The Big Career Lesson from Top Gun: Maverick

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

When I saw “Top Gun: Maverick” in the theater, it was the first movie I’d been to since the pandemic began. I was delighted by the story and enjoyed the experience of being in a movie theater and watching Tom Cruise reprise the role from the original movie.

Recently, I watched it again at home on @Paramount+ and realized I missed a subplot that was important. Let me not spoil it but share (or remind you of) a

few segments.

The opening act of the movie has Maverick as a test pilot for a program an Admiral wants to kill. Before the Admiral arrives on the base, Maverick takes the plane up, exceeds the speed the Admiral has demanded the plane be capable of, and pushes it to the point where the instrumentation fails and he has to parachute out of it. Criticized, he is told he has to report to Top Gun school at the request of his old nemesis, Iceman Kazansky, now and Admiral himself, and the reason why Maverick wasn’t thrown out of the military tells him he has to train the new top gun pilots.