A secret Top Gun: Maverick Easter egg perfectly proves the movie’s best storytelling trick to honor the franchise’s legacy. More than three decades in the making, the Top Gun sequel brings back Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who struggles with both his professional and personal life. Top Gun: Maverick was a commercial hit for Paramount, becoming Cruise’s top-grossing movie. A big part of its success stems from the way the film moved Maverick’s story forward while also paying homage to the legacy of the Top Gun franchise.
One particular Easter egg perfectly proves how the Paramount sequel expertly balanced its storytelling approach. Specifically, Top Gun: Maverick sampled the audio of Slider’s howl from the volleyball scene in the original movie for Hangman during the recreated Top Gun beach scene, confirmed by the movie’s editor (via Twitter).
This effectively summarizes Top Gun: Maverick’s storytelling approach when calling back to Top Gun; it’s subtle and well-hidden so as not to overshadow its current storyline, yet is still a clear presence to honor the original movie and as a treat to die-hard fans. Many sequel movies fail because they lean too much on nostalgia for success — something that Top Gun: Maverick knew not to do. This type of subtle Easter egg is a perfect representation of this approach.
Top Gun: Maverick Avoids A Lot Of Common Legacy Sequel Mistakes
This is not to say Top Gun: Maverick didn’t capitalize on nostalgia; it actually featured many callbacks. In fact, Top Gun: Maverick’s opening is a deliberate redo of Top Gun’s. However, the team properly utilized these Easter eggs, ensuring that they were well-thought-out and never shoehorned. Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski was meticulous about when to harken back on the events of Top Gun and when to focus on its current story. When it does, it’s done tastefully without derailing the pace or the story of the movie.
This applies to cameos, as well. Instead of featuring many characters from the original Top Gun film to evoke nostalgia, Kosinski only brought in Val Kilmer’s Iceman because his appearance was intrinsic to Maverick’s story in the sequel. It didn’t resort to emotionally manipulating viewers to feel good by bringing in familiar faces the same way many revivals and sequels such as Star Wars and the Jurassic Park franchises have been criticized for. As such, Top Gun: Maverick was able to successfully avoid many of the issues that have plagued modern legacy sequels.
Top Gun: Maverick’s Volleyball Easter Egg Makes Its Football Game Even Better
Choosing to do a beach scene is already part of Top Gun: Maverick’s ode to the original. Well aware of the comparisons that will inevitably arise, Kosinski wanted to find a way to differentiate the sequel’s scene from Top Gun’s iconic sequence. The presence of the aforementioned Top Gun Easter egg highlights just how attentive and thoughtful the filmmakers were while doing the film, crafting a scene that was both reminiscent of its forebear while also offering something new.
To make things better, however, there’s also a deeper meaning to it as it’s part of Maverick’s unorthodox training. Knowing that all of his trainees are the best of what the Navy had to offer, the veteran pilot recognized that the most important thing for them is to foster a bond with each other. While Top Gun: Maverick didn’t explicitly reveal this, chances are that Maverick was inspired by his own training days, turning the game into a learning experience for his contemporaries. For now, it’s still unclear when the potential Top Gun 3 will happen. But, whatever the studio’s plans for the future of the franchise, any threequel would be well-advised to follow Top Gun: Maverick’s lead when it comes to callbacks – imbuing them with meaning, rather than simply presenting them to the audience.