Review Detail

Hulk 08 is a movie I’ve seen too many times, both original & fanedited. The original is a very dry one while both QuickCut & Tomahawk’s extended editions, while fleshing story, character, & narrative out & functioning as slow-burn movies, might be too long for people & I doubt even I could sit through again. While I’m impressed that Lapis was able to cut out so much & add so much back in, I feel like more could’ve been done.

-While I used to enjoy reinserting the deleted opening, I don’t think it pairs well with the opening credits, since the information provided in the latter is either going to be repeated or can be disseminated more naturally throughout the film. As much as I miss when comic book movies used to have opening credits, I don’t think they’re necessary.

-Everything with the white flower is a time sink. It kills the pacing (since Bruce cutting his thumb open dovetails nicely into the U.S. government learning of his location), & the only relevant information is that Bruce has someone in the states helping him with his gamma sickness, which you can accomplish by having Bruce send his mail package in the earlier montage before we see Bruce at the soda factory.

–Bruce pining for the lady at the soda factory (and kissing her on the cheek) should be cut out. In the brilliant dinner scene between Bruce, Betty & Leonard, Bruce mentions that is’ the first time in awhile since he’s felt light about anything, which is at odds for a man willing trying to avoid stressful situations with rude coworkers (or kissing a woman on the cheek when we don’t know how well they know each other & never will).

-Is it at all possible to splice in Ross’s dialogue about how “I WANT! WHAT’S INSIDE HIIIIIIM!!!!” while Bruce is being chased in Brazil. Granted, it’s important character motivation for Ross, but the scene itself drags. Other scenes that would benefit from being spliced together would be (1) Ross telling Blonsky about the super soldier program while Ross digs it out of storage & (2) Ross talking about Promethean fire while Blonsky gets injected with the stuff. Little trims so we get multiple things happening in a short amount of time.

-I don’t think we need the scene of Ross’ supervisor warning him about messing with super soldiers again, since Ross just ignores him anyway. You can keep the bit about Blonsky not being able to tell the Hulk’s color, but the important part of that scenario should be Blonsky wanting answers.

-There are a few deleted scenes I wish made it into this version of the film, like Bruce telling Stanley about how all the research back at his lab is gone. You could call it repeating what we know, but it helps dramatize Bruce’s desperation about everything & wanting to leave, only for Betty to come in at the last second.

-The second deleted scene I missed was Bruce venting to Betty on the campus grounds. Again, it’s just him talking, but it’s him opening up & airing out his frustrations about the experiment & what it cost him, shows more vulnerability to Bruce’s character & sets up Bruce’s speech in the climax about he, Betty, & Ross are responsible for The Hulk/Abomination.

-The third deleted scene I really missed was Betty showing Bruce her scars in bed. I know it ties into the heart rate monitor Lapis’ isn’t a fan of, but again, it shows the scars that the Hulk experiment caused & it has Better opening up about her trauma to Bruce & how Bruce must feel about it, etc.

-Back to things that should’ve been deleted, Betty selling her mom’s necklace doesn’t drive the plot & could be removed. I can believe that they have enough money on them to get them to New York, the army prepping to find them is enough in terms of desperation.

-I also don’t need them getting stuck in traffic, getting out of the car, & hiring a boat to get them into the city. It’s screen time that could be saved by just assuming they drove straight to Samuel Stern.

-One last scene I missed was of Ross telling his men “remember, if he gets agitated, just let him go & we’ll try again later” with Blonsky being angry about not getting round three. It shows that Ross is not an idiot & unwilling to cause another incident like at the campus, as ell as Blonsky growing more & more about wanting to fight the Hulk and less about avenging his team at the beginning of the film.

-I understand Lapis wanting to cut any CGI of Hulk that doesn’t look convincing, but I really did miss the bit where it seems Hulk’s won, but Abomination gets back up, spurring Hulk to give a “aww, here we go again” type of look that was really charming for me. On a similar note. Abomination shouting “you don’t deserve this power, now watch her die,” and stabbing his elbow bone into Hulk’s chest was sorely missed, since aside from the visual continuity error of Hulk’s chest being blue-green, you don’t see that kind of violence in the MCU & that’s what makes the final fight in this movie unique.

And that’s all I have for this edit. It replaces the theatrical edition for sure, but it’s not my go-to version of the movie.