you really can’t unsee american military propaganda in movies like once you start thinking about it you are doomed to be the friend who’s too political when people put on an action movie for the rest of your life
its more than that as the link suggests: the pentagon basically gets to decide whether or not you get access to humvees and other military equipment for your movie and they ask for a pass over any script in exchange. most notoriously Marvel was blacklisted by them for a while allegedly because of the Avengers movie making the military ‘look bad’ in being unable to prevent destruction to new york city.
and you can really see this shift, the avengers era and before they had tons of access to military vehicles and the government and military featured quite prominently, and then with Winter Soldier that suddenly all got flushed away and we didnt return there for a while
more interestingly, you can see exactly when and how they got back in the good graces of the DOD: Captain Marvel and Black Panther. I believe Black Panther was given a pass over by the pentagon as the first step to getting back in the good books (note the CIA is the goodguys plotline. not shield - the CIA specifically, in a movie about black american politics. hm). Then captain marvel was made into a blatant airforce recruitment ad. Fun stuff!
this but i was under the impression at the time of the winter soldier that the director did not agree to the deal because it was kind of an anti-military picture and he did not want to do the thing where the army gets a veto.
