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'Avengers' alternate opening shows an unexplored story arc

The 'Avengers' alternate opening shows more of the relationship between Nick Fury and Maria Hill.

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Zade Rosenthal/Disney/AP
'The Avengers' alternate opening shows a storyline that was ultimately reduced in the film.
  • By Rob Keyes Screen Rant

By featuring so many characters and making them fit as best as possible in the introduction to The Avengers, some of the key players didn’t have their stories told as several plot threads didn’t make the cut. We know Jeremy Renner is still waiting to play the Hawkeye he signed on for after his limited role in the team-up and another story arc dropped from the film entirely was that of the relationship between S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

In promoting the upcoming home video release of The Avengers, Marvel Studios has released another deleted scene from the Blu-ray, this one presenting what could have been the introduction of the film had they explored the Hill-Fury conflict that was initially intended to play a part in the film’s story.

The clip sets a vastly different tone compared the actual theatrical opening ofThe Avengers and doesn’t quite sync up with how the film’s conclusion played out in terms of the reception of the people of New York to the superheroes protecting them against he alien invasion.

Hill’s conflict with Nick Fury was a plot thread that had several shots cut from the film but will undoubtedly surface during Phase Two of the Marvel cinematic universe. Essentially, Hill represents the mysterious council and her viewpoints therefore, don’t quite match that of her superior, Fury, who believes bringing together these heroes is the best hope for Earth.

Without getting into spoilers we can see how that would have changed how a few scenes in regards to S.H.I.E.L.D., especially when it comes to how the Council wants to respond to the alien threat vs. Fury’s plan of relying on six heroes to do the right thing. What we can see is an inevitable arc to be explored down the line, where there will be a power struggle over leadership of S.H.I.E.L.D. and where the world will at one point split itself in questioning the right/wrong of having unaccountable heroes duking it out in civilian population centers, leaving it up to others to clean up the mess. When something goes wrong, who will be responsible? Marvel Civil War anyone?

Rob Keyes blogs at Screen Rant.

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