Star Trek and Top Gun

Anybody remember Top Gun? I'm a fan of 80's Tom Cruise. He did several of the same movie over and over again. Kind of like John Wayne and Rio Bravo. The Duke liked the plot of that movie so much he remade it twice, Once as El Dorado and once as Rio Lobo.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Tom Cruise. By the way we will get to Star Trek eventually, because it is Star Trek week here on Buckshot. During the 80s Tom Cruise made, I don't know, a half dozen of the movies that Roger Ebert dubbed The Tom Cruise movie.

Essentially, Cruise is a hotshot young professional, pilot, NASCAR driver, pool hustler and bartender. Cruise is all raw talent and nerve, a mixture of arrogance and talent.

But he's never the best that he can be because he needs an older guy to come along and guide him to his destiny and the love of a good woman.

The best of these is Days of Thunder, the NASCAR picture because it's got Robert Duval and Nicole Kidman in it. A close second is Top Gun. I know you know the plot already but in short Cruise is a rebel pilot who has daddy issues. He likes fast cars, fast planes and fast women. He's also the best damn pilot in the Navy.

There's a really iconic shot where Cruise rides his motorcycle next to the base and the F14s.

Cruise also has daddy issues because the Navy has always made it seem like his father, who was also a pilot, died an unheroic death.

That gets straightened out by Cruises' mentor in this exchange:

VIPER: Yeah, he did it right... Is that why you fly the way you do? Trying to prove something? Yeah your old man did it right. What I'm about to tell you is classified. It could end my career. We were in the worst dogfight I ever dreamed of. There were bogeys like fireflies all over the sky. His F-4 was hit, and he was wounded, but he could've made it back. He stayed in it, saved three planes before he bought it.
Maverick: How come I never heard that before?
Viper: Well that's not something the State Department tells dependents when the battle occurred over the wrong line on some map.

So in the new Star Trek movie (see I told you we'd get to Star Trek eventually) we're introduced to Jim T. Kirk a hotshot young genius who's a hotshot and the best there is at, well, everything, including bar fights and making out with green chicks.

There's an iconic scene where Kirk drives his motorcycle near the spaceships.

Kirk is also wounded by the heroic death of his father on the same day of birth.

That get's straightened out this way.

Christopher Pike: Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including yours. I dare you to do better. Enlist in Starfleet.


IMDB trivia has this to say

To prepare for his role as Captain James Kirk, Chris Pine watched classic episodes and read encyclopedias about the Star Trek universe. However, his research was rudimentary, as he wanted his performance to be original and not an imitation of William Shatner. He based his performance on Tom Cruise's Maverick and Harrison Ford's Han Solo and Indiana Jones, heroes who Pine felt possessed the archetypal hero qualities Kirk has (humour, arrogance, decisiveness).

Oh, and one more thing.

That Navy Ship that Maverick served on in Top Gun: It was the USS Enterprise.



Man, I need a life.


Tomorrow on Star Trek week, Old Spock's letters to Young Spock.