The thing that makes Maverick better than the original is that there is a real mission built in that is the driving point of the whole film. One of my biggest peeves of the original is that suddenly there's just some random threat and they are all on the same ship at once to go deal with it. Did the top guys all get assigned to this one ship? Who were the pilots on the ship before then? It was just movie ends with random dogfight vs. random enemy.
Even though they never name the country (IRAN) it seems like every movie since we all got so damn PC is always a group of terrorists with vaguely identifiable accents or splinter cells of a government that we already don't like. In the end of Maverick, it's a mission against a target that not only has resources, but has better resources than us!
My one nag from Maverick, and it is mostly due to my lack of knowledge of the military, is - when Iceman dies, would all of the top gun students really go to his funeral? I understand they are all captains or whatever in the Navy, but would his funeral just be open to all available personnel in the immediate area or would there be some sort of pecking order?
Life is better with a beagle