Top Gun: Mavericksees Tom Cruise return as Captain Pete Mitchell over three decades after the first installment took place. For consistency’s sake, it looks like Maverick won’t bow down to China for the time being, as the film has seen Paramount walk back on the controversial decision to remove Taiwan’s flag from Cruise’s jacket.
These details first became a hot topic when the original trailer forTop Gun: Maverickcame out in the summer of 2019, showing Maverick’s iconic leather jacket with slightly altered patches that removed the flags of Japan and Taiwan. At the time it was all but confirmed that the flags' omission was due to China’s Tencent Pictures investing nearly 12.5% of the film’s $170 million budget, although the company ultimately pulled out of the deal due to presumed concerns thatTop Gun’spro-American messagingcould anger the Chinese Communist Party.
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Well, now anyone who went out to seeTop Gun: Maverickin its very successful opening weekendcan see with their own eyes that Captain Mitchell is not paying attention to politics. The final cut of the movie sees Maverick sporting his same old jacket with the Taiwanese flag reinstated, along with some other items made famous in the original such as his aviator glasses and Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle. In the original trailer, Maverick’s patches were swapped with similar white and red icons for Japan, while Taiwan’s red and blue flag was changed to an unnamed red and black flag, though it’s unclear if a Chinese edit of the film exists.
The Wall Street Journal had been the first to cover Tencent’s withdrawal from the project. However, it remains unclear whether the China-approved version of the jacket was digitally altered solely for the purpose of the first trailer or if the final cut ofTop Gun: Maverickwas the one to require VFX magic to “fix” the movie. Despite securing a personal best of $260 million in box office revenue for Cruise on its opening weekend, the mere inclusion of the flags poses a significant opportunity cost for Paramount Pictures due to missing out on the Chinese market.
Chinese authorities have only cracked down further on censorship over the past few years, and though normally Hollywood has been more than happy to appease the Communist Party’s censorship, there are occasions where that simply isn’t the case. For example, neitherShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsnorEternalsmade it to China due to comments made by Simu Liu and Chloe Zhao, respectively, about the Chinese government. Meanwhile, other movies likeFight ClubandFantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledoreare rendered almost pointless due to censorship cutting out key parts of the plot.
These censorship rules are not new to gamers who have seen China wage a war against everything from “effeminate men” in games to kids’ actual playing time. Regardless of that,Top Gun: Maverickis one fine movie, so it won’t take long for internet pirates and many Chinese citizens to get their hands on it once it’s released in other formats.
