Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by RandomGuy96 » Wed Feb 20, 2019 7:27 pm

My eyes glazed over when watching that trailer simply because it looked like ANOTHER dystopic dirty industrial setting featuring transhumanism as the main theme with either a mad scientist or an evil corporation as the main villain. That shit got boring to me years ago (I know the source material is older than that so the perception is rather unfair, but since I didn't read/watch it, I'm purely talking about the film here).
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RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by Kunzait_83 » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:06 pm

RandomGuy96 wrote:(I know the source material is older than that so the perception is rather unfair, but since I didn't read/watch it, I'm purely talking about the film here).
Not only is the source material older, but the film itself was originally supposed to have been made more than 20/25 years ago. Battle Angel was a personal passion project of James Cameron's since the 90s, back when the original Gunnm anime & manga was a fairly noteworthy and iconic title to the Akira-generation of Western anime fans (this was pre-Cartoon Network, pre-Toonami, and pre-Pokemon and DBZ dub).

At that time, there were quite a few Western live action adaptations of then-popular and prominent anime/manga of the time that either got made on a very low budget and went straight to video (Crying Freeman, Guyver, Fist of the North Star), or never came about at all and evaporated (Castle of Cagliostro, Parasyte, Devilman, Robotech/Macross, Akira).

Battle Angel by all rights probably should've been among the latter: but Cameron was a big fan of the anime back in the day and kept the project alive in some capacity throughout its time in development hell for decades, keeping the film on the backburner for a myriad of reasons, much of them relating to his commitments to Avatar (another long-running passion project of his that he'd been working on in one capacity or another since the 90s). He ultimately ended up producing it with Robert Rodriguez directing.

Basically this movie is a LONG put-off holdover from a VERY different and bygone period in anime's U.S. history. The fact that it A) got made at all B) ended up turning out such an admirably faithful and well made representation of its source material, and C) hasn't bombed at the box office, despite all the immense amount of seismic changes that have occurred with regards to both the mainstream U.S. public's perception of anime as well as that of anime's own hardcore U.S. fanbase... all of this is BEYOND miraculous and incredible unto itself. This movie had SO much working against it: both against it getting made at all, and against it turning out to be anything other than an absolute train wreck of a dumpster fire if it did get made.

That it ended up a success (both creatively and commercially) is largely a testament to Cameron's sheer tenacity and faith in the material. On that latter score especially, that's a lesson that most Hollywood studios ought to learn from Battle Angel when adapting anime & manga titles (but likely won't) and is really probably the main deciding factor in something like a live action DB film actually turning out not-shitty. Not technological limitations (which is a laughably ridiculous concern that some folks are still stubbornly clinging to) and CERTAINLY not anything fundamentally innate to the Dragon Ball source material itself (which is largely birthed from live action films of its exact ilk): just have some genuine faith, care, and understanding in what it is that you're trying to adapt.

Oh, and also have talent too. That also helps. :P
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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:22 pm

I have a hard time seeing DB done well, even with care. It's so inherently cartoonish, whereas the cyberpunk genre is more grounded. To capture DB's cartoonish feel accurately, just thinking about it, it seems like it would defeat the purpose of doing a live action movie.

Otherwise, I do agree that adapting from other mediums takes not just talent but passion for the source material. Aquaman has some issues, but a lot of its success boils down to it knowing what it is, and not trying to shy away from it.
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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:29 pm

ABED wrote:I have a hard time seeing DB done well, even with care. It's so inherently cartoonish, whereas the cyberpunk genre is more grounded. To capture DB's cartoonish feel accurately, just thinking about it, it seems like it would defeat the purpose of doing a live action movie..
What’s exactly cartoonish about Dragon Ball that you think couldn’t translate into live action? And also necessary to keep to make it worthwhile.

Goku’s hair for example can be toned down (I think Evolution had the right idea there) characters like Pu-erh and Oolong are completely expendable.

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:39 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:
ABED wrote:I have a hard time seeing DB done well, even with care. It's so inherently cartoonish, whereas the cyberpunk genre is more grounded. To capture DB's cartoonish feel accurately, just thinking about it, it seems like it would defeat the purpose of doing a live action movie..
What’s exactly cartoonish about Dragon Ball that you think couldn’t translate into live action? And also necessary to keep to make it worthwhile.

Goku’s hair for example can be toned down (I think Evolution had the right idea there) characters like Pu-erh and Oolong are completely expendable.
Look at the design of the world, aside from the anthropomorphic animals, there's things like the hair, which is iconic and not easily translatable, the rounded vehicles and architecture. If they got as far as Planet Namek, it would look very cartoonish.

I don't want another Speed Racer situation.
Last edited by ABED on Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by RandomGuy96 » Wed Feb 20, 2019 8:42 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: Basically this movie is a LONG put-off holdover from a VERY different and bygone period in anime's U.S. history. The fact that it A) got made at all B) ended up turning out such an admirably faithful and well made representation of its source material, and C) hasn't bombed at the box office, despite all the immense amount of seismic changes that have occurred with regards to both the mainstream U.S. public's perception of anime as well as that of anime's own hardcore U.S. fanbase... all of this is BEYOND miraculous and incredible unto itself. This movie had SO much working against it: both against it getting made at all, and against it turning out to be anything other than an absolute train wreck of a dumpster fire if it did get made.

That it ended up a success (both creatively and commercially) is largely a testament to Cameron's sheer tenacity and faith in the material. On that latter score especially, that's a lesson that most Hollywood studios ought to learn from Battle Angel when adapting anime & manga titles (but likely won't) and is really probably the main deciding factor in something like a live action DB film actually turning out not-shitty. Not technological limitations (which is a laughably ridiculous concern that some folks are still stubbornly clinging to) and CERTAINLY not anything fundamentally innate to the Dragon Ball source material itself (which is largely birthed from live action films of its exact ilk): just have some genuine faith, care, and understanding in what it is that you're trying to adapt.

Oh, and also have talent too. That also helps. :P
I understand all of that, and I'm sure it's a fine film in its own right. I fully acknowledge that it's not really fair, but I'm just really sick of the visual and plot elements displayed which puts me off watching it.
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by louisascommie » Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:04 pm

I wouldn't say the general public remembers evolution

I think the stench of failure goes away after a decade

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:49 pm

ABED wrote:Fair enough, but based on that picture, I imagine a live action version being something similar to Westworld when we the hosts' head and face over the cyborg endoskeleton. In Alita, it looks animated. I've only seen the trailer and the look doesn't appeal to me, nor does the subject matter.
Funnily enough, that's how literally every other cyborg character in the story is handled, such as Zapan (the guy with the sword): his face and ears are both that of the original actor. The reason why Alita is different is because Cameron also wanted to see if he could pull off a realistic and believable take on anime facial proportions, and Weta, with their success on Gollum, Tintin, Caesar and his own Avatar, were the perfect effects studio to try this with.
MasenkoHA wrote:
ABED wrote:I have a hard time seeing DB done well, even with care. It's so inherently cartoonish, whereas the cyberpunk genre is more grounded. To capture DB's cartoonish feel accurately, just thinking about it, it seems like it would defeat the purpose of doing a live action movie..
What’s exactly cartoonish about Dragon Ball that you think couldn’t translate into live action? And also necessary to keep to make it worthwhile.
The first challenge that immediately springs to mind is Kid Goku and similar roles such as Gohan and Goten. Animated works can easily get away with this problem by casting older actors and actresses to play the part, but it's incredibly rare that you can stumble upon a kid who can capture the character and carry the film as a main character (this is likely the reason why Evolution decided to age him up). Preferably we'd want the story to start with an approximation of an early Kid Goku arc, possibly by taking a PtP approach by having elements of the original arc mixed in with a bit of the RRA arc. But that means having to tackle the bear of having your lead be twelve years old or so.

It's also a tired example, but the fights too are incredibly difficult to pull off believably once you start moving away from what joe public sees as "normal martial arts" and get into the flying mountain-destroying ki beam action that shows up much late. These sorts of fights often look a bit kooky as they're obviously wirework on green screen or entirely CG (which has its own challenges), and unless you're in the rare situation where the director has the vision, time and budget to pull it off, it'll fall flat and the picture won't work as a whole anymore. In terms of this subject, I think fans would rather no attempt be made at all than to risk the 90% chance it looks like hot garbage. I can see it working for the earlier stuff though where a ki move is like a special move rather than a common attak.

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 20, 2019 10:11 pm

louisascommie wrote:I wouldn't say the general public remembers evolution

I think the stench of failure goes away after a decade
They don't remember it because they never saw it.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by ZodaEX » Fri Feb 22, 2019 3:23 am

KBABZ wrote:
ABED wrote:Fair enough, but based on that picture, I imagine a live action version being something similar to Westworld when we the hosts' head and face over the cyborg endoskeleton. In Alita, it looks animated. I've only seen the trailer and the look doesn't appeal to me, nor does the subject matter.
Funnily enough, that's how literally every other cyborg character in the story is handled, such as Zapan (the guy with the sword): his face and ears are both that of the original actor. The reason why Alita is different is because Cameron also wanted to see if he could pull off a realistic and believable take on anime facial proportions, and Weta, with their success on Gollum, Tintin, Caesar and his own Avatar, were the perfect effects studio to try this with.
MasenkoHA wrote:
ABED wrote:I have a hard time seeing DB done well, even with care. It's so inherently cartoonish, whereas the cyberpunk genre is more grounded. To capture DB's cartoonish feel accurately, just thinking about it, it seems like it would defeat the purpose of doing a live action movie..
What’s exactly cartoonish about Dragon Ball that you think couldn’t translate into live action? And also necessary to keep to make it worthwhile.
The first challenge that immediately springs to mind is Kid Goku and similar roles such as Gohan and Goten. Animated works can easily get away with this problem by casting older actors and actresses to play the part, but it's incredibly rare that you can stumble upon a kid who can capture the character and carry the film as a main character (this is likely the reason why Evolution decided to age him up). Preferably we'd want the story to start with an approximation of an early Kid Goku arc, possibly by taking a PtP approach by having elements of the original arc mixed in with a bit of the RRA arc. But that means having to tackle the bear of having your lead be twelve years old or so.

It's also a tired example, but the fights too are incredibly difficult to pull off believably once you start moving away from what joe public sees as "normal martial arts" and get into the flying mountain-destroying ki beam action that shows up much late. These sorts of fights often look a bit kooky as they're obviously wirework on green screen or entirely CG (which has its own challenges), and unless you're in the rare situation where the director has the vision, time and budget to pull it off, it'll fall flat and the picture won't work as a whole anymore. In terms of this subject, I think fans would rather no attempt be made at all than to risk the 90% chance it looks like hot garbage. I can see it working for the earlier stuff though where a ki move is like a special move rather than a common attak.
What is a PtP approach?

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by KBABZ » Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:31 am

ZodaEX wrote:What is a PtP approach?
Path to Power approach. What that means is doing what that movie did, where it took the setup of the original Pilaf Arc, but it swapped out that road trip with elements from the less episodic Red Ribbon Arc instead. In fact, thus far there have been THREE Dragon Ball movies that have taken this approach. Curse of the Blood Rubies, Path to Power and Dragon Ball Evolution,all take the opening "Goku meets Bulma and learns about the Dragon Balls" setup, keeps some of the original arc's later scenes like meeting Roshi and Yamcha, and then use a completely different setup for the grand arc of that story (Pilaf Expy, Red Ribbon and Daimao, respectively).

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:07 pm

Maybe. I can't say more than that.
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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by Melkaniator » Tue Mar 12, 2019 10:15 pm

DB live action is a horrible idea.
DBS anime is a fan service series that delivers irrelevant dialogue, inconsistent writing, and lazy designs.

The DB manga never had so many mistakes, nor those were this constant.

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Re: Seeing the success of dbs broly i wonder if...

Post by Yuli Ban » Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:11 pm

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hollywood was never going to make a proper Dragon Ball film. But Hollywood isn't the only hub of cinema on Earth. Dragon Ball is fundamentally rooted in Chinese fantasy, so naturally a Dragon Ball film would best be made by the Chinese.
Anyone who tells you Dragon Ball couldn't work in live action seriously needs to see some actual Hong Kong cinema. I don't mean "Americanized kung fu movies from the 2000s starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li", I mean straight up from Hong Kong, possibly with subtitles.

And what better examples to start with than Stephen Chow's Journey to the West movies? About as close to proper live-action Dragon Ball as you can get.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01jDsiEGkj8


Hong Kong cinema would capture the essence of Dragon Ball far better than Hollywood will, but at the same time, we Americans would be able to give it some of that irreverent humor that Toriyama enjoys.
Kunzait said it best somewhere else: Hong Kong cinema circa 1991-1994 would have been the absolute best place and time to make a Dragon Ball film. But ever since, there have been instances where American media can put up something just as high quality: remember how the Chinese were flabbergasted over Kung Fu Panda and how they felt they hadn't made anything as good? That's one of China's flaws, especially in modern Xiist China: they know their culture well, but they would essentially try making Po so "lovable" that he'd become unlovable. A perfect wuxia protagonist who ultimately becomes just another bland lead, extolling all Confucian and Taoist virtues and, as a result, completely lacking all the charm of what we actually got.

That's sort of how I fear a purely Chinese-made Dragon Ball would go: they'd probably sanitize Son Goku too much. Whereas the Americans would... well...

Nowadays, we'd try to be a bit more faithful, but I don't trust a purely Hollywood production to do it justice.


And to be fair, I could go my entire life without another live action Dragon Ball ever being made.

We're seriously about 10 years off from machine learning algorithms being able to generate photorealistic and stylized movies from text alone. It doesn't need to happen.
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