Top Gun essay

If WW3 were to happen right now and you were drafted, would you want to fight as an individual or as a team? Teamwork is a valuable skill, perhaps even more important than individual technical skill. Top Gun shows the development of a fighter pilot as he makes this realization. Fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is one of the best at what he does, flying jets. Correspondingly, he has a big ego, disrespect for rules and authority, and extreme cockiness. These faults cause him to question what other people have to say about him. In return, he pushes other people away to make himself feel better and fit his ego. Because of this and how he tends to act, he can be considered an introvert. This combination makes him a dangerous partner. However, partially out of luck, he and his copilot Nick "Goose" Bradshaw are given the chance to go to Top Gun, a six week training program for the top 1% of fighter pilots. While there, Maverick is no longer the best - he has to prove his worth, by winning the Top Gun trophy. In the midst of the competition, Maverick and Goose lose control of their plane, resulting in an accident, killing Goose. Maverick then is forced to change his ways, and work for the greater good. This story is a classical example of the monomyth, with Maverick as its hero and Goose as his mentor. We claim that the critical piece of the hero’s cycle is at the beginning - in the transition from the known realm to the unknown - and that all of the subsequent steps were largely inevitable. By passing from the familiar world where Maverick is the best pilot to the unknown world where Maverick is only one of many, he learns what he could not in the familiar – the value of teamwork.
A Jungian term that can easily be applied to the movie Top Gun is the Heaven/Hell symbol. Flying at 30,000 feet there is only you, your copilot, and your enemy. Up there, nothing can get in your way of completing your goal. Your the one making the decisions...