Most people think of Top Gun as a feel-good military movie about the triumph of the US Military. It is full of action scenes, the testosterone of fighter pilots. However, the emotional heart of the movie lies in the aftermath of Goose’s death. For those who need a refresher, Goose (Anthony Edwards) is Maverick’s (Tom Cruise) Radio Intercept Officer (RIO), and Goose dies in an ejection when his canopy malfunctions.
The immediate aftermath of Goose’s death shows Maverick holding his dead friend afloat in the ocean and then being told by their Coast Guard rescuers that he has to let him go. While he was told to let go of Goose’s body in the water, he was told by his commanding officer to let go of Goose’s loss in order to go on.
Maverick struggles to let go even as he packs his friend’s photos, dog tags, and personal effects into a cardboard box and hands them to Goose’s grieving widow, Carole (Meg Ryan). She takes them from Maverick, pats his face, and tells them that even though Goose would have hated flying without him, he would have still done it, which I took as another way of telling Maverick he had to let go.
Despite being cleared by the Board of Inquiry, Maverick still carries the weight of Goose’s death, along with his dog tags, to his next duty station. It is only after he flies a successful mission that gives him his choice of Navy assignments that he is able to let go of Goose by throwing his dog tags into the Ocean.