From slashfilm, The US military loves the movies. There’s nothing better for them than a good action movie that makes military service look awesome, and so various branches of our armed forces often cooperate with producers and studios to put military gear into films.
But the collaboration can come to a quick end if the notoriously sensitive military senses that portrayal of the armed forces will be out of its control. And so the Pentagon put the kibosh on a collaboration with Marvel Studios for The Avengers. The reason? The murky relationship between super-spy agency SHIELD and the rest of the US government, and specifically the military.
Wired quotes Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison, saying,
"We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it. 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 film]."
The site notes that it wasn’t quite that the defense department wouldn’t do anything — the National Guard has a presence in the film, and digital stealth fighters (F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters) are digitally added to the SHIELD Helicarrier, though those planes didn’t require participation from the US government.
The reason this is funny is that the US Navy has worked enthusiastically with ‘unrealistic’ films in the past. Various branches of the military collaborated with the production of Iron Man, and on Michael Bay films. The Navy recently collaborated with Peter Berg on his Michael Bay copycat movie Battleship. If you think The Avengers is unrealistic, just wait until you see the third act of Battleship. Swipe for the spoiler text if you so desire: In a last-ditch stand against the invading aliens, Taylor Kitsch leads a group of aged Navy veterans as they refit a mothballed ship to go into battle. (Spoiler ends.)
But Wired points out that there’s a specifically interesting point here: that SHIELD’s precise place in the US bureaucratic map has always been murky, and this could end up being an opportunity to define the agency’s role in more specific terms. For a continuity-conscious set of films like Marvel’s, that could be a nice extra detail.
16 comments:
In the premiere issue of "Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD" (which is as close as Marvel got to a SHIELD "origin story") Tony Stark was already involved with SHIELD way before they recruited Fury. The concept that SHIELD somehow midwifes the Avengers into existence is a total reversal (but a cool one).
I love that the problem is "lack of reality." Nobody does "lack of reality" quite like Marvel Comics.
What year did Nick Fury first appear in comic books?
The character had been around for a long time as a WWII soldier, in various war comics, pre-Stan Lee. ("Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos" etc.)
In 1965, Lee decided to try to pick up on the "James Bond" craze (Dr. No was 1962, with From Russia With Love and Goldfinger following very fast; all smash hits) and cleverly brought back the Nick Fury character in "Strange Tales" 135, which simultaneously introduced SHIELD and Cobra (their SPECTRE/SMERSH-style enemy), while explaining that both organizations had been around for some time. Tony Stark has a cameo in that story. They basically recruit Fury right to the top slot.
I could never understand why the Marvel Comics Animation Iron Man theme song had a woman singing, "Tony Stark makes you feel/He's a rich tycoon with a heart of steel." He is a rich tycoon with a heart of steel! "Feelings" have got nothing to do with it.
Wow, that's so interesting, I had no idea that Nixk Fury has been around so long - I thought he was a newer character in the Marvel universe.
That's funny about the Iron Man theme song - I was unaware that there was even an Iron Man cartoon, I'm going to YouTube it.
The Avengers being fronted by SHIELD comes straight from The Ultimates, or the Ultimate Marvel Universe version of the Avengers, in which Nick Fury is specifically drawn to look like Samuel Jackson.
As far as I know, the notion of superheroes as the field team for a much larger entity with government sponsorship is Stormwatch over in the Wildstorm Universe. The heroes would beam down from a huge support satellite packed with scientists and back-up crews all led by someone with get-the-job-done ruthlessness.
What I don't know, he knows.
That's actually Hydra,and not Cobra,by the way.
Right..thanks, spiderkev. My mistake.
"Cut off an arm, and two more shall take its place!"
Shouldn't that be "cut off a head?"
It's "cut off a limb." I went and checked.
But I was pretty sure I was right. (An arm is a limb, but a head isn't, right?) I mean, think about it: if you cut off the head, the thing's dead, right? But an arm can be replaced or whatever. On the other hand, the mythological hydra had many heads, so who knows.
Oh, I'm ignorant of what the Marvel Hydra is all about, but the mythical hydra is a big snake with many heads. The "two grow back" thing was originally about heads. (Also, snake... no limbs.)
I think it's like 1960s Star Trek, in that a bunch of frantic underpaid guys were writing really fast with absolutely no idea how many decades' worth of near-religious attention and respect their work was going to get.
To be clear: you're right -- it's about heads, not arms. But the original comic book says "limbs."
What the hell are you people talking about?
I like the Tin Man.
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