Nevertheless, millions of Americans loved Top Gun (including my dad, a Navy veteran and private pilot). Then, said trainees are inexplicably chosen to fly an emergency military exercise against an unnamed foe that audiences knew was supposed to be the Soviet Union. A group of trainees spend the first two-thirds of the film scoring chicks and trying to outdo each other with aerial stunts in fighter jets. Top Gun (which I eventually saw on Betamax ) was and is an incoherent mess. Karate Kid 2 is universally recognized (by anyone with decent taste) as the best installment in that series. We opted to watch Daniel-San kick some Okinawan ass, and I still hold that this was the right choice. We searched the showtimes in the newspaper and agreed on two possibilities: Top Gun or Karate Kid 2. One day that summer, my best friend’s teenaged brother had agreed to take us to the movies. I had just turned eight years old when the first Top Gun film was released.
