Hello all. Welcome to the second blog where I look at my burgeoning Blu-Ray collection, be it through reviews of actual discs or, as is the case here, a look at my hopes for what I’d like to see studios bring out in the format. My first blog in the series was about my hopes for “The Crow” films on Blu-Ray, which right now, might be too wishful (“The Crow: City of Angels” was released in an inexpensive and bare-bones release back in May); today’s topic, however, hopefully is more likely.
With the release this past week of “Captain America: The First Avenger,” which I’ve yet to see, Marvel Studios has finished setting the stage for next May’s superhero epic, “The Avengers,” to be written and directed by personal favorite, “Buffy” and “Firefly” creator Joss Whedon. The independently-financed studio has now produced five films centered around four of their most popular characters– the two “Iron Man” films, “The Incredible Hulk,” “Thor,” and “Captain America” –with four of them released through Paramount Pictures (“Incredible Hulk” came from Universal). I don’t know about you, but I think this is sufficient enough for a great box set. Something like, “Marvel’s Road to ‘The Avengers,'” released by Paramount. Come on, you know it’d sell even if people already own some of the films already. The problem, of course, would come with getting Universal to play along and allow their 2008 incarnation of “Hulk” to be included.
The question on that front, however, is how much fans would care whether “Incredible Hulk” is part of the box or not. As anyone who has been following Marvel Studios’s bold franchise-building of the past few years knows, Whedon’s “The Avengers” will have Mark Ruffalo joining up with Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth as Bruce Banner and his green-skinned, anger-fueled alter ego, Hulk, rather than “Incredible Hulk” star, Edward Norton. The reasons for Norton’s replacement have been much written about, but the fact remains that next May, we will be seeing our third actor portraying Banner in less than a decade, after Norton and Eric Bana, who played the role in Ang Lee’s 2003 film, “Hulk.” So the question remains, how much does the 2008 film really matter to Marvel’s current continuity if the actor playing its main role is another one and done?
I would still say, pretty damn important. Louis Leterrier’s film still established the character, successfully, within the now-established Marvel Universe: we have references to Stark Industries, and Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark showed up at the end to discuss the Avengers Initiative with Gen. Ross (William Hurt), and we have allusions to the Super Soldier program that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America during World War II, the same program Gen. Ross was looking to resurrect with Banner’s Gamma radiation research. True, the Banner we see in “Avengers” is going to be physically different than Norton’s, but Marvel’s already made a transition from one “Rhodey” to another one in their “Iron Man” films (with Don Cheadle a definite upgrade from the already pretty good Terrence Howard), and I can’t imagine Ruffalo straying too far from the role Norton already resurrected so successfully. I say give Universal a handsome deal to allow “Incredible Hulk” to be included with the rest of his fellow Avengers, and give us a fully-loaded look at how Marvel have assembled the team for their mega-epic next year.
It’s actually kind of fitting that my first two blogs in this series are discussing box sets I’d like to see happen, because I have a feeling box sets are going to be a major part of my Blu-Ray collection. Right now, the only Blu-Ray movie box I have is Fox’s “Planet of the Apes: 40-Year Evolution” set, but that list is going to grow as the years progress. Already on the inevitable list of purchases are: the “Harry Potter” movies; Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy; “The Lord of the Rings,” preferably after Peter Jackson’s completed his two part adaptation of “The Hobbit”; the “Back to the Future” trilogy; Michael Bay’s “Transformers” trilogy (yes, even though it’ll included “Revenge of the Fallen”); the forthcoming “Jurassic Park” trilogy; the “X-Men” movies; Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy; possibly “The Matrix” series; and definitely the “Indiana Jones” adventures. Yes, I’ve left off a pretty significant box set for a lot of geeks on this list, but that’s for another blog. For now, I would like to restore my plea to Marvel– give us your Avengers in a nice, neat package so that we can own the origins properly before we see the team together.
My reviews for the Marvel Universe:
“Iron Man” (2008)
“The Incredible Hulk” (2008)
“Iron Man 2” (2010)
“Thor” (2011)
“Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011)
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
