 million worldwide, making it easily one the biggest hits of Cruise\u2019s career.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n His earlier refusal to be \u2018irresponsible\u2019 was in response to claims that Cruise\u2019s bright, shining film was, in reality, a propaganda fecalith expelled from the bowels of \u2018the<\/a>\u00a0Military-Entertainment Complex\u2019.\u00a0Thus<\/a>, director Oliver Stone, in 1998:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018\u201cTop Gun,\u201d man \u2013 it was essentially a fascist movie. It sold the idea that war is clean, war can be won \u2026 nobody in the movie ever mentions that he just started World War Three!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n In 1986, Time magazine\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that for the cost of just $1.8 million, the US Department of Defense allowed the Top Gun producers \u2018the use of Miramar Naval Air Station\u2019 as well as \u2018four aircraft carriers and about two dozen F-14 Tomcats, F-5 Tigers and A-4 Skyhawks, some flown by real-life Top Gun pilots\u2019.<\/p>\n Lavish military support<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The Washington Post\u00a0reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s unlikely the film could have gotten made without the Pentagon\u2019s considerable support. A single F-14 Tomcat cost about $38 million. The total budget for \u201cTop Gun\u201d was $15 million.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t Catch-22, but there\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0a catch: in exchange for this lavish military support, the producers agreed to let the US Department of Defense make changes to the script. The changes were substantial but trivial compared to the real issue missed by almost all \u2018mainstream\u2019 journalists; namely, that the US war machine would not have spent millions of dollars subsidising a movie unless the core themes of the story provided a powerful propaganda service to the US war machine. And such, indeed, was the case:<\/p>\n No surprise, then, as The Washington Post reported:<\/p>\n \u2018The film conquered the box office, as well as the hearts and minds of young Americans. Following its release, applications to become Naval Aviators reportedly jumped by 500 percent. To capitalize on the craze, some enterprising Navy recruiters even set up stands outside theaters.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Time\u00a0summed\u00a0<\/a>it up:<\/p>\n \u2018The high-flying hardware turns Top Gun into a 110-minute commercial for the Navy \u2013 and it was the Navy\u2019s cooperation that put the planes in the picture.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018\u201cTop Gun\u201d (1986), turned out to be so influential it set the blueprint for a new kind of corporate movie product fusing Hollywood star power with the U.S. military\u2019s firepower. Think \u201cBlack Hawk Down,\u201d \u201cTransformers\u201d or \u201cAmerican Sniper.\u201d\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Donald Baruch, the Pentagon\u2019s special assistant for audio-visual media, commented that the US government \u2018couldn\u2019t buy the sort of publicity films give us\u2019. In reality, they\u00a0do, in effect, buy this publicity:<\/p>\n \u2018Before a producer receives military assistance for a TV or movie project, the screenplay is reviewed by officials at the Department of Defense and by each of the services involved. The Pentagon ends up rejecting many projects that come its way on the grounds that they distort military life and situations.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018\u201cMovies critical of the military will be difficult to make,\u201d says former Navy Lieut. John Semcken, who served as the liaison on Top Gun.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n The War Zone website\u00a0provides<\/a>\u00a0some details behind military backing for the new, follow-up film, \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019:<\/p>\n \u2018The War Zone obtained the official production assistance agreements, 84 pages in total, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Office of the Secretary of Defense\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018The documents confirm that filming was conducted on location at Naval Base Coronado, Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, NAS Lemoore, Naval Air Facility (NAF) El Centro, Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake, and Naval Air Station (NAS) Whidbey Island. Fallon is home to the Navy\u2019s real-life Topgun program.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n How many aircraft carriers were thrown in?<\/p>\n \u2018The Nimitz class aircraft carriers USS Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were also made available. Some filming even took place inside Roosevelt\u2019s Combat Direction Center, which is the ship\u2019s nerve center.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n The War Zone adds:<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Two different agreements say that the Navy was expected to provide between four and 12 actual F\/A-18 fighters for film, \u201cdependent on availability of aircraft.\u201d There is at least one scene in the trailers that have been released so far showing a row of these jets, including one wearing a special paint job created specifically for the movie.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018In addition, the Navy was to \u201callow for the internal and external placement of the Production Company\u2019s cameras on F\/A-18 E\/F Super Hornets and Navy helicopters with the approval of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And:<\/p>\n \u2018There are some details about set construction in various locations, including the complete transformation of a hangar and squadron spaces belonging to Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30 (VRC-30) at NAS North Island, part of Naval Base Coronado, for the movie.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n While the recent, 75th Cannes film festival banned any official delegations or reporters from Russia, \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019 was massively promoted. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the gala opening of the festival on a huge screen via a video link from Kyiv. Drawing heavily on Charlie Chaplin\u2019s classic film, The Great Dictator (1940), Zelensky\u00a0said<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018If there is a dictator, if there is a war for freedom, once again, everything depends on our unity. Can cinema stay outside of this unity?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Quoting directly from Chaplin\u2019s anti-war speech at the end of the film, Zelensky said:<\/p>\n \u2018In the end, hatred will disappear and dictators will die.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n On The World Socialist Website, Stefan Steinberg\u00a0responded:<\/p>\n \u2018The Ukrainian president\u2019s duplicitous speech was then given a standing ovation by the well-heeled audience of film celebrities, super-models, media figures and critics gathered at the festival\u2019s Grand Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Lumi\u00e8re\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Zelensky, whose government\u2019s promotion of unfettered free market capitalism and extreme nationalism includes full support for the notorious fascist Azov battalion, and his US-NATO backers stand for everything that Chaplin abhorred. In fact, what would a Chaplin make out of the self-satisfied rubbish about \u201cpoor, defenseless little Ukraine,\u201d armed to the hilt and financed by the biggest imperialist robbers on the planet?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n The Independent\u00a0reports\u00a0that the \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019 film has come at just the right time:<\/p>\n \u2018In April, state senators were told how the US army faced a \u201cwar for talent\u201d amid shrinking battalion numbers, echoing admissions from air force officials that its own pool of qualified candidates had fallen by half since the beginning of Covid. Things haven\u2019t looked rosy for the navy either, which declared in February that it was 5,000 to 6,000 sailors short at sea. ..<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Little wonder, then, that Uncle Sam once again welcomed Paramount Pictures with open arms for Maverick, granting director Joseph Kosinski and his crew all-access passes to highly sensitive naval facilities, including a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. World-class technicians provided cast members with top-level fighter pilot training right down to seat ejection\u2026\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Happily, press\u00a0reports\u00a0inform us:<\/p>\n \u2018The US Navy is [again] setting up \u201crecruiting stations\u201d in cinema foyers across America. After the first film there was a 50 per cent increase in applications to join the Navy\u2019s fighter programme. A spokesman said: \u201cObviously we are hoping for the same outcome this time around.\u201d\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n If any readers notice any journalists asking Tom Cruise if he still wants \u2018the kids to know that\u2019s not the way war is\u2019, that \u2018Top Gun\u2019 is just an amusement park ride\u2019 that is \u2018not supposed to be reality\u2019, and that it would be \u2018irresponsible\u2019 to make \u2018Top Gun III\u2019 and \u2018IV\u2019 and \u2018V\u2019 \u2013 do let us know (editor@medialens.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n A really salient fact about the world since the mid-eighties, as we all know \u2013 as our newspaper front pages, echoing \u2018Top Gun\u2019 heroics, never tire of telling us \u2013 is that the US has been relentlessly bombing countries like Serbia, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Pakistan ever since. In 2015, a study by Physicians for Global Responsibility\u00a0reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018The purpose of this investigation is to provide as realistic an estimate as possible of the total body count in the three main war zones Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan during 12 years of \u201cwar on terrorism\u201d. An extensive review has been made of the major studies and data published on the numbers of victims in these countries\u2026 This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Of course, even these vast numbers omit the untold carnage inflicted by the US military between 1986-2001, and since 2015, but they do give an idea of what \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019 and its admirers are actually celebrating.<\/p>\n The Observer\u2019s chief film critic, Mark Kermode,\u00a0supplied<\/a>\u00a0a summary of the plot:<\/p>\n \u2018Maverick has in fact been called back to the\u00a0Top Gun<\/a>\u00a0programme \u2013 not to fly, but to\u00a0teach\u00a0the \u201cbest of the best\u201d how to blow up a uranium enrichment plant at face-melting velocity, a mission that will require not one but \u201ctwo\u00a0consecutive miracles\u201d.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n As we\u00a0know<\/a>, \u2018Real men go to Tehran\u2019 \u2013 and Iran clearly\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0\u2018the enemy\u2019 here. The Independent acknowledged as much in\u00a0noting<\/a>\u00a0that the US navy was given script approval:<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018This might also explain why Top Gun: Maverick never goes into detail about its villains \u2013 instead, audiences are simply informed that \u201cthe enemy\u201d is a rogue state hellbent on uranium enrichment. Let\u2019s assume it rhymes with \u201cDiran\u201d.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n When Iran is bombed in real life, Westerners will cheer because they\u2019ll think they\u2019re watching their movie heroes annihilating The Bad Guys. When \u2018the best of the best\u2019 move on to trash the whole country, the public will have been so brainwashed, so desensitised, they will rate the \u2018action\u2019 on a par with something they saw on the silver screen. The same thing happened during the Gulf War that began in January 1991. One of us saw a spoof \u2018Iraqi calendar\u2019 behind the bar of an English pub, which showed the year ending for Iraq on January 16, the date the US-UK attack was launched.<\/p>\n When the state-corporate culture of a highly aggressive imperial power produces war films that deliberately blend fiction and reality, there are real-world consequences. Actual high-tech death and destruction are made to seem \u2018cool\u2019, \u2018fun\u2019 \u2013 an impact that no serious reviewer can ignore. Assuming, that is, we reject the idea that a review in a corporate viewspaper is mere \u2018entertainment\u2019 that has nothing to do with the real world it so clearly impacts. Assuming, further, that we reject the idea that we should function as passive, apolitical, amoral consumers manipulated by powerful elites who are not themselves passive or apolitical at all, but who work relentlessly to extend their influence, wealth and power.<\/p>\n As though spoofing, Kermode concluded his review:<\/p>\n \u2018Personally, I found myself powerless to resist; overawed by the \u201creal flight\u201d aeronautics and nail-biting sky dances, bludgeoned by the sugar-frosted glow of Cruise\u2019s mercilessly engaging facial muscles, and shamefully brought to tears by moments of hate-yourself-for-going-with-it manipulation. In the immortal words of Abba\u2019s Waterloo, \u201cI was defeated, you won the war\u201d. I give up.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Kermode gave up. In reality, the outcome of his personal \u2018Waterloo\u2019 was never in doubt. As Noam Chomsky famously\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the BBC\u2019s Andrew Marr:<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018\u2026 if you believed something different, you wouldn\u2019t be sitting where you\u2019re sitting\u2019.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Kermode\u2019s review bowed down to an intellectually and morally castrated version of what it means to be a film critic, one that casually waves away the appalling, real-world impact of propaganda efforts like \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019. It\u2019s a version of film criticism that just happens \u2013 \u2018My, my!\u2019 \u2013 to align itself with the agenda of the consistently pro-war Guardian newspaper and wider corporate media system that makes him wealthy and famous for the back-breaking task of writing a few clever, filtered words every week.<\/p>\n Distorted visions of history<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n In the Telegraph, Boris Starling managed to\u00a0recall<\/a>\u00a0some military history:<\/p>\n \u2018Since then [\u201cTop Gun\u201d, 1986] we have had two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, 9\/11, Syria, and of course the current Russian invasion of Ukraine \u2013 all of which have, one way or another, dented the concept of unfettered American military might.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Clearly, Nato\u2019s devastation of Libya \u2013 executed with the assistance of more than a dozen US navy ships and a similar number of aircraft \u2013 never happened.<\/p>\n Starling\u2019s distorted vision of history reminds us of the BBC\u2019s unfortunate animated web\u00a0article<\/a>: \u2018The Incredible Change The Queen Has Seen\u2019. Reviewing major international political events since 1952, the BBC comments:<\/p>\n \u2018Russia invades Ukraine twice, bringing it into conflict with the West once again\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n According to the BBC, then, no-one spread death and destruction in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Libya, Syria\u2026 on and on. The BBC piece concludes:<\/p>\n \u2018Happy Jubilee Ma\u2019am\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The fact, as we have\u00a0discussed<\/a>, that the West got its hands on both Iraqi\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0Libyan oil challenges Starling\u2019s idea that \u2018unfettered American military might\u2019 has been \u2018dented\u2019.<\/p>\n In a parallel universe, a film critic might have reflected on whether the vast death toll from US wars has \u2018dented\u2019 the ethical status of films like \u2018Top Gun\u2019 and \u2018Top Gun: Maverick\u2019. Instead, Starling noticed a different problem with the new film:<\/p>\n \u2018But at a time when a real conflict with unimaginable casualties and featuring medieval levels of brutality is taking place on NATO\u2019s border \u2013 a conflict into which the US is still refusing to countenance direct military intervention \u2013 Top Gun: Maverick may be construed in certain quarters as borderline tasteless.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n In other words, the problem with the \u2018Top Gun\u2019 franchise is not that the US military machine has been blitzing the world before and since 1986. The problem is that, after all that good work, it is refusing to \u2018countenance direct military intervention\u2019 in Ukraine \u2013 having merely sent $60 billion in \u2018aid\u2019, most of it military \u2013 making the latest \u2018Top Gun\u2019 heroics somewhat embarrassing. This is what passes for \u2018mainstream\u2019 ethical discussion in our high-tech, neon-lit dark age.<\/p>\n It’s ‘entertaining’<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Another piece by the Telegraph\u2019s chief film critic, Robbie Collin,\u00a0notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018The assignment involves neutralising a uranium enrichment plant somewhere overseas, though we\u2019re told details about the enemy regime behind it are \u201cscarce\u201d \u2013 as they have to be these days when you\u2019re trying to sell a blockbuster into as many overseas markets as possible.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Presumably, any Iranians wishing to see the film will be too dumb to realise what is blindingly obvious to everyone else:<\/p>\n \u2018Certain military details suggest it might be Iran, but it doesn\u2019t matter either way: the film is low on militaristic swagger, and instead focuses on Maverick\u2019s missionary-like determination to have these youngsters not just reach their potential but surpass it, with the help of their extraordinary aircraft.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, who cares? We all know it\u2019s Iran; so what if that background awareness makes it easier for the public to applaud when Iran receives a generous dose of \u2018humanitarian intervention\u2019? Collin concluded by heaping praise on \u2018this absurdly entertaining film\u2019.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s all that matters \u2013 it\u2019s \u2018entertaining\u2019. It\u2019s also somehow \u2018low on militaristic swagger\u2019, despite being jam-packed with gleaming warplanes, aircraft carriers and military uniforms. Needless to say, it wouldn\u2019t have mattered how \u2018absurdly entertaining\u2019 the film was, if it had depicted Iranian or Russian pilots heroically preparing to bomb the US.<\/p>\n In the Independent, Geoffrey Macnab\u2019s\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0did manage to reference some history, but only in the sense suggested by the title: \u2018Why Tom Cruise\u2019s latest thrill ride is a take-off of traditional Hollywood flying movies\u2019:<\/p>\n \u2018These films have a poetical dimension you don\u2019t find in conventional earthbound war movies. Their protagonists are young and courageous, performing their own ethereal, Icarus-like dances with death. They\u2019re fighting as much against the elements as against their enemies.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Again, no concern for the front-page carnage inflicted year after year.<\/p>\n Also in the Independent, Clarisse Loughrey supplied the standard, faux-feminist \u2018dissent\u2019,\u00a0commenting\u00a0<\/a>on the new film\u2019s compassionate treatment of its male characters :<\/p>\n \u2018The film, unfortunately, doesn\u2019t extend as much of a loving hand toward the women of Top Gun \u2013 neither McGillis nor Meg Ryan, who played Rooster\u2019s mother, make any kind of return.\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n But this shouldn\u2019t be allowed to spoil the party:<\/p>\n \u2018Again, there\u2019ll come a time when we need to talk about why Hollywood only accepts older women who look a certain way. Until then, who can be blamed for getting swept up by a film this damned fun?\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n In the Daily Mail, Jan Moir\u00a0noted\u00a0<\/a>Cruise\u2019s fearlessness in performing his own stunts, adding:<\/p>\n \u2018But there is one thing this Hollywood hero is scared of \u2013 old ladies! That\u2019s where he draws the line \u2013 at the genuine and the realistic. And that is his biggest crime of all in my book\u2026 where are the women from the 1986 original? Excuse me. Simply nowhere to be seen. Vaporised by the Hollywood Age Patrol, the girls have somehow fallen off their perch and simply ceased to be.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n There is one thing that Moir, like essentially all of corporate journalism, is scared of \u2013 the dead, injured, grieving and displaced victims of the West\u2019s endless wars of aggression. The victims are not allowed to exist or matter. They\u2019re not allowed to spoil the celebration of this \u2018damned fun\u2019, of the state-corporate fundamentalist faith that \u2018we\u2019 are The Good Guys.<\/p>\n But anyway, is it\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>such \u2018damned fun\u2019? Somehow managing to defy the corporate hypegeist, A.O. Scott of the New York Times\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0of the new film\u2019s characters: \u2018the world they inhabit is textureless and generic\u2019, \u2018the dramatic stakes seem curiously low\u2019, the movie is \u2018bland and basic\u2019. Scott\u2019s conclusion:<\/p>\nThe Guardian\u2019s Mark Kermode \u2013 \u2018I Give Up\u2019<\/strong><\/div>\n