The Best Hulk/Bruce Banner?

[Wolf Pac]

Which version of The Hulk did you like best? (Lou Ferrigno's or one of the movie versions)

And who do you think played the best Bruce Banner? (Bill Bixby, Eric Bana, Edward Norton or Mark Ruffalo)

For me, the best Hulk was the original Hulk, Lou Ferrigno. I can see some people disliking his Hulk because it was a departure from the comic book version, but his Hulk was something the movie versions weren't, legitimitely scary. When I watched the TV show as a kid, I used to hide behind my couch or exit the room whenever David Banner turned into The Hulk cause I was frightened by his Hulk, unless I was watching it with my siblings then I stuck around, so I wouldn't let them know I was scared. I'm not a fan of the CGI Hulk's although I know they are closer to the comic book version's appearance. I thought the TV show did a better job with Hulk's look and metamorphosis, Ferrigno's Hulk was more realistic. I also think he was better than the movie versions when it came to showing emotions.

Here's a cute scene where he picks up a bunny and strokes it, making him smile and taking his anger away, turning him back into Bruce.

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And another scene where he rescues this women and she tries to protect him by telling him to hide in a bush, but he doesn't understand at first and just looks at her with a poor confused look on his face, before walking away into the bushes with his head down, like his heart has just been broken.

[YOUTUBE]tCjEwwsGszQ[/YOUTUBE]

As for Bruce Banner, again The Incredible Hulk version played by Bill Bixby is my favourite. His story on the TV show was a sad one, faking his death and having to travel to different cities in every episode, trying to find a cure, while Jack McGee is after his Hulk. Bixby with his superb acting, makes you take pity and feel so sorry for his Bruce Banner, especially with the iconic "lonely man walking away" ending that plays to the sad piano music.

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[Alex]

Honestly I think we need to separate the movie ones from Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby. One they were incredibly good and two, Ferrigno is the only live action Hulk that's not CGI. I remember the show a lot and I remember getting emotional at certain times. That's impressive when I was watching it at round 10 years old.

As for the movie ones I'd say Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and his version of Hulk. Norton portrayed Banner as someone who knows there's a dark scary side to him. He was essentially doing what he did in Fight Club but tweaked it for a comic audience and I feel that's what the portrayal of Hulk and Banner should be like. Eric Bana felt like he was in a different movie ala a dark drama about split personality and there hasn't been enough of Mark Ruffalo to properly gauge his performance. Although I don't like how he calls Hulk 'the other guy' makes it sound like he's talking about someone at work who does the same job as him.


Norton's Hulk also looks the best from a CGI standpoint to me. It looks like a realistic portrayal of a guy who's been mutated by radiation and grown in size

Spoiler

Bana's was bad but that was due to the technology at the time

Spoiler

Ruffalo's just looks off to me, it looks like he's a weird shape and his face looks off as well

Spoiler

For me Bill Bixby wins overall but in the movie department it's Edward Norton for the Bruce Banner portrayal and in the Hulk department Norton's wins again.

 

[SSJPhenom]

I have to go with Mark Ruffalo's Banner and Hulk as well. Finally someone played Banner with some personality and other emotions besides anger and fear. Banner was more than just a science nerd who was afraid of the Hulk and Ruffalo captured that beautifully. Also, I love how he calls the Hulk the "other guy". Makes sense because Banner is supposed to despise the Hulk and the Hulk is supposed to despise Banner. So to have him talk about the Hulk as if he has some disdain for him and as if he's not just scared of him was great.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

I re-watched The Incredible Hulk a month or so ago and liked it a hell of a lot more than I did initially. Ed Norton balanced the pain of forcing himself into isolation with the hunger and desperation to rid himself of what made him go into isolation in the first place.

Ruffalo is a great actor but I think Norton would have done a better job in the Avengers films as Banner. Norton has one of those faces where he can convey a lot of emotions and feelings without having to say too much and adds intensity to the role. Ruffalo just looked pretty blank most of the time, which admittedly could have been the director's decision. I'm not quite sure to what degree that actor makes a difference to the Hulk portrayal as it seems to depend on the mo-cap techniques and character design as to how it appears on-screen.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Well, in terms of character origins, none of the film versions nor the TV series is true to the comics. I always enjoyed the TV series take more than the film versions because...well, I guess it just seemed to be more in line with the overall feeling of the show. This was the late 70s through the early 80s, which meant that the special effects technology needed to make the Hulk as "incredible" as he was in comics or in the later films just simply wasn't there. That, plus a low budget, meant that it was gonna have to quite a liberal departure from the comics; the show had more of a feel similar to that of the TV series "The Fugitive" with Banner being on the run for different reasons.

As far as acting goes, I really did enjoy Bill Bixby as Banner. I always thought he was an underrated actor, he definitely had the mild, average sort of guy aura about him and I thought he always did a great job of selling/controlling Banner's various frustrations. I also really enjoyed his facial expressions as he was about to "change" as it just set things off. Often times, he was in pain and pain triggered the transformation via the rush of adrenaline and the fact that it's such a natural reaction to feel anger when someone hurts you. So in terms of Banner, I give it to Bixby. Eric Bana seemed too cold, emotionless and just struck me as too "pretty" for Banner. Edward Norton never really came off to me as someone who seemed to be tortured, for lack of a better term, due to the Hulk preventing him from living a normal life. Mark Ruffalo, to me, felt like what Banner might be like if he stayed half baked all the time; while I liked his performance, he just felt so laid back much of the time that I got the impression that Banner self medicated with weed to keep himself under control.

As for the Hulk himself, Ruffalo's Hulk version is much more in line with the comics. The TV series did the best it could with the limited technology available and had a world class bodybuilder in Lou Ferrigno, who genuinely happened to be about 6'6" and 300 pounds, wearing green body paint, a wig made of yak hair and some prosthetics on his forehead & nose to make him look more primitive. Bana's Hulk wasn't really even Bana as it was really director Ang Lee who did the various movements that the creative team used to create the Hulk; he looked too unrealistic because he was so friggin' huge. On the DVD extras, I remember a section saying that the Hulk was up to 15 feet tall and weighed in excess of 3,000 pounds; he was damn near the size of the friggin T-Rex in Jurassic Park while artistic license often makes Hulk look much larger in the comics, depending on the situation and plot, those sorts of outrageous proportions work in comics but not so much on screen. Edward Norton's Hulk was a huge improvement, but I think they tried to make the Hulk look too much like an overly jacked bodybuilder. The Hulk was all veins and muscular striations, but he was also much more bestial and generally savage than he was in Lee's film. Ruffalo's portrayal, in my opinion, gets it right because it's so much more in line with the comics in terms of the classic structure and look. In some ways, especially in the first few decades, the Hulk was built more along the lines of a primitive human and the version seen in the Avengers movies has that; he doesn't stand or walk upright a whole lot, he's almost always kinda crouched over, the facial features are distorted enough to give him a primitive structure, he's quite muscular with great definition but he's not all veins and vascularity so he doesn't look like he purposely spends time in the gym. The mannerisms remind me a lot of something you might see with a gorilla and, again, that goes hand in hand with many of the core elements of the more savage, child-like mentality version.

All in all, they all have their charms but I prefer Bixby as Banner and Ruffalo as Hulk.

 

[Piss Bucket]

Bill Bixby WAS Bruce Banner IMO, just like Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk.

Lou Ferrigno should've played a very similar role 22 years ago IMO, as Blanka in that crap live action Street Fighter movie. and yes that was crap, I mean come on, Kylie Minogue as Cammy? What idiot thought that up?

 

[Mustang Sally]

Bill Bixby WAS Bruce Banner IMO, just like Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk.

Totally agree. Bill Bixby brought a sensitivity to the role of David Banner that made you feel for his plight. Of course, since he got to do it on a weekly basis, there was more time to develop the character than the others found in a 2 hour movie.

Meanwhile, I loved Lou Ferrigno as Hulk. He wasn't a raging monster all the time; we got to see a softer side occasionally..... and he played it straight, not sappy or out of character for what he was supposed to be.

I never saw the Mark Ruffalo version, although he's one of my very favorite actors. Presumably, he was also belted by gamma rays?

Still, what about the 4th line of the Hulk opening lyric in the cartoon?

Is it:

"Ain’t he un-glamo-rays"

or

"Ain't he un-glamorous"


because when I was a kid, I always thought I was hearing:

"Ain't he un-glamor-ate"




....the ever-lovin' Hulk.....hulk, hulk