6 Fort Collins-area Cities as ‘Top Gun’ Movie Characters

Slider, Viper, Goose, Charlie, Iceman, and, of course, Maverick. The huge '80s blockbuster still holds a place in our hearts. How would the cities around Fort Collins best represent the central characters?

I was looking up the release date of "Top Gun: Maverick" the other day (May 27, 2022) and the idea popped into my head: What if the towns around here were characters in the original movie? Everybody has seen it; many love it.

It's fun to say "____ is this character, "______" is that character. Some were easy; others were a little more creative. "Who's Viper," for example, but I think I really nailed it in the end.

The six cities/towns that I've included all get a little ribbing, but I think "we" can take it. Like in Tom Cruise's "Days of Thunder," when Robert Duvall says,

... he didn't slam you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you ... he *rubbed* you. And rubbin, son, is racin'.

There'll be pushback, I'm sure, but it's all in fun. I'm not looking to hurt anybody's feelings, really. There'll be towns that are bummed that they weren't included. Maybe I should have dug deeper; I didn't include "Jester" or the angry cigar-smoking commander. To "Hollywood" and "Cougar," I also apologize.

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Maybe we can get all the cities listed to come together for a photo shoot. We're going to need a very wide-angle lens.

I'll probably have to do this again once the sequel (finally) comes out. Ed Harris, Jon Hamm and Jennifer Connelly are among the stars. That could provide some definite changes.