Director Joseph Kosinski explains why original Top Gun film. Tony Scott's 1986 action drama saw Tom Cruise star as ace fighter pilot, Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. Despite initially receiving mixed reviews upon release, Scott's film has since become a huge cultural and commercial success. The film is so beloved that is was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2015. Now, 36 years later, after suffering delays from the COVID-19 pandemic, a sequel is on the horizon.
Top Gun: Maverick sees Cruise reprise his role as confident Maverick in a story that picks up 30 years after the events of the first movie. Maverick is tasked with training new hotshot pilots for a big mission, including "Goose" Bradshaw's (Anthony Edwards) son, "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller). With a storyline like that, Top Gun: Maverick is gearing up to offer plenty of nostalgia for fans of the first film, such as the return of Val Kilmer's iconic character, "Iceman" Kazansky. However, while fans can look forward to seeing callbacks to the original Top Gun, it seems two key characters are missing.
Speaking with Insider, Kosinski its the reason why two original stars from the first movie, McGillis and Ryan's characters, are missing from Top Gun: Maverick. Kosinski explains that McGillis and Ryan's characters were never even considered during the sequel's development, saying, "those weren't stories that we were throwing around." Check out his full response in the space below:
"Those weren't stories that we were throwing around... I didn't want every storyline to always be looking backwards. It was important to introduce some new characters."
In the original Top Gun, McGillis played Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, who was the instructor and love interest of Cruise's character. When asked in 2019 why she wasn't approached to return to Top Gun: Maverick, McGillis joked, "I'm old, and I'm fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is." Ryan, on the other hand, played the wife of "Goose" Bradshaw in her first major movie role. Instead of bringing back McGillis as Cruise's love interest once again, Top Gun: Maverick introduces Jennifer Connelly as Penny Benjamin, who was briefly mentioned in the first film as the "iral's daughter" to which Maverick had a previous fling with. Penny is now a single mother and owner of a bar near the flight school where Maverick teaches at.
While the Top Gun sequel is gearing up to offer plenty in way of callbacks to the first movie, it's disappointing to learn that two key characters won't be returning. Although introducing new characters in the sequel is a good idea, failing to consider bringing back McGillis and Ryan's characters for even a short cameo is a little off-putting. Nevertheless, given Maverick's high speed life, it only makes sense to give him a new love interest. Promisingly, the early Top Gun: Maverick reactions are very positive, so perhaps the shift to new faces will lead to a fun, exciting blockbuster that rivals (or even sures) the original.
Source: Insider
