The goodies have just been dropping out of veteran effects artist Steve Johnson’s treasure chest lately. This is the same guy who released his photos and test videos of the “electro arc” costume from the aborted Cage/ Burton Superman movie. His latest expose? Footage of a practical animatronic Hulk from what must be an early stage in the pre-production of Ang Lee’s movie. I get the sense they still would’ve gone for some digital effects even if they used this. I'm picturing the old Jurassic Park dance of practical models for close-ups and digital models for wide and medium shots.
I suppose this as good an opportunity as ever to discuss Ang Lee’s Hulk. While I don’t know if I’d defend it like Rorie did, I do think it got written off too easily. Incredible Hulk was a lot more entertaining, sure. The first hour without the Hulk is tedious and the psycho-drama gets murky, sure. But I appreciate it for the Greek tragedy parallels at the end and how it's a drama different from 90% of super flicks. However, I had little patience for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, myself, and I did find it funny that fans who were so excited about an Academy Award winning director handling the Hulk ended up voicing the very same objections I had to the lauded Wuxia flick. I suppose context really is everything.
Anyway, you can check these videos down below (collected from io9...)And here's Johnson's intro for all his videos, which provides more glimpses of the Jade Giant...
Contrast with Tim Story's Fantastic Four film, which betrayed the characters immediately in their casting (Jessica Alba? Really?) and in their actions (Johnny Storm is irresponsible and childish, but he's not an asshole). Doctor Doom is taken from being an imposing figure who is actually worthy of the respect he demands of people, but driven by his ruthless ambition to commit immoral acts, to being a stand-in for Willem Dafoe's Harry Osborn from the Spider-Man films. They actually retread his Business-Founder-Gets-Ousted-By-The-Taunting-Board-Members scene!
Business partners: We're kicking you out of the corporation.
Doom: You can't, I built it!
Business partners: I think we can. I think we're doing it right now. Now I'll just say shit to make you angry.
Doom gets angry, kills everyone
Instead it throws out what makes the characters in the comics interesting for what people are used to from movies. And can they be blamed? It made 100m more worldwide than Hulk and when people bring up "Worst Superhero Movies", guess which one gets trotted out?
I think to some degree, yes, it would have been better, and let's take away all the CGI crappy bits and substitute them with hard realistic FX. OK, I hear what you are saying and I had that same thought as well. However, there are some things that stand out in Ang Lee's version of the Hulk which had nothing to do with CGI.
That is the relationship between Banner's father as portrayed by Nick Nolte. It was over wrought with unbelievable over the top angst, unbelievable characterization and portrayal, and just plain stupidity. Add to that, the one scene where Nick Nolte grabs the power cable and bites into it.
Out of the Hulk movie, I did like the jumping scenes and the battle between Hulk and the tanks, and even the underground San Fran street part. But that was it. Jennifer Connelly helped but barely.
Hulk movie talk aside, the caption for this article is hilarious. Pretty interesting to see the FX stuff.
By comparison, I thought that The Incredible Hulk was completely uninteresting, despite having much more action. I was not sad to see that Edward Norton won't be in The Avengers. I would've liked for them to get Eric Bana back, but we'll see how it goes without him; I suspect it won't really matter much.