While Top Gun, the first draft took Tom Cruise’s iconic role in a terrible new direction. Tom Cruise’s Maverick is the primary driving force behind Top Gun. While the original 1986 cult classic is concerned with the character’s rivalry against Val Kilmer’s Iceman, his grief over losing friend Goose, and his romance with Charlie, none of these provide the central conflict in Top Gun. Instead, Top Gun is a rare blockbuster where the main character is both the hero and the villain of his own story.
While ostensibly a war movie, Top Gun makes a point of not focusing on geopolitical conflict. The Top Gun enemy MiG-28s are non-existent aircraft piloted by faceless unseen aviators from an unnamed country. Top Gun constantly leaves unnecessary details behind to laser-focus its story on Maverick and his battle with himself. Maverick’s ego has a bad habit of writing checks that the man himself struggles to cash, and Top Gun’s plot centers on Tom Cruise’s character trying to bring these two sides of himself into balance. As such, Top Gun: Maverick’s original draft would have been a disastrous sequel.
Tom Cruise’s Original Top Gun: Maverick Role Explained
When Top Gun secret weapon Tony Scott at the helm, who would still guarantee a visually stunning, thrilling experience. However, in of story, Cruise was reportedly willing to accept a smaller role in the sequel “provided it’s not too “obvious” a part, i.e. Lieutenant Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell as grizzled Top Gun flight instructor.”
It is unclear what Cruise’s role would have been in this version of Top Gun: Maverick, but it is obvious that this project would not have worked as well as the sequel that actually premiered over a decade later. Since Top Gun centered around Maverick’s internal journey, it made sense for Top Gun: Maverick to revisit the same man years later to see how his life had developed. Viewing Maverick’s role as an instructor as too “obvious” a storyline for the sequel misses the point of the franchise entirely. No matter what the original Top Gun: Maverick story focused on, the sequel always needed to be about Maverick.
Top Gun 3 Could Borrow Top Gun: Maverick’s Original Approach
The finished version of Top Gun: Maverick that viewers saw in 2022 ended up being even more of a character study than the original movie. However, Top Gun 3 could still utilize the unused approach that the sequel’s first draft considered. Retiring Maverick without killing him off would allow Top Gun 3 to give Cruise a ing role this time around, as was originally intended in 2010.
This would result in a franchise that could continue without Maverick, but still honor Cruise's character. It is unclear whether Top Gun: Maverick’s sequel will follow this plan but, unlike the first Top Gun follow-up, the third movie is much better placed to pull off this approach. Had Maverick been grounded earlier, Top Gun 3 conversations might not even be happening.
