Sarah Palin and the Incredible Hulk

In this post, we shall look at Sarah Palin's prescription for the Tea Party movement, as well as a review of the animated straight-to-DVD film, Planet Hulk. Simultaneously.

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin urged tea party activists on Tuesday night to “start picking a party.” Marvel Animation’s new DVD Planet Hulk represents a rare modicum of ambition, as it takes on a recent, well-received storyline from the Hulk comics, and does so without a lot of setup.

In remarks to a fundraising dinner for the Arkansas Republican Party reported by CBS News, Palin opens with the green-skinned, constantly enraged Hulk in shackles on a spaceship, having been exiled from Earth by a council of concerned superheroes. Palin has been making an aggressive play of late to situate herself as a leader of the movement, and in fact may be a little duller, given the more distinctive designs of series like Iron Man: Armored Adventures and The Super Hero Squad Show.

“Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this tea party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party,” she said. Too bad the animation style isn’t as adventurous as the plot.

Palin suggested the grassroots activists consider “Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you?” It’s hardly original, but it’s reasonably sophisticated for a movie aimed at 12-year-olds (and perpetual 12-year-olds).

“And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party," which mainly gives the creative team license to lightly pepper the film with mild profanity and blood-spatter.

Palin praised the anti-tax tea party activists for their independence. The Planet Hulk DVD features a preview of an upcoming straight-to-DVD Thor movie that looks far more exciting.

The tea partiers would not, however, commit to supporting GOP candidates or to holding off from savaging Republican candidates in primaries. Hulk breaks free and smashes up the ship, throwing it off-course, and crash-lands on the planet Sakaar, where he’s enslaved by the natives and pressed into gladiatorial combat.

Given the more distinctive designs of series like Iron Man: Armored Adventures and The Super Hero Squad Show, Steele and the grassroots organizers agreed to keep a dialogue open and meet on regional levels. Next time, maybe they’ll come up with something as vivid as the source material.

The Arkansas Republican Party said it hoped to raise $400,000 off of the event, according to the Associated Press. Key features: Two in-depth featurettes, plus two wonky commentary tracks, two “motion comics,” two music videos, and a bonus Hulk-themed episode of Wolverine & The X-Men.

(Note: Sarah Palin really did say: "“Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken?")