Director James Gunn sets the record straight when it comes to the military's involvement in the MCU and their supposed pre-approval of scripts in a response to a critical fan on Twitter. Gunn is best known for his Guardians of the Galaxy films and, most recently, his reboot of The Suicide Squad. Gunn's films frequently involve fictional science-fiction military forces, but other Marvel films have dealt more closely with real-world military elements and received official military support, including all of the Iron Man films, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Captain Marvel.

Films have long had relationships with American military forces with movies like Top Gun translating to real-world increases in Air Force recruitment numbers across the U.S. More recently, Captain Marvel saw significant involvement with the United States Air Force during production, including the training of actors and crew by a member of the Thunderbirds demonstration squadron. Eternals, Marvel's most recent release, also includes scenes involving the military, including one in particular in which Phastos, the first openly gay MCU character, claims responsibility for the dropping of an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II.

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After podcast host Jesse Hawken took to Twitter to criticize the Phastos scene in Eternals and claim that all Marvel scripts are pre-approved by the Pentagon, James Gunn responded, setting the record straight on the matter. Gunn makes clear that the Pentagon does not approve all Marvel scripts and calls the claim "nonsense". After a follow-up comment from another Twitter user, Gunn clarified further, saying that the military only has to approve scripts for films that use military assets for free. Gunn also says that none of his films have ever needed military approval and, from what he knows, the number of films that do is pretty small. Check out the full Twitter exchange below:

As someone who has now directed two MCU films and a DCEU film, Gunn is certainly an authority on the subject. While it has previously been confirmed that a number of Marvel films have benefitted from official military support, Gunn's comments make clear that this is not the norm for all MCU films (or most other films, for that matter), nor does the Pentagon have any real power over the MCU as a whole. It seems that most of what Gunn is taking issue with is the notion that the American military is somehow acting as an overseer of Hollywood and approving creative decisions made during the filmmaking process.

It stands to reason that, if the American military is loaning equipment free of charge to film productions, they would require that the military be portrayed favorably in those films. Considering the otherworldly science-fiction and fantasy stories of many MCU films, however, such as those of Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Doctor Strange, it seems obvious that the Pentagon would not be directly involved in all MCU films. Ultimately, Gunn makes clear that fans can rest assured that the Pentagon is not stifling Marvel's creative freedom (or Hollywood's), nor is it acting as a gatekeeper for each new MCU script.

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Source: James Gunn/ Twitter