Day 111: What in the Hell is a Requel?

[itasianinvasion]

The Incredible Hulk is coming out soon, and there’s been a lot of talk of it as “not a sequel,” a “new beginning,” or a “requel,” because it’s starting over, but not starting over, or whatever.  What’s really interesting is that everyone, literally everyone, the director, actors, producers, movie writers, reviewers, you know, everyone is talking

Comments

[anonymous]

It's as if somewhere, someone has rewritten history, because I can assure you none of that sentiment was even remotely present when the original actually came out... so much so that Robot Chicken referenced it in their take on the Hulk. Still, Ang Lee's Hulk was not a bad film per se; it was simply a film that sacrificed too much of the visceral in favor of the cerebral. Independent films do this all the goddamn time, much to my chagrin, by removing the seemingly natural and desired cathartic ending in favor of an ending in which the audience is left questioning. Like the total fuckup guy will meet a girl and fall in love and then fuck it up and then get his shot at redemption and misses it via random happenstance and then realized that he should pursue the girl he loves but fears that he might fuck it up all over again and then he gets in the car during a rainstorm and lights a cigarette and the credits end.

What filmmakers get off on these days is making smart films that challenge the audience, because that's supposedly art. I, on the other hand, am too smart for their bullshit and am simply left wondering why all these supposedly intelligent people get off on watching three quarters of a film. Wes Anderson doesn't do this, which is why I like his films better than most independent anything. John Faverau made a movie without a definite ending in Swingers, but it remained cathartic, so it's fine.

Ang Lee tried to make a smart movie about a character that gets mad and punches just about everything into oblivion. He tried to make it so smart that there was hardly any punching of things into said oblivion, so I consider it a failure, as it removed that visceral sense of catharsis that a person gets when they see a victimized character fight back against his oppressors with a great vengeful force.

Still, I think I like it better than yet another movie where Superman fails to punch anything.

Buz has just written more than you did in your entire post and gives his apologies.