35 years after the original "Top
Gun," Tom Cruise's Maverick has a lot to teach the next generation of
pilots – but he also still has a lot to learn. From Goose's legacy to Iceman's
advice to the meaning of that final battle, this is the ending of "Top Gun: Maverick"
explained. Warning: spoilers ahead. At several points during "Top Gun: Maverick,"
we see Maverick almost lose his wings within the Navy forever. It happens at the beginning of the
film when he takes an unauthorized test flight, it happens later when he dares to
challenge the restrictions of training, and it happens once more when he finally
loses his cover within the Navy with the death of friend and former rival, Iceman — who
used his status as admiral to protect Maverick. This is, of course, the ultimate threat one
can level at him, as Maverick emphasizes repeatedly that flying is all he knows how
to really do well. He spends the whole movie fighting off the idea that he might be out
of the cockpit for good, until he's finally proven himself enough to fly as team leader
on the mission at the heart of the film. "Good morning aviators – this
is your captain speaking." A few hiccups aside, the mission is successful,
and Maverick returns home a hero. After that, the film doesn't really tell us exactly what
he's going to do next in terms of his career, but we do see him back in his hangar, working on
that old P-51 Mustang he's apparently been fixing up for a long time. It's not definitive proof
that he's moved on, but watching Maverick take to the skies in the Mustang, rather than an F-18
or another experimental aircraft for the Navy, suggests that he's begun making peace with
the idea that he doesn't have to be a naval aviator forever. By finishing the Mustang, he's
seemingly finished that chapter in his story. One of the key tensions in the film is the
relationship between Maverick and Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Maverick's former
navigator Goose, who was killed in action in the original "Top Gun" film. In the wake of Goose's
death, Maverick did his best to step in and be a kind of surrogate father for his best friend's
son, but at some point that instinct went a little too far. The film reveals that Rooster is still
angry over his father's early death, and also angry that Maverick pulled his application
paperwork from the Naval Academy, setting his whole career back by several years because
Maverick himself didn't think Rooster was ready. The film presents a journey for both men
not just as individuals, but as teammates, as Maverick has to learn to stop handling Rooster
with kid gloves, and Rooster has to learn to stop holding a grudge. It takes a long time for them
to figure this out, but when they're shot down together behind enemy lines, they manage to
build what looks like a lasting bond. Rooster's presence in Maverick's home at the very end of
the film, and his pictures on Maverick's wall, suggests that he'll be sticking around with
his surrogate dad for quite some time to come. Penny Benjamin is a character referenced in the
original "Top Gun" as one of Maverick's exes, indicating that these two have a decades-long
history that Penny is eager to put behind her. Throughout the film, even as Maverick is back
in her life, she repeatedly warns him from making further advances. Eventually, of course,
it's clear that something else is happening, and when they get back together, Maverick
makes a promise: He won't leave again. He eventually keeps that promise by returning
from his near-death experience on the mission, only to find that she's departed on a sailing
trip, presumably because she assumed he wouldn't be coming back. At the end of the film, it's Penny
who returns to Maverick, not the other way around, suggesting that they've finally
managed to overcome their hesitancy. Maverick's willingness to take her up in the
plane he's restored with his own two hands further cements the bond they've built. They're both ready
to settle down — and settle down with each other. When he's first introduced in "Top Gun: Maverick,"
Rooster is very much a foil for Maverick, a painful reminder of what he's lost and the ways
in which he's failed in his life. But Rooster doesn't just exist to serve Maverick's character.
He's got struggles of his own to go through. In the training flights for the mission at hand,
we see Rooster emerge as the most cautious of the pilots in the field, the one who'd rather
take his time and deal with known issues than fly into the unknown or rush to action.
This prompts Maverick to constantly tell him to focus more on doing than on thinking.
It's hard for Rooster to make that shift, even as he sees his fellow pilots doing it
around him. Only when the mission is on the line, and it's clear that he has no other
choice but to act quickly and decisively, does he emerge from his shell to become the
kind of pilot Maverick always knew he could be. By the end of the film, Rooster has emerged
as a more self-assured version of the pilot he was at the beginning of the film.
He's learned to let go of his fears, and he's also learned to let go of some
old pain, leaving him better for it. In the beginning of "Top Gun: Maverick,"
Maverick's been working as a test pilot for the Navy for years, spending his days pushing
the limits of new aircraft as far as they can go. But as we soon learn, the program where
he's made his home is about to be scrapped in favor of unmanned aircraft, something
he's determined to prove he can stop. Maverick fails to prove himself
better than an unmanned program, crashing the experimental jet and
leaving an Admiral very angry with him. He's shipped off to Top Gun for one last mission,
but he proves himself there, establishing the ongoing value of pilots in cockpits even in
an age when drones can do a lot of the work. "I have to admit I wasn't expecting an invitation
back." "They're called orders, Maverick." We see Maverick's value to his mission
in the film, but one thing that remains unaddressed is how the test pilot programs
will be affected by his performance. Will he be able to advocate to higher-ups in the
Navy for continued use of pilots like him? Can he save the jobs of the
people he used to work with, or is his ability to move on from his old gig
a sign that everyone else has to move on too? Though Maverick and Rooster make up the core
emotional narrative in "Top Gun: Maverick," they aren't the only pilots in the game. Maverick
works with several of the world's best fighter pilots throughout the execution of the mission,
and they all seem to have something to contribute. "What do they call you?" "Bob." "No,
your call sign." "Bob." "Literally?" Phoenix and her weapons systems officer Bob bring
a steadfastness and cool-headedness to the team, while Payback and his own WSO Fanboy
bring a certain swagger to the team. In the final mission, they each have their role to
play, and by the end, they've all made it through. It's clear based on the stakes of the mission
that each of these pilots will have their lives forever changed by being part of it.
They'll get promotions and commendations, they'll take their valuable
experience on to other missions, and they might even prove to be the next
generation of Top Gun heroes and instructors, who'll teach the next class of great pilots
how to fly. Maverick's legacy is much more than his own achievements. He's created a whole
new group of Mavericks to fly behind him. In the original "Top Gun" film, Maverick faced off
against Iceman, a cocky, immensely self-confident pilot who antagonized his competitors and did his
best to get an edge over everyone, no matter what. "You wanna know who the
best is? That's him, Iceman. That's the fly he flies, ice cold, no mistakes." In "Top Gun: Maverick," that role falls to
Hangman, a hotshot young pilot who, when the film begins, is the only active aviator of his
generation to have a confirmed kill in combat. He brings a tremendous ego to the
training flights for the mission, often showing an unwillingness to work
as part of a team, and as a result he's left on the backup crew when the mission
finally flies out near the end of the film. But Hangman is not content to stay on the
sidelines. He still has a part to play, and he finally shows it at the very end
of the battle, when he saves both Maverick and Rooster from an enemy jet after their
own hijacked F-14 runs out of ammunition. He does it with his usual swagger, but also with a
demonstration that he knows when to be a hotshot, and when to be a teammate. Hangman's got a
long way to go, but by the end of the film, it's clear that he's willing to change if it means
being a part of something greater than himself. We don't see a lot of Iceman in "Top
Gun: Maverick," but what the film shows delivers some interesting context
about his place in the film's universe and in Maverick's story. He went on to become an
admiral and the commander of the Pacific Fleet, and yet he's still in Maverick's phone simply
as "Ice," implying the closeness they reached at the end of the original film has continued
in the intervening years. When Maverick visits him at his home and finds Iceman dying, the two
share an embrace and an intimate conversation, suggesting that neither has forgotten
all that they've been through together. When Iceman dies later in the film, it's a wake
up call to Maverick that he needs to prove he still has what it takes to be a leader and a
teacher, but it also feels like something larger. Iceman and Maverick represent two different
paths taken out of that original film, one who became a leader and the
other who stayed in the pilot's seat, determined to control the only thing he was
ever sure he was good at. Iceman's legacy within the film is a belief in the sustained power of
human pilots, but also a belief in the sustained power of learning to teach and help others,
something he finally taught Maverick in the end. The mission at the heart of "Top
Gun: Maverick" is a complex, dangerous combat flight to destroy another
nation's new facility for enriching uranium, before said uranium can be deposited at the site. It's a tricky ride full of surface-to-air missiles
and enemy planes, so the Top Gun crew has to do their best to prepare for every facet of it. The
mission is, of course, ultimately successful, the facility is destroyed, and several
enemy planes are shot down in the process. This of course raises the question: What are
the geopolitical implications of this operation? It obviously happened under deep secrecy, to the
point that the enemy had no inkling it was coming until a series of missile strikes launched to slow
their air response. The film doesn't tell us which country is responsible for the facility, or how
delicate U.S. relations are with them outside of this particular issue. It's possible the
pilots at the heart of the mission may have many more combat flights in their future, or it's
possible it'll all just go away because no one wants to admit to building the uranium facility.
Either way, it's fascinating to think about. In the original "Top Gun" film, it was understood
that these pilots and the institution which trained them would go on seemingly forever,
with no challenge to their necessity or their power within the U.S. military complex. By the
time of "Top Gun: Maverick," that's at least somewhat in question. Maverick's test pilot
work is being undercut by drone programs, and while that doesn't necessarily apply to
Top Gun itself, he also spends much of the film butting heads with Cyclone, Top Gun's apparent
commander, who has little respect for Maverick himself and believes that his style of flying and
teaching is about to go the way of the dinosaurs. "The end is inevitable, Maverick –
your kind is headed for extinction." By the end of the film, of course,
Cyclone grudgingly grows to respect Maverick's unorthodox methods
and his abilities as both a pilot and as an instructor. He teaches by getting up
there and doing things no one else dares to do, and by ultimately proving that his way of doing
things is still valuable to the Navy. It's hard to imagine a world in which this doesn't have an
impact on the immediate future of Top Gun, its students, and its instructors. Given how little
we know about Maverick's own work with the Navy after the events of the film, though, it's hard
to pin down exactly how that impact will land. In the middle of "Top Gun: Maverick," when
Maverick goes to Iceman's house to talk through his difficulties with the mission and
with training the pilots he's been assigned, Maverick tells Iceman that being a pilot is
not "what I am," but "who I am." He emphasizes that he's not a teacher, that he doesn't
know how to pass along what he's learned, and that he can't handle the burden of what it
might mean if he fails. Iceman, communicating mostly through a computer because of his illness,
responds by typing "It's time to let go." This means many things in the wider context of
the film. It means it's time for Maverick to let go of the guilt he feels for losing Goose and
for what he did to Rooster earlier in his career. It means it's time for him to let
go of the life he used to have, and it means it's time for him to let go of
the fear that he's going to inadvertently cause more loss of both lives and careers. Iceman
re-emphasizes this point more than once in the conversation, leaving Maverick with the
conclusion that he simply has to learn how. By the end of the film, Maverick
has seemingly let all of it go. He's no longer afraid of losing who he is, or
what he does, or of letting down the people around. He's able to take his own advice,
stop thinking about it, and just do it, and in the end that might be the most important
thematic throughline of "Top Gun: Maverick." Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Looper videos about your
favorite movies and TV shows are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit
the bell so you don't miss a single one.
