Tom Cruise is game to reprise his suave and smoking hot role in the ‘Top Gun’ sequel, but only “if there’s no CGI on the jets” and if the film has more practical effects instead.
“If I can figure it out, if all of us can figure it out, it’d be fun to do. I’d like to fly those jets again, but we got to do all the jets practical, no CGI,” Cruise, who starred as Maverick in the 1986 original, told Extra. “I’m saying right now, no CGI on the jets. If we can figure all that out, and the Department of Defense will allow us to do it, that would be fun.”
Now that CGI no longer pleases audiences as it once did, where bigger is not necessarily better, and where film-makers and cinemagoers favour story over crazy effects, saying no to special effects looks like a safe bet. In the Mission: Impossible franchise, Cruise has scaled the Burj Khalifa skyscraper and hung out of a plane during take-off. His tendency to perform his own stunts has earned him a reputation as a daredevil; and perhaps his interest in being part of the sequel must certainly be taken seriously as well.
In the recent past, Jurassic World and Godzilla are good examples of how CGI can make or break a film respectively; how it can add to and detract from emotional impact. The trick is to find the middle path with a good mix of CGI and practical effects and if the makers of films can find that golden mean then there would only be more and more better stories that can reach movie lovers globally.
