Tom Cruise's 'Top Gun: Maverick' Couldn't Possibly Be Coming Out At A Dumber Time

The new trailer for Top Gun: Maverick just hit the internet, and it seemingly has everything you’d want from a sequel to the classic ‘80s blockbuster/bloated mess of military propaganda; more motorcycle races, more beach-based athletics, and of course, unrealistically kick-ass combat scenes that will no doubt send hordes of youngsters scampering to the nearest Navy recruitment office, which may or may not be located literally inside the lobby of your local movie theater.

But in many ways, after being delayed for years due to the pandemic, now seems like kind of the dumbest time for this movie to come out. For starters, it sure seems like the movie is about going to war with Russia. While the original Top Gun was shockingly cagey about identifying its enemy combatants, fans have deduced that Maverick is likely about taking on Russia, thanks to the movie’s tie-in toy line – because what child wouldn’t want to own playthings devoted to the franchise that made their grandparents horny in the Reagan years? The toy “Enemy Strike Jet” is seemingly modeled off of a Russian stealth fighter, making it a “pretty safe bet” that the villains of Maverick will be Russians. 

This movie was originally supposed to come out way back in the summer of 2020, but now it’s landing at a time when Russia has just invaded Ukraine, the U.S. has threatened to retaliate, and “World War III” seems to be trending on Twitter more often than videos of objects that turn out to be cakes in disguise. So a lot of us may not exactly be in the mood to see Tom Cruise, a bunch of young people, and Jon Hamm for some reason, launch some kind of covert mission that has huge real-world implications no one could have possibly imagined when the movie was first conceived.

Also with the war in Ukraine, the Russian military’s mystique has definitely hit an all-time low. While Maverick and company seemingly are working with some kind of experimental, top-secret jet to aid them on this highly-dangerous, high-stakes mission, the massively “outgunned” Ukrainian Air Force has been handily shooting down Russian fighters. 

And while the original Top Gun was made in the pre-internet days, now we’re able to easily access information that tears down the fictional Navy’s veneer of Kenny Loggins-accompanied badassery. Like how the U.S. military’s recent F-35 fighter jets basically render Top Gun-style dogfighting obsolete – and they also cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion and routinely “burst into flames.” Yeah, apparently, the “danger zone” is just sitting motionless in the cockpit of a colossal waste of money.

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Top Image: Paramount Pictures