Good twitter thread here claiming the original one saw a 500% boost in Navy applicants (a number claimed numerous other places but which I gave up looking for a source for after a couple minutes). Meanwhile here is the US Naval Institute claiming that, instead of Top Gun, the late 80s enlistment increase should be attributed to increased spending on recruiting (ignoring that some of that money most likely helped subsidize the film), even though there were recruiters in theaters then too and 90% of applicants in some cities had seen it… and therefore concludes implausibly that the new film’s “effect on the service’s recruiting will probably be small at best”.
Good twitter thread here claiming the original one saw a 500% boost in Navy applicants (a number claimed numerous other places but which I gave up looking for a source for after a couple minutes). Meanwhile here is the US Naval Institute claiming that, instead of Top Gun, the late 80s enlistment increase should be attributed to increased spending on recruiting (ignoring that some of that money most likely helped subsidize the film), even though there were recruiters in theaters then too and 90% of applicants in some cities had seen it… and therefore concludes implausibly that the new film’s “effect on the service’s recruiting will probably be small at best”.