Summary
AlthoughTop Gun’s ending seemed perfect upon the movie’s original release,Top Gun: Maverickproves the movie needed its original alternate ending.Top Gunhas a surprisingly complicated story for such a simple, straightforward cult classic. Maverick’s need for speed drives the main plot, and his rivalry with Iceman provides most of the movie’s conflict. After Goose’s death, Maverick is forced to contend with his own mortality and the final act ofTop Gunsees him come to terms with his ego, embrace his talents, and finally learn to work as part of a team. This storyline is fairly straightforward.
However, test audiences thought the movie was missing something, and reshoots added inTop Gun’s infamously bad sex sceneto bolster the movie’s romantic subplot. Appropriately enough, many of Maverick’s scenes with Charlie feel as if they were added from another movie. Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis don’t share much chemistry, but the bigger problem is that Charlie doesn’t play a major role inTop Gun’s story. The reasonTop Gun: Maverickleft out Charlieis because she isn’t central to Maverick’s character growth. This is a big problem for a love interest and one that badly impactsTop Gun’s ending.
Top Gun: Maverick Ending Explained (In Detail)
Top Gun: Maverick’s thrilling ending is filled with death-defying heroics and reaffirmed he’s still a great pilot. We break it down step-by-step.
Top Gun: Maverick’s Penny Plot Proves Top Gun Has The Wrong Ending
The Original Movie Ends With Charlie And Maverick’s Romantic Reunion
Top Gunoriginally ended with Maverick visiting Goose’s grave with Charlie and Iceman, but the filmmakers jettisoned this reflective scene in favor of Maverick reuniting with his love interest. Cruise’s hero picking up Charlie after his successful mission soon became an iconic pop culture moment, butTop Gun: Maverick’s revelations about their fate madeTop Gun’s romantic ending terrible. The sequel almost immediately proved thatTop Gun’s big romantic moment was meaningless whenTop Gun: Maverick’s characters never even mention Charlie. Despiteall ofTop Gun: Maverick’s returning characters, Maverick’s original love interest doesn’t even warrant a name drop in the sequel.
The creators could have chosen the original ending and set upTop Gun: Maverick’s storyline in the process.
Clearly, Maverick and Charlie’s romance was not one for the ages. This is unfortunate, but it doesn’t necessarily ruin the original movie. What this revelation does ruin isTop Gun’s final scene. The creators could have chosen the original ending and set upTop Gun: Maverick’s storyline in the process, since that sequel proved that Maverick truly never got over the death of his wingman. Goose’s death defined Maverick’sTop Gun: Maverickcharacter arc, so it would have made perfect sense for the original movie to end with Maverick ignoring his love interest and Iceman alike to linger at Goose’s grave.
Top Gun: Maverick Proves Top Gun’s Original Ending Was Better
Maverick Is Haunted By Goose’s Memory Throughout The Sequel
However, that’s not the ending they went with. It would be thematically perfect for the movie to end with Maverick at Goose’s grave instead of Cruise’s hero whisking Charlie off into the sunset, butTop Gun’s original endingwas replaced with a more crowd-pleasing alternative instead. It would be 36 long years before Maverick returned to screens, so it is fair to say that the filmmakers weren’t responsible for failing to guess where the sequel’s story would go. However, upon a re-watch, it is clear thatTop Gun’s original ending is a better fit afterTop Gun: Maverick.
