HULK movie - ***SPOILERS*** (Proceed with caution!)

[lighthouse]

I got in the comic book adaptation of the movie today. It ships next week to comic shops everywhere... I started another thread with no spoilers, so if you want to avoid them, get out now!

 

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Now that that is out of the way...

 

Two things really surprised me out of the adaptation. The first was the origin. It was clear from the recent previews that Hulk's origin had been changed. And it has...

 

A 3-paragraph synopsis:

 

In the film continuity, his dad had done some experimentation when he and Betty were both youngsters and there had been a terrible accident. Betty remembers just a little of it, Bruce remembers almost none. In fact, Bruce spends the first third of the movie thinking his last name is Krenzler and having no memory of his scientist father. He and Betty are scientists working together on gamma radiation experiments, and both of them are haunted by what they think are dreams (actually memories of the fateful disaster when they were young). Bruce's father has been following his son's progress in secret, and when he realizes things have progressed far enough he tries to take advantage.

 

After an accident that activates changes in Bruce, his father visits him to tell him the truth about his past. Betty tries to help Bruce remember what happened so long ago, but Bruce's father sees her as a threat and tries to have her killed. By Hulk-dogs no less... But Hulk saves the day... Betty tries to plead Bruce's case to her father, but the General is fearful of what else Bruce's father may have in store for them. She and Bruce visit their childhood home (now part of a secret military base) to find answers, but Bruce gets captured (for about the fifth time in the movie). Betty confronts Bruce's father who claims to be willing to give up if he can just see his son one last time. Hulk escapes, smashes a whole lot of stuff, smashes even more stuff, and would have taken out all of San Francisco, but Betty stops him in time.

 

Father and son have their meeting. At which time Bruce discovers that his father has been the villain the entire time. The two take off with the military in hot pursuit. They have what appears to be the strangest fight in movie history, and Hulk stops him by, of all things, forgiving him... Bruce escapes just before the missiles land... And the epilogue, a year later, sees Bruce as a health worker for the Red Cross in the jungles of South America.

 

The second suprise for mw was the choice of villain. Seeing the previews it really looked as though this was an Army vs Hulk movie. And it's not... Strangest part of the whole thing for me is the powers they give Bruce's father. In one scene he's an exact copy of Absorbing Man. He places his hand on a steel table and his cells replicate and absorb the properties to become steel themselves... But later in the film, he's more like Parasite (the Superman villain) stealing energy from power cables... Later, Hulk hits him with a boulder, and he becomes like rock and crumbles apart. But he is able to regenerate "at will". In another scene he seems to be able to absorb kinetic energy (like the Flash), and doing so makes him grow larger. It's hard to follow even in the primary colors of a comic book. I'll be impressed if they find a way to keep it from being cheesy. But the best suggestion that they can is that we have not seen ANY images from that fight in the previews...

 

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From a collector standpoint, I wonder how many people will take a bath on Hulk 141... since Doc Samson is clearly NOT a major player in the film... He may have a bit part. But nothing that would sell back issues...

[Ares]

Hulk Dogs

[lighthouse]

I thought I remembered that story from the current title, but couldn't place the issue...

 

These "Hulk-dogs" are a little different. Papa Banner generates them almost instantaneously from regular dogs... Still pretty twisted though...

[Kevin76]

All I can say about the Hulk movie is that it's gonna rock! The Hulk looks big and green like he should,you have a great director attached,everything looks cool.I can't wait to see it and buy the DVD (widescreen please) People are saying he looks too big,he looks stupid, How can people say he's too big? There is nothing in real life to base the hulk on! Would you prefer a bodybuilder in green paint? Im sorry,but the TV Hulk was kinda lame,same pose (most muscular pose,for the bodybuilding impaired) TV hulk always just threw guys around and broke furniture and then take off.Every episode was the same.So the movie Hulk totally rocks,I'll be there at the movies in the morning to be first in line! I think the green in day light is what is getting alot of people saying negative stuff about it.Hulk looks great to me! Looks very faithful to the comics,which is what everyone hopes for when a comic goes to film right? KS

[clobberintime]

As much as I want the Hulk movie to be great, the sound of this story worries me a bit. I am sure the effects will be great and Hulk will look more pumped up than ever, but this story just doesn't sound good! The premise that his father is like the absorbing man and has mutated from nuclear experimentation and that he creaTED the Hulk by experimenting on his son I think takes away from the heroic creation story. Although Hulk was hated and feared by people in the comics, his creation was indeed heroic and accidental. Somewhat borrowed from the 50s sci-fi flick Amazing Colossal Man, but nonetheless, a heroic origin - saving someone else from a gamma bomb. I know the fact that his father experimented on him is a device to create sympathy but to me not the same as a true heroic act of sacrifice that ends up haunting Banner for the rest of his life. I think that origin (0ne of the best in comics I have always thought) is a crucial part of the Hulk story. And out of the 40 years of Hulk, Banner's father has been involved in a handful of stories - I just remember P.David using it to explain Banner's personality disorder. But apparently the father/son relationship is the major focus of the movie? I really hope it is better than it sounds to me - I will be there opening day hoping!

[lighthouse]

I really cannot possibly convey how strange the final fight is...

 

It would take AMAZING special effects to pull off what is depicted in the comic adaptation.

 

And the only reason why I think they HAVE pulled it off is that there isn't a single image from that fight in any of the trailers so far... They show Hulk's rampage when he escapes and takes off for San Francisco... But none of the trailers have shown anything of the real villain...

 

The studio must be pretty confident in the quality of those scenes to keep that footage out of the previews. Usually if a movie is mediocre they will show every good scene from the movie to get you excited to go see it. And I thought after seeing the last round of trailers that they had done just that...

 

But it's NOTHING like Papa Banner... In one scene he's big enough to hold Hulk in his fist, sixty feet in the air... not Bruce... Hulk!... If they have succeeded in making that NOT look cheesy... oh man, this movie is gonna be cool...

[supapimp]

im going to pull a CI, i think the movie is going to be real bad, but i hope im totally wrong.

[joe_collector]

im going to pull a CI, i think the movie is going to be real bad, but i hope im totally wrong.

 

I think there's one thing that comic movies have shown, as long as you stay faithful to the core ideals of the character, then you'll be alright. They changed Spidey's origin a bit, but it was still mostly there. The X-Men stories and characters may have been adjusted, but Wolvie is still Wolvie and the characters are unchanged as to their base elements.

 

After all, the popularity of the character origin, concept and stories are the REASON a movie is being made in the first place... Smart writers and directors know this and respect the source material, while making small tweaks to adapt it to the big screen.

 

What I see with The Hulk is a major shift away from the "man heroically acts to save another and is turned into a nuclear Frankenstein" concept that drives the comic book version. To change things so dramatically and create your own "Jolly Green Giant and Absorbing Dad", is to beg the question of why buy the Marvel character license in the first place?

 

Due to this, I have the feeling the movie is a "cash-in" project, and I do not have high hopes for this "Green Giant" movie that has few ties to the comic book that spawned it.

[Kevin76]

guess we all have to wait a few more weeks to finally know if it was any good,can't go by the previews,people thought spider-man was going to suck and it made $400 million! movie can't suck if it made that much.But the hulk movie does look like its going to be good. kevin

[joe_collector]

guess we all have to wait a few more weeks to finally know if it was any good,can't go by the previews,people thought spider-man was going to suck and it made $400 million!

 

But there's a big difference between tweaking the origin from a "radioactive to mutated spider" and incoporating organic web-shooters, compared to basically tossing everything out of The Hulk comic except for the green skin.

 

I'll say this once again, if a movie writer/director throws away the basic concept of a popular fictional character, and keeps only the visual representation, then it's taking a huge risk.

[drbanner]

In the movie, Banner is turned into the Hulk by a gamma blast while pushing the technician out of the gamma-room (or whatever it is) just before the door locks down, trapping himself inside. So the analogy to saving Rick Jones is there.

 

What's different is that in the movie, Banner's father set the stage for him turning into the Hulk through a physical means, not simply the mental abuse as in the comic. (Actually, I hated that they retro'ed Hulk's origin in the comics to attribute his split personality to an alcoholic father). So the Hulk's origin is still pretty true to the comic retro-origin, but the whole character of this father is new/different. And I don't think that's gonna be a problem!

[clobberintime]

You know I really hate that too! All the original Marvel characters have very well established origins - laid out by Stan the man in the first issues. I hate it when 20 years later some new super hot creative team thinks it is a good idea to back and monkey with the origin, change continuity, redo the numbering system, add alternate universes or whatever! The thing I always loved about Marvel was that it was a fairly small universe that wove together pretty nice and tight. All that went out the window in the 1980s though. The gamma bomb with Hulk/Banner has always had another element to it also I think - have never been sure it was intended by Stan but it probably was to a degree or at least borrowed from Godzilla. The creation of Hulk by a nuclear bomb makes a statement about atomic weapons and their use - it is power beyond man's comprehension and unleashes forces over which they have no control. I always thought that's why Hulk was so powerful, wild and uncontrollable - the unleashed fury of a gamma bomb! A bit of irony for man - he creates a real monster that he can not control. Hope that foundation is not lost in the new movie.