While audiences await word on whether a third film will happen, Top Gun 3 has begun trending in the United States for a bizarre real reason. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the action franchise stars Tom Cruise as Pete Maverick, a naval aviator who first tries to set himself apart as a prime candidate at the titular Navy Fighter Weapons School before later returning to train a new young group of graduates for a dangerous, specialized mission. While the first was just a commercial hit, Top Gun: Maverick became a critical and financial smash, setting the record for Cruise’s highest-grossing film yet with nearly $1.5 billion, leading to questions of if a third film will be announced.
Amid recent tensions between the two countries, China came under fire as one of their spy balloons, which they initially claimed to be a weather balloon, was spotted flying across the US, with the latter eventually shooting the vessel down near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Following the explosion, social media was flooded with reactions to the incident, resulting in Top Gun 3 trending online as many drew parallels between the Tom Cruise-led military franchise and the real-life political matter. Check out some of the posts below:
This is what woke me up today !!
World War 3 or Top Gun 3 making going on.. i don’t know…
πππππππ#fighterjet pic.twitter.com/3cdLw1aUjKβ TMGG β SilentScreemer (@Silentscreemer_) February 4, 2023
Top Gun 3:
“Maverick must train some young, inexperienced pilots to shoot down Chinese spy balloons. Will he succeed, or will his ego and his disagreement with top brass for waiting to shoot down spy balloons until they have fully transited the continental US get in the way.”β Becoming Ungovernable (@ZacharyLowrance) February 4, 2023
Top Gun 3 + Up 2 = Balloon 5 https://t.co/hI2lcp2iGT
β Phyllis, #SaveTCM π¬ (@phyll_indablank) February 4, 2023
How Top Gun 2 Navigated Modern Political Field
While the original film was also tactful in how it addresses the subject, Top Gun: Maverick quickly became memorable for its lack of labeling any country as being behind the uranium plant Cruise’s titular character and his trainees are planning to target. Director Joseph Kosinski has previously indicated this was a deliberate decision on the creative team’s part, feeling that neither the original nor sequel’s story was about geopolitics. Instead, the filmmaker, reuniting with Cruise after 2013’s Oblivion, felt both films were more about the “competition” between its various characters, set in the same vein of the sports genre.
The other major reason Top Gun: Maverick lacks a major villain, according to Kosinski, is that with the world ever-changing, they wanted to ensure that Top Gun: Maverick was able to feel timeless for audiences revisiting it, or watching it for the first time, decades from now. While certain war movies will remain appropriate for highlighting the harsh realities of their respective wars, those akin to Top Gun may have issues feeling dated by villainizing countries who could later become allies for the US.
Interestingly, however, despite their best efforts, Top Gun: Maverick nearly created an international incident while filming the opening Darkstar sequence, as other countries’ satellites moved into position over China Lake Naval Air Station and took photos of the film’s hypersonic scramjet. With the first two films keeping their villains largely ambiguous, it will be interesting to see if a potential Top Gun 3 will retain this formula, or if they will look towards such modern politics as the balloon pop heard around the world that led to its recent social media trending. In the meantime, audiences can revisit the six-time Oscar-nominated Top Gun: Maverick streaming on Paramount+ now.