The Dragon Ball Evolution movie is out. Its a movie very much hated by fans just from viewing the trailers, but lets get some honest reviews.
So who's seen it?
**Write in the comments your review of the movie. I'm curious to what fans and maybe first time Dragon Ball fans thought after actually seeing the movie.**
(I'll add my review here once I see it myself..not sure if I want to support FOX so much but I am an anime blog and anime store owner so its kind of a duty ^^;)
Update: Well, I'm probably going to wait to buy the DVD at wholesale through my store but looking through the blogosphere...DBE tanked in the fans eyes and in general. Anime New Network went as far as saying "The fans were right!" I see some reviews below Keep on adding them, would love to hear your opinions on the move.
I just hope FOX and Hollywood get the picture that they need to try even harder with anime and game movies. Us anime fans know that there is more depth and more soul to our manga, games and anime than say..yes..an X-Men or Superman comic. American comics are naturally bland and lack story/character depth and thus Hollywood can orchestrate a wonderful blockbuster movie since they have a very simple story to build and add upon. The Wolverine movie for example looks simply stunning....yet not even half the effort seems to be put into play for our beloved series...and much much more is needed to create a live action anime film that actually reflects or enhances the soul of its original creation.
So Hollywood, FOX... please get the picture. To come up with something at least half way decent and for the fans you have to go down the Harry Potter route both in quality and in budget in making anything from video games or anime. This is just embarrassing. FOX should be more embarrassed than Warner Bros. was back in the 1980's when they took over Atari and speed marketed E.T. leading to thousands of games to be thrown in the desert. (do your video game history on that one) I'm not going to get into the figures for the movie...if you need to have your eyes bleed..look at this.
Well...more like continue and go into a fervor. The movie is about a week from release and already some people have seen it, including famous anime & DBZ fan dubber Lanipator. His review of what he saw says it all. I'm sorry guys, any hope of this being somewhat of a film us fans maybe, maybe wanted is practically up in smoke. The trailers show much of what we fear but I'm a cup-half-full kind of guy. Sadly, even with my optimism...there's not much hope here for a person who looks like and personifies himself with DBZ's Trunks (yeah, yeah I'm a bit of a DBZ nerd :-/). I can't give a real opinion with out actually seeing it....but that would give money to the evil organization that makes the Red Ribbon Army look tame...20th Century Fox. Rumors have it that there is already a sequel in the mix.
Dragon Ball Evolution looks to be the biggest insult to fans and FOX's most distasteful April Fools joke. -_-
Here it is, the second teaser trailer to what is now called Dragon Ball Evolution. Now, if I never ever heard of or saw Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z or GT... I'd look at this trailer and say, "Sick, this looks like a great movie!" Yet, as you guys have seen from my blog posts, the site and my user name across the internet, I'm a big DBZ fan. I just can't imagine what Akira Toriyama is thinking when he sees this. The parts picked look actually ok. Piccolo looks to be greener now but why oh why did they butcher the story? I can understand making a live action version would be tough if you went with the exact story, but even Dragon Ball has its own full length movies that are off the story arch. This isn't even in the same universe as Dragon Ball. Some body please, take the writing staff of this movie and sit them through the DVD box sets of DB, DBZ and GT and make sure they sit there like the chicken has to in Robot Chicken because they need to be taught a hard lesson in Dragon Ball 101. Thanks to DannyChoo for posting it before me ^^
Not exactly a new WTF moment but this one of course had to be on the list. These images caused many otaku to leave a palm print on their foreheads. James Marshers was a great choice for Piccolo but it seems like the production crew will be recycling his old Buffy costumes and they must be out of green paint ~_~
You know, I was at one point looking forward to the Dragon Ball Movie. The concept of a Dragon Ball live action with the financial backing of Hollywood could have been such a good thing if done right. The cast that was set up seemed not too bad of choices in my opinion...lacking a more realistic, more Asian cast, but still sounding well. After this image surfaced and the other aspects of the upcoming movie, I had to start this new segment aptly called Dragon Ball Movie WTF?! Moments. Leave it to Fox to mess things up ~_~
This first image is actually the newest WTF moment. What you are seeing is not some sort of weird Photoshop prank by somebody, but instead real footage from the movie. This my friends is what Fox's equivalent to Goku's Oozaro transformation looks like. Rumor has it that the CG needed to create the real Goku oozaro transformation was too much for them. I understand it takes lots of work to make good CG, but we are in 2008 not 1998. How that can be confused with this below can only be rationally explained if we think that possibly the group of people who first took (and butchered) DBZ are in charge of this one.
I was a bit late in posting this but here it is with audio, the Dragon Ball Movie Trailer. If I never saw Dragon Ball I would think this is cool but for many of us otaku, this is going to be a movie to watch for laughs on how bad Fox messes it up. Director James Wong states he wants this to be a "family film" so expect even more bastardization of the Dragon Ball saga than the horrible first english dub was ~_~ Chances are, I will still see it but I'll have to watch it with the thought that is not a Dragon Ball movie and has nothing to do with the anime.
Get ready to have your palm in your face...below is clip from a con goer in Europe viewing the Dragon Ball trailer. One big thing to take note is the quick clip of Goku making out with Bulma......The otaku world is going to flip its lid on this one!
Thanks to dragonballmovieblog I was able to get some screen shots of the upcoming Dragon Ball Movie trailer. You finally get to see what Piccolo looks like and basically....well you be the judge. To me it looks like Piccolo was recycled from James Marshers old Buffy make-up and costumes. It's also starting to make otaku across the web wonder if anyone making or staring in the movie even seen an episode of Dragon Ball, or Dragon Ball Z. For the good chunk of you that probably have a palm mark across your forehead after seeing this...I got great, great Dragon Ball Z news that I'll share in the next few days. Some of you might already know what i'm talking about but at least in November you will be able to feel alot better if think this movie will leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I was about to end my day online but I just had to show you all this. I know, many of us otaku are very scared about the Dragon Ball movie and we are all pondering how bad Hollywood will screw it up. Lets just hope for the best though... right ^^?
Anyways, in the picture you can see Bulma (top left), Goku (front and center), Chi Chi (Goku's right)..who BTW we haven't seen before this and is the better of the actor choices, I feel; Master Roshi...Chow Yun Fat, Mai(top right, also first time seen). Also if you look at the very top you will see the eyes of Piccolo for the first time also who we all know is being played by James Marsters aka Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Well, here it is..the first picture of Justin Chatwin as Goku. I don't know what to say about the Live action DBZ movie in the works... I really hope it doesn't suck.
Can it be true? It appears that the Dragon Ball movie that was set for an August 2008 release will now be pushed back to April 2009. Was starting to fear this since there was no trailer yet. This could be a good thing so they can fine tune the film. Lots of big names are in this film so who knows who might be next on the cast. Speaking of which, P. Diddy recently was rumored to be signing up for a role in an action film. Which up-coming movie has yet to be noted but it could actually be this one. That though is strictly a rumor left for discussion. More info at Anime News Network.
Keeping everyone up to date with the upcoming Dragon Ball movie that comes out in August.. here are some more actors confirmed last month for the movie; still no trailer yet though.
Grandpa Gohan - Randall Duk Kim Carey Fuller - Texas Battle Emi - Shavon Kirksey Agundas - Richard Blake
Ernie Hudson- Popo?
Other than Grandpa Gohan and Popo, I don't even know these characters. It appears that this movie takes place during the end of the Dragon Ball saga when the young Piccolo appears after King Piccolo dies. One scary thing though is the MovieFone description where they messed up by saying that Goku first love is Chi-Chi and then loves Bulma...which is completely wrong in many accounts and lets hope thats not there or there will be many pissed off DBZ fans. The picture above and more descriptions of the movie can be found here at the official blog.
To keep everyone up to date with the Dragon Ball Z live action movie; today it was announced that Chow Yun-Fat will play Master Roshi in the Dragon Ball Z movie coming out on August 15th 2008. Originally I spoke to about the roles when Goku and Piccolo where announced. Here's a list of the roles that are confirmed if you haven't already heard.
Nothing on Vegeta or others as of yet and from the looks of it, the story line will be the end of the Dragon Ball Saga when Goku marries ChiChi and fights Piccolo in the tournament. So we might not see Vegeta and they haven't called me yet for Future Trunks so we might have to wait on a sequel for that.
A few years back there was a whole bunch of hype about a Dragon Ball Z Live Action Movie. 20th Century Fox was in the plans to make a big budget movie about everyone's favorite Manga and Anime, Dragon Ball Z, but then the project got scraped.
As of recent news, the project is back in the works with roughly a 100 Million dollar budget and already some roles being cast. This news comes from both Variety magazine and from one of my product dealers from my anime store, Diamond Comics. Here's what they had to say:
"As reported by Variety, Justin Chatwin, the actor best known for his role in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, has been cast as protagonist Goku, the powerful Saiyan warrior dedicated to protecting Earth from alien threats and evil tyrants. The actor that formerly portrayed Spike on TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, James Marsters has signed on as Piccolo, the villainous green fighter with hopes of world domination and one bold enough to take on Goku. The film will be directed by James Wong, produced by filmmaker Stephen Chow and has been assigned the tentative worldwide release date of August 15, 2008."
This is obviously big news if you are a DBZ fan. Diamond comics and I are excited about this since a few new cast figures will be coming out next year now. Personally I feel that a CG film would do better but I'm excited either way. Hey, maybe they'll find my New Faces Comp cards and I'll get the role as Trunks ^_^... well, I can dream.. but stay tuned as I get more info on this.
