#top gun maverick script

[mxrcusflint]

"I don't know how."

[in-the-cyclone]

so beau is canonically handsome and people are STILL sleeping on him?? omg

“handsome square-jawed man” I AM GNAWING AT THE BARS OF MY GOODSMN ENCLOSURE

[shiver-on-the-slab]

THIS WAS IN THE EARLY DRAFT OF THE SCRIPT????

[vsploganxx]

something to take the edge off:

and then it’s rewatching top gun for the thousandth time.

[hailsbellsl]

Thinking about Mav being inverted and flipping off that MiG, following the original TG1986 script, Goose would’ve had a lot cooler angle to take that polaroid from.

Just imagine Cougar suffering from vertigo, not knowing what direction he’s in and Goose is in the backseat like, “Hold on I got to get a picture, this is badass”

[ziggy-scardust]

Can we all agree that Hondo in Top Gun: Maverick is a thematic parallel to Luther in Mission: Impossible?

[dubblebubbleibuprofen]

This is not what I signed up for when I clicked on the old airplane movie

[princemick]

𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚗: 𝚃𝚘𝚙 𝙶𝚞𝚗 𝙼𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚔 INT. HARD DECK - POOL AREA - DUSK

[sometimesanalice]

The fact we were denied this is a CRIME. Give me the angst!

[actuallyitsstar]

headcanon asks for Bradley: 1 and 19?

✨ send me a number + a character for headcanons! ✨

1: holiday headcanon

christmas was always one of bradley's favorite holidays, all throughout his childhood. every adult in young bradley's life, all with varying backgrounds and types of childhoods of their own, could come together to agree on one thing: bradley's christmases should be magical. carole, trying to keep the magic of those first three christmases with everyone all together alive; mav, trying to give bradley the kind of happy memories he never had; ice and slider, woven into the family by carole's steady hand, determined to give this little makeshift family what it needs. bradley remembers holiday baking with mom, learning about the traditions of ice's family, so different from theirs; neatly-wrapped gifts from santa, much lumpier gifts that were also "from santa", supposedly, but he knew those ones were from uncle mav- it would be fair to say bradley was a little spoiled when it came to the holiday season.

after carole is gone, and it's just he and mav, those years are empty and feel meaningless, but they try. they try for carole's memory, for each other, and for ice and the others. bradley's eventual disillusionment with the holiday doesn't start there- no, it starts after.

once he and mav have their falling out, it's like someone has flipped the light switch. the last few chrismases were quiet ones, lonely without mom, sure- but he and mav got thru them together. after losing mav, too, though, it's radio silence. bradley goes from loving and enjoying the christmas season to hating it, overnight. the first christmas after is bleak. a long december and a somehow even longer december 25th. the only accompaniment that he has for the next four years of college are the cards and the letters he doesn't open. he spends it in the dorms alone while everyone else goes back to their families.

once he meets phoenix in flight school, things start to look up, just a little. she has a lively, bustling family full of extended relatives and family friends, and they're happy to fold in one more. it still doesn't feel right. it doesn't make him feel at home. for all their effort and kindness, phoenix's mom is nothing like carole and phoenix's dad is is nothing like goose- and as much as he hates himself for thinking it, more importantly, is nothing like mav- and the traditions and energy are all so different that it just feels unfamiliar. though it tugs painfully on his emotional aches and pains, he is grateful to have somewhere to go and happy to be included, even if it only exemplifies to him how alone he really is, and how he really doesn't seem to belong anywhere.

post-mission, post-reconciliation, bradley isn't sure what to expect. he imagines that mav would have built a life without him in it by now and is dismayed to learn this is not the case. he isn't sure if mav will want him around for the holidays after everything he's done and said. phoenix pushes him, telling him that of course he's welcome at the trace family table again this year, but you really ought to stick around and sort this shit out. through much hesitation, bradley does.

the post-reconciliation christmas is not lively or bright or boisterous like the christmases of old. it'll never be the same, without mom, without uncle ice, when the other flyboys have families of their own to worry about now. but mav welcomes him, wants him to be there, and it's more at home than bradley has felt in fifteen long years. it's not about the food or the gifts or the decorations. it's about the people- person, actually. it's about being invited into mav's life and heart even when he knows he can never deserve to be in those places again. at the end of the day, the old christmases were always about family and love and connection, and even though they're quite different on the surface, the new christmas is about all those things, too.

19. favorite photograph headcanon

photos were and are such an important part of the bradshaw-mitchell family. bradley knows it- and it's a part of why, when he leaves, he doesn't take the photos of himself and mav. he knows that to mav, that will say something, loud and clear, and he wants to be hurtful- he wants his emotions to be heard and understood. instead, he takes with him only the photos of his mom and dad, and a couple with the flyboys that mav took, and subsequently was not in; but bradley tells himself that he doesn't need the pieces of a relationship that there's no point in trying to salvage, so he leaves all of those pieces behind.

except for one.

it's a somewhat dilapidated polaroid, taken with his dad's old camera, snapped by carole as she'd stood on the back porch of the little bungalow house that bradley grew up in. in it, a six-year-old bradley sits in mav's arms, held up at eye-level in one strong arm as mav points up with the other. bradley has one hand fisted into mav's shirt, and his gaze and rapt attention are locked overhead. mav always used to tell little bradley to look up at the stars if he missed him, because it's the same stars- they always have that between them, at least. in the photo, mav points out the constellations they share even when apart, and bradley listens intently, trying to commit the names to memory. when he became old enough to have one, bradley used to keep it in his wallet.

eventually, when it's all fallen apart and those connections between them have been severed, bradley gives a new photo the place of honor in his wallet, a photo of he and mom- but he can't just throw out the old picture, no matter how angry he feels when he looks at it, no matter how badly he wants to. it goes into the box with everything else, with letters and cards and artifacts that mav sends him or that he can't bring himself to throw away. sometimes on a quiet, lonely night aboard a carrier or on leave, floating adrift in the world with no anchors to speak of, he thinks about it. he looks at the stars and he sees that image in his mind's eye and he remembers being six years old and thinking mav would always be there, and he wonders sometimes in the most empty moments if the old man still remembers all that shit about the stars. if he ever still looks at them, still thinks of it, of bradley, if he ever wonders anything about bradley the way bradley wonders about him. deep down inside, he knows that he mustn't. deep down inside, he tells himself that there's no chance in hell mav does. because, if he does, it means bradley threw away something that was still alive. it's a fate he cannot bring himself to accept.

when they've reconciled, bradley will find that old beat-up picture in the box. he'll show it to mav. i never forgot, he'll quietly admit. i always thought about it. i- i guess i thought that you probably didn't even care to look at them anymore. i just- i thought it was over. mav will take the photo, tattered and much-handled, from bradley's outstretched hand, studying it with a reverence that bowls bradley right over. i looked at 'em every night, baby goose, he'll admit. always hoped you might be looking, too.

tysm for this ask !!! and for your infinite patience in my disastrous ability to reply 😭😭but i loved answering this ask sm !!! and i definitely did not answer it in longhand at my job and i also definitely did not accidentally write so much about the christmas thing that i had to chop it way down for this ask because it accidentally kind of became a chapter of something lol. i am a disaster. but thank u so much and i hope u enjoy and are well!! <3<3<3

[in-the-cyclone]

PHOENIX & AMELIA // ALTERNATE ENDING

this little bit from the OG script has me 🥺 oh my GOD!!!!!!!!!!!

think we should talk about this more cuz my heart is just melting

[compacflt]

do you ever think about/write about how maverick threw goose’s dog tags into the ocean? the letterboxd reviews have me thinking again.

yeah that was literally one of the first little things august 2022 me petulantly retconned . fuck that . he kept one.

in my (and many other ppls) opinion those weren’t mavs to throw away they should’ve stayed with carole

and (i try not to talk about this as much as possible but) it suggests Something about mav & goose’s relationship that the filmmakers thought his dog tags should go to mav instead of to Goose’s wife (though i acknowledge and appreciate the usefulness of the visual metaphor of him saying goodbye to goose at the end of TG) (though that visual metaphor was rendered completely moot by the whole of TGM showing that mav HASNT moved on from goose and only moves on once he has the chance to save roosters life [which is why i retconned it])

ALSO? i am sure I’m not the first person to talk about this? But, to add a second layer of confusion & analysis, uh, the dogtags mav throws into the ocean aren’t goose’s.

I’m reading “metcalf, mike” from the backside. Those are VIPER’s dogtags. for some reason.

now i choose to believe that’s a props issue… someone grabbed the wrong set of tags & they were like ehhh no one will notice… script supervisor not doing their fucking job… so i choose to believe the filmmakers MEANT goose’s dogtags & it doesn’t change the end of the movie for me.

But im interested to hear from you—does that change/add anything to anyone’s analysis to know that mav threw VIPER’s tags into the ocean? there are a lot of really weird implications that come from taking what is probably a props fuck-up at face value!!! (Viper giving mav his tags [weird], viper being mav’s surrogate dad figure, thereby this scene becomes about mav saying goodbye to his FATHER finally,.. etc.)

[missathlete31]

I need to read this script!!!! I wonder if my guess was close or if it was too much Rooster. I doubt Tom is letting himself be a minor character

[hailsbellsl]

Another thing I love about the original TG1986 script was a lot of Goose’s lines in the beginning. It really intensifies my love of Goose being Cougars RIO at the start of the film instead of Mav

Only Goose would make comments like these after a near death experience

[skatingbi]

So...One piece Fighter Pilot au loosely inspired by top gun and top gun maverick bc i have a problem...

Sanji and zoro are the main focus in this, they just meet at the top gun program.

just saw this scene as i was writing this in maverick n had to write oml:

Sanji: WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING???

Zoro: I JUST SAVED YOUR LIFE FYM??

Sanji: AND I SAVED YOURS THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT YOU SHOULD BE IN THE FUCKIN CARRIER BY NOW

ZORO: WELL YOURE THE ONE WHO TOLD ME DONT THINK JUST DO CURLS!!!

Sanji: Oh my god youre fucking stupid fucking moss for brains fuck you

Sanji and zoro literally cant stand each other at the beginning, esp since Sanji has been training to be a pilot since he was a teen by zeff. Zoro on the other hand originally has only ground combat experience before transferring to be a pilot. Tl;DR: zoro is the rookie here lmao

So, zoro as nav and sanji as pilot. This shit is surprisingly like the davy back fight where sanji goes "hey mossy give me 10 seconds" and zoro just replies "aight bet" and suddenly theyre a literal power duo. This is them in an exercise w luffy:

Zoro: luffy is 5 miles to your 6 approaching in about 30 seconds

Sanji: copy *pulls the throttle and cranks a sharp left*

Zoro: Now at our 3, gaining speed and approaching in 10.

Sanji: hold on, mossy *repositions parallel to surface before pulling the stick towards him to gain a height advantage against luffy, it makes them jostle around for a good few seconds*

Zoro: SHIT warn a guy will ya?!

Sanji: hah, didnt take you to be a backseat driver, moss

Luffy cannot reach them atm and is attempting to gain altitude so sanji only needed to go similarly fast enough to what hes used to for a second before pulling back and forcing luffy into a situation to pull a wingline overshoot, making luffy be in front of sanji.

Sanji: target neutralized

Zoro: well goddamn, cook, did they teach you to fly at the speed of fuckin sound in the north blue?

Sanji: HA no but im sure they taught you to overshoot a lot in the east blue

then once they return to the carrier they bicker like teenagers...which they are in this series ig since i think they'd be 19-22 in this. Probably 21 though.

[xiaokuer-schmetterling]

i prefer the term "hyperfixes" BC IM NOT WRONG i'm just really excited in a neurodivergent way

am I the only one who watches movies I like 50+ times

mom: you’ve watched that movie so many times

me: ok? what’s your point

mom: don’t you get tired of it?

me: first of all, I need to memorize the script and songs. second of all, ITS TOP GUN- I DONT NEED TO EXPLAIN

mom, now scared for my mental health: okay… *leaves*

at my therapy session the next day we talked about “obsessions”