Hulk Shouldn’t Have Been in the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Trailer, Fans Say

One of the biggest complaints in the marketing of movies recently is trailers giving too many plot points away. This is ongoing, and many trailers keep persisting to a point where it feels like viewers saw the entire movie in five minutes.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has never been immune to this, despite still managing to cover up major plot secrets. In more recent years, they do a better job in not revealing too many surprises. Back when Thor: Ragnarok came out, however, fans complained about the trailer revealing a new look for a key character.

This was the Hulk who had somewhat of a reboot at the time of Ragnarok. To this day, fans on social media still think the trailer was a major spoiler.

Is it true that ‘Ragnarok’ gave away the new look for Hulk?

As always, Reddit gives fans chances to expound and vent about what the MCU does right or wrong. In a recent thread asking which scenes fans would not include in trailers, the replies were interesting. Almost unanimously, fans mentioned too many scenes of the new Hulk in Ragnarok back in 2017.

During that time, the new re-do of Hulk was intended to stay a secret, including his new look and the return of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Nevertheless, news had already leaked about Ruffalo returning as a co-starring role. Revealing him in the trailer was inevitable, if disappointing fans in giving away Hulk’s new design.

The reason Hulk was made to look different was to essentially wipe any memory of the previous version of Hulk with Edward Norton. Also, because Hulk was stuck on the planet Sakaar for a long while, the special effects team decided to give him a slightly different visage.

One can say this version of the Hulk looked far more realistic thanks to CGI advancements. Plus, this version was made to resemble Ruffalo’s facial features more for better continuity.

Revealing too much of the epic Thor/Hulk fight scenes

Another problem with the Ragnarok trailer was giving away all the pivotal fights between Thor and Hulk. They were teamed up for a good reason since they were both the strongest of The Avengers superheroes at the time.

Giving away how they ultimately turn on one another was giving away the essence of the movie. On the other hand, when placed in the shoes of director Taika Waititi, it probably was more than a little difficult to create a trailer without showcasing Hulk in some capacity.

As a user on Reddit said above, though: “In my theater, a Coke commercial played before the movie and spoiled the scene. Could you imagine going all year avoiding spoilers and trailers for arguably one of the best moments in the MCU and being spoiled right before the movie even starts”?

Talk about being stuck in a cinematic marketing predicament, even if Waititi made a very good film. If one can argue he screwed up on revealing Hulk in the trailer, it appears he did a good job of hiding that Ragnarok would be downright hilarious.

The MCU may never reveal things like that again in their trailers

When the Avengers: Endgame trailer released in early 2019, half the secrets of the film were kept well-hidden. Marvel apparently had to learn gradually on how to create the perfect trailer so it never gave away too much.

Many other studios still have much to learn on that, especially when myriad trailers still give away a Quibi version of an entire movie. Thanks to the MCU now having enough story to pack in a million surprises, they have a fortunate way to approach their trailers without ruining anything for fans.

Then again, when a big star wants visibility in a trailer, it might happen by accident all over again.