Importantly, the movie doesn't get overly tied down to the original. The assembled pilots include Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Nick"Goose" Bradshaw who was Maverick's best friend that died during a training mission in "Top Gun." Maverick and Rooster have a difficult relationship because of this history, but director
That's because the mere existence of a sequel suggests that the original was pretty good. It's hard enough to catch a lightening in the bottle once; it's nearly impossible to do it twice.
The Mission: Impossible series is a maddeningly inconsistent franchise. It started off with “Mission: Impossible” (1996), which was well-made but had an ending which infuriated the fans of the original TV series. The franchise sank to its lowest in John Woo’s “Mission: Impossible II” (2000), which forgot what Mission: Impossible was all about, then reached its