This is pretty classic. Apparently Pentagon officials were consulting with Marvel Studios on Joss Whedon’s blockbuster hit The Avengers but had to quit after a while because they found the situations presented on screen to be too unrealistic, and they couldn’t resolve its conflicts.
“We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization [named S.H.I.E.L.D.] and our place in it,” said Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison, according to Wired.com’s Danger Room. “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything” with The Avengers.
Wait, doesn’t the military regularly consult with Michael Bay on the Transformers films? So the idea of a Decepticon being buried on the moon is more plausible then the comic-inspired mayhem in Whedon’s film? Granted, I’m not saying either is plausible, but you can’t OK one and diss the other.
The Defense Department didn’t completely bail. As Danger Room points out, military Humvees can be seen riding to the rescue alongside the Avengers in the film’s finale, which is a bombastic battle on the streets of Manhattan. But the article reveals that updated military jets – specifically the stealth F-22 Raptors and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters – were digitally inserted and not provided by the military.
Does it matter? Absolutely not. Marvel maniacs showed up to see Hulk “smash,” he did just that, and the movie collected north of $200M in its opening weekend. Will the military think twice about helping Marvel on Iron Man 3, Thor 2 or the inevitable Avengers 2? Let’s hope so.
