Nov 13 2008
Hulk Special Edition DVD - Special Guest Writer Robert
Greetings – once again – from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Today is Thursday, November 13th, 2008. Welcome to my daily comic book review blog – thanks for tuning in! Are you interested in a comic book but not sure you want to shell out the cash? Let me know and I’ll review it for you – letting you know if it’s worth your hard earned money!
Today’s my 100th post! Hooray! To celebrate, today’s entry features a very special guest writer - my friend Robert. He’s here to tell you all why the Hulk Special Edition DVD isn’t worth your money. Let’s see what he has to say:
The Hulk is back and this time he is brought to you by an all new cast and a brand new director (Louis Leterrier). This movie was far better than the original (Ang Lee) 2003 version. It’s everything the first movie should’ve been, but in 24 less minutes. Even though this new Hulk is a complete retelling, it is technically the second story in what will hopefully turn into a successful series of movies. Louis Leterrier pays homage to the comic (especially Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Hulk: Gray) as well as to the TV series with Bill Bixby. He uses some the same catch phrases (“You won’t like me when I’m angry”), some of the same machines in the opening sequence (which quickly retells the Hulk’s origin), and the use of green contacts when Edward Norton turns into the Hulk. And of course the appearances of Lou Ferrigno (once again as a security guard) and Stan Lee.
The real purpose of this review is for the DVD’s themselves. The Hulk comes in two retail configurations, the basic DVD for $14.99 and the three disc special edition for $22.99. So, you ask, what do you get in each? Well, the cheaper DVD comes with only one disc. You get six deleted scenes and feature commentary by Louis Leterrier and Tim Roth.
The three disc set comes with one disc of special features. You get four more deleted scenes and five featurettes. Also on that disc is the highly talked about alternate opening with The Hulk in the arctic. Now some people have said that you can see Captain America in the ice and some say you can see his shield come out of the ice. But I challenge anyone to positively point either out!
The third disc of the special edition DVD is the digital transfer copy. It allows you to put the movie on your PC or MAC using either Media Player or QuickTime. This will allow you to put it on your iPod Classic. Now the only problem with this is that the film is shown in “letter boxed” format on the iPod, so you get a little under an inch of viewable movie. Be prepared for a headache in 20 minutes or less and don’t even try to read the subtitles. And neither transfer of the movie will allow you to watch it on the PSP.
In all, the three disc set is NOT worth the extra $8. The featurettes are not very in depth or revealing. The alternate opening is worthless and really doesn’t seem to fit into the story at all. The digital transfer copy takes up 1.28 gigs of hard drive space and the viewable size is too small to really watch comfortably. If you could put it on the PSP, or if the featurettes had a little more depth, or if they included a little more of comic material in it, then maybe the special edition DVD would be worth it. But they didn’t, so save your money.
Alright - that’s everything for today. As always - thanks for reading - see you tomorrow. And don’t forget to let me know if there are any comic books you’d like me to review for you – I take requests!
-Searnold, SuperSearnold@yahoo.com www.myspace.com/SuperSearnold
