Hey folks, Harry here... Andy Seiler at USAToday sat down with Ang Lee to talk about what he is doing with THE INCREDIBLE HULK. I know I told you people that I had the Hayter script for THE INCREDIBLE HULK, but I have to tell ya... I just can't get through it. As much as I love Mark Steven Johnson's DAREDEVIL script, I hated each page of the Hayter HULK script... and rather than turn angry green and stomp around destroying things, I just put it down and walked away from it. And then I made some calls and found that Ang Lee wasn't planning on going with it, so... no need for me to finish the script. Now folks, Ang asks some questions below about the HULK as a character.... Why he works? What does the Hulk appeal to in those of us that love him? Personally I feel it all goes back to what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby based the character on and that was Robert Louis Stevenson's DR JEKYLL & MR HYDE. That's the base of the story and the character, at least as I see it. As for the appeal? For me I love a story about a character that realizes there is great potential danger and rage inside of them, that tries to bottle it up... My favorite stories of the HULK were those early ones, where he'd hole up in a cave trying to cure himself with Rick Jones helping out. Where he'd try to remain sedate and calm... I imagine that Bruce Banner would become a trancs addict... to sedate himself to keep from getting angry. And still, I WOULD KILL FOR STEVE BUSCEMI TO PLAY BANNER!!!!!! Ok TalkBackers... your turn....
''I wasn't particularly taken with the existing script that Universal prepared,'' Lee says. He was interested, however, in researching the Hulk on three levels:
''Scientifically, I am doing an academic study on how a cell can expand and how a person can become a Hulk.
''Technically, I am asking myself, 'How do I create the Hulk?' You can't have a big guy, paint him green and put comic book pants on him. The Hulk is not human. He's 9 to 12 feet tall, 1,500 pounds. I guess I'll go with digital (photorealistic animation).
''Culturally, I need to know, 'Why does it work?' On a psychological level, ''Why is he so popular?' ''
Lee finds the character's long-running success unusual because the Hulk is a ''very sad monster'' and a superhero at the same time, an unlikely combination, and a paradox that will inevitably, like the character, need more investigation.
-- Andy Seiler
