Hulk

[thegroggman]

Really a different language? Where you going to be at bro? I know last year around the time Spider-Man came out I was living in Germany. And at the theatre for the first week, they didnt have a German language version, they only had the English language version with Subtitles.

[crazy_billy_bats]

goin to Spain to live my man !!
July 8th i go, so ill miss it in the cinemas !!!
There is a cinema i know of there plays English films, but its a bastard for releases (im goin to Barcelona).
Ill just want to get myself hooked back up to ADSL (well this is only really ISDN im on - 128kbps) and get a nice rip of it, or any major releases.
i mean i like spanish (my gf's spanish, btw ), but i prefer to see the good old blockbusters in my mother tongue , u know?
im bringing my DVD player (which plays SVCD's), so they will have to suffice, mostly centropys versions i suppose, the best out there for new versions, right?
Thats how ill be watching my T3 and Hulk, dude!! Shit i know but what can i do?!!! Wait 4 months or something !! no !!! im goin out there to live permanent!!

[thegroggman]

Sweet man. Spain! I had the chance to go to Ibiza last year, but I opted for a cruise to Greece instead (not a bad compromise if i say so myself). Have fun there man...and you have a Spanish gf huh? Nice...watch that Latin temper though Ok...back on topic...ugh...HULK is Danish for *bump*

[thegroggman]

HOLY Mother of pearl...well...heres a copy of the HULK article that appeared in the latest article of Cinefantastique. The thing is so big that Ive decided to break it up into more manageble pieces (plus they can be used as bumps ) ...anywho heres the first part, and I suggest if you have any doubts about HULK...read this article. Oh and if you want the whole thing just head on over to here,. Enjoy:

WHETHER CHOREOGRAPHING STAR WARS SPACE BATTLES IN WAYS NEVER SEEN ON SCREEN BEFORE, adding subtle nuance to the performance of a friendly spirit in Casper or bringing dinosaurs to life in the Jurassic Park trilogy, Industrial Light + Magic visual effects veteran Dennis Muren has built his reputation on making the impossible plausible, designing and creating effects that mesh seamlessly with the real world. But when presented with the opportunity to work on Universal Pictures' big-screen adaptation of The Hulk, Muren soon found that reality was not exactly what director Ang Lee was looking for.

"We wanted a character in the Hulk that could emote and be more of an actor than an effects character," Muren says. "But Ang [also] wanted him to move in ways that a real actor couldn't. We struggled with, 'How does Hulk look when he's going faster, jumping higher and changing direction faster than he should?' It's not like we're dealing with a dinosaur--people believe that if something weighs 4,000 pounds, that it should move in a certain way. There's a perception based on elephants and other large animals that you're familiar with. Instead, I looked at [Lee's] film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and thought, 'How does that film work? What do I like about that film?' One part of it that people remember is the way the characters jump front rooftop to rooftop. Well, Ang made a choice somewhere along the line that he didn't care if the jumping effect wasn't technically perfect. He realized that most people will suspend their disbelief. And that's the direction he's going in on The Hulk."

So forget reality: This is the universe of Ang Lee, in which the laws of physics are there only to be ignored. As Marvel Studios head and Hulk executive producer Avi Arad notes, "People forget that in Crouching Tiger, Ang took action to such a level that you didn't care that a 190-lb. man can't stand on a twig at the top of a tree. It was just fantastic to watch."

Lee sums up the more fanciful aspects of Crouching Tiger and The Hulk as being the reality "of our heart." He points to the virtual flying sequences in the former, offering: "Of course it's bogus, but when your heart feels like defying gravity, then flight is OK. It's more truthful to reality than what we perceive as reality. Over time, I've gotten more and more into that idea. I've made five or six realistic movies, but my heart is telling me to do something different, to deal with the reality of the dream."





Spawned by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby during the creative wave that introduced such early 1960s Marvel Comics characters as Spider Man, the Fantastic four and the X-Men, "The Hulk" chronicled yet another dazzling example of science gone wrong: Dr. Bruce Banner (played by Aussie actor Eric Bana in the film) is bathed in gamma radiation during an experiment, resulting in his sporadic-yet-uncontrollable transformation into a green skinned, incredibly powerful, rage-filled giant.

This superhero take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde struck a chord with readers and made The Hulk one of Marvel's most popular characters. In fact, prior to the release of such films as Blade and X-Men, the 1978-82 TV series The Incredible Hulk (starring Bill Bixby as Banner and green-tinted bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno as his uptight alter ego) was Marvel's only celluloid claim to fame, surrounded by disasters like Nicholas Hammond's short-lived Spider-Man series, Reb Brown's Captain America telefilms and Dolph Lungren's painful big-screen take on The Punisher. Check out the trailer for The Hulk and you'll recognize the most popular tagline from the TV series: "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

But the Hulk's big-screen debut had been in development at Universal for nearly a decade, and for one reason or another, he couldn't seem to escape this creative purgatory. The closest the project came to fruition was several years ago, when writer- director Jonathan Hensleigh (who will soon take on Artisan Entertainment's adaptation of the Punisher) was poised to go into production. But a combination of factors - budget, concern over how exactly the Hulk would be brought to life and, most importantly, a studio regime change - scuttled the project. In the end, it may have worked out for the best in that the technology has reached a point where a fully computer-generated Hulk was more than just a possibility.

During this time, Lee was working on the highly acclaimed and lucrative Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, following years of earning a loyal audience base and critical kudos with such diverse dramas as Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm, and Ride With the Devil. Upon completing Crouching Tiger, Lee's longtime creative partner James Schamus brought The Hulk to the Taiwanese filmmaker's attention.

"I knew that Universal had had various versions of The Hulk gestating for a while, but the studio didn't appear to have anything active at the time," Schamus says. "I also knew that with Crouching Tiger, the industry was going to start paying attention to Ang as a director who was not only capable of making an `Ang Lee picture' but big entertainment as well."

Lee explains that while making Crouching Tiger, he discovered that he had an interest in mixing pulp fiction with straight drama. "That combination totally fascinates me, and I was kind of earning my way to being allowed to do what I wanted to, so I indulged myself. I think I'm a savvy filmmaker, and after Crouching Tiger, the chance was there: I was respected enough to do what I wanted to do with a bigger canvas - a bigger budget - and then I heard from James Schamus that such a project was available at Universal. The Hulk just hit me, and it clicked right away.

"I called it my new 'green destiny,"' Lee adds, comparing the Hulk character to the mystical jade sword that drives the drama in Crouching Tiger. "It's a perfect psycho-drama, and it's really promising with what you can experiment with in cinema in terms of how you bring the excitement of the fantasy world and the emotional projection of the comic world to a realistic image. The most difficult part of making this movie was finding the balance because if it's total comic book - as many summer blockbusters are - then you're asking too much if you want the audience to invest their real emotions. I'm trying to juggle both."

[thegroggman]

Ok heres part 2 of that really long ass article. This part goes more into the story for the film:

HULK WRITE

As Schamus explains it, the most grueling aspect of the project was finding a point of entry into the Hulk universe that would allow Lee to fully exploit the character's emotional and dramatic possibilities. "One of those points of entry was a specific plot element which we don't want to give away yet," Schamus says. "We spent a lot of time going through the various iterations of the Hulk story printed over the last 40 years and finding - especially in the early stages of the Hulk's life - some long-forgotten aspects of the story and his psyche, things about Bruce Banner's childhood, his relationship with his father and the question of where his rage comes from. It's a confluence of science, military and personal desire. All of those things started to take shape and generated a lot of excitement for Ang and myself."

The Incredible Hulk TV series, Schamus adds, was part of the "environment" as well, at least in terms of familiarity. "There are aspects of it that I admire, though we're not basing the film on anything from the show," he says. "It had a sense of existential melancholy that was effective, and it was something that was inspirational. I think to remain true to the comic book, you have to acknowledge that motion pictures are simply a different medium.

"We've attempted in a number of ways to maintain a spirit closer to the comic book by, in fact, removing ourselves from the usual 'long underwear' approach to the superhero in films. One is simply stylistic - that is to say that they're fine, and I think people will be surprised by the intensity of the way the relationship between graphic depiction and narrative in comic books is transformed into this film. We took very seriously the heart of the graphic novel, and at the same time, we knew we had to create a film that was simply not going to repeat key or beloved moments from 40 years of Hulk history but rather transform the world of the comic book into a fully realized motion picture."

Lee desires to use film - even one based on a comic book character - to offer commentary on the human condition. "That's important to me," he says. "Not just trees and rocks, but human nature and how everything fits in, and in this particular project, how science fits in. After all, entertainment art is an expression of how we feel, how we perceive this world, how we deal with it and each other. A movie is just a medium for that. I believe - or I made up my mind to believe - that the truth is hidden in the dark void, which is the Hulk. It's a truth for us. What we see is just a reflection; it's a cover of that. In reality, it's quite the opposite. That's how I take on the Hulk: I try to reach out to that ultimate fear, rage and freedom that you don't even know is hidden in your subconscious.

"That's my biggest hope, that when seeing this movie people will deal with their own inner Hulk. I won't call it demons because it's not all that bad. Instead, it's how you deal with hypertension, mystery, your own history - whether you like it or not - your own memory, your true self. The rage is the catalyst that brings out the other side of us. To me, that's more truthful - I hope the audience will get a taste of that in their own way. Not that I present a manual or an answer to tell anyone what it's like, but I hope the movie is provocation for them to deal with their own inner self."

Lee pauses for a moment, then lets out a laugh. "Such wishful thinking!" he says. "I hope that it comes true. I see the movie more as a provocation than a statement."

Schamus points out that it was his and Lee's ambition to embrace the difference between The Hulk and other superhero movies, particularly considering the notion that the Hulk is not a hero in the traditional sense.

"He's not a superhero in the way that other guys who suit up are," he says. "No matter how conflicted Silver Surfer, Daredevil or whoever may be, they're still capable of controlled, precise, intentional action. I don't think the Hulk necessarily has that. When you Hulk out, you don't say, 'How can I save all the people on a bus about to fall off a bridge?' Well, you can - if your instinct tells you that that's the sort of thing to do at the moment, but it's not part of the overall experience of Hulking out.

"Like a child who might think something was the right thing to do at a particular moment, there's an innocence to the Hulk. He's not bad; he's just not a guy who sits around and thinks about what good he can do. I think part of the discovery of the film is going to be the emotional and character development of the Hulk. He's not a static being or a single entity. Just like you develop, change, dream, think, respond, have emotions - the Hulk has all that, too."

Hulk producer Gale Anne Hurd, whose genre credits include The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon and Clockstoppers, and who has been attached to this project for the past decade -- agrees with the notion that the Hulk is not a character "cursed" with superpowers who then decides to use those powers to fight evil.

"It's more complicated than that," she says. "It's a Jekyll-and-Hyde character conflict; it's as much man vs. himself as it is man vs. man ... or man vs. tank. That's what hooked Ang; that's why he was interested in making this film. There is a Jungian or Freudian complexity to the story. You can look at the Hulk as a Super id - The Hulk is not a typical comic book movie. We have the big canvas and fabulous action, but we also have compelling character issues to deal with. The Hulk has huge romp sequences, but with compelling characters - it's a hybrid. But the Hulk is not malevolent - he's a misunderstood character with an innocence about him."

Avi Arad, head of Marvel Studios and exec producer of each movie based on the company's characters, sees the Hulk as a creature that is extremely "absorbent." "It's like he's looking at the world for the first time," he says. "You have to look at the Hulk almost as a baby. Everything he's looking at is new and confusing to him."

"Anybody who's spent time around a 2-year-old has a pretty good idea of what the Hulk is like," Schamus adds.

Ok, Im out for a few hours, but when I get back on Ill post the next part...maybe even some new pics Later.

[hypoluxa3k]

they shoulda just got lou ferringo to play hulk, and enlarge him a wee bit (not too much) using FX

[crazy_billy_bats]

I have to admit groggster that my initial scepticism is waning day by day about this film.
looooong article, but interesting.
I think the effects are going to be a lot better than i thought.
I also think the fight (will they be fights?) sequences will be excellently executed.
Still a bit iffy on the old transformation stage....only get to see a bit on the clip, for obvious spoiler reasons im sure but i wouldnt mind seeing it now to see what itll look like...

[crazy_billy_bats]

That guy Lou from the TV series looks like a freak anyway, without any make-up or transformations.
They needed a nice young handsome actor to fuck the girl in the film !

[thegroggman]

Hey guys remember the article I said I would post in parts? Well looks like they took it down...hopefully you guys got to read it though, cuz it gave alot of info on the working of the HULK film. I mean the script, how the HULK was designed, even what direction Ang Lee was taking this film. A real good read if you ask me. Anywho...even though thats gone, there is still plenty of new stuff. But first to the Lou Ferrigno Argument. True you do lost some of the humanity of the HULK when you make him completely cgi...but you have to remember the film is based on the comics...not the tv show. The reason they used a human to portray the HULK in the show is because it was the 70s and they didnt have the advances we have today. The HULK in the comics looks nothing like the HULK in the show anyways. And apparently the finished look of the HULK isnt the one weve been seeing in the trailers...so well have to wait and see. Ok on with buisness. First up is a funny comparison of HULK to humanity that the Beacon Journal printed:

Examples:

• Body weight -- Hulk, 1,040 pounds; American Jon Brower Minnoch, 1,400 pounds.

• Weightlifted overhead -- Hulk, 90 tons; Iranian Hossein Rezazadeh, 580 pounds.

• Vertical leap -- Hulk, 3,200 feet; Cuban Javier Sotomayor, 8 feet, one-half inch.

• Horizontal leap -- Hulk, 1.6 miles; American Mike Powell, 29 feet, 4.5 inches.

• Holding breath -- Hulk, 1 hour, 45 minutes; Brazilian Karoline Meyer Dal Toe, 6 minutes, 2 seconds.

• IQ -- Hulk, 65; American Marilyn Vos Savant, 228.

Next an article from the Sunday Morning Herald on how they transformed Bana into...the HULK!

In a darkened office on the outskirts of San Francisco a photo of a shirtless Eric Bana stares out from a large computer screen.

On an adjacent computer screen a photo of The Hulk, a huge green half-man-half-beast, snarls.

Bana and The Hulk are in an identical pose but, apart from that, appear nothing alike.

Look closer at both images and there is a similarity.

Their eyes.

How former Melbourne stand-up comedian Bana was transformed into a green, 4.5 metre tall tank-throwing superhuman for Universal Studio's new film, The Hulk, is an interesting story.

The journey began two years ago in the building where the two computer screens sit - the headquarters of the world's leading special effects complex, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), located about a 45 minute drive north of San Francisco.

The facility was founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas in 1975 and has been responsible for the special effects work on more than 160 feature films, including the Star Wars trilogy, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Perfect Storm, The Mummy, Twister and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Of the top 10 worldwide box office grossing films of all time ILM has worked on seven.

Universal and ILM hope The Hulk, directed by Taiwanese-born Ang Lee and scheduled to open in cinemas around the world in June, joins the top 10.

Bana's transformation from human to Hulk began in 2001 with a script, a director with a thirst for painstaking detail, a team of 300 effects wizards from ILM and Bana's eyes.

The process was not an easy one.

The Hulk character was to be fully computer generated and inserted in each scene, interacting with co-stars Jennifer Connelly, Nick Nolte and Josh Lucas.

For Lee, however, the special effects were not the most crucial part of the movie.

Lee told ILM for the film to work the audience would have to believe in and have feelings for a computer generated green giant.

The Hulk's facial expressions would be the key.

"The Hulk puts almost everything ILM has done previously into one film and takes it beyond because essentially what we are dealing with is a digital human who happens to be 15 feet tall, happens to be green," Dennis Muren, ILM's senior visual effects supervisor and a winner of eight effects Academy Awards, told AAP during a recent tour of the ILM facility.

The obvious starting point to creating The Hulk was Bana.

Bana plays the role of research scientist Dr Bruce Banner who turns into the raging Hulk character when he gets mad.

"We knew right off the bat that Ang had cast Eric Bana as the lead," ILM art director Jules Mann said.

"The main thing Ang told us was he liked Eric because of his eyes, he thought he had real deep, great eyes to do the character.

"So with the caveat 'Don't change his eyes' we just started from scratch.

"Knowing what we knew about The Hulk we asked ourselves what would Eric Bana look like as a pumped up green guy."

One of the first steps was to examine in great detail Bana's body, how he walked and his facial expressions.

The initial plan was to simply incorporate Bana's face in The Hulk's.

ILM arranged a facial motion capture session for Bana which included placing 500 dots on the Australian actor's face and filming his facial expressions.

"We also used motion capture to examine how Eric walked, moved," animation director Colin Brady said.

"The motion capture data goes straight into the animation software and then after that we have the ability to augment that data to make the motion of The Hulk faster, slower, more exaggerated."

The process also included taking hundreds of photos of Bana.

"We started breaking down parts of his body," Mann said.

"We took photos of him from every angle, detailed close-ups, in action, of Eric making various faces."

The information was used to create a computer generated Hulk with Bana's facial features. But the result was not greeted by Lee.

"Ang saw this and his first reaction was 'Wow, we don't want a monkey'" Mann said.

The ILM crew went back to the drawing board, examining body builders, professional wrestlers, ultimate fighters and numerous other animals and objects that could help develop The Hulk.

The final Hulk is a combination of numerous humans, including Bana, Connelly and Lee.

ILM was so impressed with one emotional scene delivered by Connelly, who won a best supporting actress Oscar last year for A Beautiful Mind, they replicated her facial movements on The Hulk's face. Lee was also so specific in how he wanted The Hulk to look in certain scenes ILM videotaped the director's facial expressions and used it on the Hulk model.

"So when you look at this thing it has all of the cues of a real person," Mann said.

"Every muscle a human has our model has and they all react the same as a human muscle does."

ILM was under pressure to create a Hulk that supersedes the visual effects breakthroughs made by the Gollum character in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

"With Gollum coming out I think everyone is going to be really nitpicking and analysing The Hulk to death," Mann said.

"One thing we came up with was let's make The Hulk interact with his environment.

"Gollum, he was climbing across the mountains and a river but he doesn't get wet, he doesn't get dirty and doesn't interact that much.

"But with The Hulk, once we had a basic model, we put him in every environment he's going to be in. For instance, he has a fight in the forest and he was rolling around in the dirt and the mud ... when he's out in the desert he picks up sand and dust and all of these things that would help sell him as a real person, not a computer generated character."

Another area that challenged ILM was The Hulk's change in body size and superhuman abilities. The Marvel comic character can jump 5km and run 160kph.

"The angrier he gets the bigger he can grow," Brady said.

"So when he is fighting he could be 12 foot tall and if he gets angrier he can grow bigger. I think the biggest he grows is 15 feet tall but I think the film almost implies he could grow even bigger if he was pissed off more."

As for 2003's other two blockbusters - X2: X-Men United and The Matrix Reloaded - ILM believes the different layers and relationships developed in the film by Lee sets The Hulk apart.

Muren said Lee - critically-acclaimed for the emotion he brought to The Wedding Banquet (1993), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) - had combined special effects with a storyline that's "very profound, very spiritual".

"This is a completely different kind of film (to X2 and Reloaded). There's no connection at all," Muren said.

"X-Men is a summer film with lots of characters, lots of action. The Matrix is its own cyber world where the rules of nature are somewhere else.

"This is Ang Lee."

Ok thats all thats on the newsfloor right now...but Ill post again when there is more info. Later B)

[crazy_billy_bats]

shit man there's a lot more into this than i thought.....
although im still only get to see a shitty SVCD of it !!
anyway, come on grogger, arnt u a little sceptical about his size from the trailer?
He's a freak!!!

Ok i know he's supposed to be freak, but a little ridiculous....but for now its my only main grumble...
im sure the scenes where he battle the army dudes etc will be cool as fuck