Dragonball Evolution

[Andromeda]

Well, I ended up seeing this movie today. Since I knew of its existence I knew it was going to be a terrible movie that would completely ignore the canon of the Dragonball world. Going up to it I was calling it a travesty and pretty much everything else possibly negative. I was going to see how bad it was more than if it was going to be enjoyable. I've seen enough live-action adaptions of video games to know that Hollywood just doesn't get it even when they are sort of close.

And I can say without a doubt that Evolution screws with every piece of canon in the world it can get its hands on pretty much. Yet in spite of that fact I actually found myself enjoying it on some level. It was certainly not great in any respects, but it pretty much felt like a DBZ movie short throw everything together and slap on a plot of some sort to make people fight. It was a little better than that. But that was sort of the conclusion that I came out. It wasn't the worst thing since Street Fighter or anything like that.

For all of the breaking of canon it managed to do a fair enough job keeping what it could of the canon. I would have wished that Master Roshi's house was an island, but it still more or less is an island. They even have capsules which made me pleasantly surprised. And they managed to work in that the world was futuristic even though they did not go to great lengths to make that known. If you paid attention you saw it if you did it you probably could have thought it took place in modern day normal Earth.

My only real issue with things was that Goku was not really the Goku we all know. Though I have to give them credit for saying Son Goku once, something that not even the Funimation dubs did. But the Goku we know is a martial arts genius pretty much, he is perfect in all respects. He learns things pretty much instantly and copies them perfectly much to the dismay to his rivals or opponents. And Goku is pure and kind and innocent if not a huge airhead when not fighting, and even sometimes fighting. Pretty much none of those quality get expressed well. He is clear enough that he is kind and innocent, but he is no airhead or martial arts genius. He does manage the Kamehameha, but fails on it for a while too. He is also supposed to be a country bumpkin pretty much too, which he was not. He never had formal schooling because all he wanted to was fight and become stronger and fight stronger opponents. He's pretty simplist. The Goku here is troubled, emotional, imperfect, weak at times and has a crush on Chi Chi. Goku does love Chi Chi, but it was Chi Chi that got Goku simply because Goku was too much of an airhead to do much anything else.

Though for everything that they screwed up with Goku. I think I know why he had to be that way. If he was not like that then an American audience would not have connected well with him. Goku is too perfect and too good that it is clear he is above everyone else even if he does not project himself as being above. Which makes it difficult for a general American audience to connect. They work better with someone that is flawed and imperfect like them. At least that I what I think was going through their minds when they changed Goku to his live-action version. All things side it is not a terrible thing, but considering that for the most part they tried to keep like personalities and traits for the other characters I'm disappointed that they changed Goku so much. One positive moment for Goku for me was when he actually looked like he was acting like a monkey and childish in his fighting style where he was being silly and mocking almost. Which made me think of young Goku for a moment.

The movie does have its moments, though I was hoping of a Cha-la-Head-Cha-la or a Rock the Dragon cameo somewhere, but didn't notice it at least. I was a little disappointed that they didn't make that nod even if only by having it play in a night club for the background music. Would have been icing for me.

Oh well.

Anyway, spoilers aside. What were your impressions of this movie?

[Myst]

eh... i haven't seen it. But i heard it only gives picalo 10 minutes of screen time or something! is this true? and i already knew they screwed up with the characters, like bulma having guns? wtf is that all about? lame...

I may see it just so i can bitch about it though xD

[Andromeda]

The movie is only 84 minutes long. So even 10 minutes is a fair amount of time in the movie. Piccolo was present, but he certainly did not hog the screen. My guess would be that 10 minutes sounds about right, though I might say he had more like 15 minutes. Since he had time early in the movie and then most of it at the end.

Oh I know I have a list of things that I can easily rant about that they did wrong and didn't have or whatever. But in the end the movie surprised me at not being horrible like I planned. But I went in with zero to possibly negative numbers for expectations. I planned for it to completely bomb out. So from that point of view it really could only go up from there if it managed to do a few things right. And it did.

I'm not sure if I would agree with some reviewers words in saying it is the best adaption of a video game or anime, but seeing as the list is pretty poor to start it is not a high hurdle to get over. It is certainly better than most of these types of adaptions.

[Myst]

well saying the movie is the best adaptation to a game isn't saying much -_-"

Mortal Kombat? Street Fighter? And god forbid Mortal Kombat II... Seriously what are they competing with? all three where terrible, with Mortal Kombat II taking the lead for worst movie out of them.

- are they including the FFVII:Advent Children when they say this? or that other FF movie they made that had nothing to do with the series? I wouldn't really call them adaptations since they weren't really plots from the games...but i have a feeling they are better then the DB evolution -_-"

lol... im just gonna go and download the movie, not worth my money to buy/rent...

[Crazy Chocobo]

84 minutes? Wow, another reason not to go and see it. I was a fan of DBZ but after hearing about a live action DB movie, I was not interested in it. My friend wants to go and see it since she loves/loved DBZ but I hope she doesn't ask me because I won't be going. Nobody I know wants to see it, they all think the same thing. Live action doesn't work for me.

Some people may enjoy it, that's cool but I shall not be seeing it, it'd be a waste of $15 since it's only 84 minutes long! That's really short.

[Myst]

Only people who hadn't watched DB would enjoy it. It really isn't anything like the original series... Where is the old perverted man on the island that i once knew and loved?

- btw is Krilen (sorry can't spell) in it? i know he's a useless bum but he was my useless bum!

[Andromeda]

Yeah, I was surprised when I heard how short it was as well. But when I watched it I did not feel that it was too short. At least I did not notice the length of the movie. I actually thought it was going to be so short I'd feel like they moved too quickly, but they managed to make it feel longer than it actually is in the end. It was weird.

Though seeing as all of the DBZ movies are like 50-70 minutes in length with 50 minute being the average. It is not that short. ^^;

EDIT: Krillin is not in the movie, but rest assured that Roshi is a pervert. He gets his hands on Bulma at least once. He doesn't get the chance to watch any exercise videos on TV, but it was pretty clear that he is a pervert.

[Myst]

but he wasn't my old perverted man on the island... They could have tried to put more effort into the characters...

Why for they not put the side kick into the movie? Krillin isn't a bad character and he was slightly funny in some parts. Im going to go ahead and guess that the animal people aren't in it? the pig guy and the floating cat thing?

[Andromeda]

Oolong and Poroa or whatever are not in the movie. Though Master Roshi's house is technically an island it just not surrounded by water. It seemed like a weird thing to do, but at least it was alone if nothing else. Yeah, I don't know why they couldn't have made it an island. But I'm guessing that it was about budget. They did not have an enormous budget, so I'm thinking some of things that seemed harmless cost a lot. That would be my guess.

I will say that Shenlong is in the movie and Oosaru is as well. That surprised me, I was not expecting that. They had the world martial arts tournament, though sadly Goku did not enter it, but Chi Chi did. Goku was a little too distracted, because Chi Chi offered and the Goku we know would have jumped at fighting people without a second thought. I was really hoping for a quick little world's martial arts tournament.

They have signed up the actors for more movies already. So if they do make more and the movie overseas already has made close to 30 million. So I'm guessing that they will make more. If they do the Piccolo Jr saga next I'm hoping for the world's martial tournament to show up. And if not that they may go on to the Saiyan Saga which would be interesting as well. Though I'm concerned about Gohan since they made Goku older. Are they going to have a 6 year child beating up on aliens? I hope so, but I have a bad feeling about it. Gohan is my favorite too. So I'll be really upset depending on what they do to Gohan.

[Myst]

Poor Gohan... I have a feeling they're gonna just tear him a new one xD

Maybe they will just redo the movie with a bigger budget and make it more to the original story? that would be amazing!

[Furore]

Yamcha was my favourite character.
Anyone who's seen the movie know if he gets decent screentime and if he's portrayed anything like in the anime?

[Andromeda]

Yamcha is definiitely in the movie and the way he makes his entrance is about what you would expect from his character while he was in Dragonball. I was hoping for some wolf fang fist from him, but unfortunately that did not happen. He get some pretty decent screentime, though he shows up in the second half of the movie. He was not the focus naturally, but he proved himself to be useful and Bulma and him got that doe eyed look from each other that existed from the start of DB to like the middle of DBZ until she mysteriously got together with Vegeta.

As for his character. I would say that made him a little too much of a surfer dude in his voice, but apart from that he was not horrible. I would imagine if he is your favorite you will probably find plenty of faults in his character. He is not sidelines material yet. ^^; He's got a couple movies before that happens.

Yeah, a bigger budget would be nice. I think with more money to throw at it they would be able to get a little closer to the right feel of the world. Because it is pretty clear that they did not have the money to do everything, so they made due with what they could. Its certainly not stupidy low budget, the special effects are decent. But they could have done a lot more with a better budget.

[celebrity.skin]

I saw it last night. It was always going to suck, but I thought it was kind of funny at times. Bulma, imo, was the best thing about the movie. She was well-played. Yamcha, although hideously ugly, was also hilarious. I don't know who played Goku but he was truly awful. Not to mention, he got saddled with some of the most ridiculous sounding lines I've ever heard.

I so predicted the scene after the credits too. With the Asian lady putting the wet cloth on someone's forehead? So knew it would be Piccolo.

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_...e_Magic_Begins <-- still remains the BEST Dragonball movie I have ever seen. It's so terrible it's ****ing awesome.

[Dr_Flea]

ROFL i saw DB:Evo tonite and coming from a fans perspective of the movie...sooooo many flaws

But i saw it with someone whos never seen the anime and they thought it was ok..not the best movie but ok.

Wtf why didn't they let Shenlong talk that would have been Awsome.

Also just why did goku have to fly when he was firing the last Kame hameha wave at Piccolo just thought it would have been better if he didn't fly is all.


ahhh soo many flaws although i thought the monkey looked...ok not great like "OMG WOW THAT WAS AMAZING" but it was a decent effort.

how many sequels can they make lol there are soo many.

~Dr_Flea~

[Sean]

That movie was so bad it freakin hurt.

I was expecting something along the lines of the original Dragon Ball series condensed into a movie. Find the 7 balls, Krillin, Bulma, and Yamcha, and Roshii do their thing against the Red Ribbon Army, ect ect.

I wasn't expecting a bastardization of the original series leading up to the beginning of the Z series.

I was highly dissapointed in Yamcha's character, I didn't even put 2+2 together on who he was until Goku just used his name.... Chi Chi's character was pretty lame.... the movie tried too hard to feel sci-fi when that wasn't the main nature of the show.

Highly dissapointed, but hey... I went in with no expectations, so no harm done.

[Furore]

That movie was so bad it freakin hurt.

I was highly dissapointed in Yamcha's character, I didn't even put 2+2 together on who he was until Goku just used his name.... Chi Chi's character was pretty lame.... the movie tried too hard to feel sci-fi when that wasn't the main nature of the show.

Those. I went to see it as some people told me it wasn't that bad and the only mercy in my eyes was that it was fairly short.

Also... WHAT THE **** DID THEY DO TO GOKU'S CHARACTER??!!!

Teh hurruhs!