On paper, your favorite movies are usually what they say on the tin. Top Gun is about elite fighter pilots training for the flights of their careers. The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift is about an American learning Japanese car culture. Or, that’s what they want you to think!
Matt wrote about how The Fast And The Furious is really about the strength of the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen. Username Loading….:
I maintain that Tokyo Drift is secretly and 80s ski movie but with cars. You have some newcomer who immediately gets into friction with the top guy, falls in with a group of outcasts and weirdos, multiple scenes with scantily clad women, eventually challenges the main guy to a race down a mountain, has a big training montage, and the looser has to leave town. Oh and of course the winner of the race gets the girl.
Honestly, you can apply this logic to a lot of famous movies. Have you seen either of the Top Gun movies lately? The flight sequences are mostly training montages where the pilots compete with each other to determine who is really the best. There’s a whole love story element where the guy gets the girl, locker rooms, volleyball games, and a whole lot of emotion. It’s basically a sports movie, only with fighter jets rather than sticks and balls.
Top Gun: Maverick isn’t really any different. The movie doesn’t even try to establish real enemies. The heroes are just fighting against “fifth-generation fighters.”
Andrew wrote about the awesomeness of the color purple. Cheap Bastard:
But again provided a fabulous splash of deep purple to the car parks of its native Japan.
Here’s the reference (click here if you don’t see the embed):
Fly into the rising sun
Faces, smiling everyone
Yeah, she is a whole new tradition
I feel it in my heartMy Honda from Tokyo
She makes me see
My Honda from Tokyo
She’s so good to meTalk about her like a queen
Dancing in a eastern dream
Yeah, she makes me feel like a river
That carries me awayMy Honda from Tokyo
She makes me see
My Honda from Tokyo
She’s so good to me
But I’m at home and I just don’t belongSo far away from the garden we love
She is what moves in the soul of a dove
Soon I shall see just how black was my night
When we’re alone in her city of lightRising from the neon gloom
Shining like a crazy moon
Yeah, she turns me on like a fire
I get highMy Honda from Tokyo
She makes me see
My Honda from Tokyo
She’s so good to me
My Honda from Tokyo
She makes me see
My Honda from Tokyo
She’s so good to meMy Honda from Tokyo
My Honda from Tokyo
My Honda from Tokyo
My Honda from Tokyo
My Honda from Tokyo
Arch Duke Maxyenko:
You know I’m down with OPP (OEM Production Purples).
Finally, we arrive at Mark’s Shitbox Showdown between two Rolls-Royces. Bronco2CombustionBoogaloo:
That “black undercoating” top looks great… for me to poupon.
Data:
Your comment is a Triumph!
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic image: Universal Studios
Fun fact: Deep Purple released an album in the past year, and Gillan, Glover, Paice, and Blackmore (not in DP obviously) are still kicking making fun music.
“You have some newcomer who immediately gets into friction with the top guy, falls in with a group of outcasts and weirdos, multiple scenes with scantily clad women, eventually challenges the main guy to a race down a mountain, has a big training montage, and the looser has to leave town. Oh and of course the winner of the race gets the girl.”
That reminds me, its been a while since I’ve watched Better Off Dead.
I am still partial to the movie Firefox as a terrible action movie indulgence… Must think Russian, think Russian…
There’s a spot along I-90 in Eastern Washington called Tokio. I always think of this song when I drive past what used to be a very small town and is now really only a truck stop, weigh station and a grain elevator. No women or Hondas from Tokio.
One could argue that Top Gun is about joysticks and balls.
“Top Gun” is a movie based on the Police song, “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.”
Without the pedophilia, I mean.
I’m going to have the Deep Purple Dittie bouncing around in my head all day now.
I always thought that Fast and Furious was just a remake of Point Break where they replaced the surfing with street racing. Also, speaking of Fast and Furious, no one ever talks enough about how Buffalo Bill is Paul Walker’s boss.