Iceman’s final dialogue in Top Gun: Maverick, where he grills Maverick on their old Top Gun rivalry, is not just funny, but the genius line also had a secret meaning for the movie’s title character and his internal journey. Top Gun: Maverick sees Tom Cruise return to the role of cocksure test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, but the 36 years that elapsed between the original Top Gun and its long-awaited sequel transformed many aspects of the franchise’s antihero. Top Gun: Maverick’s title character remains a rebel in the sequel, but his self-importance has softened over time.

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This is never more obvious than in one of Top Gun: Maverick’s sweetest scenes. The brief reunion between  Cruise’s Maverick and Val Kilmer’s cancer-stricken Iceman is one of few quiet moments in the otherwise non-stop action-packed sequel. It is also pivotal as an encapsulation of the growth that Maverick has been through since the original Top Gun. More than any other line of dialogue in Top Gun: Maverick, it is Iceman’s final exchange with Maverick that proves Cruise’s Top Gun character is a changed man.

In the scene, Iceman insists that Maverick answer the question of which of them is the better pilot, which gives Cruise’s character another chance to flash the actor’s famous winning grin. However, there’s more than nostalgia and charisma to this final moment that the two characters share. Iceman dies in Top Gun: Maverick shortly afterward, but the two colleagues and close friends depart on good terms for the last time because Maverick refuses to take Iceman’s bait. Where Top Gun’s younger antihero was hot-headed enough to see even Iceman’s genius final line of dialogue as a challenge, Top Gun: Maverick’s hero can laugh the warm joke off like a more mature, well-rounded version of the same character.

Top Gun: Maverick’s Iceman Line Sums Up The Sequel’s Story

In his final Top Gun: Maverick scene and dialogue, Iceman asks in jest whether it was he or Maverick who was the more adept pilot. Where the younger Maverick couldn’t have turned down any semblance of competition, Cruise’s character instead laughs off the question and chides Iceman about ruining their good time — some of the sequel’s earliest evidence that, despite his reckless rebellious streak, Maverick has fundamentally grown out of the youthful arrogance and self-centered attitude that defined his half-hero, half-villain Top Gun persona. Where Cruise’s character was once a source of conflict, in Top Gun: Maverick, he is the voice of reason trying to appease Miles Teller’s Rooster, John Hamm’s Cyclone, and his braggadocious recruits.

Maverick ends up playing the role of mediator and mentor countless times throughout Top Gun: Maverick, reasoning with characters as hard-nosed and hot-headed as he once was in Top Gun. His ability to keep his cool in these pivotal moments is perfectly epitomized in Cruise’s character laughing off Iceman’s invitation to a debate. The secret meaning of this genius final line of dialogue from Iceman is that it’s a poignant reminder that even Top Gun’s Maverick wanted to be in control of his ego, something that the character effectively achieves with his Top Gun: Maverickreinvention as he successfully helps Rooster, Cyclone, and plenty of other characters from repeating his self-centered mistakes.