About
Oh, Top Gun, I could watch you on repeat. This Tom Cruise-led love letter to the Navy might be one of the most iconic movies from a decade that also gave us other vaunted silver screen classics like Full Metal Jacket, The Breakfast Club, Terminator, and Back to the Future. From the cowboy swagger of the pilots to their colorful call signs, it’s hard to find something that isn’t cool about Top Gun. The box office metrics were staggering: Top Gun was the highest grossing film of 1986 domestically and worldwide. Globally, it racked up a not-so-shabby $357.3 million while en route to four Academy Award nominations and one win for Best Original Song in “Take My Breath Away.”
The plot of Top Gun centers around naval aviator Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and his best friend (and radar intercept officer or “RIO”) Lieutenant Junior Grade Nick “Goose” Bradshaw. Initially stationed aboard the USS Enterprise, they luck into being able to join the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School in Miramar (colloquially known as ‘Top Gun’) when Maverick’s wingman Cougar is mentally shaken up during a sortie over the Indian Ocean. The setting rapidly gives way to the sandy beaches of San Diego and a host of rival pilots all vying against Maverick for the trophy of best student at Top Gun.
Maverick’s cavalier, bulletproof attitude quickly earns him the enmity of several aviators. Chief among them is Lieutenant Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (played by the late, great Val Kilmer who passed away earlier this year). Iceman is Maverick’s main rival at Top Gun and equals him in talent. His arrogance is more disciplined, however, and it is this by-the-books approach that ultimately earns Iceman the Top Gun trophy (recognizing Maverick is unfit to continue competing given Goose’s accidental death). A tense locker room encounter early in the film sums up their disagreement; Iceman calls Maverick dangerous, to which the latter naturally replies “I am dangerous.” Iceman isn’t what I would call elitist, but he certainly represents part of the establishment pushing back against Maverick’s independence.
Quick interlude that I probably could have shoehorn-titled our discussion under How Villains Keep Time, but Iceman doesn’t quite fit that archetype. He is a same-team antagonist whose opposition to the hero is basically summed up as respecting the rules, and Top Gun ultimately concludes with Iceman and Maverick becoming friends anyways after Maverick saves him during an emergency deployment back aboard the Enterprise. If you take the plotline further through Top Gun: Maverick from 2022, we even see that Iceman has become a lifelong friend of Maverick’s and his foremost champion among the Navy brass. Iceman’s passing is a critical moment for Maverick’s continued character development.
Charlie and Maverick’s wheels. Images: Paramount
One element I love in particular about Top Gun is the props having a thoroughbred “cool” quotient to them, specifically as it relates to vehicles and watches. Two quick examples of the need for speed are Charlie Blackwood’s Porsche 356A Speedster and Maverick’s Kawasaki Ninja GPZ900R with a very retro square headlight. Maverick’s watch fits in thematically as well; he wears a Porsche Design Chronograph 1 made by Orfina, which feels like a fitting motorsports tie-in for a pilot who is obsessed with competition. Spoiler alert: he’ll continue to wear that watch in Top Gun: Maverick. On the other hand, how does Iceman keep time?
It just so happens that Iceman actually wears two watches in Top Gun, and both of them are Rolex models; he owns both a GMT-Master and a two-tone Rolex Datejust. His GMT-Master is visible several times, usually during recurring standoffs with Maverick. It is hard to know the exact reference with complete confidence, but Iceman’s watch is likely either a ref. 1675 or 16750. The former was in circulation from 1959 to 1980 before it was replaced by the transitional 16750, which ran until 1988. Both versions would have been available by the time Top Gun started filming. Even with poor resolution, the close-up shot of Iceman’s wrist indicates a decent fade on the bezel’s red paint. My gut is telling me that this particular watch is a 1675.
Iceman’s other watch, the two-tone Datejust on a Jubilee bracelet, is likely a ref. 1601 / 1603 or ref. 16013. These models follow the production years of their in-period GMT brethren pretty closely, although the 16013 arrived a little earlier than its transitional sibling in 1977. Like those GMT-Master references, these Datejust models would have been available by time of filming. The two-tone Datejust is hard to locate on screen, but we know it is present from a still shot that matches up to movie timestamp 1:16:29 where Iceman is watching Maverick argue with his temporary RIO, Sundown.
Generally speaking, I associate Iceman with his GMT-Master and I think most watch enthusiasts who love Top Gun will agree; it feels like the quintessential aviator’s watch, even if something like the Breitling Navitimer with its slide rule bezel might theoretically be more professional in application. In a movie where flash is as critical as substance, the blue and red-accented GMT-Master feels like an elevation of Iceman’s brand that helps make him a proper foil to Maverick. And if the still shot’s color is to be trusted, the faded bezel just adds more mystique around how much time Iceman’s watch has seen getting blasted by sunrays in the cockpit.
Unfortunately, unlike Maverick’s chronograph we don’t really know the whereabouts of Iceman’s GMT-Master or Datejust. I don’t believe they were Kilmer’s (I haven’t located any photos of him wearing either Rolex after the movie), but rather property of Top Gun’s prop department. A website I located called Prop Store Auction has sold numerous lots containing on-set movie memorabilia, such as Iceman’s flight suit patch, but does not show anything pertaining to the sale of the watches. No doubt, there’s a Hollywood old timer around somewhere wearing one or both watches in plain sight. Perhaps we’ll uncover their provenance at some point in the future.
Double Feature
I touched on Maverick’s Porsche Design Chronograph 1 earlier, which is a special watch in its own right. This chronograph was designed by the inventor of the 911, Ferdinand Porsche, and was distinctive due to its black PVD coating and speedometer-esque appearance. The watches were first produced for Porsche by Orfina, a watch company owned by former Porsche Racing driver Umberto Maglioli. The Orfina chronograph came in two different executions, one powered by the Valjoux 7750 and the other by the Lemania 5100, and you can tell which one is which based on the 12 o’clock subdial configuration (30-minute versus 24-hour, given the central minutes functionality of the 5100) and whether there is the Orfina name (Valjoux) or logo (Lemania) at three o’clock above the day-date window. Orfina-produced watches date from 1972 to 1978, at which point Porsche switched watch production to IWC Schaffhausen.
Maverick’s particular chronograph is a Lemania-powered second execution and sees the most screen time of any watch in the original Top Gun; it is front and center during the volleyball match as Maverick checks it and realizes he is going to be late for his date with Charlie. The watch is a frequent flyer for most of Tom Cruise’s scenes, particularly ground class with the rest of the pilots and during sorties in his F-14 Tomcat… except that it technically isn’t.
Images: Paramount
The tricky thing about Top Gun is that, while Tom Cruise loves to do as many stunts as he can and is a licensed pilot who owns jets in real life, he still isn’t allowed to fly modern military property (he was reportedly denied clearance by the Navy to fly the F/A-18 Super Hornet in Top Gun: Maverick). In order to film in-cockpit scenes for both movies, real naval aviators flew front seat while Tom Cruise and the other actors sat backseat. Consequently, all of the controls being operated should be film of the actual pilots themselves.
Near the end of the movie, we can see one of those real-life aviators operating the controls for Maverick’s F-14. The watch that is visible isn’t Maverick’s Porsche Design chronograph, but rather a Rolex Submariner ref. 5513! This appears to be the watch of the same pilot who was filmed operating Hollywood’s F-14 at 1:31:10. We get a brief glimpse of it again right at 1:38:53 before Maverick fires on the fourth MiG, braking hard to let the bogey overshoot him. It is a neat easter egg (or error) that alludes to the filming techniques used behind the scenes to bring us peak aviation cinema.
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At the end of the day, I like Top Gun because it is a no-fuss action flick dedicated to the romantic side of aviation (plus a little recruiting for the Navy on the side). Real-life people own and use the same time keepers that Iceman and Maverick wear in the movie, and it helps connect us to the characters while also highlighting the intersection of watches and adventurous professions in a really unique way. Make sure to keep your trigger finger on the remote and hunt for our star aviators’ watches the next time Top Gun graces your television.
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