The Most Important ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Moment Almost Every Moviegoer Missed

“Top Gun: Maverick” has worldwide ticket sales that have already crossed the $1 billion mark. If I’m any guide, theaters sold many of those tickets to loyal customers.

If I hadn’t seen the film a second time, I would have missed its most important and revealing five seconds.

During my first viewing, the scene completely escaped me. The producers had sandwiched it between mission-focused drama and hugely entertaining high-res maneuvers. But on my second showing, I caught it.

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The scene occurs just before Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, leads three more F/A-18 Super Hornets on the film’s climatic mission. It is divided into two segments, one of about 1.5 seconds and the second of about 4 seconds.

For me, these are the most significant seconds of the film.

The initial second and a half shows the hangar deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. From behind we see Maverick and Rooster who will pilot the single-seat F/A-18s on the impending mission. We also see Payback and Phoenix flying with Rear Flight Officers Bob and Fanboy.

The six stars of the film stand before row after row of air force personnel. These rows of men and women, dressed in shirts of various colors, resemble a rainbow. Without them, no one gets a jet off the ground.

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It is the indispensable and little-known members of the team who have maintained and prepared the aircraft that will carry out the mission.

Those wearing purple shirts have refueled the jets; red shirts armed them.

Green shirts serviced the engines and prepared the catapults and arrester cables.

Blueshirts will operate the ship’s massive elevators, unleash the plane, and clear the holds.

The yellow shirts will lock the plane in the catapults and send the airmen and their flight officers aft of the deck.

Each brown shirt serves as a plane captain; most are under 22, but bear the responsibility of making sure their $70 million jet is ready. Often their names are painted on the aircraft along with the pilot’s. Airmen will generally concede that the captain owns the aircraft; the pilot just borrows it.

Everyone loves silhouettes wearing sunglasses in flight suits; they are, however, only the tip of a long spear. Every man and woman aboard Theodore Roosevelt enables these Airmen to drop an order on a target and accomplish the ship’s collective mission of advancing national security.

The six stars of the film stand before row after row of air force personnel. These rows of men and women, dressed in shirts of various colors, resemble a rainbow. Without them, no one gets a jet off the ground.

I learned that lesson aboard four deployed aircraft carriers and at bases like North Island, California; Pensacola, Florida and Bahrain while researching my book “Fly Navy”.

Yet the passing of time and the sizzle of the main actors in the new film almost made me forget that naval aviation includes so much more than the men and women in the cockpits.

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The second part of the neglected scene comes moments later. We see Cyclone, the three-star admiral in charge of the mission, addressing the assembly in the hangar deck.

“That’s what you all trained for,” he said dramatically. Charged and inspired, everyone then leaves to perform their specific role.

Initially, I thought Cyclone was just talking to the six officers about to step into the cockpits.

He was not.

Cyclone was aimed at everyone on the carrier, especially those who worked on the flight deck. They had trained tirelessly for their specific tasks, and success that day demanded that they shine as brightly as the airmen and flight officers. It was also their mission.

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As a civilian in the world of naval aviation, I found something extraordinary and surprising, and the film gives you a taste of it if you’re quick enough to grasp it.

I discovered an on-board team with unrivaled abilities and sense of mission. I witnessed an operation that strengthens our country by protecting it from enemies. And I’ve seen how this operation also produces the citizens that America itself needs to thrive.

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On the flight deck, individuals from every walk of life imaginable work together in a hot and dangerous melting pot that forges ability, character and duty. The whole business of naval aviation makes America stronger. It serves as an example and reminder of how leadership and shared purpose can transform organizations and individuals, in uniform or not. It makes me proud.

So when you watch “Top Gun: Maverick” again – and let’s be honest, you will – remember that the stars aren’t just the people with call signs. Take a moment to realize that you are watching heroes working together, a navy and a country at their best.

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