What plane wreck could ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ have in store for us?

Great balls of fire! It was only a matter of time before Top Gun got the reboot treatment and that time has arrived. The prince of batshit himself, Tom Cruise, posted a teaser image to alert the world last year that production of the Top Gun sequel was underway and would be crash-landing onto the big screen on July 12, 2019. Since then, the release date has been pushed back nearly a year to June 2020.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the anticipated update – aptly titled Top Gun: Maverick – will deal with very modern warfare, following fighter pilots as they grapple with drone tech that is making their old style of flying obsolete.

No doubt this’ll have the fandom simply wetting their jumpsuits in sheer elation. We hate to be moody Mavericks about the whole thing, but what good could resurrecting Top Gun possibly do (aside from mainlining millions of dollars into the veins of those involved for tapping into everyone’s nostalgic weak spot)?

Don’t get us wrong – we live for the homoeroticism of Top Gun and we’re partial to a cheesy 80s hit. But therein lies the problem: the film is of its time when blatant misogyny, bullishness, and tepid, predictable narratives were acceptable.

We can’t help but predict Top Gun: Maverick will stick to the same safe formula with enough modern updates, epic flight scenes, and romcom cliches to get butts in the theater seats and to keep the critics satisfied.

We’re already yawning at the thought of it, which is why we’ve decided to spice things up a bit by predicting what we think the flight-fuelled franchise could have in store for us in the second round. Are any of these predictions accurate? No! Would they make a Top Gun sequel relatively bearable? Absofuckinglutely! Feel the need, folks – we’re taking you on the ride of your life.

Top Gun does Target

Under Maverick’s instructions, the team pitstops at Target to top up on their jumpsuit supply. They walk in, and through fresh veneers Cruise facetiously declares, “This is what I call a Target-rich environment!” Everyone groans and we realize the entire narrative’s been a vehicle for Maverick recycling that one line without referring to women like they’re some sort of open hole ready to take the pilots’ loaded guns.

Return of the Living Goose

Goose comes back from the dead to give Maverick’s neck a chew, the undead coupling infiltrate the NAS Miramar, and we have our first ever air pilot zombie flick. One-liner opportunities:

“Take me to the undead or lose me forever.”
“I feel the need, the need for braaaaiiiiins.”
“You can be my bingo wingman anytime.”

Thetans and the story of Xenu

The NAS Miramar is now run by the Church of Scientology and led by Maverick who, along with the assistance of David Miscavige (who enjoys a starring role alongside Cruise), is tasked with freeing the fighter pilots and exteriorizing their thetan through vigorous auditing.

While they carry out the religious practice out of the kindness of their own hearts and the benefit of the church (for a fee, of course), Maverick himself reaches Scientology’s highest OT levels, where he has visions of 75 million years ago when Xenu – the tyrant ruler of the “Galactic Confederacy” – transports billions of people to Earth in the Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacks them around volcanoes, and detonates hydrogen bombs.

The thetans cluster together while sticking to the human’s bodies and Maverick must make sense of the visions and work hard to isolate those blasted thetans and neutralize their ill effects.*

Mission Impossible: Maverick’s Fallout

With the latest Mission Impossible flick also hitting screens in July, the two mega-franchises collide to make a Maverick / Ethan Hunt mashup and thus we see the reboot mill metamorphosize into something far uglier, sinister, and heinously lucrative than we could’ve ever imagined – franchise reboot crossovers.

The Top Gun Pilots fly economy

What with modern warfare looking far different than it did in the 80s, the Top Gun team members have hung up their boots and become airline pilots. Maverick and Iceman are now co-pilots for American Airlines and the entire Top Gun sequel centers on a domestic flight from Seattle to Denver that comes into trouble when a passenger kicks up a fuss over their gluten-free / vegan in-flight meal that consists of nothing more than a banana and a knife & fork.

Cruise and Iceman finally f***

No more misogyny-led storylines that turn astrophysicist and civilian instructors into vapid, dough-eyed submissives when in the presence of a gleaming set of teeth. We’ve been holding onto that sexual tension between the male members of Top Gun for DECADES and we’re finally given some release when Maverick and Iceman bang in the locker room and it’s as greasy and glorious as we’d imagined all these years.

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*This is not from the Film Daily writers room, but was borrowed from the actual teachings of Scientology. Scientologists genuinely believe this happened.