FADE IN:

INT. EXPERIMENTAL SUPERPLANE HANGAR

TOM CRUISE is the TOP GUN GUY AGAIN, and is now about to test a SUPER-MEGA-HYPERSONIC JET.

TOM CRUISE

Hey, how did everybody like the opening to this movie? Which is to say, the opening to the original movie, just plain used all over again? We just figured, we all know what the seniors in the audience are here for, might as well be as shameless in our nostalgia as possible.

CONTROL TOWER GUY

Yeah, it was pretty neat. Although it was a little weird that now the opening crawl says “Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it... Top Gun: Maverick”.

(gets text message)

Whuh oh, Admiral Ed Harris is on his way! He says now that we’ve already spent two billion dollars of taxpayer money developing and building this plane, we’re gonna just throw it in the garbage and never test or fly it!

TOM CRUISE

Fortunately he's not here yet, and as we all know orders only count when given in person!

(hurriedly jumps in plane and takes off)

He flies the plane SO SO HARD, and just when it looks like the plane won’t make the required speed, he FLIES IT EVEN HARDER and it goes past MACH TEN!!

CONTROL TOWER GUY

Awesome! Tom Cruise, you’re the fastest man alive!

(peers closer at script)

Hey, who scribbled that line in here? In Tom Cruise’s handwriting? Oh well whatever, the point is if you bring the plane in now this will be a complete triumph for us and our jobs will no longer be in jeopardy-

TOM flies the plane HARDER THAN EVER BEFORE and gets it to go MACH 10.0001, at which point it DISINTEGRATES INTO DUST and he has to BAIL. He returns to BASE, where ED HARRIS awaits in high DUDGEON.

ED HARRIS

YOU’RE A-

TOM CRUISE

“-LOOSE CANNON, CRUISE!! GIVE ME ONE REASON WHY I SHOULDN’T DISCHARGE YOU RIGHT NOW!!” Yeah, yeah, I get it. One has to presume that I’ve received that speech about five thousand times by now. Frankly, you probably should discharge me. I’m flagrantly unfit for military service, I don’t think I’ve ever obeyed a single order in my life.

ED HARRIS

True. We probably should have realized our mistake the moment you got a callsign which means “guy who just does whatever the fuck he wants”. But of course, the LOOSE CANNON speech always has a huge BUT appended to it, and this time the BUT is there’s a mission we need you for. Go to North Island, you'll be teaching at Top Gun.

TOM CRUISE

...That's not where Top Gun is, though?

ED HARRIS

Well as it happens you'll really be teaching a bunch of Top Gun graduates at a place that is decidedly not Top Gun, but let's not go fucking up our movie title, okay? You'll be reporting to Jon Hamm, he’s a humorless by-the-book admiral who has no patience for your renegade bullshit.

TOM CRUISE

Isn’t that you?

ED HARRIS

Yeah well, the plot required that character to exist in two entirely different locations at once, so here we are.

INT. NOT TOP GUN

TOM goes to see VICE ADMIRAL JON HAMM.

JON HAMM

We’ve learned that The Bad Country has a secret weapons facility. It is imperative that we stop The Bad Country from making these weapons. It’s also imperative that just like last time we go to extreme lengths to not identify The Bad Country.

TOM CRUISE

Although also just like last time, because of politics most people are just going to fill in “Russia” in their heads.

JON HAMM

Correct. The bad guys’ top-secret superweapon lab is hidden in an underground complex in what appears to be a volcano, because The Bad Country is apparently run by Cobra Commander.

TOM CRUISE

Another tick in the “Russia” box, then.

JON HAMM

The volcano is covered in magical drone-proof jammer tech, which means the only way to bomb it is from three feet away from a speeding jet, after which their own jets will get wise and you’ll have to fight them to escape.

TOM CRUISE

Convenient how those are pretty much the EXACT set of mission parameters that have to happen in order for aerial dogfighting to be a useful skill in fucking 2022.

JON HAMM

No kidding. And as it is indeed 2022, none of our ace pilots have ever actually so much as been in the same time zone as an enemy plane before, so you’ll have to train them up real good. Personally I wouldn’t have chosen an insubordinate jackass like you for this post, but lucky for you your best friend is Val Kilmer, King of the Navy, and he has decreed that this be so.

TOM CRUISE

God bless that man and his woefully misplaced faith in me!

INT. BAR

TOM heads into a BAR where he finds the owner is JENNIFER CONNELLY.

TOM CRUISE

Wow, it’s Jennifer! The woman from my distant past with whom I once had a serious romantic relationship with, but from whom I drifted apart years ago, but now has returned to rekindle our flame once more!

JENNIFER CONNELLY

Okay, am I crazy or did they definitely write this part for Kelly McGillis? Were we not able to get Kelly McGillis to come back?

TOM CRUISE

Maybe she just assumed the movie was going to be an unwatchable dud, like every piece of logic suggested it had to be.

At that point, all the COCKY YOUNG PILOTS pour into the bar to get introduced to the audience.

MILES TELLER

Hey everyone, I’m Rooster. You can tell I’m the son of Goose from the first movie because I have the same awful scraggly moustache, and I’ve carried on the tradition of being named after a dumb barnyard bird not exactly synonymous with fast and graceful flight.

TOM CRUISE

Oh yeah, I remember you. You were like five in the first movie. Which means your “brash young student pilot” character is now... forty-one?

MILES TELLER

Yeah well maybe I wouldn’t be so old if you hadn’t gotten all protective and held me back from flight school for four years! I HATE YOU!! If it weren’t for you, by now I might have been one of the country’s elite ace pilots, being hand-picked for top-priority missions hey wait a minute.

LEWIS PULLMAN

There’s also me, who’s wondering why the hell I wasn’t the one who they cast as the guy with the famous movie fighter pilot dad.

GLEN POWELL

And me, a pretty boy with a constant smarmy grin and an enormous ego, best at flying, worst at teamwork! So for those of you who always resented being asked to like Tom’s character in Top Gun, here’s a whole second one just for you to hate.

THE REST OF THEM

And we’ve all broadly got enough swagger and sass to be generically likeable without having any real backstory or characterization or direct impact on the plot.

TOM CRUISE

All right that’s as much depth or complexity as we’re gonna need for a movie like this, let’s get to the cool shots of planes going zip zoom zowie already!

EXT. THE SKY

TOM and the PILOTS go up in their JETS for DOGFIGHT TRAINING.

TOM CRUISE

Now as we keep making clear, I don’t really know how to instruct people, so I figure instead I’ll just keep kicking all your asses in simulated combat to prove what a cool superstar I am. Maybe you’ll accidentally get better at flying along the way, who knows.

He flies his JET around all the other JETS. His plane does CRAZY LOOPS and HAIRPIN TURNS and goes UPSIDE DOWN and INSIDE OUT and PHASES THROUGH TIME AND SPACE and ENTERS THE SPEED FORCE while all the other hapless goobers are stuck obeying the dumb old LAWS OF PHYSICS.

MILES TELLER

FUCK YOU, TOM! I know, what if I fly directly at the ground in a crazy death spiral? That way Tom will be forced by the laws of drama to spiral-crash with me in a pointless display of interpersonal conflict!

They do both indeed plunge into a crazy game of ALTITUDE CHICKEN.

TOM CRUISE

Okay. This clearly proves that we’re both dangerously unstable people who should in no way be associated with this mission, or at least that we can’t be trusted to work together. So will you be booted, or me, or more logically both?

VAL KILMER

(waves offscreen wand)

TOM CRUISE

Neither it is!

INT. FLIGHT SCHOOL

TOM explains the MISSION to the PILOTS.

TOM CRUISE

We’ll approach the volcano through a twisty canyon, partly to elude their surface-to-air missiles, partly because you’re action movie pilots and by movie law you have to fly through canyons at some point. After negotiating the canyon you’ll have to land a million-to-one shot on a tiny weak spot to blow up the enemy base and - yes, Miles?

MILES TELLER

(lowering hand)

Sir, this is Star Wars.

TOM CRUISE

I can see what you’re saying, but as your mentor figure who years ago served in the military with your father, I just want to say that this fucking better not be Star Wars. Anyway, let’s go practice the run.

All the PILOTS go out and simulate the BOMBING RUN, but none of them can FINISH IT IN TIME.

GLEN POWELL

Damnit, this seems impossible! Unless Tom could demonstrate for us so we can see that it can be done? Showing off his own flying prowess is like his whole thing, so presumably that would be the first thing he thinks to do.

TOM CRUISE

Nah, we want to make a whole thing of it later on. So for now I’m just going to watch you fail, and every time you fail, say “Next time don’t fail”.

The PILOTS get back to FAILING.

INT. VAL KILMER’S HOUSE

TOM is invited to come see VAL.

VAL KILMER

(Stephen Hawkingly)

Hi Tom. As you can see, I have a serious case of cancer, just like actor Val Kilmer does in real life. So this abridged script better tread real fucking carefully about what jokes it tries to make.

TOM CRUISE

I’m in trouble, Val. If I send Miles on this mission he could die, if I don’t he could hate me forever. Either way, I lose my last connection to my best friend.

(pause)

Also none of the pilots are succeeding at the simulations and the mission is shaping up to be a disastrous suicide run that will fail and plunge us into a new era of nuclear terror. But apparently I’m way more worried about the Miles thing.

VAL KILMER

So things aren’t gelling, huh? Well did you remember to do THAT scene?

TOM CRUISE

What, the completely gratuitous one that comes out of nowhere? I dunno man, there’s not really any students that’d be age appropriate for me to establish homoerotic tension with.

VAL KILMER

On the other hand, it would give you an excuse to sprint.

TOM CRUISE

(ripping his shirt off)

BEACH SPORTS HERE I COME, WOOOO!

He takes all the PILOTS out to play BEACH FOOTBALL in a scene which, as per tradition, has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING.

INT. FLIGHT SCHOOL

TOM, shirt thankfully restored, takes the pilots over the next stage of the plan.

TOM CRUISE

All right, now that you’ve not at all mastered the approach, let’s move on and practice the bombing itself. After you swoop down and drop your bomb you’ll have to do an incredibly steep climb out of the volcano, subjecting yourself to massive g-forces that could make you pass out and crash and die.

MILES TELLER

So we’ll do some safe high-g training in a centrifuge to acclimatize ourselves, right?

TOM CRUISE

Nope, you’ll move straight to doing the climb in your jets, giving you much greater opportunity to pass out and crash and die. Hop to it!

They all go out and start practicing the BOMBING and subsequent CLIMB, and indeed one of the pilots does LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS!

TOM CRUISE

Crap, he’s gonna crash into the mountain! Just like that time in the first movie, looks like it’s up to me to go up in my jet to help a crashing jet not crash, somehow.

He goes and SIMULATION SHOOTS THE PILOT, causing the “YOU’RE DEAD” ALARM to sound in THE PILOT’S COCKPIT. He WAKES UP just in time to EJECT and not DIE.

TOM CRUISE

Woo, I saved him! I’m sure the six or seven other proximity-warning alarms blaring in his face wouldn’t have done the job on their own.

(surveys wrecked jet)

Oof, that doesn’t make me look good. Fortunately as always I have my fairy godmother Val to keep me from facing any consequences for-

JON HAMM

HEY FUCKFACE, VAL DIED, YOU’RE BANNED FROM PLANES FOREVER YOU RECKLESS DIPSHIT

INT. JENNIFER CONNELLY’S HOUSE

JENNIFER consoles TOM, slightly about VAL, but mostly about his FINISHED CAREER.

TOM CRUISE

I can’t believe it’s over. What will I do now? Aside from taking my god-level test pilot skills to Lockheed Martin for five times my former salary, of course.

(sighs)

But even worse, I can’t help Miles and the others survive this mission, now that I’ve been told I can’t teach them anymore.

JENNIFER CONNELLY

On the other hand, they TOLD you it, right? So it’s a DIRECT ORDER?

TOM CRUISE

(slaps forehead)

Oh right, duh! I never obey those things. Welp, off I go to steal a plane!

INT. FLIGHT SCHOOL

JON has taken over teaching the PILOTS.

JON HAMM

Okay, since the old mission seems to be just too hard, we’ve replaced it with a version that has zero percent chance of succeeding. So now you’ll fly your jets in at fifty-five miles per hour, carefully land in the secret base’s parking lot, then knock on the door and ask if we can please come in and blow them up.

But then they all notice TOM blasting onto the TRAINING GROUNDS in a JET.

TOM CRUISE

FUCK THAT NOISE, MY NEW MISSION PARAMETERS ARE THAT I GOTTA COMPLETE THE RUN IN ONE FEMTOSECOND AT AN ELEVATION OF FOUR INCHES ABOVE GROUND LEVEL! WITH OVEN MITTS ON MY HANDS AND MY HELMET ON BACKWARDS!! WITH MY JET SPINNING LIKE A DREIDL ALL THE WAY!!!

He successfully demonstrates that the MISSION is not IMPOSSIBLE.

GLEN CAMPBELL

Okay then! We had no confidence that we could pull this off, but now that we’ve seen that it can be done by the most gifted genius pilot who ever lived, who has effortlessly run rings around us for weeks, we’re sure we can succeed!

JON HAMM

Goddamnit, Tom! For disobeying orders and stealing a jet I should discharge, BUT - and there seriously always is a fucking but - instead I’m sending you in to personally lead the mission.

TOM CRUISE

Sweet! And with the other pilots having never successfully won a dogfight, bombed the target, or flown the simulated run on time, I think they're totally ready for this insane suicide mission.

EXT. DANGER ZONE

In NOT RUSSIA WINK WINK, TOM leads the PILOTS into the winding CANYON. They BANK LEFT! Then they BANK RIGHT! Then they BANK LEFT! Then they BANK RIGHT! And SO ON!

MILES TELLER

But oh no, while Tom is of course, flying completely flawlessly, I’m flying too slow! Maybe Tom should have chosen Glen, his best pilot, as his wingman, instead of me because I have heart or some shit.

TOM CRUISE

You can do it! Use the force, Miles!

MILES TELLER

Yeah, okay, we already made that comparison.

TOM CRUISE

No, this pretty much happens for real. You reach out with your feelings, I seem to psychically tell you to feel instead of think, then you learn to trust your feelings and instantly become like a ten times better pilot.

MILES TELLER

Wait, really? Do I also make the million-to-one shot on the target using my instincts instead of my targeting computer?

TOM CRUISE

That exact thing literally happens!

MILES TELLER

Huh. We don’t care who figures out where our ideas come from, do we?

They blow up the BASE and zoom out of the VOLCANO THING. This triggers the SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES, which start FLYING AT THEM!

MILES TELLER

Shit, evasive manoeuvres everybody! We’ve got missiles!

(scans sky)

And... no planes? Guys, weren’t the enemy’s jets meant to have scrambled and caught up to us by now? Isn’t that in fact the entire reason we had to do the canyon run so suicidally fast?

TOM CRUISE

Yeah, I guess all that turned out to be nothing, and the “dogfight all the way home” we kept going on about just plain isn’t going to happen. So unless we want the trip back to be super anticlimactic, we’ll need to find some other complication to-

(blown up)

MILES TELLER

Oh look, Tom just got hit with a missile right in the place where the plane gets instantly destroyed but the pilot is completely unharmed and can parachute to safety.

(blown up)

And then the same thing happened to me! These sure are some convenient missiles!

TOM and MILES regroup on the GROUND.

TOM CRUISE

Shit, we need to get to the aircraft carrier somehow! Oh, I know - in the mission briefing we learned that, in addition to three ultra-futuristic fifth-generation superjets, the enemy has a collection of creaky old rust buckets left over from the Cold War, including the exact model of American fighter plane I flew in the first movie! How’s THAT for a tortured coincidence? Let’s go swipe one.

MILES TELLER

So we’re going up against the most advanced aircraft on the planet in a thirty-six-year-old clunker whose onboard computer is about powerful enough to run Tetris?

TOM CRUISE

As I always say, it’s not the plane that counts, it’s the pilot!

MILES TELLER

It’s at least a little bit the plane, though? Like, if you tried to outfly these things in a crop duster-

TOM CRUISE

I’d still handily win, of course! Come on kid, you’ve seen how they’ve been writing me. I could kick these guys’ butts even if I was up here by myself, just holding my arms out and going “nnyyyyeeeooowww”. Now let’s fly!

They go and jump in a COBWEB-COVERED F-14 and manage to make it wobble and sputter up into THE SKY. But then several ENEMY HYPERJETS appear.

TOM CRUISE

No sweat, since we’re using their plane they think we’re one of them. Let’s just stay disguised as a member of their military until the moment we open fire on them.

MILES TELLER

You mean, as outlawed by the Geneva Convention?

TOM CRUISE

Yeah, let’s commit this war crime!

They shoot down one of the JETS. Then they fly their MUSEUM PIECE against another one of the enemy’s SPACE AGE MAGIC PLANES, and manage to SHOOT IT DOWN AS WELL SOMEHOW. But then when they’re outmanoeuvred by the THIRD JET, they have to be saved by GLEN.

GLEN POWELL

Yeah, here comes God’s gift to flying to save the day! So I’ve overcome my character flaw of not being a team player! Whilst only exacerbating my character flaw of being an egomaniacal douche! Boy, I really am just doing Tom’s arc from the first movie, aren’t I?

They land on the AIRCRAFT CARRIER, to general APPLAUSE and ADULATION.

JOHN HAMM

Well Glen, you were ordered not to take off, but you did anyway. And Miles, you were ordered not to go back and help Tom when he was shot down, and you did anyway, losing a jet in the process.

MILES TELLER

Whuh oh. So I guess we’re going to be disciplined for our blatant insubordination, huh?

JOHN HAMM

Pfft, what movie franchise do you think this is? The chain of command is for nerds, grunts always know better than officers, and soldiers should all be allowed to do whatever they feel like, now let’s all go play some volleyball!

The CREDITS ROLL, to the tune of an ORIGINAL SONG that is not as good as “HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE”, but is also nowhere near the UGLY BORING-ASS SYNTHFEST that is “TAKE MY BREATH AWAY”.

END.