This week, Ethan Hunt returns for the eighth (and probably ultimate?) time in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning! Does the movie recover from its broken first act? Is this really going to be the last mission? Does this feel like The Most Expensive Movie Ever Made?

Unanswered Questions:

• How do we understand Luther's arc in this film, and in the series as a whole?
• Whatever happened to Marie and Alanna Mitsopolis and the other dropped elements from Dead Reckoning?
• Is Ethan really changed by his confrontation with The Entity?

Further reading:

• How They Pulled Off Those Stunts In Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (GQ)
• Hannah Waddingham: ‘I’m ravenous for the fun of it all’ (The Times)
• The Last Star In Hollywood Definitive List Of Tom Cruise Films
• The Last Star In Hollywood: Production Schedule

A huge and sincere thank you to all our listeners for coming on this journey with us! For bonus shows, extra content and more, support The Last Star In Hollywood and the Next Word network by visiting Patreon.com/NextWord!

This week, we feel the need for speed all over again with Joseph Kosinski’s much-delayed, hugely successful Top Gun: Maverick! Is Pete Mitchell the same guy, so many years later? How does the film respond to the legacy of the original? Is Kosinski maybe too good at his job?

Unanswered Questions:

• Is Top Gun about patriotism? Militarism? Commercialism? All or none of the above?
• How does the marketing and production material mythologize the making of the film?
• Is there anything thematic happing in Maverick’s technological regression from the fictional DarkStar to the Boeing F/A-18E to the Grumman F-14?

Further reading:

• Playboy (January, 1990)
• Budweiser, PBR, Coop F5 Grapefruit, Voodoo Ranger IPA
• F1 Official Trailer
• Regal 4DX
• “‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Cinematographer Pushed Camera Technology Limits to Put Audiences in Pilot’s Seat” (Variety)
• Tenet
• “3 Rounds with the Cast of ‘Top Gun: Maverick'” (Entertainment Weekly)
• “Garth Marenghi – Writing“
• The Last Star In Hollywood Definitive List Of Tom Cruise Films
• The Last Star In Hollywood: Production Schedule

Thanks for listening! For bonus shows, extra content and more, support The Last Star In Hollywood and the Next Word network by visiting Patreon.com/NextWord!

Join us next week as we close out Tom Cruise’s filmography — for now — with Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning!

The Last Star In Hollywood is a Next Word production.

Copyright © 2024 The Last Star In Hollywood. All Rights Reserved.