It’s Too Soon for ‘Top Gun 3’ to Take Off

The Big Picture

• Top Gun: Maverick’s release was worth the wait and its success was heightened by the postponements due to the pandemic.
• The film serves as a reflection on the state of the film industry and the role of movie stars, with Tom Cruise standing as one of the last true movie stars.
• Waiting for the film’s release added to its prestige and importance, and any rushed sequels would cheapen the thematic depth of the original film.

Upon release In 2022, Top Gun: Maverick followed the mindset of its titular protagonist by flying high and fast into the box office. Grossing nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, the sequel to the beloved original 1986 film carried lofty expectations. After a seemingly endless number of delays, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film’s release looked to be in a quandary, but producer and star Tom Cruise stuck to his intuition by demanding a theatrical release. It’s safe to say that the wait paid off. Furthermore, the postponements were an invaluable asset to Maverick‘s success. The recent announcement of a third Top Gun film would undermine the magic behind the previous legacy sequel.

‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Reflects on the Original Film

In a touching case of poetry, the film that cemented Tom Cruise as a mega movie star, Top Gun, inspired a sequel 36 years later that would reaffirm the actor’s status as not only the quintessential movie star, but perhaps the last movie star. The original film, directed by the late Tony Scott, is peak “dudes rock” cinema, unabashedly jingoistic and an unmistakable embodiment of the 1980s. The film is catered towards a youthful spirit–the brash protagonist, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise). Top Gun, which followed Maverick’s quest to become the best fighter pilot at the United States Navy’s elite fighter weapons school, was the highest-grossing film of 1986. However, even in the era of excess in sequels, Maverick never experienced a second act until decades later, when the industry, on and off the screen, changed drastically.

36 years after Maverick’s adventures of flying and romance, Hollywood has undergone an extreme makeover. Brands and IP, particularly superheroes, rule the art form at the box office. Studios engineered a style of filmmaking that resembled an assembly line, so much that artistic craft became about the plane, and not the pilot, as the superhero boom slowly deflated the Movie Star’s value. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise sought to prove the opposite. There are still pilots left to uphold the magic of movies in a classical sense–even if he is the only true pilot left. Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy and the Cruise-led Oblivion), picks up 30 years after the events of Top Gun, with Maverick still the top naval aviator, but now must lead the school’s elite graduates on a daring mission.

Top Gun: Maverick is loose on plot and stringent on emotional storytelling. The film is sincere to a degree that opposes the snarky irony of the MCU. Without requiring any awareness of the original film, Maverick graciously tracks the story of a seasoned rebel-at-heart who considers acquiescing to the system versus following his intuitions. He trains his elite grad students, including Hangman (Glen Powell) and Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s wingmate in the original film, Goose (Anthony Edwards), to be like him, but also to not commit the same errors that he did in his youth. Rounded out by a romantic relationship with Penny (Jennifer Connelly) and rekindling his undying respect for Iceman (Val Kilmer), the film is equally moving as a classic tearjerker as it is a thrilling action blockbuster.

With the unofficially titled Top Gun 3, which would likely be released in the next five years, the brief window between films already sets it at a disadvantage–compared to the three decades between the first two films. No matter how skillfully crafted the next Top Gun film will probably be, as Cruise, Teller, Powell, Kosinski, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are set to return, the film being rushed out within a relatively short window is losing a key component. The dazzling flight sequences are only half of it. Maverick sharing an emotionally visceral scene with an ailing Iceman (and Val Kilmer) and developing a father-like bond with Rooster while healing the wounds of Goose’s death after all these years served as the film’s pulse. Because Maverick seeks to heal past trauma, these moments aspire to something beyond cheap nostalgia.

‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Signals a Great Change for Maverick and Tom Cruise

While never overbearingly explicit, the meta-commentary of Top Gun: Maverick gave a satisfying piece of popcorn entertainment an extra layer of gravitas. The legacy sequel can allude to the state of filmmaking and movie stars due to the time elapsed between the two installments. Top Gun: Maverick is the kind of film that is blissfully unaware of the last two decades of blockbuster/franchise entertainment. The film is proudly classical in its tone and scope, and the seamless return to this style of film after years of expecting audiences to keep up with extended universes inspired much of the film’s enthusiasm. 2023’s lackluster box office performance of superhero fare suggests that there is audience demand for the traditional comfort utilized by Maverick.

Top Gun: Maverick can be seen as drawing from Tom Cruise the movie star as it is a reflection of Pete Mitchell. Kosinski reflects on the star’s status in Hollywood in the age of superheroes and streaming. When Rear Admiral Chester Cain (Ed Harris) tells Maverick “Your kind is headed for extinction,” he is metaphorically signaling the inevitable fall of the Movie Star as the center of movie culture. “Maybe so, sir, but not today,” Maverick calmly responds. While Cruise’s contemporaneous movie star peers, including Harrison Ford and Kevin Costner, have accepted the shift in the industry by becoming frequent television stars, Cruise is standing his ground as the “last” movie star. The times may have changed, but Maverick will never become a cog in the machine–just as Cruise will never make a film for a streaming service. “It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot,” Rooster says to Maverick.

The Long Wait for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Was Integral to the Movie’s Success

Beyond the 36-year gap between Top Gun and its 2022 sequel, waiting for Top Gun: Maverick to arrive in theaters was an arduous, but satisfying endeavor. The legacy sequel was originally eyed for a Summer 2019 release until additional preparation for the complex flight sequences pushed its release to 2020. We all know what happened in 2020, so a June release was certainly out of the question. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Paramount pushed the release date four times before finally landing on Memorial Day Weekend 2022. In the throes of lockdown, it was fair to express skepticism about the fate of the film’s theatrical release, as everything seemed destined for streaming. After seemingly an interminable amount of time, Maverick‘s arrival felt especially glorious, and it implicitly elevated the film’s prestige and importance to the public.

While structurally familiar and a sequel in its own right, Top Gun: Maverick served as an antidote to the public’s frustrations with exhaustive franchise cinema. A rushed release of Top Gun 3 cheapens the text of Maverick. It wouldn’t be fair to completely dismiss the potential of a third installment, especially since Maverick was not entirely about the lore of Top Gun, but rather a reflection on stardom, leadership, and healing past trauma. However, these thematic traits need to be methodically approached through aging. A theoretical Top Gun 3 in 2029 cannot comment on the drastic changes that occurred in Maverick’s life and the state of the world between 1986 and 2022.

In the case of Tom Cruise, his career is better served with patience. With his de facto status as the premiere movie star in Hollywood, oversaturation is detrimental to the power of the Movie Star. Cruise’s place in Hollywood and the film medium at large is precious. Forcing a shameless cash grab of one of the most successful films of all time would mitigate its success. The one way in which Top Gun 3 can reach the same heights as Maverick is if Cruise returns to his iconic character as an elderly man, deeply reflecting on his life, his past decisions, and what he ultimately stands for. Those are lofty expectations, but high standards are exactly what Top Gun: Maverick exceeded after decades of waiting.

Top Gun: Maverick is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

Watch on Amazon Prime