Charlie's Return Would've Ruined Maverick's Flawless Top Gun Ending
Warning! SPOILERS for Top Gun: Maverick.
Bringing back Charlotte «Charlie» Blackwood (Kelly McGillis) in Top Gun: Maverick would have ruined Maverick's (Tom Cruise) flawless ending. Joseph Kosinski took on the massive responsibility of making the sequel to Tony Scott's cult classic Top Gun, and he succeeded in making a worthy follow-up to the beloved blockbuster. While Top Gun: Maverick heavily relied on nostalgia, it doesn't bring back many characters from the first film, including Maverick's original love interest, Charlie.
The events of Top Gun were kickstarted after Maverick and his RIO and in-flight partner, Nick «Goose» Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), were sent to train at TOPGUN flight academy. There, they met a string of new characters, mostly people who were also at the facility for the same reason as them. Charlie was an astrophysicist and a civilian instructor tasked to share her knowledge with the rest of the batch, but it was clear from the get-go that she and Maverick were attracted to each other. Despite her initial hesitation, Charlie eventually started dating the daredevil pilot. They briefly broke up on the heels of Goose's tragic death, but they eventually got back together.
Related: Maverick Secretly Reveals Top Gun 3’s Villain
When Maverick and Charlie reunited at the end of Top Gun, there was hope that they were in it for the long haul. It was surprising thatTop Gun: Maverick gave Maverick a new love interest in Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) instead. As glaring as Charlie's absence was in the Kosinski-directed sequel, it was arguably for the best that she didn't return.
There are conflicting reasons why McGillis didn't come back as Charlie in Top Gun: Maverick. According to Kosinski, he wanted
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