Enjoy this Top Gun Star Wars Mash-up and other fun scifi stuff for Sci-Friday. Watching this reminded me of many hours soaking in some of those 80s classics with my butt parked in a sagging, dusty movie theater seat. Music and movies are cultural communication devices that we use to express ourselves.
Fun fact about ‘Highway to the Danger Zone.’ Even though it was sung by Kenny Loggins, it was written by Giorgio Moroder and oddly enough, his car mechanic. Tom Whitlock started writing songs at 15, and after some false starts he moved to California in 1983 to advance his music career.
When Jerry Bruckheimer reached out to Moroder for a song on Top Gun, his usual lyrical collaborators (Keith Forsey and Pete Bellote) weren’t around. Whitlock was still in the neighborhood, running errands and sleeping on the floor. His previous songwriting experience made him a natural for this pop classic. With the lyrics in place, Moroder and Bruckheimer called around to see who could sing the track and Kenny Loggins’ name came up. The rest is history.
One thing I took from the video is how music videos are mostly about editing. Jackson McKay took footage from seven different Star Wars’ movies (Episodes 4-9 and Rogue One) and cut action pieces together to create sequences and lets your brain fill in the blanks. Nice work! I hope you enjoy this Sci-Friday and dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend!
