I'm Sorry, but There's Probably No Way Anthony Edwards Is in 'Top Gun 2'

There's been a lot of buzz circulating around Top Gun 2: Maverick that I think is due to a combination of three factors. The first being that despite how much he's ridiculed, Tom Cruise is awesome and he works his butt off in every movie. The second is that '80s nostalgia is huge now — Wonder Woman 1984, anyone? The third is because it looks like the spirit of the first Top Gun is alive and well in the sequel, judging from the trailers. There's just one question, though:

Now before I go any further, I want to point out that it's been a full 33 years since the first flick starring Tom and Val as oiled up airmen first hit the big screens. So if you haven't seen it by now, then it's your own fault for having it spoiled right now. That being said, you've been warned.

One of the biggest plotlines of the original Top Gun was when Maverick had to reconcile himself with the death of his best friend.

That best friend, is of course, Goose, a fellow trainee in the "Top Gun" flight program who was also Maverick's co-pilot and volleyball partner who could rock a mustache like no one else. Goose's death is what spirals Maverick out of control and has him call his whole life into question. Getting back in the cockpit seems nearly impossible after Goose's horrible training accident, but Maverick ultimately carries on.

What's most devastating for Maverick is that Goose left behind a wife and child, and he believes that his reckless flying is what got Goose killed. After visiting Goose's wife, however, he learns that even though Nick loved flying with his partner, that he probably would have flown anyway, and the same accident would've occurred regardless of whether or not the two of them were tearing up the skies as a tandem unit.

In the movie's ultimate battle, with Maverick engaging the enemy along with Iceman and Wolfman and other graduates from the program, Maverick draws strength from his buddy Goose, he wears his dog tags and holds them for inspiration, pulls off a slick move and manages to best the bad guys in a bout of aviation excellence. Goose lives on through Maverick's actions. The USA wins, cue badass '80s riff, roll credits.

So how would Anthony Edwards even make an appearance in Top Gun: Maverick? Well, he's decidedly older and way different looking at this stage in his career, so unless executives whip out some pretty convincing CGI jobs, it's not like they can do a true flashback scene with him and Tom. And it's not like they can bring him in as a present day character because, you know, he's dead.

That is, unless they decide to pull a soap-opera move and Goose's death was an elaborate plan to get him out of the Air Force and abandon his family forever, which would make for a strange and entirely different movie.

So it doesn't look like Anthony Edwards will be in the film at all... unless the producers listened to this suggestion from the actor.

Anthony appeared in a Stephen Colbert bit showing what a Top Gun movie would look like with a "Ghost Goose" by injecting him in iconic scenes from the first film. Maverick getting down and dirty with Charlotte? Goose is creepily there. Maverick fighting against the bad guys at the end? Ghost Goose is riding on the right wing. Maverick blaming himself for Goose's death in Charlotte's car? Yeah, Ghost Goose totally blames him for flying like a maniac.

The video was clearly done as a joke and unless Top Gun: Maverick is a secret stoner comedy with fantastical elements, which I don't think it is (if I was on the writing team it would be), I don't think we're going to be seeing a Ghost Goose anytime soon. The good news is that Miles Teller does a pretty darn good job of looking like the actor, complete with a mustache and everything.

Top Gun: Maverick will be released on June 25, 2020. Will you be checking it out to see what happens with Goose's son? Judging from the trailers, I think someone else dies in the film, and I fear the younger Goose suffers the same fate as his pops.