Chapter 292: S’mores? Top Gun?

"I don't get it." Milla admitted. "Are you going to be some sort of real-life hero or not?"

"You'll get it eventually. Even I don't get it yet." Alexander left it at that since he hadn't really cleared himself of all the Marshmello schematics as of yet. "What I, myself, don't get is... why are you still wearing that?"

Milla looked at her costume and looked back at him. "I thought we were going to go trick or treating. It's Halloween."

"No... your costume would just be problematic and it pretty much made me realize that I might be committing some sort of crime myself." He blamed himself for keeping with that Toriyama design for little Chichi.

That kind of outfit was somewhat fun in the context of a cartoon but it really becomes criminal when it becomes real-ified.

"So, if I change costumes, will we visit house to house?" The girl asked tentatively.

"If you want, then you can." Alexander picked up his bucket helmet. "Don't expect to go with you though. I'll be celebrating Halloween like I did last year- at home."

"You're no fun, Alex. Even though you publish funny comics every day." Both of them already knew that but Milla wanted to reiterate. "Anyways, that Marshmello thing is just from one of your boxes. What about the others?"

She was quite intrigued that she just invited herself to look about.

"This helmet looks cooler." Milla questioned while holding up a sleeker, black helmet with a Cyclops-esque visor. "What's this about?"

"That's tentatively called Tsokoleyt. A mispelled homophone to chocolate." Alexander had that as an alternative to Marshmello. It's black and less silly in his opinion. Also, it's Daft Punk but less silver-y and more black-y.

Milla moved on as she picked up a helmet with gold sides. The dark visor even matches that Tsoko one. "This looks cool as well. What do you call this?"

"Oh... that's Grayham. Another homophone to graham, the crackers." Of course, Alexander had to complete the ensemble. Daft Punk wasn't just about the Cyclops dude after all.

"So you have a marshmallow, chocolate, and then graham." As she enumerated that, Milla felt like she's been enlightened. "Isn't that just a s'mores ingredient?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking of forming a band called Creed S'mores." At least, that was in the plans. Nothing's concrete as of yet. "As I said, I don't fully get it myself so it's all tentative."

Of course, as silly as it is... he was probably going to go with it.

"Like what Old Courteney said... you're weird, Alex." Milla noticed an extra box and ruffled through to find a wig with half-blondish-white and half-black colors. "What S'more band member or ingredient is this one then?"

"That's a Sia... but don't look too deeply into it." Alexander wouldn't admit that he got into the black hole of secretive music personas that he even considered wigging himself like a girl for ultra-secrecy purposes.

Milla seems to like the wig though and she even discarded her Chichi helmet to wear it. "Why can't I see something in this?"

"Erm..." Alex seemed perplexed and somewhat enlightened. What was she supposed to be? A 'Milla' instead of a Sia?

Wouldn't that work as well?

Anyways, after that Halloween special stint, Progressive October kind of progressed quickly into November from there.

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For November, Alexander wasn't confined to just HQ, school, or mostly at home.

As it turns out, he had to take somewhat of an extended school absence to go somewhere. Just had to use the established understanding between the principal and him... and have an excuse of an extended Thanksgiving leave to somewhere far.

This 'somewhere' happened to be in San Diego again but not the San Diego Hotel this time around.

Specifically, the Naval Air Station Miramar.

An army base was where Alexander was headed... and the plentiful sounds of aerial vehicles could be heard from afar.

Top Gun was being filmed here and the Chaos Butterfly that plundered the film wanted to know how things had progressed.

Comparing this version to what it should have been was going to be interesting since a lot has surely changed.

From what he knows of the original's road to production, a producer duo of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson has been lobbying some sort of "TOPGUN California Magazine Cover" excerpt to film companies.

They have bounced around and rejected a lot. Aviation films aren't exactly a big seller and studios are hesitant to dip their millions in a film like that.

Eventually, the duo did manage to convince Paramount to hop into the deal but progress was not yet smooth sailing with that.

They had to have plenty of correspondence with the army and the jet piloting establishments to cooperate with them.

They even had to convince higher-ups to be able to film in an oceanic carrier like the USS. Enterprise.

After that, they had to go through normal film production technicalities like casting, budgeting, and major studio interference.

The producer duo eventually settled on a director named Tony Scott, who had a cinematography style fitting for the action and the thrills that Top Gun is all about.

This director didn't really have many successful film qualifications under his belt and his status throughout production would regularly fluctuate from being fired to hired again.

The chosen director aside, the production also had to go through a lot of actors that they wanted to hire.

Some of these celebrities were pretty rejecting of the film's prospects.

One actor didn't like the overly patriotic and army feel of the flimsy script while an actress believed that people didn't want to see actors piloting jets at all.

The production eventually settled with Tom Cruise for the lead. However, it is said that they had to fly the man in a real jet to convince him.

There's also a rival character with Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer had a reputation as a hard actor to convince but had to tag along since it is said that he had the same agent as Cruise.

The rest of the cast was just filling in the blanks from there. From Kelly McGillis to other actors that Alexander didn't bother to remember much at all.

Perhaps Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan are exceptions to that. They were still considerable underdogs during Top Gun but that would change due to Shawshank Redemption and Ryan-Ephron film partnerships.

After that cast was filled out... a lot of other things had to be done before their filming started.

The actors who will play pilots had to train in true Top Gun style fashion and be educated in the ways of flight.

Simulated pressure environments, simulated crashes, simulated seat ejections. It may be simulated stuff but that didn't make it less hard.

Then there was the true jet-riding itself and the fun and fears that come with that.

It is said that Tom Cruise's adrenaline and stunt-loving career had been birthed from this acting experience and not a lot could refute that.

Well, after those necessary pre-filming preps, the true filming process went underway and principal photography started in the summer of 1985.

Filming complications are a norm for any production and Top Gun wasn't exempt from that.

The trouble about McGillis' height difference with Cruise. The trouble of McGillis falling for the actor that played "Wolfman" instead.

Chemistry stuff was Paramount's concern. Adding that with other factors, it eventually led up to that infamously awkward sex being filmed and added in the final cut.

Actor chemistry was not the only filming complication as the technicalities of filming high-powered aircraft are problematic too.

Making sure that the lighting was right and the camera could keep up needs a lot of planning to ensure everything goes well.

Then there was the need to appease the jet and army consultants of the film.

These army veterans were appalled by a lot of the story's direction such as the romance stuff and other things that totally contradict what their army and piloting code is all about.

A lot of flying maneuvers were totally impossible from the perspective of these real pilots and they really had a lot of qualms about the Top Gun filmmakers messing those up.

Unfortunately, Top Gun was a moving picture meant for entertainment. If they really went for truth and militaristic technicalities, then they might as well revamp themselves as a documentary and not hire these high-cost actors.

Of course, maybe the thing that really takes the cake with the whole Top Gun production is the death of a stunt pilot.

Art Scholl was one of the film's stunt pilots and aerial cameraman. After one of his biplane excursions for aerial shots, the man's body was never found.

Only the crash debris was recovered after floating about and Top Gun was somewhat dedicated to the man.

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Anyways, the production of the original Top Gun had a lot more interesting tidbits to list out. Music accompaniments, film reception, and the influence of the film were things that can be tackled later.

Alexander was just thankful for the documentaries that he had come across. It is always fun to have a baseline to compare and contrast to.

Those were the old version's production tidbits though and he needed to look out for interesting developments that the new Top Gun would have.

This was the Creed-version now and Alexander was interested in what his grandfather's producer capabilities had done with it.

Was it going to be as tumultuous and rich as the old Top Gun? What is the most obvious change from the original? Is the change good or bad?

Was there something that could still be corrected? And is this production going to have a real-life death count like the other one?

Creed's Top Gun? So many questions to be answered?

Well, this was why Alexander was here in San Diego again and he was going to meet the production crew that would fuel the new Top Gun production dynamic to be what it would be.

Essentially, his spectating and involvement in a new film project would begin here.

And evidently, he had progressed through a lot of things in this re-life and circled back to film production assessments once again.