Top Gun: Maverick -- How it's Done

I just saw Top Gun: Maverick on Friday and it really got me thinking about writing and books. 

Why? 

After experiencing this truly exceptional story, which did such a fantastic job of tying back to the original production all those many long years ago (36...and in what seems like a different age, really), I got the distinct feeling that this was it. 

This was the tying up of all the loose ends for these characters -- a last gathering of lives that had intertwined, of friendships that would soon be no more, and of lifelong pains and betrayals that must finally be resolved. But before that scene came, Maverick had to come to terms, once again, with the most painful experience of his life, and the repercussions of the fateful incident that had haunted him through the decades, while facing the reality that his days doing what he lives for are numbered. 

Two words. Mission accomplished.

I hope Hollywood leaves the Top Gun saga at that, and doesn't try to resurrect the franchise one last time, just for the sake of, you know, $$$. This was a stellar conclusion to a story that has been a part of our lives and our culture for so long. In many ways it surpassed the original, and that was no easy feat. It has excitement, action, suspense, surprises and supersonic daring-do enough to please any diehard action fan, but it also has something else. Soul. It gave fans everything the original film offered, and then gave them something more. Closure that felt right. It was the perfect goodbye.

This was my take-away:

In time, every storyteller must face writing a goodbye. Either at the end of a one-up book, or the conclusion of a lengthy multi-book series. At some point the surviving characters need to say farewell, if not to each other...to the readers. How that ending is crafted will make or break the story and too often, the ending doesn't live up to expectations. 

Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and the end of the journey should have as much to offer the reader as the opening promise. 

Top Gun: Maverick got it right. 

If you were hoping for an actual review of the movie, this isn't it, but you can find an exceptional and relatively spoiler-free critique -- and the white-knuckle trailer -- on Space.com. Click here.

COVID MEANS NO THEATERS FOR ME

COVID is still out there, with cases rising.

I’ve been hearing great things about the new hit movie TOP GUN: MAVERICK, starring Tom Cruise. I’m not a fan of Tom Cruise, but I was a fan of the original TOP GUN (my younger brother was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, so I was at least adjacent to that culture) and this is the kind of movie you really need to see on the big screen. Sadly, TOP GUN: MAVERICK is only being shown in theaters.

But therein lies the problem. I haven’t been inside a movie theater in two-and-a-half years—since COVID made it a life-threatening proposition. For me, the idea of sitting for two hours with a crowd of folks who may or may not be infected/masked/vaccinated/boosted (depending on the stage of the pandemic we’re talking about) just hasn’t been worth it, no matter what’s on the screen in front of me. Even at the times I usually attend showings (matinees in the middle of the week), I figure some fool would sit right behind me in a nearly empty theater and cough on my bucket of popcorn. People did, even before that was something that could kill me. I keep waiting for the pandemic to be “over,” or at least to ease, so I can resume what had been one of the greatest pleasures of my pre-COVID life—watching a new movie in a big, dark theater, with popcorn and everything.

Hollywood has unilaterally decided that the pandemic is over, though clearly it isn’t. The powers-that-be (filmmakers, studio owners, theater owners) are tired of losing money and audiences to the streaming services. They’ve decided to stop releasing new films to theaters and streaming services like HBO Max at the same time, insisting that blockbusters like TOP GUN: MAVERICK, Michelle Yeoh’s EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE and others serve time in theaters only (and then, presumably, for rent on demand rather than by subscription to streaming). Hallelujah! Just like the old days!

Except, excuse me, this pandemic ain’t over by a long shot. You may be tired of it. We may all be tired of it. But cases are rising—six times the number of daily cases this Memorial Day than last. And that is likely a dramatic undercount. Many public health departments have stopped counting. Folks are testing at home—which, I suppose, is a good thing—but they aren’t reporting the results to anyone if they turn up positive. They’re just staying home. Maybe.

Hospitalizations are up, too, especially in the South and West, where vaccination and booster rates are lower. Sure, death rates are down, thanks to the availability of antivirals like Paxlovid (and the fact that many older Americans are vaccinated and boosted, and younger Americans have a better survival rate), but the effects of long COVID still drag down some 10-30 percent of those who catch the disease, impairing heart, brain, gut or lung function.

Here's the thing: COVID is a nasty disease. It’s a survivor. It mutates to survive in a population and insinuates itself into every cell to survive in the body. You can catch it even if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted. You can catch it more than once—like a cold, or the flu. Any one of those infections can result in a devastating case, not a mild case, though your chances are better if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted. Any one of those infections could result in long COVID, meaning you are left with debilitating brain fog or asthma or a heart problem.

So, no, I won’t be going to the theater to see the new TOP GUN: MAVERICK movie. That’s a risk I won’t take. (I can only pray this thing has subsided enough that I can go to see the new AVATAR when it comes out.) I don’t want to catch COVID, even a mild case. In fact, I don’t even want to catch a stupid cold anymore. I still wear a mask in the grocery store, even though everyone else has stopped because they’re “tired of COVID.” Well, you don’t stop running when a wolf is chasing you just because you’re tired. Or because you suddenly don’t see that wolf behind you.

Cautiously, Donna

 *Information for this post provided by: "Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Maps and Case Count," The New York Times, June 2, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html