Belated Tom Cruise sequel Top Gun: Maverick features a mission seemingly stolen straight from Star Wars, but what nobody is saying is how fitting it is that Cruise took it further than LucasFilm ever did. In the wake of the super successful blockbuster's release, the climatic sequence has drawn bemused comparisons to Star Wars, but it makes sense that Tom Cruise would make his legacy hero even more impressive than Luke Skywalker.
Top Gun: Maverick sees Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell return to the TOP GUN academy with a brief to retrain some of its greatest graduates for a difficult and dangerous mission. And while it may have been tempting to make him washed-up and a ghost of his former self, that would not have made sense for a Tom Cruise movie. Instead, he pulls off a plan that involves eliminating a uranium enrichment facility, requires the pilots to navigate a precarious valley, flying extremely close to the ground to avoid radar detection. Standing in their way are rows of SAM batteries, as well as circling enemy aircraft. The slightest miscalculation could result in their destruction, making for a hair-raising, high-stakes denouement.
While some cynical reactions called the similarities to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, reductive, when you think about it, Top Gun: Maverick's final mission is a typical Tom Cruise flex. He made his own greatest pilot even more impressive than the Galaxy's most celebrated pilot. Top Gun: Maverick was wasn't just emulating Star Wars, it was about making Maverick the modern Luke Skywalker and then dialing that up to 11.
Tom Cruise Made Maverick Better Than Luke Skywalker
There are so many similarities between the two missions in Top Gun: Maverick and Star Wars that it can hardly be considered an accident. And in that context, Top Gun: Maverick's final mission is even more impressive, and laser-focused on making its earlier mirror image seem inferior. Luke Skywalker had one target to hit, Maverick has two targets to hit in quick succession, requiring – as Cruise's pilot himself puts it – "two separate miracles". Luke Skywalker only had one "miracle" and he had the benefit of the Force to make it happen. There's no major assault to protect Maverick either - his mission in Top Gun: Maverick emphasizes stealth, building suspense with the knowledge that one false step could prove fatal. It's more realistic and thus even more impressive.
This all fits with Tom Cruise's approach to film-making these days. His Mission: Impossible franchise is defined by his incredible commitment to one-upping himself with more impressive, more potentially deadly stunts each time out. And Top Gun: Maverick included real flying - an undertaking made even more impressive by Cruise's age - but it's in Maverick's symbolic victory over Luke Skywalker that we see Cruise's most impressive achievement. He just made his Top Gun hero the greatest pilot in the galaxy.