Before COVID-19, "Top Gun: Maverick" was taking flak for having censored a Taiwanese flag off Maverick's jacket, but the Chinese-tied film company has since pulled out, and the flag of Taiwan is back, according to reports.
The movie's release was delayed until 2022, two years after COVID-19 ravaged the world.
Chinese company Tencent Pictures pulled out of the film's production and now the movie has restored the once-censored clips of Maverick's jacket to include the flag of the island nation China has been seeking to control.
"It is unprecedented," film critic Ho Siu Bun told Vice World News. "Major film studios have never been shy about pandering to the Chinese market. And even if it is a simple scene, editing is very costly. So no one knows why they changed it back."
The flap was originally noticed in 2019 when a trailer for the sequel showed Maverick's jacket having been altered. It replaced Taiwanese and Japanese flags seen on the jacket in the 1986 "Top Gun" original with other symbols.
Close observers noticed the change and suggested the move was made to bow to China's censorship, since Chinese-tied Tencent Pictures was producing the film, sparking outrage for geo-political influence from China and censorship.
The release of the film showed Maverick's jacket with the Taiwanese and Chinese flags, after all, sparking celebrations by Taiwanese viewers, according to Vice News.
Not only is there reportedly no mention of Tencent Pictures in the film's credits, there has been no public explanation for the restoring of the jacket's original flags from the trailer to the movie's official release, Daily Mail reported.
Tom Cruise dons the controversial jacket in both films as Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. The leather bomber jacket hails the character's father's battleship tours to Japan and Taiwan in 1963-64.
"Top Gun: Maverick" has not been released in China and the official release date is not known, according to Daily Mail.
Tencent's withdrawal from the film is believed to be tied to its connections to the Chinese Communist Party, along with the film's U.S. military themes and support.
China does not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, and considers it a part of China. Taiwan flags are censored on Apple iPhones in China.