‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Director Joseph Kosinski on Why It Was Important for the ‘Enemy’ to Remain Nameless
In the original Top Gun, the enemy really is not important to the overall story. The story of Maverick (Tom Cruise) is the centerpiece of Top Gun and his relationships with Iceman (Val Kilmer) and Goose (Anthony Edwards). The same can be said about Top Gun: Maverick and director Joseph Kosinski explain why the enemy remains nameless.
The enemy is unconfirmed in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
After 30 years, Maverick returns to TOPGUN academy to train a group of pilots for a dangerous mission. Their mission involves taking out a uranium enrichment plant, which sits in the middle of the canyon. It is unconfirmed who is working on the plant as this antagonist is only referred to as the “enemy.”
While the mission is an important part of the climax of Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski focused more on the development of Maverick’s character. There is more emotional resonance between his new relationship with Penny (Jennifer Connelly) and his bond with Rooster (Miles Teller). There isn’t even an explanation of what the “enemy” plans to do with the uranium.
Director Joseph Kosinski explains why the “enemy” in ‘Top Gun: Maverick” remains anonymous
In an interview with Indiewire, Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski explains why he wanted to keep the “enemy” nameless. The director states that he didn’t want to make a movie about politics. He wanted to give the movie the same spirit as the original and keep it about “friendship” and “sacrifice.”
“We didn’t want to make this a movie about geopolitics,” Kosinski said. “It’s a competition film. It’s a film about friendship, about sacrifice. It’s a rite-of-passage story. It’s all those things. It’s not a movie about the current state of world events which, by the way, have changed so much from when we made the film. If we had even decided [a country when we made it], it probably would’ve been outdated. The idea was always to make the enemy faceless and nameless.”
Kosinski also made sure to set the final mission in an environment that people couldn’t recognize, thereby not allowing people to infer what country or villain they are going up against.
“That’s why in designing this third act, I put it in a world that was not identifiable as, I think, any of the places people are guessing,” Kosinski added. “I liked the idea of putting it in a snowy region, so we shot it in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state to also invert the Top Gun aesthetic, to get away from the San Diego sunsets and flip it on its head. To me, that was an exciting way to really change the feeling of the film and make it feel like we were somewhere far away. I know people look at the F-14 [enemy fighter jets] or the fifth-generation fighter jets or the landscape and try to piece it together, but it really is nowhere.”
Will there be a ‘Top Gun 3?’
Top Gun: Maverick has now made over $1 billion worldwide so it would make sense that Paramount is looking at potential sequel options. The director says he isn’t sure if a Top Gun 3 will happen, but it’s all up to Cruise.
“It took 36 years for Tom to agree to do this one! It’s up to him,” Kosinski said. “He’s the one that has to be convinced. That’s how this project started, with Jerry and I going to Paris to talk Tom into it. It’s all about story. It’s all about emotion. If we can figure out a way, a journey for Maverick to go back and be with these young pilots and figure something out, maybe it could happen. I think for now, we should just enjoy that we got this one.”
Top Gun: Maverick is currently in theaters.
