#but seriously between all the can-kicking and the blatant disrespect towards the character i'm just... done.

[helicarrier]

A Square Peg in a Round Hole: The Misuse and Flanderization of MCU Bruce Banner.

Some people have asked for an explanation about why I don't follow the MCU/Disney anymore, and I've wanted to explain all my issues with the MCU's handling of Bruce Banner in full for some time. This is a summation of my opinions and feelings about everything.

Bruce Banner, as a character, deals with subject matter like the effects of child abuse, parental death, unintended murder, the fear of never finding one’s place in the world, the fear of never making a difference, self-hatred, a tenuous relationship with an alter due to DID, the consequences of that alter killing people, and various others. He has nuance coming out of his ears. The MCU started him off with a bang, and it laid the foundations for the aforementioned themes and nuance. However, it then devolved and flanderized him into an unrecognizable character who made hammy faces and meme jokes, with zero care for the aforementioned themes. His story, which could have had a cathartic and memorable payoff, was replaced with jokes, memes, and plot devices that paid no attention to his own growth. (Plot is different from story, which I’ll address later.)

Disney had four movies, after The Avengers, to write a proper story for Bruce. What we got was the opposite due to poor writing, even director hate and ignorance. Even the other characters treated him highly inconsistently, due to that writing. One of the characters was done so dirty that it effectively ruined Bruce's relationship with them, throwing out the signs of development that were shown between them in previous movies.

When The Avengers was released, while I admit to having my reservations about Mark Ruffalo prior to seeing the movie, I found him to be incredibly endearing and relatable as Bruce. Mark Ruffalo is often typecasted as the everyman, down-on-his luck character for a reason (You Can Count on Me, The Kids are All Right, Just Like Heaven, 13 Going on 30), and it worked beautifully in this movie, similar to how the television series conveyed Bruce, though he was known as David back then. Bruce's pain, weariness, and self-loathing was readily apparent in this movie, and evoked an impressive amount of pathos. The script, much as the "Whedon quip" phenomenon has gone on to taint the film industry, was excellent for Bruce here. This Bruce uses jokes and sardonicism to cover up his pain, and make light of situations, because it's how he learned to cope with his condition and the situations it caused. It worked, and it was realistic.

But while Bruce was in pain, he was not a pushover. He had a backbone, and he was principled. He stood up for himself. He talked back to people; Romanoff and Fury in particular, because he didn't trust SHIELD. He needed to be like this, because if he let people walk all over him, they could get close and exploit him or his condition. And at the end of the movie, he ended up with more confidence in himself and his condition, with Romanoff vindicating him, despite having a difficult time with the Hulk earlier on the Helicarrier (and the events of Fury's Big Week, if we include that, but I'm going to discuss film canon only here). Bruce was happy to ride off into the sunset with Tony at the end.

It was a perfect foundation. The movie laid him out as a multifaceted, complex Bruce Banner who was clearly troubled by his affliction, but had achieved an uneasy détente with it, and was mature enough to be able to poke fun at himself, but still unwilling to trust other people for the most part, especially authority figures.

Then, Age of Ultron happened. This was not a horrible movie, but there were many detractions concerning Bruce. First, the obvious one: the romance between Bruce and Natasha. Personally, I appreciate and enjoy the theoretical ship between these two characters. I vividly remember opening the ship tags immediately after seeing The Avengers, and finding them empty. I went searching for those tags back in 2012 because I deeply enjoyed the scenes between Bruce and Natasha in The Avengers, especially the scene in Kolkata. There was an uneasy dance between them; neither of them trusted the other. Bruce didn't trust Natasha because she was a government figure, and Natasha didn't trust Bruce because she knew what Bruce was capable of. I enjoyed the arc between them; how it grew from distrust to a careful willingness to trust each other in the end. Natasha was initially afraid to be near Bruce, but then she handed him a duffel bag at the end without issue. Bruce and Natasha share similar hangups, as well. They were both used for ill gains by their superiors, they've both killed many people and are (much as they wish it wasn't the case) very good at it. They both understand the guilt of having done this, and they share the desire to make amends for the transgressions. This could've been a great source of relatability between them in future movies, which, in turn, could've led to an organic romantic relationship.

The problem is that Age of Ultron did not touch on this at all. None of their similarities were mentioned, outright stated, or even inferred. It was a generic "man and woman" romance with no specific character beats, and since there was no acknowledgement of Bruce and Natasha's vices, similarities, and so on, from the beginning, the dynamic felt anything but organic. It was forced and uncomfortable, and like one of my friends put it, "it was like two Barbie dolls with their faces smushed together".

This is partially because of the time jump between The Avengers and this movie. We missed everything that led to the current state of affairs where Natasha was making googoo-eyes at Bruce. It felt out-of-character for her, but it also meant that Bruce's development was fast-tracked, so we lost everything there too. We were thrown into a relationship that simply had no real buildup, and therefore lacked any satisfaction and intuition. (Fast-tracked development was not a one-time thing for Bruce in the MCU films — arguably, he gets the worst share of this in the coming movies among any character, but more on that later.) Suddenly, we had a dynamic where Natasha was trying to flirt with a seemingly oblivious Bruce, and an odd relationship between Natasha and Hulk that we needed to roll with. Even the relationship with Natasha and Hulk almost didn't make any sense, because Bruce himself wasn't aware of Natasha's flirtatious advances (as seen in the bar scene, where Steve had to hint-hint at Bruce), so if Bruce was so oblivious, why was Hulk so incredibly receptive? It was another aspect of this relationship that simply went unexplained, and demanded far more speculation than was appropriate. And there was zero indication of how the whole lullaby came about. We knew it worked because of Bruce and Natasha's one-sided flirtation somehow, but that was it. There was no meat to it. Throwing the audience into new dynamics can work, but there was simply not enough information here to make it believable.

There was a reason, much as I don't condone ship hate, a massive portion of the fandom was shocked and confused by their relationship. Had there been proper development before Natasha's courtship dance happened, it may have felt more realistic.

My second issue with the movie was that Bruce was huddling into himself so much, in an environment that was supposed to be familiar. Based on his earlier behaviour in The Avengers, this should not have been the case. In The Avengers, it only took a brief conversation with Nick Fury about gamma radiation for Bruce to remove his jacket, clearly indicating he felt more comfortable. Despite being outside his element on the Helicarrier, he was also in his element because of the scientific stuff, specially once he was in the Wishbone laboratory. The movie made Bruce's comfort, and the reason for that comfort, clear and unambiguous.

Yet in Age of Ultron, Bruce was surrounded by laboratories, and it was heavily implied he'd been working there for a long time, but he was hugging himself like he was afraid to relax. Why? It’s unnecessary to spoonfeed the audience information, but doing the exact opposite and foregoing all information, or even skimping on information to the point it may as well not exist, is bad writing. There was nothing to indicate the actual, concrete problem and reason for Bruce's discomfort, other than, in the earlier scene, Hulk had a tantrum in front of Natasha and didn't want to revert. This was implied to be a regular occurrence, from Natasha and Bruce's interaction in the following scene on the Quinjet, where Natasha said "the lullaby worked better than ever". Bruce didn't seem troubled by the lullaby issue. He only stated, in the context of Hulk hurting and killing people when he was fronting, that he "didn't trust Hulk". So it couldn't possibly have been Hulk's reluctance to revert that bothered Bruce so much that he shrunk into himself. And perhaps Bruce was uncomfortable with using the Hulk in battle because of the collateral damage, but that wasn't a new thing for him. He used the Hulk during the Chitauri invasion, and during the Harlem incident, which had been referenced in The Avengers. It was just another day in the life for him. Why was this case any different? Was it even different? We have no clue. Frankly, neither of those explanations would even have warranted Bruce's shocking downshift in confidence around the tower. Because of that, his behaviour just gave the impression that he'd lost his mojo. This was doubly jarring because The Avengers ended with him having gained confidence, and presumably being on an upward trajectory, not a downward one.

This was not the same Bruce from the first movie. If it was, there needed to be more buildup. A single line would have done the job — poorly, yes, but it would have been better than nothing.

My third issue was that Bruce did not have any autonomy. He played lapdog to every suggestion Tony made, rolling over for him with minimal resistance for the sake of plot convenience. Not only did this present him as an incredibly passive character, which was a stark contrast to him in The Avengers, but it simply made no sense in terms of his character.

Bruce is someone who tried to reinvent radiation resistance, and created a monster because of it. He played with fire, and he was burned. As of this movie, he was still suffering, and living, the consequences of that decision. There was no conceivable way Bruce would've agreed to create a groundbreaking AI that also had enormous potential for disaster, without extensive, extensive deliberation. Certainly not when Tony presented a single "make the world better" speech. Bruce tried to make things better with Gamma Pulse, and he was still dealing with the repercussions. Given his conversation with Natasha on the Quinjet, he obviously still dealt with distrust and guilt concerning the Hulk, and that would've coloured his decision on whether to humour projects of a similar or bigger scale, like the Ultron AI. But this wasn't even mentioned, and it is a painfully apparent omission. Would Bruce really have been on board with something this huge, this quickly, if at all?

The movie contradicted itself by having Bruce wanting to shrink into oblivion, because something was clearly going on with him, yet also writing him in almost instantaneous, confident agreement to create something else with the potential for disaster. There was a small, barely serviceable bit of resistance with Bruce's "sounds like a cold world" line, but then it was like Whedon said, "time to move the plot, Bruce is fine with it now, don't think too hard about it".

The same thing happened with Vision, which was equally if not more offensive, because it was a retread of what happened with Ultron. Had Bruce been properly characterized, it was far more likely he would have refused Tony's idea. Let's dissect this. Days earlier, Bruce had agreed with Tony to work on Ultron, which in itself was a questionable plot device. It blew up in their faces. Ultron had caused a lot of damage so far, including being in cahoots with someone who caused Bruce to hurt, if not kill, a lot of people in Johannesburg. That was a very personal and undoubtedly traumatic experience for Bruce. But he just rolled over, yet again, when Tony asked him to help create another AI... And even worse, after Tony gave him a speech about them being "monsters". Whether Tony was calling Bruce a monster because of the Hulk, or because of his intelligence, neither worked. If the comment was about the Hulk, well, Hulk had just destroyed Johannesburg and caused a lot of damage. It was incredibly unlikely Bruce would've appreciated Tony's plea to "own it". And if Tony was referring to Bruce's intelligence, that intelligence led to the creation of the Hulk, which had just destroyed, yes... Johannesburg. Bruce's intelligence also led to Ultron's creation. Was Bruce honestly going to accept being called a "monster", whether it was in reference to either the Hulk or his intelligence, and view it as positive encouragement? There was so much baggage with him to warrant otherwise. But he just shook his head and smiled about it, and then he created Vision with Tony, as if all that baggage had been handwaved.

Again, plot over story. Bruce’s character beats were glossed over because it would have inconvenienced the plot.

Even some small things in the movie made no sense. In The Avengers, the Hulk had green eyes throughout the movie, both when Bruce lost control on the Helicarrier and when he successfully controlled the Hulk in New York. But in Age of Ultron, the Hulk's eyes were brown, with no reason given. My initial belief was that the Hulk's eyes were brown because Bruce was somehow in control, but the Hulk's eyes were also brown in Johannesburg, when the Hulk went off the rails and Bruce couldn't stop him. It was a bizarre creative decision that broke continuity from The Avengers. This was a small change, but stuff like this adds up, and it becomes distracting if it's unexplained. The audience ends up spending the movie preoccupied with figuring out why the hell the Hulk's eyes are now a different colour.

I also need to mention the PR for this movie. During press releases and interviews for Age of Ultron, Mark Ruffalo vocally advertised that Bruce and Hulk were coming to a "confrontation" with each other in this movie, and there were other news articles that described an interaction between Bruce and Hulk. This never happened in the movie. Perhaps Marvel had intentionally misled the audience and made them excited for something that wouldn't happen, and they had coached Mark to say those lines. This wouldn't have been the last time Marvel misled audiences. In the trailers and stills for Infinity War, you saw Hulk in the final battle, whereas in the movie, Hulk was nowhere to be found because Bruce used the Hulkbuster. It's possible all of this stuff was left on the cutting room floor during editing because Marvel was seriously spinning their wheels on what major things, exactly, to include in their films (which is concerning in an organizational/planning sense). But that explanation doesn't sit well either.

Then, we have the mess that is Ragnarok.

The moment Ragnarok was announced and Ruffalo's billing was confirmed, I had a bad feeling about it. What we received only reinforced this. MCU Banner was never a cartoon character. He deserved so much better than what he received in this movie. I understand that serious characters can be put into funny situations, sometimes with incredible results (see: Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz, who embodies the straight man trope). But this doesn't mean the actual characters should be completely reworked and turned into blatant caricatures of themselves that, as it occurred here, involves stripping continuity, and stripping them of everything that made them unique and intriguing.

Before I dive into that, I'm going to mention a massive plot hole. There was no way the Quinjet could've wound up on Sakaar, given the information the audience was provided with. If we intuit the capabilities of the Quinjet from past films, and even scour the MCU wiki, it is clear the Quinjet does not have spacefaring capabilities. More pressingly, near the end of Age of Ultron, we receive on-screen confirmation that Bruce's Quinjet had crashed into the Banda Sea, which Fury tells Natasha. So knowing this, how did Bruce go from being in the ocean (or on some island that he swam to), to ending up in a wormhole, to being on Sakaar? It begs explanation, but none was provided. We can assume one of two things here. First, perhaps the movie was suggesting a wormhole had somehow opened up in the ocean (or on an island). Second, perhaps it was retconning the entire Quinjet crash, but even then, that still assumes it was possible for a wormhole to open up in the earth's atmosphere. Portals opening up in earth's atmosphere aren't unheard of in the MCU; in The Dark World, portals had appeared because of the Convergence. But that was explained. There was no explanation in Ragnarok. Even if a portal did open up in earth's atmosphere, and it led to Sakaar, it was an incredible coincidence for it to open up near Bruce.

It was a bad plot device, and a legitimate plot hole, that was implemented strictly so Bruce could be shoehorned into Ragnarok when the previous movie didn't even set it up properly.

That's the smallest issue I have with Ragnarok and its "plot devices".

When Hulk reverted and Bruce woke up afterwards, he was "out of sorts". It was an immensely unnecessary and convenient plot device (again, "plot over story") which was done for the sole purpose of shoving a round peg into a square hole; for the sole purpose of homogenizing a serious character and everything that came with him; his personality, his sardonic wit, his uneasiness, and all of his problems that desperately needed exploration, with the cartoony personalities of the characters around him. It is a shame, because Hulk was written well. But even Taika Waititi himself, on at least one occasion, had referred to Bruce as a "whiny nerd" and Hulk as a “bipolar angry beast”, and mentioned that this was a horrible character that Ragnarok managed to "fix". There are enormous issues with that, without even taking into account the result of it.

For starters, the fact that Hulk was on Sakaar for years and constantly killing people was never brought up. Because of it, this movie failed to address a hugely important character beat for Bruce: his guilt and despair of knowing that Hulk was responsible for more deaths, which was something that plagued him since the accident. There was ample time for the movie to address this, but because Bruce was "out of sorts", courtesy of his personality plot device, all that time was replaced with nonsense. He talked about Thor's new hair, and he talked about "knowing Valkyrie" more than once. Almost everything that came out of his mouth was inconsequential, and/or pertained directly to plot, not his own story. As soon as Bruce was back, there was no mention of Hulk's exploits in the arena at all. Thor didn't mention that, and Bruce never found out through other means.

Hulk’s violence wasn’t the only thing that was glossed over.

Bruce, an understandably distrustful and suspicious person, didn't ask any questions about Valkyrie, nor was concerned at all about her, because he was out of sorts. The only things that came out of his mouth regarding Valkyrie were "she's so strong" and "I know you" and similar oddities, because he was out of sorts. He clutched his chest like a dramatic actor and said he was freaking out, because he was out of sorts. After learning that Hulk fought Thor, he asked if he won, instead of being concerned about Thor's well-being, because he was out of sorts. Despite previously being portrayed as a cautious man who dislikes chaos, he followed Thor through a huge, chaotic crowd of people without even looking around, because he was out of sorts. He made comical faces and hammed it up throughout the movie, because he was out of sorts. He said "Devil's Anus" with a straight face (a rarity for him in this movie, but quite out of place; he's from a culture where that kind of language isn't typical, so it's more likely he would've been baffled by it), because he was out of sorts. Some people have speculated that Hulk's sentiments had permeated Bruce, but this was not confirmed or even strongly implied. There was nothing in previous movies that indicated Bruce would somehow be scrambled if he stayed as Hulk for that long, too. Even if that was the explanation, it seemed like a lazy, contrived way for the movie to avoid the heavy lifting of properly characterizing Bruce, and to avoid fitting a proper storyline for him in there somewhere, possibly because that storyline was unwelcome by merit of even existing, because tonally, it didn't match. Bruce's goofiness didn't even wear off once he was out for a while.

The only real "development" for Bruce and Hulk was given in a one-minute exposition dump about Bruce being "locked in the trunk". This did not make up for the complete omission of any real story between Bruce and Hulk, in an interpersonal sense, which was incredibly important and needed to be addressed somewhere. There was fertile ground for exploration, but nothing happened, and all it did was create questions that should have been answered for the sake of progressing Bruce's, and Hulk's, story. Did Hulk intentionally lock Bruce away, or was it an accident and he simply came to enjoy it, so he decided to keep doing it? Bruce was clearly driving, or at least co-fronting, with Hulk at the end of Age of Ultron; how did Hulk come to take over? And Bruce talked about "being locked in the trunk", but was he angry with Hulk for it? How did he even see Hulk at that point, besides being afraid for his own life/existence? The audience had no idea. Bruce simply yammered on about not wanting to Hulk-out again.

Near the end of the movie, Bruce jumped off the ship to intentionally hurt himself and bring out Hulk. He spent the movie afraid he'd never come back once Hulk appeared again, so this was a pivotal point for him. But somehow, the one thing on his mind when he was about to throw himself off the ship, because he was out of sorts, was telling Valkyrie, "you're going to find out who I am". He came off as a self-absorbed nitwit. There was nothing about his life, regrets, fears, or anything in his dialogue. It was empty and unsatisfying. Additionally, this was supposed to be a serious scene, yet when he fell and landed, it was played for laughs. He would have broken every bone in his body. He would have been bleeding internally. But because this was a "funny movie", this scene, too, needed to be funny. He was animated to bounce on the bridge like a ragdoll, whereas if a body actually fell that distance, it would have landed motionlessly. That would have been too dark for the tone Taika was trying to set. This scene should have cemented Bruce's heroism and selfless nature, but the profundity of it was limited to a single, brief look on his face, then truncated by a massive neon sign telling the audience to laugh.

Other scenes were just uncomfortable, such as the scene where Bruce and Thor were sitting down on Sakaar. Thor, the one who called Hulk "Banner" in the first movie, and who backtracked on his "gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims" once he realized Bruce was uncomfortable, incessantly pressured Bruce to Hulk out and denied his usefulness as a scientist. He appeared oblivious to Bruce's concerns, but somehow also intentionally dismissive of them. After, Thor picked on Bruce because he was "acting weird", and when Bruce snapped at him for it, he made a "wtf's your problem?" face instead of being apologetic. Surely even if Thor had been made "lighter" and less Shakespearean, he should've kept his canonical history with his teammates. His humility and respect for Bruce seemed to have taken a massive hit. He also acted like a juvenile spoilsport with the "strongest Avenger" password, and worse yet, he manipulated both Bruce and Hulk by saying "the other guy sucks, I like youuu!" to them. It was cheap, and it felt manipulative. Given what Taika has claimed about Bruce in the past, Thor seemed like a stand-in proxy for Taika himself to dump on Bruce, like this was a Bruce Banner hate-fic. Taika has said this movie was meant to be a reboot for Thor, and he was going to get rid of the "bad stuff", but he lopped off so much consistency in the process that it was jarring, and he threw out the baby with the bathwater.

The time jump between Age of Ultron and this movie is worth mentioning too. Just like with Age of Ultron, we had a massive time jump, and while it could have been acceptable if major developments with Bruce hadn't happened during this time, unfortunately, so much of Bruce's story and development, along with Hulk's, had happened off-screen. I'm aware the MCU films run parallel to real time, but far too much had happened between the previous film and this one. It was nice to see Hulk talking, but the problem was, the audience got to experience zero (0) scenes that led to Hulk becoming his own person. He was just there. There was no satisfaction. The biggest standouts were the tiny things; the way Hulk splashed his arm in the tub, and the small faces he made, and his reversion back to Bruce. But even that reversion scene had the potential to be so much better, and actually move both Hulk's and Bruce's story along. Imagine if Thor had said even one line about how scared Hulk looked to Bruce, after he came back. It would have helped create a working kind of acknowledgment between the two personalities. But we did not even receive that. Hulk's dialogue with Thor on the bed was insightful too. However, that was soured by the fact that Thor had somehow regressed to pre-Thor 1 development again, and was acting like a baby whose mom had told him to say sorry. And Bruce didn't receive any apology from Thor. Looking back, it was bizarre how Hulk received far more care than Bruce. I know this was Hulk's first real movie as an independent alter, but that doesn't excuse Bruce's treatment.

Thor did not need to be "fixed". Bruce did not need to be "fixed". Not in the ways that Taika arrogantly boasted about like he was the saviour of the MCU — another issue I have with Taika, but I digress. I didn't enjoy The Dark World too much, but I did enjoy Thor and Loki's characterization and development in that movie, and the first movie. It bears mentioning that most of The Dark World's issues were related to plot, rather than characterization and story. So why did Taika even touch Thor's characterization instead of focusing on making the plot good? Watching Ragnarok, it felt like he, and the producers, had a fundamental misunderstanding of what was really wrong with the previous film. It resulted in Taika unnecessarily upheaving Thor, then upheaving Bruce simply to homogenize him with Thor.

Ragnarok was touted as a "buddy cop film in space," but this dynamic wasn't very successful. This was not a case of one character being serious, and one character being a dumbass, where they played off each other to satisfying effect. They were both dumbasses, their interactions felt mean-spirited, and Bruce was in a strange position where it felt like he needed to be empathized with because of his situation, but we weren't given the opportunity to feel that. If Ragnarok had been part of an anthology, and there were already different interpretations of these characters in other vignettes, releases, etc, the wild revisions would have bothered me less. But this is a big movie series, with arcs and characterizations that need to persist over multiple releases. There is an expectation that in the next movie, the characters will still be recognizable. Otherwise, if you become invested in a character in one movie, what is the point if everything that made you invested is thrown out?

If you fall in love with Thor's transformation from an arrogant and belligerent warrior to a humble person who knows the value of life and who is troubled by the loss of his brother, how can you stay invested if that is nowhere to be found in the next movie? If you fall in love with Bruce Banner's world-wearied, sardonic wit and the way he plays off other characters, how can you stay invested if he becomes a one-dimensional buffoon?

I understand that directors want to put their individual stamp of uniqueness on their movies, but it needs to happen in a way that does not compromise the momentum and canon the previous directors had established in terms of personality, arcs, story, etc.

Infinity War was both a reprieve from Ragnarok and another disappointment. Bruce still made hammy faces, and he was the butt of more mean-spirited jokes. His issue with Hulk refusing to come out was played for laughs. He behaved like an idiot in the Hulkbuster in spite of the serious and potentially world-ending nature of the coming battle, and once again, there was no implicit reason he should have been acting like this. Some fans insisted he was "happy that Hulk wasn't coming out," but there was no indication of it. Earlier on, he'd been frustrated that Hulk refused to come out. There were even wildly-different speculations about why Hulk didn't want to front again, because absolutely nothing was implied on-screen, not even breadcrumbs we could extrapolate from. At the beginning of the movie, Hulk tried to fight Thanos, fell over, and stopped fronting with a blank face. There was no scared expression; it was hard to tell if he was even conscious. Some people speculated that Hulk was scared of Thanos. Some people speculated that he was tired of fighting for Bruce. But we didn't know. Hulk reverting and refusing to come out was an important character beat that contributed to Bruce and Hulk's story, but nobody knew why it actually happened, because literally nothing was presented in the film. The reason had to be revealed in interviews. Movies that require interviews simply to confirm things that should have been easily extrapolated from the movie itself? Those movies fail on a fundamental level.

Like Film Crit Hulk said in this Polygon article: "all the important thematic work is left to pure conjecture when you don't actually dramatize any of it."

Bruce had almost no story here, too. His problem was that Hulk refused to come out, but it didn't even receive attention past the few "no!"s from Hulk. Everything else he did in the film; working on Vision, using the Hulkbuster, was for the sake of plot, and there was almost no personal progression regarding him and Hulk. Bruce got mad at Hulk and said he'd fight the battle himself, which scratched the surface of character exploration, but nothing came of it. It was clear the writers didn't know how to handle Bruce and Hulk's relationship, or fit it into the movie.

There is a deleted scene for Infinity War that exemplifies this issue even more. Bruce, during the final battle, tries to talk to Hulk and get him to fight. Hulk says "no, Banner hates Hulk and only wants him for fighting", to which Bruce replies something along the lines of, "no, I love you, you're more of an Avenger than I am". It feels very forced, and it's bizarre from a story standpoint. There was no indication that Bruce felt this way about Hulk in Ragnarok — he was effectively scared of Hulk, and there was no development beyond that. Bruce and Hulk were never shown interacting on-screen either, beyond Hulk's "no"s. The deleted scene ends with Bruce and Hulk getting into a screaming match and telling each other to "live and let live" over and over, which is somehow enough for the two personalities to integrate and for "smart Hulk" to show up, with Bruce saying "we worked it out" in surprise. This is arguably ableist from a DID perspective, and lacking in catharsis because the story beat was completely unearned. It seemed like a horrific attempt at concluding their excuse for an "arc" last-minute, which shouldn't have been an issue in the first place, because this was Mark Ruffalo's fourth movie as Bruce. Marvel had plenty of time to establish a proper dialogue between Bruce and Hulk, but they didn't. I'm glad this deleted scene wasn't in the movie because it was incredibly forced, but what the audience received later wasn't much better.

Bruce was passive in AOU. He had little story in Ragnarok and Infinity War. Endgame was the biggest middle finger of all, because not only did it fail to give Bruce and Hulk any story whatsoever, but despite Endgame being his last mainline movie, Bruce was left with zero closure. And once again, all of his so-called development happened off-screen.

We were introduced to Bruce at a diner. Here, he used catchphrases and memes, and even his teammates looked uncomfortable about this, almost judgmental with their quirked eyebrows. Hulk as an alter may as well not have existed. Hulk had gone from being his own person and fronting in A1, AOU, and Ragnarok, to saying a single word in IW, and now, to having zero lines. Bruce didn't even refer to Hulk as an alter, but to the Hulk as a condition, which felt like character regression. There was no mention of integration and no mention of anything that resembled coming to an agreement with another identity. Hulk should have been a tremendous part of Bruce's development in the last few movies. So much of Bruce's character was wrapped up in his relationship with Hulk, and the damage Hulk had caused. Endgame didn't even attempt to play catch-up. Hulk was gone. What was the point of introducing him as an autonomous identity, if he was going to be completely erased? But that's what happened. There were a few throwaway lines about how Bruce had put his own mind into the Hulk's body, and done, he was fixed.

Everything was fixed.

Let's tally up everything that was seemingly fixed in the time jump. Bruce's concerns about Hulk killing people was fixed. Bruce's concerns about losing control were fixed. Bruce's fears and concerns about the world never accepting him were fixed (as seen in his interaction with the kids). Bruce's issues with Hulk refusing to front were fixed. Bruce's inability to direct his attention to science and things he genuinely wanted to do, presumably, was also fixed, because he didn't need to worry about Hulk anymore. Effectively, he had become a blank slate with nothing to dig into, because there were no problems to explore.

(Again, we're not talking about plot here. The plot of the movie is the time heist, and stopping Thanos. We're talking about story; Bruce's story. It's filmmaking 101 to give characters a problem of their own to grapple with, and resolve, during a movie. What the hell kind of problem was Bruce supposed to overcome in the movie, if everything was fixed right out of the gate?)

Bruce did say he felt guilty about Thanos, which provided some insight. However, it wasn't elaborated on. Instead, this scene was meant to emphasize his fondness for attention and the spotlight, to drive the point home that he was "happy". He would have been more three-dimensional if it was mentioned that he tried to help people after the snap, because presumably, since Hulk wasn't coming out, he could have been around people in that capacity. It would've been more realistic and consistent, considering he spent time in Kolkata helping people before. In that respect, knowing he spent an undisclosed amount of time "experimenting" on himself made him seem uncharacteristically selfish. There was potential for Bruce's guilt and his helplessness at stopping the snap to be a driving point for his story here, and the experimentation aspect could have worked if it was implied he used it as a coping strategy because he was upset/depressed/etc, but the guilt was never brought up again, and neither was his motivation behind the experiments explained.

Bruce claimed he had put "his own mind in the Hulk's body", yet if it was truly his own mind, he should have been acting much differently than he did, even accounting for potential development over the time jump. It was jarring to see him, an established introvert, as an extrovert who didn't have much of a verbal filter. He made a cracky joke about Scott "growing" when the time machine malfunctioned, which felt out of character. The development trajectory and personality that Bruce was shoehorned into, here, even if he was somehow at peace with himself, felt implausible. He was never shown to chase the spotlight, either. The audience received no indication this was something he'd ever aspired to. It was established that Hulk enjoyed attention, but again, if this was "Bruce's mind", it made no sense for Bruce himself to be like that. 

The movie failed to establish concrete rules about how Bruce Banner's new form (and his dynamic with Hulk, if that still existed) worked. Then, somehow, it still managed to break those nonexistent rules.

Some people speculated that this wasn't actually Bruce's main identity, but an alter that believed he was Bruce, similar to the "Professor" alter in the comics. However, there wasn't any indication of this. There was never a "gotcha, it's another alter that only seems like him" moment, even a subtle one. There was only one line about how Bruce put "his own mind in Hulk's body", so the audience had to assume it really was Bruce Banner. The excuses about "this being another alter" do not fly, because the idea of other alters hadn't been broached once previously. Just because a comic arc exists, it does not give a movie a free pass to omit key information. That information need to be given in the movie. Only in the movie. If this was another alter, in addition, there should have been some kind of storyline. Bruce had no storyline about himself, let alone alters. Knowing this, either the movie introduced something new about the doctor and failed to follow through with it, or there really wasn't another alter. Very sloppy.

It gets even odder when we see Bruce later in the movie, speaking with the Ancient One, where he acts normal. Did Bruce simply not realize how strange he acted...? Or was something else going on? Whatever it was, the movie failed to address any of it, or present it as a problem that got wrapped up. If that was really Bruce's mind in the Hulk's body, his behaviour in his Hulk and normal forms should have coincided, and it didn't.

The writers themselves have said that using more than a few lines to tie up Bruce's story would've detracted from the main plotline, so that might explain the sheer lack of information. But even if this was the case, and there really was no time to explore Bruce's story, the movie should not have jumped so far forward with him in the first place. Knowing this, the whole thing with "Smart Hulk" felt like it was just added for the sake of being added, or for the sake of having audience members go, "hey, it's Professor Hulk!". The movie didn't need to make Bruce progress this much during the time jump. He could have easily been moping around, trying to keep his head above water. At least then, there would have been more substance, as in conflict, to work with.

The only other modicum of story for Bruce was the line before he used the gauntlet, where he said he was "born for this". But where was the conflict? Was there even any conflict for him throughout the movie? We could argue the conflict was that Natasha died. But everyone mourned, and that wasn't really something to overcome; they had to continue on with their endeavours anyways, and even then, we simply saw Bruce throw some furniture.

Bruce was neglected right up until his very last scene. He was sending a teammate back in time, and there was a cast on his arm. The audience was given no idea what he would do next, and there was no sense of conclusion at all. One of his last lines was a somber comment about how he missed Natasha. Nothing about his story (or lack thereof) felt complete.

Here are three more quotes from Film Crit Hulk that summarize the issues with Bruce Banner wonderfully:

"My jaw was on the ground when Endgame finished, because the Hulk character has literally nothing to do on any emotional level for most of the running time. He's just… There. Sure, you can throw as many lines like "I was born to do this" when Hulk reaches for the Infinity Gauntlet as you want, but you can't tell me that this is part of a psychological journey that was dramatized in the actual story we've seen so far. It's just a convenient moment of seeming destiny."

"You can shout the logic of "hey, it was five years later!" at me all you want, but you shouldn't save the most important parts of a character's arc for the time between films. You shouldn't hand-wave solutions that were set up by multiple films' worth of struggle."

""They'll address it in the next one!" you might say. But we've been down this road before. And I argue now what I've argued then: that all our stories have to mean something deep to us in the moment. Because our lives are filled with so many crushing dualities and shortcomings that we need to find meaningful apotheosis."

In summation, all of Bruce's issues with Hulk were solved off-screen, without no scenes between him and Hulk, and virtually nothing else happened to him where development went. He was just there to drive the plot. I cannot stop thinking, after what happened in Infinity War with Bruce and Hulk, how cathartic it would have been for Bruce himself to wield the gauntlet because his blood was irradiated, have trouble doing it because the gauntlet was too powerful, then, perhaps, for Hulk to step in and save him. Bruce could have had an epiphany about Hulk's purpose for being there (a childhood flashback, perhaps). This could have allowed them to co-front, or even for Bruce to front in Hulk's body by himself. This could've fixed some of the issues with previous movies (even if, again, this would've felt pretty rushed), and allowed us to see the mechanics of what actually happened when Bruce was fronting in Hulk's body. Maybe a scene like this would've put too much focus on Bruce, instead of the act of reversing the snap. But Marvel wrote themselves into a corner long before this, so that's on them.

This next complaint of mine will annoy some shippers, but when Bruce said "you helped me" to Thor when he visited him, which I think referenced what happened on Sakaar, it landed badly. This was supposed to be a touching moment, but on Sakaar, Thor oscillated between treating Bruce like a tool (literally and figuratively), and didn't seem to care what happened to him, only relenting after a lot of pushback from the doctor. There was no moment where Thor helped him out of a dark place, because the movie simply didn't allow itself to go there. This scene felt like a revision, and it only called further attention to the wild inconsistencies created when the visions of different directors don't line up, and when subsequent directors need to retcon the previous visions. Thor got Bruce off Sakaar, but Bruce wasn’t even around for more than a few hours before Hulk came back, and most of that time, he was stressed out and being manipulated by Thor. You can't elicit pathos in the audience by referencing an event that didn't happen. It's very possible Bruce was referencing some off-screen event where he was in a bad place and Thor was there for him, but once again, if the audience never experienced that moment with the characters, how was it supposed to feel poignant?

Across four movies, the audience wasn't given a single scrap of insight into Bruce's childhood, either, which is canonically the whole reason Hulk exists in the first place, as an alter. This could have been explored in AOU, but instead we received a poorly-written romance. It could have been explored in Ragnarok, but instead we received superficial banter. The same happened in IW. In Endgame, Hulk effectively didn't even exist anymore, so there must have been no point in exploring that stuff then, either, right? As per the writers, any story would've taken too much time away from the plot anyways. Basically, Marvel kicked the can further and further down the road until they were forced to squish everything into one last movie, and they didn't even do that, whether because they didn't want to, or because the plot of the movie was too complicated to allow for proper storytelling for Bruce. Instead, they just added a few painfully small lines and pretended it was somehow sufficient to cover everything they missed, and everything that should have been shown on-screen — because that is the point of a movie; for the audience to experience things with these characters and watch them grow.

As someone who's been watching the trainwreck with Bruce worsen and worsen over the years... My entire response could be summed up as, I wish they just killed Bruce off in Avengers. At least then, I wouldn't have been strung down this entire shitshow with the pervasive hope that the next release would be better, cocktail with growing dread about how they'd mess him up next. At this stage, I'm done, and I've learned my lesson. The only reason I even saw the above movies was because after AOU, I decided to pirate them. I didn't want to vote "this movie was awesome, please make more" with my wallet.

Disney can rot in the dumpster fire it created.

As an aside: I've held these opinions for years, and I'm not going to change my mind on anything. Dissenting opinions will be removed if they appear here, because this is a vent post, not a discussion post. Thanks.

[dailysuna]

Baki headcannons time! I'm writing a fic (it's gotten too long btw) and Baki is a key player. I characterized him as aloof to his charges with a hidden soft spot for them, but that's only because I don't think of him very much. If it's alright with you I'd like to dig into your headcannons more since I don't honestly think of Baki often... But!! I need him now! For my fic! Please send me your headcannons! Also no need to shorten your answers, I love reading them.

Yes, of course! We love Baki in this household. To be honest, I cannot quite remember how our headcanons about him started, attraction to him, adoration for Suna, blatant inability to remember exactly what happened in the first arc of Shippuden. What I do know is I researched him a ton on his Narutopedia page (that website is the Bible) and frankly they had basically nothing on him. There is also very little on Suna itself, so, all of the shaping of what we have made Suna to be came from what we did know about the characters that lived there as well as what we came to believe about those characters.

Baki is described as someone extremely loyal to his village, but knows how to set priorities and is willing to go against what the council has said if that means benefiting the village. This is seen after Gaara is kidnapped and he goes to Chiyo and Ebizo (we stan these two in this household) for their help in saving Gaara. I read into this, a lot, because it was pretty much the only personality trait given to us. Baki recognizes the importance of Gaara, and the rest of the council basically agreed it might have been a blessing in disguise for the village because they still did not like Gaara. Why would Baki, someone just as dedicated to the village as the other council members, not believe the same they did? Its basically a known fact Suna shinobi are willing to sacrifice their friends, family, and lovers if it is required for a mission to be successful. They are willing to make sacrifices, so even if Baki cared about Gaara he would be willing to sacrifice him if that meant saving the village. Honestly, he may not even know Gaara that well in a case such as that. Thinking of that, I knew Baki had to be different from the rest of the council, but how?

I had absolutely all the freedom in the world to develop Baki how I wished, which is actually more terrifying than having no freedom, but when I looked at him, all I could think was that he looked perfect. His skin? Flawless. His makeup? On point. His body? Oh man that dude is so muscular and we all know it. Baki is just walking perfection looks wise so I said why not make him an actual angel? Why not make his personality just as good? Of course, this needed to be justified and I found a way to make that true (I will post the backstory I developed for him some other time).

Because he is the epitome of perfect, he would have thought letting their kazekage die for the village was awful, right? Actually no. Baki's flaw in his perfect persona comes from the fact that he would have grown up in Old Suna, so he would possess the same mindset as the old geezers in the council. He wouldn't think sacrifice was bad because he grew up thinking it was necessary. Then there had to be some other reason he thought saving Gaara was the answer, some way he knew the boy was necessary. That decision would have to come from knowing Gaara and what he was capable of, aka being close to him. Baki would need to know Gaara's motivation, Gaara's skills, just Gaara in general to think that he needed to be saved. How else could Baki have known this unless he got close to Gaara? As I have stated previously, I believed Baki would not pursue getting to know him had he not had a specific type of personality and Gaara would never reach out to make them become familiar with one another as we know.

This led me to develop Baki as I have. A village oriented angel man, who cares deeply for those he once lead. Baki had to be the type of person to be kind and open minded for the 3 siblings to even accept him in the first place. Yes, in the chunin exams arc we see him only ever act seriously and only ever look like he could kill someone with a single glance, but that is because they were on a mission. He went serious murder Baki mode because that's just what Suna shinobi do. What we don't see, is much of any interaction between the siblings and Baki. The way I read this was yes, there was no heartwarming interaction or something to make us believe Baki was an angel, but there was also no disrespect or disregard towards Baki. To me this meant they sre on a mission so they all need to be serious, and because it was still Old Suna they would have been more serious anyways, but that Baki and the siblings had a mutual respect for one another anyways so as not to say anything bad towards him (we do see Gaara was kind of awful to his siblings at the same time so he totally would have said something to Baki if he wanted because little emo baby Gaara doesn't respect authority).

To me, this meant Baki and Gaara, and Temari and Kankuro, had to have built up that respect somehow. This is something I will go into more depth later, but for now I shall simply state the following sentences. Gaara was feared by everyone because of Shukaku so it was clear his siblings, the ones less afraid to stand next to him, were the only option for his team. For their sensei, I'm sure many ninja were given the task but quit it not long after because ALL three siblings were being brats (none of them respected authority). After going through numerous other shinobi, Rasa would have turned to Baki, someone he knew was more dedicated to Suna than most and would have given him the task, stressing that this would highly benefit the village. Baki is someone who serves the village, thinks only of the village's benefits, and only goal in life is to be of use for the village. This would have been a task he recognized was highly important and him quitting as others had would only mean he hadn't lived up to his only goal in life, he would have failed Rasa and Sunagakure. In desperate attempts to not let that happen, Baki would make the best of the situation. After dreading his new job for the longest time but still trying his best to connect with the three so it was more bearable, I believe the siblings would have started recognizing he wasn't planning to leave and despite suffering from their punches and kicks was still trying his best to be educational and supportive. I think that, even if they weren't super close or caring towards Baki at that time, each would, at their own pace, begin to recognize that and respect him, meaning they would slowly stop being as bratty as they originally were. This would make Baki relieved and happy because his job wouldn't be as much of a hellhole as before and he would try even harder to be there for the three even if they did nothing in return or acted as though they didn't like it. The siblings lost their mother at a young age and Rasa was too busy or pressed to spend much time with them so they had likely never had the support Baki offered, and if they did it never lasted long, so they likely would have at least been decent towards Baki until all grew and realized that he had become a wonderful role model and shoulder to rest on for them.

Baki's character has so little development and his actions can be read so many ways, but this was what I chose and both D and E grabbed it up like little goblins. Personally, I believe that unless they were a caring and kind person someone would not be willing to get to know Gaara, who was feared by literally everyone, and thus would not believe he was necessary for the success of the village. So basically, we all see Baki as a relatively open and caring guy who eventually learns to love the siblings unconditionally and becomes their parental figure because they have no one else to turn to, for he is the only willing one and their actual parents are dead.