The Reel Rejects - Why The Incredible Hulk Is The Most UNDERRATED MCU Movie!

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Starting point is 00:00:55 Click or tap the banner to find out more. Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. So, no, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Reese's, you did it. You stumped this charming devil. Citizens of the Reject Nation, we are back with more Cois Comic Corner, and that is thanks to you.

Starting point is 00:01:20 So before we get into it, thank you, thank you, thank you. We read your comments. We saw how much you wanted this show to be back, and now it is thanks to you. So thank you very much. And please, if you're excited, it's back, leave a like. You know how that's how YouTube does, and that's how I know you're excited. We're back, so leave a like there. And today, we're going to be talking about something very near and dear to my heart,

Starting point is 00:01:38 and that is the most underappreciated MCU film. Leave a comment below and let me know what yours is. I want this comment section to be like the back of a comic store where it's a bunch of well-intentioned nerds having very well-intentioned discourse. I want to read what you think. I want you guys to argue politely. I love conversations like this. So please let me know what your most underappreciated

Starting point is 00:02:01 MCU film is. This does well. We'll might expand out to all of Marvel. But for now, keeping it to MCU, what is yours? Mine is The Incredible Hulk. Let's dive in.

Starting point is 00:02:15 The most underappreciated MCU film. Mine is the Incredible Hulk. I'm going to talk about it and why it's underappreciated. And then it's me. So at the end, I'm going to talk about why I think this is going to tie so much into the future of the MCU,

Starting point is 00:02:29 but I think it's going to happen sooner than later. I think in the next two to three years, the Incredible Hulk is going to be like Thor the Dark World was an end game where a movie or two or three are about to make it an essential part of the greater MCU tapestry. I think this movie is about to be a very important part of the greater MCU. But first, let's talk about the movie, The Incredible Hulk.

Starting point is 00:02:50 The Incredible Hulk stands out amongst the greater MCU because it does everything we miss about the early MCU correctly. It is a movie that is its own movie that has Easter eggs that aren't homework. It is something that exists as itself and grows world building, expands the universe, but doesn't feel like you missed a reading assignment to get there.

Starting point is 00:03:14 I think the MCU being this great tapestry of comics is amazing. I, selfishly, so excited about that, but I watch each and every one of these and I read every single comic book, so I've got more information than not just the average person, but almost any other comic fan because I'm in all of it,

Starting point is 00:03:31 and that's not fair to the average viewer. What The Incredible Hulk does is it makes you feel like you're in on the joke. It makes you feel like you get every reference. It opens with a montage that summarizes an entire Ang Lee movie, brings you up to date with almost an entire run of a show, and then sets a tone all before diving into an adventure already in progress.

Starting point is 00:03:51 This movie doesn't need an origin. This movie doesn't need Martha Wayne's Pearls to fall. It doesn't need the spider to bite. It does what we want superhero movies to do, which is trust the audience, but it also grows a world. And I think it is one of the better examples of being unique in its tone.

Starting point is 00:04:06 And I think a big reason it's been left behind in its own unique way is that became a problem. I think the Incredible Hulk is its own really good contained movie, especially pertaining to Ed Norton himself that doesn't quite fit into the world that the Marvel universe became. I think the biggest flaw this movie has

Starting point is 00:04:23 is it's its own unique thing. You've got the cameo from Downey Jr. You've got the Easter eggs, which now are very important with Thunderbolt Ross and the leader and things I'm going to talk about near the end of the video. But what it does itself is it gives you a movie that stays tense. It gives you a movie that is an espionage thriller that is a man on the run story that feels like it could have been a Harrison Ford joint in the 70s and 80s, but it's also a love story. And I think the thing it does best for me is it establishes one of the best love stories in the MCU. If you look at the MCU, it is full of incredible action. It's

Starting point is 00:04:55 full of incredible commentary. It's full of a lot of things that we want in our movies. But something I think a lot of blockbusters are lacking in modern American cinema is love. Hate is good for action and spectacle and why we want people to punch. But love is what makes us feel the punch twice because we care about the people getting punched. If you don't care about the characters, there's no point except the spectacle. And if you care about the characters, you get to keep the spectacle, but you get to care. And I honestly think that Betty and Bruce are as important as Bruce and Hulk.

Starting point is 00:05:23 Bruce and Hulk are one incredible duo of characters, but Bruce doesn't work without Betty. And I think a huge reason we don't have as much attachment to Bruce is they needed to do all the Black Widow stuff later to make it feel like there was another love story. We didn't care about that relationship all that much. And a lot of the MCU relationships don't feel as fleshed out as they can in the comics.

Starting point is 00:05:42 That's not always their fault. Sometimes it's the fact that it's a movie versus long form like comics and TV shows are, but sometimes it feels like it's a working relationship. I love Tommy Stark. I love the character of Pepper Puppie. I think they feel like co-workers and I really want to feel like

Starting point is 00:05:57 they love each other. There's moments of love. Sure, I'm not disparaging the whole relationship. But I felt like the biggest moment of love between them was an end game when Tony was dying. I love the friction and tension between them at Stark Tower, but I got all of that with Bruce and Betty in a lot less scenes. And I would have rather seen the Bruce and Betty story go on

Starting point is 00:06:14 because of this first movie showing what a love story can be. So it's a man fighting with his demons and also fighting with loving someone that happens to be the dark. of his big enemy. And I think that's almost Shakespearean in its story. I love the idea of the relationships being the cornerstone of this movie. And I think that's why it excels where other movies don't quite get the superhero dynamic.

Starting point is 00:06:36 Now, this is a movie with a lot of criticism, and I think a lot of it comes down to the recasting of Ed Norton. I think that Ed Norton getting recast with Mark Ruffalo had more to do with, as I mentioned a little while ago, the MCU becoming what it did. I don't think Ed Norton's Hulk fits in the MCU. I don't think the Incredible Hulk works where the Hulk succeeds. The Incredible Hulk, especially how Ed Norton portrays him, is a loner very consciously. It's a man fighting his demons.

Starting point is 00:07:02 It's a man on the run. That doesn't really work with a team dynamic. And they do play with that well with Mark Ruffalo, especially in the first Avengers film, playing with those levels. But by the time we get to where he is, an end game, he's a team player. And yes, that is an arc I love to see if successful. But I think that the way Ed Norton plays the Hulk wouldn't have been as quippy, wouldn't have been able to land some of the genius Hulk stuff.

Starting point is 00:07:22 we get to later, I think there would have been more of a man on a spiritual journey story that might not be as team dynamic-y, that might not be as what Disney wanted the character to become. What Disney has made the character is a version of the Hulk, and he's so archetypal of a character, it's not inauthentic to some comic storylines, but a lot of people, myself included, do miss the rageful Hulk. We just watched the Hulk versus Wolverine in the animated series, and it was astounding how much watched that video, by the way, it was astounding how much I miss that Hulk and the Jacqueline Hyde element

Starting point is 00:07:54 to the character that we really saw here in the Incredible Hulk and then a bit in Avengers and then through time a scene in Age of Ultron a kind of a tease here and there but they've had to remove that element of the character in order to tell the story they're telling overall and I think a big reason there's criticisms for

Starting point is 00:08:10 this Hulk is it feels easy to deny the outlier if there's one story that has a recast lead and really just the supporting characters carry on and it came out within four months of the universe starting billion dollar Titan Iron Man, this feels like the forgotten child of the MCU. So I don't know if the criticisms are even about the movie as much as they're about what it

Starting point is 00:08:31 became. Because a lot of the criticisms are, it's not an engaging story. Patently disagree have described in many ways. I think the story is very engaging. A lot of people complain about the visual effects. I think it's a style of visual effect that isn't the modern style. The movie's visual palette's actually really interesting because there's a lot of really poppy colors in the day-to-day opening and then it gets more and more subdual.

Starting point is 00:08:50 dude and dark as the rage of the Hulk comes out and I feel like people just looked at it went muddy too dark and it's it's a lot of chosen art it's a lot of very intentional choices but when you're living in an early age of superheroes we're not having those kind of conversations about these movies we're just saying like oh it's a superhero movie now I mean like this we're having these conversations and I think if you go back and rewatch the incredible Hulk you'll see a lot of those things that people had criticisms about are very intentional and I'd argue the story, especially now that we've lived through 15 years of superhero culture, is so much stronger than people gave it credit for, much less the actual characterization of the Hulk. Some of the most

Starting point is 00:09:27 important, memorable, iconic scenes in The Incredible Hulk are, for me, the Ultimates drop from the plane. Now, I know Captain America gets all the credit for that iconic, like, he's not even wearing a parachute great Frank Grillo, you know, line back and forth in Winter Soldier, but Hulk did it first in the MCU, and it's straight out of the Ultimates comics. Now, I talk all all the time about the Ultimates comics. Ultimate Spider-Man came out in 2000. It very much set the tone for the MCU by the time we got to 2008 and this whole started. Ultimates came out in like 2003, 2004, and it is so cinematic. Ultimates is Malar or Mark Miller and Brian Hitch. And Brian Hitch drew this cinematic. It's very widescreen. It's very visually a movie. And I think that

Starting point is 00:10:09 influenced a ton of Avengers. But before we even got to Avengers, it influenced a ton of the Incredible Hulk. The scene in the Incredible Hulk where Bruce Banner not only has, has the arc of I'm accepting the Hulk. I've accepted my demons. I know I'm not just my good side. Everyone is more than just their good side. You have to accept who you are as a person. You have to realize that you have flaws. You have to overcome the idea that you can reach perfection. No one can be perfect. No one can embody only what they try to be. They have to accept. There are things in them. They've got to work on. And I love that we see Bruce's acceptance by way of jumping out of a plane and accepting that Hulk is a part of who he is now.

Starting point is 00:10:50 And I love that that's right out of the comic. So that that imagery is huge for me. I also love any time there's a split, not split screen, but like a down the center Bruce and Betty moment because that just looks like a comic panel. There's like moments in the rain. There's so many moments like on the campus. There's a lot of very strong imagery. And then another moment for me that I've always thought of is as the moment that Hulk has

Starting point is 00:11:10 his delivery of arc when it, when it lands. Because Bruce always gets, you know, a journey, a arc. but for me, Hulk getting a personality in that last fight and Hulk accepting what he is when he's fighting Blomsky and when Abomination is forming. Basically, when Abomination is just Emil Blomsky, but he's Blonsky, but he's accepted that he's willing to do anything to take on this guy.

Starting point is 00:11:35 The fight between Amil Blonsky and Hulk, when you have that giant hulking figure that's like 12 feet tall and this little guy that's just somewhat gamma-juiced up is so beautifully comic books because it does the thing that Batman movies, I think, sometimes succeed at, where it's like, I'm just a guy, I'm fighting these gods. You've got a visual demon in the Hulk fighting just a guy, but he's got the beginning of what he's going to become is the abomination, and he's just a super soldier. And that is so important to where I think we need to be discussing super soldiers. We've got so many super soldiers in the MCU.

Starting point is 00:12:09 Blonsky was doing this way before, and it mutated and turned him. And that's one of the things I want to talk about with Captain America for. Now, before we get to the future, though, I do want to talk about that fight because that fight, I feel like, not only encapsulates what it would be like to see the Hulk fight in a way that we don't see as much. I think Age of Ultron is a really good example of like the Hulk untethered, but I think seeing not quite smart Hulk, but not dumb, brooding, broodish Hulk, it's that sweet spot we want as Hulk fans. It's that perfect, I know how to use my power for violent destruction, but with a. purpose. He's not a whirlwind Tasmanian devil. He's a grenade launcher. And I love in that fight that it's the military complex that in so many movies and arguably even in later MCU films is almost propaganda. It's obviously not in Winter Soldier, but it is often the rah, rah, ra, military is right

Starting point is 00:13:03 and you're wrong. And I think that when we look at superhero stories, there has to be a conversation about right and wrong. Superhero stories are a moral compass. They're showing us ethics and ideas. They're making us think about our own beliefs. They're making us think like, what do I believe in this thing? And if everything's black and white, it doesn't work. And I love that the movie's not anti-military, but it's also not pro-military. And it's going like, hey, if there's a rampaging Hulk, like I said, a grenade launcher, or launching it a thing, what does it mean? How do we protect ourselves? And the answer is not through Thunderbolt Ross. That is nuke everything. It's not through Blonsky who's willing to turn himself into an abomination in order to do it. It's what do we do to have the least

Starting point is 00:13:39 casualties what's the least you know collateral damage but our guy our hero is the collateral damage and that's emotional that's obviously physical that's so many things and i love the idea of identifying with a grenade launcher of destruction like our guy is pointed but he's still causing so much harm and that fight feels like that fight feels like there's a lot of stuff happening that shouldn't be like that town gets murked but it doesn't feel like Superman which i love the man of steel but i do think there are certain flaws in like there's clearly a lot of death and i don't know of superman because of how many powers he has would have done that whereas hulk would not be thinking about every single civilian every single moment superman should Hulk is going to be a Hulk and he's smashing cars and

Starting point is 00:14:22 he's destroying a whole town when destruction needs to be destruction porn it should be with the hulk and i feel like this captured all of that while not losing the narrative and not losing the emotional weight of getting us to that point in the Hulk story before i dive into the future those are my thoughts on why I think The Incredible Hulk is the most underappreciated. Let me know in the comments below. Do you agree? Do you think it's underappreciated? Do you think it's properly appreciated? Do you have another you think is more so?

Starting point is 00:14:45 Again, happy discourse below. But now why this is about to be Phase 5's Thor to Dark World? I think personally that Thor of the Dark World became more important things to endgame because its use of chronology that Natalie Portman deleted scene. It did a lot of heavy lifting to go like, no, no, that Dark Horse

Starting point is 00:15:01 really does matter. I think The Incredible Hulk is about to have the exact same treatment because not only did Deadpool 3 have a very amazing iconic moment of Wolverine meaning Deadpool but in that scene the bottle that we open with with one of my favorite Stan Lee cameos from the Incredible Hulk when he gets poisoned in that soda again great cameo that bottle is in the background it's underneath Deadpool it's like just to the side of and he smashes into it and then Wolverine comes over and they're about to start that brawl my crazy tinfoil hat theory save the tinfoil hat for the end of the episode for all you people to hate

Starting point is 00:15:33 them is that he's fighting a Hulk. I think Wolverine is going to get his comic accurate origin. I think the Incredible Hulk number 181 is about to come to life. I don't think he's going to be fighting Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. I think we're going to get the Incredible Hulk fighting Wolverine, showing that the universe characters, that whole anchor point idea, is going to tie into this Hulk. Now, I know Incredible Hulk is MCU Canon. I don't think they're going to be erasing that. But what I think they're going to do is, just like that Linen She Hulk, acknowledge that he has been another guy. That might be a multiversal scene with another Multiversal Hulk and another multiversal Wolverine, because I do think Logan's going to stay dead.

Starting point is 00:16:07 This Wolverine fighting this Hulk, I think, is going to tie directly into the Incredible Hulk. Not to mention, we're getting Thunderbolt Ross, unfortunately having to be recast due the untimely passing of our original Thunderbolt Ross from Incredible Hulk, played by Harrison Ford in a presidential role. We're about to get a character from this movie as the president of the United States that is going to be so formative for registration and regulation of mutants and superheroes alike going forward might tie into Mayor Fisk and all the spider Man storylines of why we need to regulate superheroes, we'll definitely tie into the X-Men and everything going forward, but I think we'll also start kicking off things with the Thunderbolts themselves. Now, there are rumors that the name Thunderbolt's won't come from Thunderbolt Ross.

Starting point is 00:16:46 It'll be like the soccer team of Yelena Belava. I don't believe it. It might be true. I hope not. But if it isn't true, how great would it be if the Thunderbolt are named after Thunderbolt Ross and there's like the Thunderbolt registration? There's like the Thunderbolt regulation, something that comes through from a presidential decree that makes being a vigilante illegal. And that all started way back in The Incredible Hulk. And finally, Super Soldiers. If you look at the cast of Captain America 4, Captain America 4 is going to be huge. It's a 4th of July release.

Starting point is 00:17:14 It is our first time seeing Anthony Mackey's cap on screen. It is a big old movie. And it is shockful of being the sequel to the Incredible Hulk. We're finally getting the leader. We're getting most likely, I think, Liv Tyler. We're getting a lot of elements from this first movie. so I think it's going to be required viewing for the next three giant MCU films. I think Deadpool 3, Thunderbolt, and Cap 4 are all going to be sequels in their own way

Starting point is 00:17:38 to this very underappreciated MCU film. What do you guys think? Tenfoil hat theory, that I think is the future of how this becomes relevant. Let me know in the comments below if you think I'm crazy, politely. Much love, Reject Nation. We'll see you soon. Thank you so much for bringing Coy's comic cornerback. This is an episode blast.

Starting point is 00:17:53 Argue politely. Thank you.

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The Reel Rejects - Why The Incredible Hulk Is The Most UNDERRATED MCU Movie!

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