A 'Top Gun' Fan Is Going Viral for Their Creepy Theory About Maverick in the Second Movie
**Spoilers ahead!**
It's exciting to see Tom Cruise reprise his role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the highly anticipated sequel Top Gun: Maverick, recruiting a whole new crew of pilots for the Top Gun program. It's even exciting to hear Val Kilmer portray Iceman after losing his voice almost a decade ago. But in between all the nostalgic moments, there are some burning questions about the follow-up to the original 1986 drama. Namely, there are lots of feelings about the rather ... expectant moments of the film.
What do we mean by this? Let's look at it from an aerial perspective — pun intended. If you think about the sequence of events in the movie, it kind of feels like it's meant to be like every action film. In other words, everything occurs at exactly the right time. Maverick is busy training the pilots to prep for a mission that frankly, only he would be able to succeed at. So, what's going on and why does the movie all of a sudden feel like some sort of a dream?
Well, thanks to Vulture, there may be a sound reason for why the movie feels picture perfect: Maverick might be having a dying dream the entire time.
At the beginning of the film, we see that Maverick is trying to reach Mach 9 speed in a hypersonic jet — part of the Darkstar program. When he's told that Rear Admiral Cain (Ed Harris) is en route to redirect the program's funds to drones, Maverick not only goes up in the air but manages to go past Mach 9 to Mach 10, a.k.a. the planned target of the aforementioned program.
Unfortunately, this is where things begin to take an interesting turn. The jet ends up breaking apart midair and then the movie weirdly cuts to Maverick entering a diner seemingly confused. Knowing these details, there's a theory floating around on the internet that argues that this whole scenario never happened. If true, the rest of the movie's events actually make some sort of sense.
Think about it: If Maverick is having a death dream, then of course he would be the only pilot who could pull off such a dangerous feat. And doesn't it make sense that the teacher for the green recruits suddenly is the one person who can somehow lead the mission? Even the idea that there's no true name for the movie's enemy somehow works. If anything, Maverick is just using remnants of his past to recreate one last adventure before he dies.
We also have another clue to this wild fan theory and that is the character of Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), a.k.a. the son of Maverick's best friend Nick "Goose" Bradshaw. When Rooster is first introduced, he kind of looks exactly like his late father — mustache and all. Even the song playing on the piano is the same track that was playing when Goose was first introduced in the original flick!
If we're going to continue with the assumption that Maverick's having one last hurrah, then even the finale reconciliation between elder and rookie plays into it. After all, Goose tragically dies in the first film — why not honor him by repairing the relationship with his son?
What about the other connections Maverick gets entangled with throughout the film? Does this theory apply to them as well? It appears like it. If Maverick is really dying and dreaming simultaneously, then it's plausible for Iceman to recommend him for the dangerous mission. Even Maverick's blossoming romance with Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) checks out, since Maverick could never seem to get that element of his life together.
So, with a film that's already making it big at the box office and potentially getting a third movie in the franchise, we can't help but feel like there's more to explore here. But only time (or a dream) will tell ...
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