Feed your need for speed in this new featurette for Top Gun: Maverick!

When I was nine years old I briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a fighter pilot. This may have had something to do with the fact that I was obsessed with TOP GUN and watched the film on a regular basis. Thankfully, I abandoned that dream to pursue a career writing for JoBlo. Mission accomplished!

All kidding aside, I revere Tony Scott's 1986 film. As a child I thought it was just a cool actioner with some devastatingly good aerial dogfights and a love scene my parents always wanted me to fast forward through. When I got older and revisited the movie, I realized it was a lot more. Amid the high octane speed is a pretty great drama about friendship, loss, legacy, and overcoming failure. Also homoeroticism, but that's an article for another day. Never in a million years did I think audiences would ever get a sequel but next June all of us are going to get just that.

Just the other day Paramount Pictures released a new trailer for TOP GUN: MAVERICK. It was epic. For me it struck all the right chords. There's just something about seeing Maverick behind the cockpit or donning that aviator jacket that gives me goosebumps. Combine that with a riff on Harold Faltermeyer's score (who's returning for the sequel by the way) and all I wanted to do was go careening down a tarmac at full tilt. Well as if the trailer wasn't enough to get you excited, Paramount pictures just released a brand new featurette that goes behind the aerial escapades of TOP GUN: MAVERICK. Check it out:

Wow. I didn't think anything could get me more jazzed than the trailer but this did the trick. I am suitably impressed.

What I think is mesmerizing is how the actors involved devoted themselves to getting the fighter jet aspects correct. It may be a massive understatement but this job is not easy. One of the great things about the original TOP GUN is the aerial combat. Jeffrey L. Kimball's cinematography still holds up today but the sequel looks to improve upon the original. Six IMAX cameras in the cockpit? Are you kidding me??!! Also I love how producer Jerry Bruckheimer calls this "a love letter to aviation" and a "competition film." It sure looks that way from the previews. About the only thing missing from this video is Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone."

TOP GUN: MAVERICK starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, and Val Kilmer soars its way into theaters June 26, 2020.