Anyone else a fan of both Hulk movies?

[November Rain]

Usualy films that are their own thing make for better films rather than true faithfull adaptations. I want to see filmakers use their talent and their signature style. That's why I wasn't into Sam Raimi's spider-Man movies because there wasn't enough of the old Raimi in them, it was too commercial. When Donner made his Superman films, the Superman comics at the time were incredibly childish and silly so he basically only took some of the themes, made a great movie and nobody say these days "oh the guy took liberties, where is the giant key that open the fortress?"no people suddenly took it as cannon and that was "the" Superman from now on.

That being said I prefer the Thunderbolt Ross from the Lee movie because he was the hardass from the comic. And while both films have good things in it, nothing will ever beat Hulk jumping and fighting the army in the desert from the first movie. Nothing.

don't get me wrong at all, I think ang's stamp on the hulk was very well done.


i loved the parent child dynamic set up with david/bruce and ross/betty and it actually helped ross' character be more dimensional as he just wants to protect his daughter from being a vitim of what happened to bruce's mother.

I only wish david's motivations were slightly more vengeful as he blamed ross for his wife's death right at the end.

I like to read between the lines and there is a lot to read in ang's film. I think the hulk is the first mainstream superhero to not be treated as a children's film or blockbuster and i feel it suffered from that.

it also shows that you can do superhero films without trademark action sequences or fights as such.

bruce's relationship with the hulk is also far more interesting and you can see their entertwining character arc together. TIH went from KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT, to USE IT to I like it in about 25 seconds

and there's one thing no one really notices but bruce and betty never kiss in that film yet her love, or the love jennifer connely shows for this mumbly idiot is just simply immense. And the worst thing is that it's somewhat one-way due to his social ******ness.

if i had that kinda love in my life, wow, i'd be a lucky individual.

 

[Stripesy Strip]

don't get me wrong at all, I think ang's stamp on the hulk was very well done.


i loved the parent child dynamic set up with david/bruce and ross/betty and it actually helped ross' character be more dimensional as he just wants to protect his daughter from being a vitim of what happened to bruce's mother.

I only wish david's motivations were slightly more vengeful as he blamed ross for his wife's death right at the end.

I like to read between the lines and there is a lot to read in ang's film. I think the hulk is the first mainstream superhero to not be treated as a children's film or blockbuster and i feel it suffered from that.

it also shows that you can do superhero films without trademark action sequences or fights as such.

bruce's relationship with the hulk is also far more interesting and you can see their entertwining character arc together. TIH went from KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT, to USE IT to I like it in about 25 seconds

and there's one thing no one really notices but bruce and betty never kiss in that film yet her love, or the love jennifer connely shows for this mumbly idiot is just simply immense. And the worst thing is that it's somewhat one-way due to his social ******ness.

if i had that kinda love in my life, wow, i'd be a lucky individual.

It definitly tried to be more than a super-hero story. Just in the editing where you see Hulk looking at green fongus in the desert and start remembering his creation or something. But I think they went too far with the father adaptoid and his relationship with Bruce it's one thing to want complexity with material but this is not an indie film about people eating tefu, we expect things to be explained along the way in a action film and not being bogged down by things. I would have prefered if they would have re-written the Nick Nolte character as scientist that Bruce's father knew and would have used that to corrupt Bruce, trying to get things from him, stealing experiment secrets for himself or another goverment.

 

[November Rain]

friend of father is cliche, good guy parent is also cliche, banner's dad is the first guardian of a superhero who was a **** and i liked that energy.

David Banner has a great line when his poor old son is crying, he whips out this gem from the 'good father handbook'

Stop your bawling, you weak little speck of human trash!

he says that...to his only son...who watched him kill his mother...and is the strongest entity on the planet..

David banner is a hero

 

[Stripesy Strip]

In TIH having Ross trying to get Hulk for his super-blood pretty much rendered Ross' character null. He usualy want to get to him to subdue or kill him with all the wrath in the World. Trying to get him just for the blood renders Hulk seemingly harmless. He's not a threat anymore, they don't want him for the damage he does as if they don't get to him, he won't be a danger as Banner is able to control himself.

 

[November Rain]

yeah, that was a silly subplot, especially since it wasn't even to try and re-engineer the supersoldier serum from cap's days, they already had that.

caps blood> banner's blood

the whole film was pointless.

 

[Stripesy Strip]

friend of father is cliche, good guy parent is also cliche, banner's dad is the first guardian of a superhero who was a **** and i liked that energy.

Friend of a father is cliche but then again he wouldn't be a friend of his father necesseraly, just use that for sympathy to get infos from him. Hey it's a cliche I can tolerate. Also to me that whole thing with the father it was not the Hulk. Hulk to me is a guy caugh in a situation and has to live with the nightmare inside of him after the accident. Lee took one element of the Hulk comic, the father issue, one element they may be interesting for 5 seconds and MADE A WHOLE MOVIE ABOUT IT! Guess what people are not interested about Bruce Banner's father! People are interested in Banner, the Hulk and that's it. Friend of father wanting to corrupt Bruce and trying to get info from him would have it more of science suspence and less psychological emo melodrama.

David Banner has a great line when his poor old son is crying, he whips out this gem from the 'good father handbook'

Stop your bawling, you weak little speck of human trash!

he says that...to his only son...who watched him kill his mother...and is the strongest entity on the planet..

David banner is a hero

That was too much for a super-hero story. This was a case of a filmaker trying too hard when he didn't need to.

 

[November Rain]

I know the father angle isn't a hulk story but i think it made a good story for the hulk character. Considering similar elements of friend of father or mentor have been done before, Direct relationship hadn't and still hasn't. I mean even darth vader wasn't that cold to luke. If you look at truly evil people in the superhero films, david has to be right up there for his complete disdain towards his own son, who was nothing more than a lab rat.

and if people were really interested in the hulk, why has he said less than 15 words in his entire movie and tv history? Thats not a jib at you, that's just a jib at how the industry has handled the character.

YOu know the thing is, i don't think it was enough. And from my point of view, i would much rather watch a story with superheroes in it than a superhero story. The thing with the hulk is that i feel it will mature better, i know i was like wtf when i first watched it but i can watch it in different moods and get different things out of it and it certainly isn't a popcorn-brain off type of film

 

[Stripesy Strip]

I know the father angle isn't a hulk story but i think it made a good story for the hulk character. Considering similar elements of friend of father or mentor have been done before, Direct relationship hadn't and still hasn't. I mean even darth vader wasn't that cold to luke. If you look at truly evil people in the superhero films, david has to be right up there for his complete disdain towards his own son, who was nothing more than a lab rat.

and if people were really interested in the hulk, why has he said less than 15 words in his entire movie and tv history? Thats not a jib at you, that's just a jib at how the industry has handled the character.

YOu know the thing is, i don't think it was enough. And from my point of view, i would much rather watch a story with superheroes in it than a superhero story. The thing with the hulk is that i feel it will mature better, i know i was like wtf when i first watched it but i can watch it in different moods and get different things out of it and it certainly isn't a popcorn-brain off type of film

I'm with you there, I think the art of Cinema comes first. It has to be a great movie experience mixed with faithfullness not just faithfullness. I just wasn't interested in watching a movie about daddy issues for 2 hours. If anything if they should have gotten into something deeper than just a super-hero action movie, it should have been in the creation of a monster such as this instead of the daddy thing. Kind of like the tv pilot when it becomes about scientific experimentations. I still think the tv show had the right angle, especially the science aspect and the mood. I think the ideal take for this subject manner would be a cold war suspence(that's why I suggested a scientist that knew his father trying to steal formulas).

 

[November Rain]

did you not find the show somewhat repetitive, it came from that repetitive show time period of

charlie's angels, million dollar man, all the way to baywatch, where nothing new happened each week and the plots were simple repetitive ones without any character progression occurring.

don't get me wrong but i never got the impression banner or the hulk persona grew back in those early shows. I think sitting through a boxset of it would be my worst nightmare.

 

[Stripesy Strip]

did you not find the show somewhat repetitive, it came from that repetitive show time period of

charlie's angels, million dollar man, all the way to baywatch, where nothing new happened each week and the plots were simple repetitive ones without any character progression occurring.

don't get me wrong but i never got the impression banner or the hulk persona grew back in those early shows. I think sitting through a boxset of it would be my worst nightmare.

I'm talking mainly about the Hulk tv pilot, not the whole series where he would go into various situations. In the tv pilot the whole approach to how he becomes the creature is pretty interesting as they threat it realistically like scientists would, best scene being when he's encased in the vault and they try to repeat the situation that made him transform the first time. David changes into the Hulk while the other scientist record the whole thing like it was just another experiment. The whole thing was pretty interesting and suspensful. I also like approach similar to this like in The Fly or in Altered State.

 

[El Payaso]

Strange isn't it that the tv movie is still miles ahead than big Hollywood movies. When he changes in the chamber and try to open it or when he changed in the rain were fantastic. It was like a horror movie(maybe that's the key? maybe the movies threats the style of Hulk in a too light cartoonish manner? it seems like the story of Hulk/Banner works better as a guy in a science lab)

Yes. The TIH pilot was my first horror movie (I saw it in theaters as it was released that way where I live, while the series was in its 3rd season) and kept the story simple. They didn't even need super-villiains or a superheroic tone. It was just as Frankenstein or Jekyll & Hyde. The monster is the "enemy" but not a villiain.

I think Ang Lee had too much freedom, and Letterier had not enough freedom. So Lee made almost a too artsy flick for much of the movie while TIH felt like branding of a product: look this an action flick and look we're gonna have a guy that fights like Captain America to remind you people of the next Cap movie coming!

Well, Lee had too much freedom, for what the average superhero movie studio usually gives. But not enough for ehat he needs I guess.

Freedom more or less, it was evident for me that Lee's Hulk kept going from the arthouse movie to the average comic movie and that was weird. In the end, for example, we never know David Banner in depth. There was too much talking but nothing concrete. Why is he so obsessed with the Hulk exactly? It never got to the bottom of it.

Now I don't know Leterrier much, but from what I've seen and heard he's not exactly uncomfortable with the formulaistic style.

The Hulk from the Ang Lee flick looked so unique in his reaction and so forth, it was Lee himself that was playing the character for motion capture. But yea too green, too Shreck. The other Hulk had the right color but had the typical body builder body of a Lou Feringno and awful emo hair. If they could somehow use the motion capture from the first, use the same blocky form but make his face more simian then use the color and size of the second Hulk, it would be the ideal Hulk.

I loved how Lee's Hulk sneezed, fell down, etc. Acted and reacted like an animal.

Agreed! The completly screwed up the metamorphosis. They never did anything memorable. They should watch the Howling and copy that.

It should be really scary and not too fast.

did you not find the show somewhat repetitive, it came from that repetitive show time period of

charlie's angels, million dollar man, all the way to baywatch, where nothing new happened each week and the plots were simple repetitive ones without any character progression occurring.

don't get me wrong but i never got the impression banner or the hulk persona grew back in those early shows. I think sitting through a boxset of it would be my worst nightmare.

Absolutely. The TV series, as manmy TV series of the time, had a very rigid structure that wouldn't vary much. It would have been perfect if it focused on Banner's story and it had a continuity. But it was made - again, as all the series from then - to be run in any order.

But you should follow mostly the important episodes, which have quite a different more serious tone than the average episode. The Pilot, Married, Mistery Man, The First, Interview with the Hulk and Prometheus. Watching those make me want the series to be more Banner-focused, more serious. A final episode could have made it absolutely great.

 

[henzINNIT]

I enjoyed both to an extent but am a fan of neither. The original rarely demands a rewatch, and now that Norton has been replaced in the Marvel universe, the reboot seems pretty pointless as well.

I'd say Ang Lee's has the edge. Very artful direction, beautifully animated Hulk and a lot of heart at its core. Unfortunately the characters are too stiff to sustain such a long film. A good edit could make this film a lot better, although the climax is pretty weak.

TIH has much more lively characters and a much brisker pace. I didn't enjoy the revamped Hulk design and didn't feel a character within the animation. Despite the focus on action, I don't feel the sequences were as memorable or impressive as those in the previous films.

Both films have a good cast I'd say. I liked Bana and Norton in the title role.

 

[November Rain]

Absolutely. The TV series, as manmy TV series of the time, had a very rigid structure that wouldn't vary much. It would have been perfect if it focused on Banner's story and it had a continuity. But it was made - again, as all the series from then - to be run in any order.

But you should follow mostly the important episodes, which have quite a different more serious tone than the average episode. The Pilot, Married, Mistery Man, The First, Interview with the Hulk and Prometheus. Watching those make me want the series to be more Banner-focused, more serious. A final episode could have made it absolutely great.

thanks el payaso, i will keep an eye out for them

 

[geeknerddork]

Despite some of the flaws in Ang Lee's Hulk film, I actually liked it, even more than I did the reboot to be honest, I know I'm in the minority on that, haha, but I feel like even though it wasn't perfect it had a bit more ambition than The Incredible Hulk in terms of character and story.

A lot of fans are in love with Norton as Banner, but I really don't get why. I feel like maybe it's just a combination of the goodwill he has an actor given his resume, and the ill-will against the first film. I love Norton as an actor, but I wasn't really impressed by his portrayal of Banner. I think Bana displayed more pathos as Banner, I really felt like he was dealing with a demon he had bottled up inside him, I could see that he had this explosive rage bubbling underneath the surface. Whereas Norton to me, as far as his performance goes, seemed more like a guy who was merely inconvenienced by the fact that he turns into a giant green monster. He seemed almost too casual to me, I know that the movie told me he was tormented by this beast inside him, but I didn't feel it in his performance, which is where it really counts.

I was initially excited that Norton was going to be Banner, but he didn't bring as much to the table as I'd hoped. So for me personally it's not a big loss that he's been replaced. I actually really love Ruffalo and have been following his career for a while. I think he's displayed all the qualities you need for a good portrayal of Banner through his film career, and he has a very natural quality to him. From interviews I've seen so far I like what I'm hearing and think this might be the best Hulk we've gotten. I can only hope.

As a whole I think The Incredible Hulk was good for what it was. I kinda didn't like it at first but it grew on me after repeated viewings (my little brother loves it). I don't think it had any soul to it personally, but it's hard to deny that it isn't a fun movie for the action. It's my least favorite of the Marvel studios movies though, because I don't think it dealt with story and character as well as Iron Man, Thor and Cap did.

 

[geeknerddork]

I enjoyed both to an extent but am a fan of neither. The original rarely demands a rewatch, and now that Norton has been replaced in the Marvel universe, the reboot seems pretty pointless as well.

I'd say Ang Lee's has the edge. Very artful direction, beautifully animated Hulk and a lot of heart at its core. Unfortunately the characters are too stiff to sustain such a long film. A good edit could make this film a lot better, although the climax is pretty weak.

TIH has much more lively characters and a much brisker pace. I didn't enjoy the revamped Hulk design and didn't feel a character within the animation. Despite the focus on action, I don't feel the sequences were as memorable or impressive as those in the previous films.

Both films have a good cast I'd say. I liked Bana and Norton in the title role.

Totally agree.

 

[KangConquers]

While "a fan" is a little far, I think both were passable movies.

Ang Lee's Hulk is the best non-Marvel Studios film outside of the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises. Not really a seal of quality, but it's a 3/5 movie to me.

 

[superhero]

if you like the hulk i highlyreocmed anmited moive hulk vs wolvrien and hulk vs thor i enjoed hthe incaible hulk the angs lee was too consufing nothing happed unitl the end of it pluse you can tell the hulk was fake the incdabile hulk was more real looking you didn't have to read the comic book to get into it. i do enjoy billy biixxyi just dont think the new hulk would be as good if billy bixixy wasn't in the tvshow it wouldn't been a big hit. i'll watch it i wonder how the hulk would look like. i guess they can go with the ninja turtle suits like 1990 movie.

 

[co2]

Absolutely. The TV series, as manmy TV series of the time, had a very rigid structure that wouldn't vary much. It would have been perfect if it focused on Banner's story and it had a continuity. But it was made - again, as all the series from then - to be run in any order.

But you should follow mostly the important episodes, which have quite a different more serious tone than the average episode. The Pilot, Married, Mistery Man, The First, Interview with the Hulk and Prometheus. Watching those make me want the series to be more Banner-focused, more serious.

Agreed. There is a box set called The Incredible Hulk - The Television Series Ultimate Collection which has mainly just those important episodes. Add the pilot DVD to that, and you have most of the really good ones that showcase Banner's journey rather than just "the story of the week". Of course you can always get the entire series DVD box set for pretty cheap now too. Or they are all on Netflix. I remember it was so hard to find this show about 10 years ago, now it's too easy.
I really hope the new TV series takes the continuity approach and introduces elements from the comics. That would be terrific.

 

[OsGom]

I like them both for different reasons which all have been covered here.

In addition, Ang Lee's Hulk has my vote for the finest action sequence in a superhero movie when Hulk battles the military. Nothing before or since has come close.

 

[B-man]

I too like them both for different reasons.

 

[Lord]

Ang Lee's Hulk had the best story and directing , however it wasn't the hulk movie fans wanted.
The reason both hulk movies weren't as successful as they should have been is because the public that went to see Ang Lee's Hulk was the smash and action fans and after watching the first movie they tought that the 2nd would be the same thing.
The public that would have liked Ang Lee's Hulk themes was too afraid that the movie would have too much action and decided not to watch it.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

one movie fails where the other succeeds and vice versa. Love them both, though.
Casting wise, Norton was the better Banner, but Connelly was way, WAY better than Tyler. Hurt/Elliott is a close call, too close to pick a winner.

 

[co2]

Casting wise, Norton was the better Banner, but Connelly was way, WAY better than Tyler. Hurt/Elliott is a close call, too close to pick a winner.

I totally agree with your first two selections, but IMO Elliot was one of the best things about the first film. His Ross was INTENSE!
If you could cobble a Hulk film from elements of both previous films (drama, action, cast) you would have the greatest superhero movie ever made.

The problem is, Hulk of the comics is really WAY too much for a single movie. You have his origin, the villain's origin, Hulk fighting the military, Hulk fighting the villain... And Hulk's origin gets even more complex if you get into his psychological origin which took almost 40 years of comics to competely backfill. That's the stuff that can make for really interesting Hulk stories, but in the setting of a single film, it weighs it down too much...which is what ended up hurting Ang's movie.

 

[Palantium Man]

nope. couldnt stand any of them imo

 

[November Rain]

Ang Lee's Hulk had the best story and directing , however it wasn't the hulk movie fans wanted.
The reason both hulk movies weren't as successful as they should have been is because the public that went to see Ang Lee's Hulk was the smash and action fans and after watching the first movie they tought that the 2nd would be the same thing.
The public that would have liked Ang Lee's Hulk themes was too afraid that the movie would have too much action and decided not to watch it.

i really don't think the reason the second one didn't do uber was based off the issues of the first one.

the issues of the first one was purely marketing and the misconception it was a brainless hulk smsash spectacle all the way through it.

no art film should be advertised like that.

They went all out of their way to separate themselves from the first film and plenty of people initially put their bums on seats to watch it but it had a similar dropping off impact.

the reality is that the story in the incredible hulk just wasn't strong enough to push forward the narrative. you can't sell the hulk film based off one big final epic battle scene because people are just going to be twiddling their thumbs waiting for it to happen.

i really believe the people who have this product are unaware of what to do with him.

does anyone else know how the hulk comic has managed over the years compared to other marvel comics??? perhaps this trends isn't unique to one media (although animation wise, i never saw the hulk renditions as an issue when he held his own shows)