Wild Top Gun 2 Theory Suggests Maverick Was Dead The Entire Movie

Maverick ended Top Gun 2 on a high note, but a story-changing (and admittedly wild) fan theory asks does Maverick die in Top Gun 2. In Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise’s title character comes face-to-face with his own mortality, grief over the death of Goose and Iceman, and rectifying his reckless past. The movie begins with Maverick accomplishing a near-death task for the military by achieving Mach 10, a speed no person has ever flown in real life. Tom Cruise’s character is then recruited to lead the new generation of Top Gun recruits in a mission where death is more than likely, with the actual event nearly costing Maverick his life multiple times.

By the end of Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick and Rooster (Miles Teller) risk their own lives for each other in the final mission, making amends for the past. Meanwhile, Maverick restarted his romance with Penny (Jennifer Connelly) after returning safely from the mission. With all of Maverick’s errors now absolved, Top Gun: Maverick truly gave the character his happy ending, living up to Iceman’s advice to “let go” of the past – but one major fan theory (via Vulture) claims that Maverick’s Top Gun 2 ending was too good to be true. This theory postulates that every moment after the opening scene was a figment of Maverick’s imagination. If Maverick truly died at the start of Top Gun 2, a few recurring plot points and inconsistencies could be explained as well making for a compelling Top Gun: Maverick theory.

Top Gun: Maverick’s Opening Scene Explained

The first time Pete “Maverick” Mitchell arrives back on screen after 36 years, Tom Cruise’s character is breaking rules as he proves he can reach both Mach 9 and Mach 10 speeds. However, Maverick is too far in over his head once he reaches Mach 10, as he keeps increasing speed to the point where his plane goes out of control, and he has to eject. While the characters back on the ground think this is a death sentence for Maverick, Top Gun 2 reveals that he miraculously survived, with the burnt-up aviator entering a diner for a glass of water in an unknown location. With such a dangerous stunt, it’s hard to believe that Maverick survived a failed test of Mach 10 speed, but Top Gun 2 explains this away as due to the character’s inimitable talents as a pilot.

Top Gun 2 Theory Explained – Maverick Died At The Start Of The Movie

One theory suggests that Maverick really didn’t survive his Mach 10 trial in the opening scene of Top Gun 2. The opening shows Cruise’s plane being torn apart in the stratosphere, with Maverick miraculously appearing largely unscathed moments later. In order to explain this, the theory claims that the rest of the movie is all Maverick coming to terms with his mortality by imagining a happy life and future both for himself and the two people he loves the most who he also hurt.

If the theory is to be believed, what the audience saw was actually Maverick’s final thoughts. When Val Kilmer’s Iceman gives Maverick the advice to “let go” in terms of Rooster and his reservations about the mission, this may have just been Maverick telling himself that he needs to let go of his errors in order to move on and die, but gave the words to Iceman because of how highly he regarded his opinion. Maverick would have felt the need to clear up his mistakes with Rooster and Penny before dying, but this Top Gun 2 theory suggests that the only way to do so was in an imagined reality.

The Top Gun: Maverick theory also cites that the film’s ambiance and mood are surreally dream-like as the character returns to sunny San Diego. Additionally, Top Gun 2’s core mission unrealistically reveals that the only person who can truly accomplish it is Maverick himself, with Top Gun: Maverick‘s unnamed enemy being incongruent with any nation that can be named. The Top Gun 2 theory then supports the argument by suggesting that Maverick’s image of Rooster when they finally reunite is more like a ghost of Goose.

While this was meant to be symbolic in Top Gun 2, it can also be taken literally – Tom Cruise’s death dream imagines Rooster as Goose, replete with a “Great Balls of Fire” bar rendition – in a manner that he can atone for his mistakes with both men in one moment. The majority of Top Gun 2’s mission and resolutions seem impossible (somewhat suitably for Tom Cruise), which is why they fit so perfectly as the dreams of a man envisioning an impossible life as he dies burning up in the stratosphere.

Maverick’s Near-Immortality Is Continually Mentioned In Top Gun 2

While Maverick is a great pilot, he is also clearly reckless with the aviator dodging death at every seemingly impossible turn. This assessment of Maverick being able to miraculously evade the Grim Reaper is enhanced in Top Gun 2, which happens to be one of Tom Cruise’s only recent action movies that actually acknowledges the 59-year-old actor’s age. However, the notion that Maverick refuses to die is mentioned by numerous characters in Top Gun 2, suggesting this may not actually be the words of these aviators and officials, but rather his subconscious fears of dying seeping out in his death dream.

Since Top Gun 2 establishes Maverick as being practically immortal after surviving his Mach 10 flight untouched, the rest of the movie can be retroactively understood as Maverick convincing himself of his immortality. In his own mind, Maverick refuses to die until he achieves his happy ending and can make amends with Rooster and Penny. The original Top Gun already laid the groundwork for Maverick’s absurd ability to evade death, so Top Gun 2’s explicit insistence that he can’t die seems to be so exaggerated as to suggest the opposite – that he is, in fact, already dead.

Maverick Is Dead Theory Would Explain Rooster’s Age Problem

One of the biggest nitpicks of Top Gun: Maverick has been the legacy sequel’s inconsistencies with Rooster’s age. When Rooster appears in Top Gun (1986) for the “Great Balls of Fire” scene, he appears to be 4-5 years old, which would make him around 40 years old in Top Gun: Maverick’s 2022 timeline, whereas Miles Teller is only 35. Even if accounting for how Top Gun: Maverick was filmed in 2018, Rooster would have been 36, with Miles Teller being only 31-32 years old when the movie was shot.

This problem of Rooster supposedly appearing younger than he’s supposed to be in Top Gun 2 can be accounted for by the Maverick death dream theory. Maverick and Rooster act as if they haven’t seen one another in years due to Tom Cruise’s character pulling his admissions papers, so if Maverick was dead in Top Gun 2, he would imagine Rooster as physically resembling himself the last time they saw each other. Top Gun 2’s storyline would have occurred opposite the Rooster that Maverick had last seen rather than the Rooster that would have existed at the time Maverick died. Paired with the theory’s suggestion that Maverick is imagining Rooster as a ghost of Goose, the legacy character would also be envisioning Rooster as a ghost of his younger self.

Why Top Gun 2 Should Be The End Of Maverick

The Top Gun: Maverick theory about the titular character being actually dead is just speculative, but it is echoed in how the sequel gave Cruise’s iconic character the perfect send-off while also introducing several new Top Gun pilots who can potentially replace both Kilmer’s Iceman and Maverick in any upcoming films. There’s no better time to end Maverick’s reign than Top Gun: Maverick, and his inevitable role in Top Gun 3 should be limited and shouldn’t be the focus of the third movie’s story. Although Cruise is one of the primary driving forces behind the now-billion-dollar franchise, even he knows that forcing Maverick’s story beyond its emotionally resonant finishing point is a great way to tarnish its legacy.

Indeed, the story of Top Gun 3 can instead focus on the next generation of Top Gun graduates who can better keep the franchise alive. Moreover, Top Gun fans need to accept that they have a choice between more movies now without Maverick in the cockpit or potentially no Top Gun 3 until Cruise’s career is in the right place again, which could be a long time In any case, Top Gun: Maverick already proved that Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell isn’t the only one deserving of the limelight.

Top Gun 2 Nearly Was The End Of Maverick

While the theory asks does Maverick die in Top Gun 2, one hint that it is not true is that the movie passed on the perfect opportunity to explicitly kill off the hero. During the movie’s climax as the pilots carry out their mission, Top Gun 2 has the perfect death for Maverick set up as he sacrifices himself to protect Rooster. It would have been what Maverick wanted to die in the skies and redeem himself for the death of Goose in his own eyes. However, the movie seems to recognize that is not the right end for Maverick. Given his near brushes with death, it actually makes sense that he is able to walk away from one last mission and still set things right with Rooster. As fun as the Top Gun 2 theory is, Maverick gets the ending he really deserves.