For Top Gun 3 to faithfully follow Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel needs to keep the franchise’s silliest tradition going. The Top Gun movies are not designed to be taken seriously. While the character arc of Tom Cruise’s Maverick is undeniably compelling, his journey takes place in a world where empty aircraft hangars are used as classrooms. Top Gun and its sequel Top Gun: Maverick feature absurdly ambitious death-defying stunts, but even in their more grounded scenes, their over-the-top characters and goofy one-liners ensure no viewer could mistake them for reality. As such, the franchise’s most ridiculous traditions are not an issue.
If Top Gun: Maverick’s original sequel plans had been used, Cruise would have returned in a much smaller role and the movie would be been a more realistic, believable look at drone warfare. This would have made the reliance on nameless enemies more galling and bizarre since the sequel wouldn’t have shared the original movie’s goofy tone. However, thanks to its sunny beach football scenes and Jerry Lee Lewis singalongs, Top Gun: Maverick is just as heightened and silly as the first Top Gun. As a result, viewers didn’t bat an eyelid when the movie kept the tradition of not revealing the origins of its villains.
Top Gun 3 Must Keep Its Franchise Enemies Anonymous
For Top Gun 3 to keep the escapist appeal of the franchise alive, the sequel can’t have a named nationality for its villains. Despite Top Gun: Maverick’s story problems, one of the wisest decisions the franchise made was keeping the identity of its enemies anonymous. This approach stopped the Top Gun series from focusing on contemporary geopolitics, which almost always dates blockbusters terribly. Meanwhile, the nameless villains also allowed viewers to ignore real-life wars in favor of absurd fantasy. Since the Top Gun movies focus on heroes who are larger than life, it makes sense for their villains to be equally ridiculous.
Top Gun 3 can’t give a national identity to its enemies since this robs the franchise of its magic. Even though the original Top Gun is a product of the Cold War, the movie is endlessly re-watchable precisely because it doesn’t get into the politics of the era. Top Gun’s story exists in a stateless fantasy land, whereas its competitors, like the Rambo sequels and Iron Eagle, couldn’t avoid eventually addressing real-life conflicts. If Top Gun: Maverick was an original movie and not a sequel, there is no way that the movie would have gotten away with simply leaving the identity of its enemy combatants unclear.
Top Gun 3 Revealing Its Enemy Country Makes The Series Too Serious
Even though Top Gun: Maverick’s character drama was heavier, the franchise still needed to steer clear of anything resembling realistic warfare to maintain its sunny, fun tone. Top Gun: Maverick’s darker moments came from Tom Cruise’s character realizing that he has wasted years agonizing over Goose’s death, not his role in countless real-life wars that claimed millions of human lives. Addressing these conflicts would have made Maverick’s story immeasurably darker and would have made the movie’s triumphant finale jarring. While Top Gun: Maverick failed the original movie in some instances, keeping its villains nameless wasn’t one of these. As such, Top Gun 3 must repeat Top Gun: Maverick’s best decision.