The story of 2022, at least when it comes to movies, has to be the atomic success of the legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick, and the hold it continues to have on audiences of all ages. The film set box office records during its staggering summer run. And now that it’s available on home video (find out how you can stream Top Gun: Maverick here), eagle-eyed fans enjoying repeat viewings are able to pick up on nods and homages to Tony Scott’s original film… sometimes even catching the attention of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell himself, Tom Cruise.
Top Gun: Maverick director made sure to include a number of references to the original Top Gun. But this one went unnoticed by many (if not all), until Twitter user @Msmegalodon pointed out that a scream that was let out during the volleyball scene in the original movie was clipped and used in Maverick. And the movie’s editor, Eddie Hamilton, shouted her out for it:
my favorite party trick is showing people that they sampled the volleyball scene audio in top gun 1986 for the beach football scene in top gun maverick pic.twitter.com/S6jPYDQKPHNovember 12, 2022
It takes a crazy ear to hear something as specific as that. For starters, the soundtrack basically distracts from the screams and shouts in the scene. How can you pull focus away from Kenny Loggins’ “Playing With the Boys”? An ‘80s classic, which he was asked to remake for the sequel. But Top Gun: Maverick gave the Twitter user her flowers, then kicked the observation up the chain of command until it landed on the desk of screenwriter and director Christopher McQuarrie – who apparently shared it with the biggest movie star on the planet. McQ Tweeted:
Tom and I were most impressed when Eddie showed us this over breakfast this morning. Keep on smugging, Emma.November 14, 2022
Now that’s something to write home about. We covered extensively how hard the Top Gun: Maverick cast trained for the beach football scene, knowing how seminal the volleyball scene is/was, and how their take on the sequence could live forever. And it worked… so well that none of us picked up on the audio cue that Joseph Koskinsi and Eddie Hamilton slipped into the scene. We still feel a little bit bad for Jon Hamm that he couldn’t be included in the scene. Maybe he will be part of what has to be a Top Gun: Maverick sequel. Because that’s going to happen, right?
The next step for Top Gun: Maverick is an awards campaign. If you look at some of the prognosticators who are tracking the ongoing Oscars race, they have this muscly blockbuster in the conversation, which started almost as soon as the movie was released. Personally, I can see nominations. I’m not sure that I see wins. But that’s why they run the campaigns. We will see where the chips fall.
