. . . Well, since Orion wants a Jennifer/Rick scene so bad. We can use his self proposed Rick background as a youtuber/social media personality as the "inclusion" portion. During the mid credits scene, have Rick doing his social media thing on a computer screen, pan out to a head of hair staring at it, a knock at the door, head turns (away from camera focus), screen transitions to the door, door opens, and there's Phil, asking a Jennifer Walters what she knows about her cousin Bruce Banner.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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I mean it still doesn't have Jennifer and Rick physically in the same location and with knowledge of each other like I think Orion wants but it is a scene that I think works significantly well and does at least give one knowledge of the other.
That being said it's really similar to the proposed Wonder Man post-credits introduction scene so it's a little iffy on if we want to pull more or less the exact same stinger twice since they'll likely be shot very, very similarly.
Edit: Diminishing impact is the concern here and we can minimize it somewhat by having the stingers be shot differently but I'm struggling to think of ways to shoot this proposed scene and the Wonder Man scene differently from one another in order to reduce the samey feeling. The issue is not so bad we can't do it if we really want to but it's something we need to be aware of so that we don't exacerbate the problem and have like four post credits scenes in phase 1 shot really, really similarly.
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While I can see the point, we can "downplay" the Shield perspective by "having" Phil introduce himself as an "agent" playing the visit up as a routine investigation angle. And not the whole, "We have interests, and we find you, particularly, interesting." from the Wonder Man mid credit scene. {Edit} Besides, unless we have Rick living in the same building, and passing her in the hall as he's leaving with his stuff, maybe some quick conversation, before bringing in Phil. There's really no reason to put the two in "a" same room at the same time, at this point in the narrative. {Edit2} We could also change the on screen Shield Agent. Like say, for Wonder Man, instead of Fury, have it be a brief Cameo of a Black Widow, from behind, addressing Wonder Man, and declaring that "they" need to talk, before ending the scene (from behind so as to leave room for future casting the Black Widow role)
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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I was referring more to the proposed mid-credits scene that has Wonder Man (or at least the back of his head) listening to a speech by Tony Stark on the TV before muttering "wonderful" than the one in Nystical's pitch about Nick Fury showing up.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make them different or that it's something we necessarily need to solve right now but it's something we might like to try thinking of fixes of ahead of time. It's the most hypothetical of hypothetical problems.
I personally agree with you but the general impression I got from speaking to Orion is that he really wants them to physically be in the same place (in every version of what he proposes will bring the both of them in both Rick and Jennifer are roommates living together, though not romantically involved). I could be misreading what Orion wants but that's the impression I got conveyed to me about what he's shooting for especially since he also wanted to have Jessica Jones be implied to be living with them at the same time.
I like your idea and have no real issues with it as a credits scene (I don't even think we should have them physically pass by one another in the hall very briefly).
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... I can't seem to find the line about this in Nystical's pitch, and am to lazy to trawl through the discussion posts afterward to find it in there. Could you link or quote it please?
Duke William of
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To state one of my earlier points again, we could make Ross a former Drill Sergeant and make his insults even better. 
Hey, we could even get R. Lee Ermey as either an advisor or even as Ross himself.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHxf17yJsKs
I'm thinking that Ross is like this when insulting Banner and Sterns, but he's far less abrasive and insulting when among his men.
Hey, we could even get R. Lee Ermey as either an advisor or even as Ross himself.View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHxf17yJsKs
I'm thinking that Ross is like this when insulting Banner and Sterns, but he's far less abrasive and insulting when among his men.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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Sure here's the quote I'm talking about (it was part of a vote Nystical had so he probably wants it or at least some variation of it in pretty badly)
Like if you can just point out a way to shoot the scenes differently enough that there's not a significant overlap between them I'll have no problems with it. Alternatively we could just bite the bullet have two very similar scenes and just agree to not make a third or a fourth scene like this and I'm fine with that as well.
How is this detail organically brought up in the movie? Like it's neat and all and I'm not opposed to the casting (I've got no immediate problems casting R. Lee Ermey in a vacuum provided we can give him the mustache to make him look sufficiently different from his role in Full Metal Jacket to avoid actor dissonance) but I can't quite think of a way to organically include the actual detail it into the script. The best I can think of is to have Betty tell Bruce not to mind her former drill sergeant of a dad in the opening act of the movie before the gamma bomb goes off but it still feels a little stilted and weird to me.We could make Ross a former Drill Sergeant, make his insults even better.
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Duke William of
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Right, I overlooked that... Well then, we don't have to make him a former drill sergeant, or if we are we won't mention it. At the very least, I'd like to see Ross insult people akin to how Hartman insulted people.
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Okay, so, I realized that I left out a key portion of my case for this, which is that Tony is pretty clearly laid up with injury after his fight with Stane and can't personally dispose of the armor no matter how much he would like to. If it's still OOC, we can have Pepper deal with it while he's unconscious--or have SHIELD, possibly on the orders of Hydra if we still want to do that plot twist, confiscate it.
Well, the short answer is that we really couldn't shot them all to differently. The slightly longer answer is that without something tying the mid credit cameo back to the movie, then Phil interviewing Miss Walters is superfluous, and thus should be scrapped.
As to trying to shot them differently; show a TV in the foreground, without being able to focus on the screen, have Simon's actor visible, and identifiable in scene, do role, and then drop a named Shield Character into the setup, cut to black/credits.
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(General Ross enters the room and sees Samuel Sterns experimenting on a huge, green, gamma-radiated rat)
Ross: Holy Jesus... What is that?! (Points aggressively at the rat, his hand shaking back and forth like a broken metronome) WHAT THE DAMN* IS THAT?!
*Due to Perlmutter, we cannot use the F-bomb. d:
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I'm liking this draft much better but I think the beginning parts with Sterns weakens him as a character. I feel that having Sterns always having been scummy detracts from his dichotomy with Banner I think it would be better that pre-mutation Sterns starts out as a bumbling but decent man instead of a slacker pretty much having him and Banner start out in the same place in life barring friends as down on their luck schmucks. After the mutation Sterns lacks any real connections or support group causing him to lash out and go full supervillain while highlighting Bruce's inner hero in how despite all the shit piled on him he doesn't decide to become a monster.
In hindsight, this can give Betty a bit more substance in the story like show Sterns being jealous that Betty truly cares about Bruce and have the two of them talk with Betty apologizing to Sterns about what Ross is doing to him and so on.
RomanceNinja
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Technically, PG-13 movies are allowed a total of 1 F-bomb.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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I mean my question again is on actor dissonance here. Have you ever seen Jim Carrey in something and not immediately known it was Jim Carrey? A lot like Willem Dafoe I think Jim Carrey being such an iconic actor is kind of a point against him and his inclusion.
I could kind of see him doing the role as despite Carrey's more comedic background he has played menacing villains in the Cable Guy at the very least but while he can act the part I don't think he can ever disappear into the part which is something I think is kind of important and one of the best decisions in the casting process of the IRL MCU.
I mean it still seems OOC to me at least that Tony didn't then immediately follow up on checking were the Iron Monger armor went and doing everything within his power to destroy it and prevent anyone from having it. I still don't think the plot twist really works without doing something like making Stark fundamentally opposed to SHIELD and unwilling to trust them on even a basic level.
I do think your version is better than mine and you've given a good enough answer that I don't think I ought to fight you on this.
I didn't really get where you're coming from on Sterns always having been scummy even before the mutation. Like what he does before getting gamma irradiated is chewed out by General Ross for not doing his job and listening in on a conversation he thought was interesting and then wear headphones when he's not supposed to and miss a warning because of that. I feel like that makes him more of the bumbling but decent person you propose to change him to than actively scummy person as you've described him to be in the current script. I think you're trying to make a change that's already there. I can try and make a fourth pass at writing a Hulk script but I don't want to rewrite the entire pitch all over again for a change to make more obvious something I think is already there.
Also I just generally don't like the idea of making Sterns jealous of Bruce because Betty is romantically interested in him. I also think that it's better to just have everyone (including Betty and Bruce) just sort of overlook and ignore how Sterns is suffering under Ross to feed into his feelings of being a nobody who doesn't get the respect they deserve. I think that it's cleaner as is and the change your proposing doesn't particularly make Betty more relevant to the plot.
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Duke William of
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I don't think he meant that Sterns is jealous that Betty is in love with Banner. Rather, he's jealous because Betty genuinely cares about Bruce even though he's... well, the Hulk, a monster that wants to smash everything. He's jealous that even though Bruce was gamma-radiated and turned into the Hulk, he still, somehow, has people who love and care for him.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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Okay fair but how do you show that without involving the romantic connotations? Like it seems hard to naturally weave in without bleeding in romantic elements that are kind of iffy. It's hard to say that Sterns is jealous of Betty's connection with Bruce but not at all in a romantic sort of way, when Betty is romantically connected to Bruce.
Plus on top of that I think having Sterns be angry at being ignored and overlooked and belittled is a good enough reason for him to be a supervillain, we don't also need to make him jealous of the Hulk who he actually likes to some degree in this version of the story.
Edit: If we absolutely must have Sterns be jealous of someone's relationship with the Hulk and we don't want it to come off as him being jealous of romantic love, we ought to make him jealous of Rick who actually has a platonic positive relationship with Bruce and the Hulk and not a romantic one. I'm still not thrilled with including the idea but I think it's better than having Betty be the focus.
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Duke William of
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I was going to this exactly, lol.
Yeah, to remove any romantic connotations, we just throw in Rick. I'm not saying this should happen in the script, but I'd be open to it. Although, Tumblr will probably disagree with me on Rick not being romantically interested in Banner...
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To be more precise I was going for that the laziness he shows telegraphs him as a nascent villain to much and that the audience isn't supposed to like him.
Duke William of
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SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT IDEA
Maybe we don't even have to make Sterns jealous of Banner... Instead, we could have it so that for all of his newfound intellect, for all the knowledge he now knows... He just can't understand how the Hulk, a massive brute whose only instinct is to smash everything, has people who actually care for and love him, while Sterns is still scorned and ignored by others. He has no answer to this abnormality... and it irks him to no end.
Maybe we don't even have to make Sterns jealous of Banner... Instead, we could have it so that for all of his newfound intellect, for all the knowledge he now knows... He just can't understand how the Hulk, a massive brute whose only instinct is to smash everything, has people who actually care for and love him, while Sterns is still scorned and ignored by others. He has no answer to this abnormality... and it irks him to no end.
. . . . And some villains can't just be villains?
Ah, the "I'm the victim" mentality, where it's obliviously, always someone else's fault, and not/never "their" own.
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I want him to become a villain but I want him to start out from the same place Bruce is, morally speaking to highlight the different paths they go down.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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I mean he's listening in on one conversation instead of doing his job that's not really an incredible amount of laziness (and he immediately gets disproportionately chewed out by General Ross who almost immediately gets established as unreasonable when he pushes the bomb test forward despite Bruce's protests and basically bullies him into complying) and when he's wearing his headphones he's actually doing his job just breaking a different rule. I don't think it makes him appear incredibly lazy and I don't get why you seem to think he's suddenly intensely super heavily telegraphed to be unlikable.
Yeah he's telegraphed a little bit to be the villain and to have negative traits but I don't think he's excessively hateable at all and remains a bit sympathetic right up until he decides to start having the gamma animals start killing people. I'd rather not try to make Sterns being the bad guy be some big twist or shocking reveal. Rather it's something that we build to and can logically see the progression of.
I don't like this for a lot of the same reason why I don't like having him be jealous of Banner. It detracts and takes away from the already more interesting idea we've got that the Leader actually kind of likes the Hulk and doesn't want to fight him until the Hulk forces his hand. We can't have the Leader feel personally bitter towards the Hulk if we want that really strong and interesting moment to make sense and not feel like an asspull. Trying to do both at once doesn't work and is trying to do too much at once.
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Duke William of
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You make a good point, but I should have clarified what I'm making Sterns be. He's not bitter about the fact that Hulk still has people who care about him, but is genuinely confused. Although, I'm open to criticism about it.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
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I mean do we need to have them start out at the exact same place in order to highlight the different paths they go down? I feel like they're both similar enough as is that we can see why Sterns went wrong and why Banner remained a hero without making it incredibly glaringly obvious that the characters are foils and being obvious that way.
I mean that doesn't really work either. We already have a moment of the Hulk just completely confusing and countering the Leader's worldview when he willingly turns back into Banner. We don't need to tack on another moment of the same thing that's just going to weaken the overall story beat.
I think the gamma superiority/wish fulfillment that we can bridge into the more psychological elements later down the line is more important and interesting to highlight as the point where the Leader's worldview is disproven/breaks down as opposed to the more cliche angle of him not beign able to understand love and friendship.
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