Director Joseph Kosinski says:
“The original version of the script we actually followed Maverick in his freefall back to Earth, which would have I guess debunked that theory,” Kosinski told Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz. “It was a pretty spectacular sequence imagining what it’s like to reenter from space in your spacesuit.”
“I love it. Film is meant to be interpreted. I love that there’s multiple ways to read it. It’s, you know, hopefully it’s a piece of art meant to be interpreted, and I love people reading those things into it. It’s like The Big Lebowski Theory that Johnny’s not really there so, no, I welcome that,” he said."
Its always funny when people think there is more to a story, for a story that had low creativity in the first place.
Top Gun: Maverick’s story is all about doing a mission that is the same exact thing as star wars episode 4 death star attack.