While Top Gun: Maverick’s Rooster blames Tom Cruise’s Maverick for his slow career progress, it is actually Top Gun’s Iceman who should be held responsible. While Goose’s tragic death is the saddest moment in the original Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick makes the moment even more poignant by depicting how the event impacted the lives of both Goose’s son Rooster and his friend Maverick. Top Gun: Maverick fleshed out the fallout of Goose’s Top Gun death by showing that Maverick spent the rest of his career attempting to run from his guilt, while Rooster followed in his father’s footsteps in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past.
Part of the reason that Rooster hates Maverick in Top Gun: Maverick is that he blames Tom Cruise’s roguish antihero for pulling his papers when he applied to Annapolis. In early drafts of Top Gun: Maverick, this might have made sense since there was a time when Maverick’s character would have been a decorated admiral. Rooster’s indignation over this decision provides the Top Gun sequel with its central conflict, as Goose’s son struggles to trust his instinct and Maverick struggles to work out whether he hurt the pilot’s flying prowess by blunting his confidence years earlier. Fortunately, this all works out in the triumphant finale of Top Gun: Maverick.
Maverick Couldn’t Pull Rooster’s Application (But Iceman Could)
However, Rooster’s anger at Maverick in Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t really add up. Pulling Rooster’s papers was really on Iceman since Maverick, a Captain and a test pilot, would never end up on the admissions committee in Annapolis. While Top Gun: Maverick ended Maverick’s story with Rooster perfectly, the basis of their conflict was flawed. Rooster would be well aware that a Captain couldn’t pull his papers at Annapolis and, even if Iceman did so at the behest of Maverick, it would still have been the Admiral’s decision. Not only that, but Iceman might not have even consulted Maverick.
In Top Gun: Maverick, Rooster confirms his suspicions when he confronts Maverick and accuses him of pulling his papers. Admittedly, Maverick takes the fall for this. However, Iceman was just as culpable for Goose’s tragic death as Maverick, and he could reasonably have felt the same guilt as Cruise’s character. As such, Rooster had no way of knowing Maverick was the one responsible for the choice and had no reason to assume this. Since Maverick is a Captain in Top Gun: Maverick, it would have made much more sense for Rooster to assume the higher-ranked, more decorated Iceman was responsible.
Top Gun: Maverick’s Application Plot Hole Secretly Makes Sense
To be fair to the creators of Top Gun: Maverick, there is a reasonable explanation for this apparent plot hole. Since Iceman and Maverick were involved in Goose’s tragic death, it is possible that Maverick convinced Iceman to pull Rooster’s application, and it is equally possible that Rooster’s mother told him that Maverick was mainly the one to blame (which is how the Navy reacted, although both characters were eventually cleared). Also, in professional terms, Rooster couldn’t afford to confront Iceman, whereas he could vent to Maverick. Thus, this Top Gun: Maverick scene could be viewed as early proof that Rooster is willing to confide in Top Gun’s flawed hero over Iceman.