While Iceman is treated like the villain of Top Gun, the belated sequel Top Gun: Maverick proves that he wasn’t worn about Tom Cruise’s antihero Maverick. Top Gun is a surprisingly complicated movie for a fun, sunny blockbuster. Tony Scott’s action epic is a rare war movie that doesn’t focus on international conflict, with Top Gun’s plot never addressing the nationality of the movie’s faceless foreign enemies. Instead, Top Gun’s main conflict is between Maverick and himself, as well as the battle of wills between him and the Navy’s top brass.
However, while Top Gun: Maverick proves Iceman and Maverick managed to hold on to their fire-forged friendship for decades after the original movie, Val Kilmer’s smug Iceman is still treated as a major villain for most of Top Gun. This is arguably a little unfair since, while Kilmer’s character is a bullying ball of machismo, so is Maverick. Admittedly, Iceman does constantly square off against Cruise’s antihero throughout Top Gun, but Maverick initiates these fights as often as Iceman does, and while Iceman is the de facto villain of Top Gun, the sequel proves his criticisms of Maverick were well-founded.
Maverick’s Struggles After Top Gun Prove Iceman’s Point
Iceman warned Maverick that he was dangerous, and later, in Top Gun’s triumphant climax, he re-contextualized this same line as a compliment. However, this is undeniably the attribute that held Maverick back over the years. For example, the original Top Gun’s joke about Maverick’s risky ”high-speed pass” over an admiral’s daughter makes him sound like a cad, but Top Gun: Maverick reveals that Maverick secretly spent decades struggling with his feelings for Penny Benjamin. Similarly, his addiction to risk and so-called “need for speed” are what make him a hero in Top Gun, but these same qualities imperiled any chances Maverick had at a promotion, stability, or career success.
Iceman effectively predicted the character’s future when he told Maverick he was dangerous. In the first scenes of Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise’s character takes an extremely risky test flight to Mach 10 despite a commanding officer’s attempts to shut down the mission. This makes for an exciting opening sequence, but it also almost kills Maverick and destroys the expensive experimental aircraft. While Top Gun 2’s original story focused on drones rendering test pilots irrelevant, Top Gun: Maverick’s completed plot was more focused on Maverick’s love of risk and the cost that this had on his life’s prospects.
Iceman’s Top Gun: Maverick Death Matured Maverick
By the end of Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick finally seems content to settle down. This might be because Iceman’s death reminded Maverick that he is not immortal while saving Rooster during a risky mission permitted him to forgive himself for Goose’s death decades earlier. Whatever the reason, Maverick does seem less dangerous at the end of Top Gun: Maverick and he seems to have reached an age where he doesn’t view this as a personal failing. While Iceman might not have lived to see this character grow, Top Gun’s supposed villain was proved right when Top Gun: Maverick wrapped up its story.