Review for Top Gun: Special Collector's Edition

Introduction

"On March 3, 1969 the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world. They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it: TOP GUN."

I saw Top Gun at the cinema. I bought the fullscreen, then the widescreen VHS release. I bought the original letterboxed and then the anamorphic widescreen DVD release. Now I have bought it on Blu-ray. You could say I've been there and worn the t-shirt, except that I don't own a Top Gun t-shirt…I have however given Tom Cruise and Tony Scott plenty of my hard earned money over the years!

"When are you going to stop those jockey's doing a fly-by on my tower at over 400 knots. I want somebody's butt, I want it now, I've had it!"

It is hard to believe that Top Gun is 25 years old next year, I must be getting old, can it really be that long since I first saw this great movie?

Top Gun is the film that made Tom Cruise a megastar, the film that made millions of people forever think that Val Kilmer is an arrogant twat, the film that single-handedly boosted recruitment of Naval Aviators in America by 500%, the film that cemented film soundtracks as big business, the film that still spawns spin-off games over 20 years later. Made on a relatively small $14m budget with the help of the US Navy, the film returned over $350m at the box office, a huge return on investment, and it still sells well on DVD and Blu-ray today.

"You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous."

There can't be too many people who have never seen Top Gun, but to summarise, it tells the story of a class of the US Navy's "Best of the Best", competing for the (fictional) Top Gun trophy at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. Pilot Maverick (Tom Cruise) and his Radar Intercept Officer Goose (Anthony Edwards) are sent to the Top Gun course after an incident in the Indian Ocean where they come out on top after a close quarters encounter with a MiG-28. The film tells the story of Maverick and Goose's time at the school, their rivalry with Iceman (Val Kilmer) and Maverick's romance with Charlie Blackwood (Kelly McGillis).

Video

"Tower, this is Ghost Rider requesting a flyby. That's a negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full."

I watched Avatar on Blu-ray the other day, and the picture quality was outstanding, as you would expect from a movie made last year with fully digital cameras. I was interested to see how the picture quality on Top Gun measured up, bearing in mind that the film is nearly quarter of a century old and was made before the days of digital cameras.

"And if you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog s*** out of Hong Kong!"

One thing in Top Gun's favour is that thanks to the US Navy, they didn't need to use any computer generated effected, all of the aircraft are real - this means that the aerial sequences still look amazing - had they been CGI or models, nowadays they would age the film dramatically and it would probably look awful.

"You were in a 4g inverted dive with a MiG28?"

The picture quality is a mixed bag, ranging from excellent to a little grainy and dark. Some sequences are fantastic, the detail of beads of sweat, skin, hair is superb for a film of this age, but some shots in contrast were a little too dark. There are some grainy shots, which seem mostly to be stock shots of aircraft, and I can only assume that there was insufficient resolution on the original film to provide a crisp transfer. In general though, the picture quality is superb.

"God dammit, Mustang! This is Ghost Rider 117. This bogey is all over me. He's got missile lock on me. Do I have permission to fire?"

Visually, the film is still stunning, the aerial sequences are still amongst the best ever filmed in my opinion, and are still as exciting today as they were 20 years ago, again the use of real planes gives the sequences authenticity and they are thoroughly enjoyable.

Sound

"Mustang, this is Voodoo 3. Remaining MiGs are bugging out."

Top Gun is famous for its best-selling soundtrack (which I also own in both original and special edition formats on CD…). Harold Faltermyer's score, along with some great music and wonderful sound effects mean that despite its age, Top Gun still sounds brilliant years down the line.

"Bullshit ten minutes! This thing will be over in two minutes! Get on it!"

The start of the film is a treat on a powerful surround system. Don't be tempted to turn up the sound too far right at the start, it builds slowly from the first frame, through the title credits, to the opening action sequence, a mixture of Faltermyer's seminal theme and the sound of jet engines, leading to a fantastic launch and flight sequence that will have your house shaking.

"That was some of the best flying I've seen to date - right up to the part where you got killed."

The music and sound effects are superb in this movie, presented in DTS HD Master Audio 6.1, some of the aerial sequences are fantastic aurally, as F14s fly past in every direction. The dialogue is mostly very good, but in places a little on the low side, having said that, at no point did I have to alter the centre channel volume to hear it clearly.

Overall, an aural treat with the power of the sound superbly complementing the quality of the visuals.

Features

"She's lost that loving feeling."

The feature list on the DVD has the potential to be a collection of small boring featurettes, but in fact they run for over two hours and can be combined into one documentary which is actually very interesting and tells the story of the film right from conception - it contains recent interviews with everyone of note from the cast/crew - Tony Scott, Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jerry Bruckheimer etc and is well worth watching.

The documentary is almost worth the cost of the Blu-ray alone to be honest.

In addition, there are storyboards and music videos, overall, a good set of extras.

Conclusion

"In case some of you are wondering who the best is, they are up here on this plaque."

Top Gun is up there with the best, it's one of those films that I could watch over and over again (and have done so over the years…).

This is the best release yet (as it should be), the picture is in general very good, the sound superb (occasional minor dialogue level problem aside) and the extras excellent.

Fans of the film will love this - and if you've never seen Top Gun, grab this Blu-ray, it's available for under £10 widely and well worth it.