Finally rewatched the
Hulk pilot. Coincidentally, it was just after reading the
Fantastic Four issue where the Hulk first meets the FF, so for a moment I was expecting Lara Parker to write "Laura Loves Bruce" on that cast in the opening montage. (It's weird... That early on in the comic, not only did the Hulk speak normally, but Bruce Banner used a machine to voluntarily change into the Hulk and back.)
This is a pretty fantastic piece of dramatic television, unlike anything that had ever been done in superhero TV before. It may have gotten more formulaic after this, but this is a terrific beginning. The opening dream montage is poignant, and I love how writer-producer-director Kenneth Johnson grounds David's strength research in emotion and pain, both his own grief and the stories of deep personal need of the interviewees. It takes the fantastic concept and gives it an emotionally believable foundation. It even adds emotional resonance to the first Hulk-out, because we understand that David's fury at his car is about something deeper than the frustration of a flat tire. I also love the naturalistic acting in the Culver Institute scenes. Johnson really made it clear from the start that this was a departure from its predecessor superhero shows. And a ton of credit has to go to Joe Harnell for his wonderful musical score.
The science, though, isn't so great. The idea of looking at the mitochondria as the source of cellular energy was a nice touch, but that was about it. First off, you couldn't learn much about a person's DNA just by zooming in on one section of it optically; that's kind of like trying to determine the entire contents of a library by glancing at one page. And having it be as simple as an excess of adenine and thymine makes little sense. Also, solar storms don't make sense as the source of the gamma radiation, since gamma from space doesn't penetrate the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere. It gets absorbed and re-emitted as ultraviolet long before it reaches the surface. I'm also wondering about something I never thought to question before: Why would what looks like a medical x-ray device for human use be configured to emit gamma rays to begin with? What possible pre-existing medical use could that have?
I'd also forgotten how much they toned down the Hulk's strength from the comics. He's more at the level of flipping cars and pushing over trees than shot-putting tanks and tearing down buildings. He's not even bulletproof; he just heals really fast. His strength is superhuman, but not completely beyond the realm of plausibility.
The scene with the little girl at the lake is presumably a
Frankenstein homage, but it serves to show the Hulk's instinctive heroism, how he tries to help those in need and only lashes out at those who threaten him or others. Interesting how recognizable Ted Cassidy's voiceover grunts are in this scene.
The Ligeti-esque chorus used over the transformation scenes is an inspired and eerie touch. Although eventually it would evolve into the more familiar mix of vocal droning and instrumentals. Also a nice idea to use the white contact lenses as a visual throughline to clarify that it's the same person before and after the change. As for the reverse change, the rippling-reflection approach in part 1 works so much better than the cheesy "glowing green face" montage in part 2. Why did the green light stop at his neck??? The times they did it that way were always my least favorite.
I'd forgotten how claustrophobic part 2 is. It's almost entirely David, Elaina, and McGee at the annex lab. There isn't really a danger beyond the question of a cure and David's anxiety about hurting someone, and there isn't really a bad guy. McGee is an antagonist and he inadvertently causes the explosion, but he's not out to hurt anybody, just trying to get the truth about a creature that he sincerely believes to be dangerous to the public. He's basically Carl Kolchak without the snazzy hat. (And with a bit more smarm, though that gets dialed down over time.) I suppose the insular focus is to save money for the elaborate destruction and action sequences, but keeping it mostly a lab-based two-hander between the mutated hero and his colleague/love interest reminds me of one of the best monster movies, the original
The Fly.
Ferrigno does a good job conveying emotion in Elaina's death scene. He was good at giving the Hulk an empathetic quality and selling his emotions overall, not just his rage.
I wish they'd included Ben a bit more in the middle of the pilot, so that it would've been easier to remember who he was when he showed up at the funeral. As it stands, it's a bit obvious that he's just there to give McGee someone to talk to.
Interesting that Stan Lee only gets a consultant credit, and there's no Lee/Kirby creator credit yet, just "'The Incredible Hulk' is a character of the Marvel Comics Group."
Watching these on Netflix, it's gonna be tough to pace myself to one episode per week. But it's probably better that way, given the formulaic pattern it's going to settle into. (Are any of us actually watching the show on MeTV at all? This seems to be turning into more of the TV equivalent of a weekly book club. Not that I mind.)
There are some very effective beats in this half. The whole lab sequence is effective, from the methodology of their experimentation to the building tension of the nightmare sequence and the transformation in the lab...which serves as an effective showcase for what the creature is capable of. As a kid watching the pilot for the first time, not being particularly familiar with the comics character, I was on the edge of my seat because I didn't know that the creature wouldn't harm Elaina.
That part is pretty true to the comics, and will continue throughout the show. Hulk like nice lady.
Not so sure about the methodology. Trying to replicate every variable of the rainy night at once was a bad idea; they'd have to test each one individually or they'd have no way of knowing which particular stimulus or combination thereof was the key trigger. And why did it take them so long to hit on emotion as the trigger when they'd already recognized that as a key element in the test subjects' accounts?
Note how they set up a plot point of the second pilot with the X-ray therapy.
I don't remember the connection, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. Anyway, I thought they tried the "x-ray reversal" with no success.
And I have no clue how a second radiation exposure was supposed to help. X-rays are just the next lowest range of ionizing radiation below gamma, a weaker version of the same thing. It would probably just make things worse.
Come to think of it, I'm a bit annoyed that they never addressed the anomaly that David was exposed to 2 million "units" of gamma radiation and isn't dying a quick, nasty death. The Hulk's regenerative abilities could "explain" that as well as anything, but they didn't even acknowledge the fact that such an intense radiation dose would be expected to be fatal.
How did McGee get into the lab anyway? Breaking and entering isn't a superhuman power, but the show does gloss over that point between scenes.
I imagine any tabloid reporter worth his salt knows how to pick a lock. What we saw, anyway, was that he climbed onto the roof and came in on the upper level, so maybe someone left an upstairs window unlocked.
Ah, the origin of the classic opening credits line...kind of makes you tingly hearing it spoken for the first time.
I almost wish they hadn't put it in the credits every week, because it's a funny line and it'd probably be even more hilarious if you didn't know it was coming.
And speaking of the opening credits, when David looks up from the gravesite, I can't help but think that they were deliberately posing him for the title card shot.
I don't think so, because
that title shot is split straight down the middle of the screen between Bixby and Ferrigno, while the shot here is from further back and has David to left of center. They would've had to do an optical zoom on this shot in order to center Bixby that way, which is why it looks a bit grainier in the series titles. (And it looks like the image of the Hulk roaring is from the pressure-tank breakout sequence, judging from the background. I never realized that.)
It's interesting to note that even Banner would have had no clue as to what started the explosion, so he must have felt that he was ultimately responsible for Elaina's death.
Well, he was involved in it, sort of, because McGee wouldn't have knocked that bottle over if David hadn't surprised him. And they wouldn't have been in the annex lab at all if not for David's condition.
It's great that this show actually bears such thoughtful analysis. Quite a contrast to WW, which I couldn't even sit through more than a few episodes of when it was on Me.
Well, some episodes offer more to analyze than others. There's a lot of pretty standard drama-of-the-week formula in this show. Though watching it in my youth, I always felt it was better executed than most of the other formulaic adventure-drama shows of the era.
And the show gave us enough likable/sympathetic beats with McGee that I always thought that, had he gotten that far, he might, just might, have helped Banner rather than hounding him.
Once he finds out that "John Doe" turns into the Hulk, he does change from wanting to catch the Hulk to wanting to help John. Although wanting his Pulitzer-worthy story is always part of it too.
But there was nothing about that lab fire to suggest that it could completely incinerate all traces of a human being. And I don't know about 1977 forensics, but today the authorities could have traced the origin of the initial explosion to that closet. It was a point that was glossed over for purposes of setting up the series premise, but I'd think that they'd have to assume that Banner somehow got away from the scene, and would actually put an APB out on him for questioning at the very least.
I dunno... Assuming they did have various exotic chemicals and stuff stored in the lab, it's possible the fire triggered a far more energetic reaction in some of them. That spectacular explosion in the climax does suggest a pretty powerful blast happened inside. Of course it was just a big conventional fireball, but so are most special-effects explosions, for safety reasons. They're usually meant to stand in for more potent blasts.
I find it kind of ironic that it was actually McGee who was responsible for the fire that destroyed the lab. All I knew before I watched this was that something happened involving the Hulk that sent Banner on the run, so I was a little surprised that the Hulk wasn't actually responsible for what happened.
I would've thought "The creature is wanted for a murder he didn't commit" in the opening narration would've gotten that across.
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