6. Days Of Thunder (1999) Is Top Gun (1986)
After the success of
Top Gun, the pressure was on director Tony Scott to make another great movie of similar aesethic persuasion, so he did just that. He did it to such good effect, in fact, that he literally just remade
Top Gun again - the only differences were that instead of jets, it was cars, and instead of Tom Cruise, it was... no, it was Tom Cruise again. Yes,
Days of Thunder looks to have been genuinely designed to replicate the success of
Top Gun by following in its blueprints entirely. It might as well have been called
Top Gun 2: Now It's Driving. What we got, then, on both occassions, was a movie about a young hotshot who could be the best if only he stopped being so darn egotistic, is taken under the wing of a mentor, falls in love with a feisty superior woman, learns to battle with the best of 'em, and ultimately reigns supreme when he's given the chance to push the pedal to the metal. The two characters might as well have been the same people here, given that they're imbued with exactly the same arc. Granted, there's a lot less homoeroticism in
Days of Thunder, but where's the fun in that?