Michael Bay’s giant alien robot antics get a free pass with them. Peter Berg’s upcoming alien invasion on water epic “Battleship” essentially serves as a two-hour recruitment commercial. But when it came to “Marvel’s The Avengers”, the Pentagon decided not to help out with use of their equipment and personnel.
Phil Strub, the U.S. Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison, tells Wired.com that, with the exception of some use of Humvees in the finale, co-operation with the U.S. military on “The Avengers” was halted. Why? Murky jurisdictional issues.
Namely S.H.I.E.L.D., the onscreen international peacekeeping organization of the Marvel Universe. Strub says the ambiguity of the relationship between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the U.S. government and military complex is what ultimately stopped it from happening.
“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… It just got to the point where it didn’t make any sense.”
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