“Top Gun: Maverick” – the sequel to the 1986 movie – will finally screen this week after its release was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those who love planes and flying action, it’s one of the greatest all-time movies and from the trailers shown in the past months, we are assured of lots of fantastic action – and they’re with real planes, not CGI.
Car enthusiasts will remember that the original Top Gun had a Porsche which appeared a number of times in various scenes. It was driven by ‘Charlie’, the girlfriend of ‘Maverick’ (Tom Cruise) and the first time we saw it in action was when she sped across an intersection chasing after him.
That Porsche was a classic model, a 1958 Speedster… but it was actually a replica, not one of the original 3,676 cars built. The one in the movie was made by Intermeccanica and had a fibreglass body resembling the model. Looked pretty authentic anyway.
In the new movie, another Porsche will also appear for brief moments and its presence was already spotted in the commercial that Porsche showed at the Super Bowl 2022 event in February. Apart from the other Porsche models shown, there is one which is a late 1970s 911 S with Maverick and Penny Benjamin, another character who is his girlfriend. What a coincidence that both girlfriends had Porsches!
It’s a very beautiful image of the car which could have come out of a catalogue. The car actually appears earlier than this picture and we would suggest you keep your eyes on the background during one of the night scenes when Maverick and Penny are on the bike.
There’s another small Porsche as well and it’s on Maverick’s wrist. It’s not so clear what model it is but in 1986, many people noticed that Maverick wore a Porsche Design Chronograph which had a black PVD coating. It was on him all the time and fans wonder if it could be the same watch used again… after all, that would be a collectors’ item.
If you saw the original movie and remember it well, you will see many lines, gestures and actions that are recreated in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. In fact, these recreations can be seen right from the opening scenes and the movie also closes in the same way.
Bike fans will also remember that Maverick was on a Kawasaki GPZ900R Ninja. Guess he didn’t keep the bike for 30 years and instead got a new one – the Kawasaki Ninja H2 (the carbon edition) – which has a supercharged 998 cc engine and is considered a ‘hyperbike’. As the trailers have shown, he again races along the road alongside the runway, seemingly racing with a fighter jet taking off.
For those who still don’t know what this new movie is about, the storyline continues from the original a few decades later. Maverick remains a captain and ‘despite the best efforts, refuses to die. He is recalled to train ‘the best of the best’ pilots at Top Gun for a secret and very dangerous mission. Just as he was a cocky pilot when he was a student at Top Gun in 1986, so too are those he has to train. But they also show professionalism and know that they have to put aside personal feelings when it comes to flying jets at over 1,500 km/h.
Top Gun: Maverick will start screening in Malaysian cinemas from Wednesday May 25, 2022.
