The Maverick actors almost cried over the direction of a scene

Of all the scenes in the original “Top Gun,” this is the volleyball sequence it really took on a life of its own. The plot is essentially suspended for two minutes so we can watch these sculpted military men hanging out shirtless in the sun, with long, lingering shots of their sweat-soaked bodies. Let’s just say there’s a reason why film critic Pauline Kael describe the film as a “brilliant homoerotic advertisement”.

It is not surprising that the film long-awaited sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick”, gave viewers another version of this sequence. This time, the crew is going to play soccer on the beach, not volleyball. It turns out that half the actors were supposed to wear shirts in this new version, but their outcry forced the director to change the script. Like Miles Teller, who played Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, explained in a recent interview:

“Originally it was supposed to be shirts versus skins. […] And there were a few guys who literally started crying because they had just dieted and worked out so much. It was their moment. Some guys maybe didn’t have as many lines or something. It was a very big deal. I think we probably had a little team meeting and we said […] “We’re going to tell them we’re all going to become skins.”

Director Joseph Kosinski acceded to the actors’ requests, leading to a football sequence where almost everyone is shirtless and showing off their muscles. The sequence ended up featured in much of the film’s marketing, almost as an implicit acknowledgment that the sequel knows Exactly why some people loved the first movie. But does the football scene live up to the iconic volleyball scene? Reviews are mixed.

Although it was very polite of the “Top Gun” series to once again appeal to gays, some fans think the scene doesn’t live up to the eroticism of the original. The camera didn’t stop as much on the actors’ bodies or move closer to them.

Another factor that explains the appeal of the original scene is its gratuity. As the wise Dan Kois explained in his comparison between the two scenes for Slate, “The script offered only a few sentences of description of a ‘vicious volleyball game’ on base. The scene makes no attempt to advance the story.” It was this aspect that really made the scene memorable, that made gay men and straight female viewers realize that this was a movie. made with them in mind.

Meanwhile, “Maverick” provides a real plot reason for the football game, using it as a clear team-building exercise to advance the character arcs. From a screenwriting standpoint, it’s better, but concise writing isn’t what every “Top Gun” fan was looking for here.

When it comes to its homoeroticism, “Maverick” wins on at least one point. While the volleyball scene had all men, the soccer scene had a woman named (Phoenix, played by Monica Barbaro) in a swimsuit. If “Maverick” wanted to avoid any homoerotic allegations, he easily could have filmed his character with the same level of attention he gave to the guys; instead, the camera almost entirely ignored her. While some heterosexual “Top Gun” fans are often irritated by any strange reading of the films, it seems clear that the films themselves don’t bother them at all.