FOX extends DBZ Live action Movie Domain Rights Another year

JAPPO · Post by **JAPPO** » Sun May 06, 2007 10:47 pm

With proper CGI and editing to the story (because quite frankly, the story isn't perfect for American audiences), I think a DBZ live-action movie would be great. And even if it isn't, so what.

djkalteraphine · Post by **djkalteraphine** » Mon May 07, 2007 2:43 am

Maker777 wrote:My opinion is that the guys employed by Square-Enix to do Advent Children should make the film totally CG. It's just my opinion but I think that would be f***in' sweet.

Advent Children felt too stiff. The Incredibles by Pixar was full of much more exciting action scenes.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Mon May 07, 2007 4:55 am

If it were to be CGI the stylization should resemble the opening to Sparking. It would keep it in that Toriyama style.

gohan2k · Post by **gohan2k** » Mon May 07, 2007 5:31 am

Maker777 wrote:My opinion is that the guys employed by Square-Enix to do Advent Children should make the film totally CG. It's just my opinion but I think that would be f***in' sweet.

I thought that too but then thought that although you could have more brutal fight scenes without getting an insanely high rating the movie's audience would be limited to kids.

There has been succesful CGI kids movies but personally I don't think Dragonball Z works as a kids movie. I just think It's too adult for kids.

The problem with a fully CGI is that they're instantly perceived as kid movies. This opinion will likely change over time but the way things stand now a CGI movie will fail if it's aimed solely at adults.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there has ever been a fully CGI movie aimed at adults that has been a success.

So therefore CGI Dragonball Z Movie = Failure...

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Mon May 07, 2007 7:21 am

Dragon Ball Z is a franchise aimed at kids. So, I'm pretty sure that if they can put it on TV in the US cut and uncut then there can be a CGI feature that won't be rated too terribly high.

Xyex · Post by **Xyex** » Mon May 07, 2007 7:56 am

gohan2k wrote:
Maker777 wrote:My opinion is that the guys employed by Square-Enix to do Advent Children should make the film totally CG. It's just my opinion but I think that would be f***in' sweet.
I thought that too but then thought that although you could have more brutal fight scenes without getting an insanely high rating the movie's audience would be limited to kids.

There has been succesful CGI kids movies but personally I don't think Dragonball Z works as a kids movie. I just think It's too adult for kids.

The problem with a fully CGI is that they're instantly perceived as kid movies. This opinion will likely change over time but the way things stand now a CGI movie will fail if it's aimed solely at adults.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there has ever been a fully CGI movie aimed at adults that has been a success.

So therefore CGI Dragonball Z Movie = Failure...

Except nothing DBZ has ever been aimed at adults. Especially not solely at adults. Yeah, it's got appeal to older audiences, but it's a kids show. There have been several successful CG movies aimed at the same audience.

If it were to be CGI the stylization should resemble the opening to Sparking. It would keep it in that Toriyama style.

Ugh, no. It should look nothing like the Sparking! intro's. Either one. They're bad. Very bad. I think if they ever do a CG movie they should cel-shaded. Something along the lines of how DragonQuest VIII looks, though more polished (it is a movie, after all) would work nicely.

Ashuros S · Post by **Ashuros S** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:05 am

I personally think cgi is over used but it would work in dbz if they used cel shading like vyex suggested since that’s not really used in films though I would prefer if they used traditional animation.

param · Post by **param** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:52 am

Instead of live action, make it CG like TMNT.

Live action is going to be a mess. They can do the fights beautifully (See the end of Matrix Revolutions for a typical DBZ fight between Neo and Agent Smith), but they can't do the hair or the forms/ki display right.

They have all the space to work in CG.

If it were to be CGI the stylization should resemble the opening to Sparking. It would keep it in that Toriyama style.

Exactly. For those against CG, watch the intro to the game Budokai Tenkaichi on the Ps2, it was sweet!

Edit :
I didn't read through the topic, I see the CG is already being discussed, in that case, don't count this post

caejones · Post by **caejones** » Mon May 07, 2007 9:20 am

I can't say Sparking! style CGI would be ... desirable, but egh, I wouldn't care much.

Spiderman3 made me realize though that writing the story and the characters right will be ridiculously difficult to pull off correctly, so it'd probably be traded off for something crowd-pleasing. (Not that Spiderman3 went the same route... which is the reason I thought of a DBZ movie. And just because this might be useful for comparison: In sm3 (I don't know if this qualifies as spoiler or not), Venom wasn't a character so much as he was a personification of the concept of being ruled by vengeance and hate... which was of course one of the main themes of the movie. </possible spoilers>. For some reason the more I think about it, the more I think deciding on the themes of a DBZ movie is more important than most else, because that shows where we can go with what we have...).

Ur... yeah. Graphics... blegh. What kind of sound would be applied? Surely not the type of sound from the games, unless ti builds on Sparking!'s sound system... but that only works if you actually know how the series works; Bleh, I might just have to write a freaking website on this. :O

When I got to rethinking this idea like... last year or whenever it was... I was actually thinking of the Legend of Zoro, and how much it was able to convey without going off on hugely displaced tangents or breaking up the story into multiple installments, and without dragging on the way SM3 seemed to (SM3 had a lot of a lot of plot elements to move at once... now I know what a DBGU movie would feel like...).

Really though... I don't think it's impossible to do most of the DBZ hair in live action. Difficult maybe to get something as huge as what Goku has... but not impossible by any means. And SSJ... Bah, put florescent paint in your hair, stick your hand in an electrical outlet, and have a blacklight and a video camera going and ... preferably a witness. On second thought... don't, because messing with electrical outlets can hurt. T.T.

How many here have seen Disney's Fantasmic? I think that with something that you can stop and edit later, it'd be easy to exceed that level of effect... so meh, the sky is the limit on graphics and special effects.

What do we think is the most likely era for the movie if it were written? Would it cover an existing saga or sagas, and which one(s)? If so, what themes would carry through the story, and how would the characters be incorporated into this, and how would they grow throughout the movie?

My answer: despite hwo much an original DB movie would rock, a Saiyan Saga movie seems a likely candidate for a movie, since there'd be no telling if the movie franchize would continue, and if so how far. We have a largeish cast of characters, and I for one don't really think it needs to be cut down much if at all. That of course means each character would probably have to fill a specific role or some such movie generalization, and it'd have to movie the main goals of the plot and develop characters that are higher up in the "main character" hierarchy. I.E, in a Saiyan Saga movie, Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, maybe a couple others would probably be the most main characters... so tying all of them together despite their inevitable separation would be a task... and of course since most of the other characters in the DBZ story are elsewhere.... working everyone in as useful would be difficult. How to resolve this... umm... that's where thought and storyboards come in.

.

Sebastian (SB) · Post by **Sebastian (SB)** » Mon May 07, 2007 1:50 pm

JAPPO wrote:With proper CGI and editing to the story (because quite frankly, the story isn't perfect for American audiences), I think a DBZ live-action movie would be great. And even if it isn't, so what.

Therefore it shouldn't have only American audiences in mind, IMHO.

SSJmole · Post by **SSJmole** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:08 pm

Sebastian (SB) wrote:
JAPPO wrote:With proper CGI and editing to the story (because quite frankly, the story isn't perfect for American audiences), I think a DBZ live-action movie would be great. And even if it isn't, so what.
Therefore it shouldn't have only American audiences in mind, IMHO.

I would say beacuse the American audience is now in to anime , More than ever. That having a cgi movie written by Japanese writers would also work.

Sebastian (SB) · Post by **Sebastian (SB)** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:21 pm

Not what I had in mind, but that would be nice. Really the main point is to have someone that really gives a damn about the license & the fans. Not only secluded to what he/she sees on TV. That's what I'm really afraid of more than anything. Give it to someone who only has limited knowledge of the series & not really knowing what's "out" there in the world regarding Dragon Ball & not only in the US, but mainly Japan in which the property comes from.

caejones · Post by **caejones** » Mon May 07, 2007 4:06 pm

Make a Daizex Liveaction movie counsel.

.
... Well, it might work...

Xyex · Post by **Xyex** » Mon May 07, 2007 5:09 pm

param wrote:Live action is going to be a mess. They can do the fights beautifully (See the end of Matrix Revolutions for a typical DBZ fight between Neo and Agent Smith), but they can't do the hair or the forms/ki display right.

The hair can be done. You don't have to re-make it in exacts. Just make a real-world version of it. Like they did for Wolverine. And as for ki, that's even easier. Go look at Cyclops' optic blasts from X-men or the fire and ice exchange between Iceman and Pyro in X-3.

BlueSky · Post by **Kaboom** » Mon May 07, 2007 6:49 pm

I've made all these points about the hair and such many times before... why does nobody pay any attention?

Who says the hair needs to look like the original version? It doesn't need to be; that'd just be stupid.

Goku's hair: Just kind of shaggy and unruly. Give it some length, too.

Gohan's hair: He's half-human. Doesn't have to be anything special, just so long as it's black.

Raditz's hair: Just long; swept back. ...Mullet?

Vegeta's hair: Shorter than Goku's; spiked upwards.

Nappa's hair: ...

There. Hair problems solved.

caejones · Post by **caejones** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:02 pm

*headdesk* Reasons the movie won't work: They'll be too worried about making the hair and cgi work to get the story properly written...
... o.o.

Hmm. Ok, so I've tried starting a script or something for this a couple times... neigther has it gotten very far at all, but the key difference is what we see in the intro:
the first one I was thinking to start at the end of the 23rd Budokai by having a closeup of the tournament stage, maybe with some fighting sounds in the background, then an explosion hits what we're watching and we start watching the rest of Goku Vs. Piccolo, maybe have Mr. Satan watching from somewhere... various stuff.

The second, which I like more, is a Piccolo Daimao final fight type intro... T'en and Chaozu fight some of Piccolo's minions, Chaozu gets killed, T'en fights until Goku shows up to save the day, dialogue reveals a lot in a very small space, montages... yatayatayada...

The reason I wound up saying all of that: I feel like if we're doing the Piccolo stuff to lead into the story without using the narrator+flashback routine (which just annoys me on anything post History of Trunks), people will want to see the 23rd tournament, or at least part of it. But if we start with Daimao, the tournament destroys the flow and makes it harder to develop our main characters and move the story...
And if we start with the tournament, there's little story behind it: just... rivals... fighting... at a tournament... woohoo... The tournament only really works as an ending to dragonball, or maybe starting a movie that starts after a Daimao movie... but as the beginning of a Saiyan Saga movie, it doesn't seem to work... but I get the feeling that if Piccolo is included, but the tournament isn't, complaining will ensue.

Thoughts?

Acid_Reign · Post by **Acid_Reign** » Tue May 08, 2007 12:19 am

SSj Kaboom wrote:I've made all these points about the hair and such many times before... why does nobody pay any attention?

Who says the hair needs to look like the original version? It doesn't need to be; that'd just be stupid.

Goku's hair: Just kind of shaggy and unruly. Give it some length, too.

Gohan's hair: He's half-human. Doesn't have to be anything special, just so long as it's black.

Raditz's hair: Just long; swept back. ...Mullet?

Vegeta's hair: Shorter than Goku's; spiked upwards.

Nappa's hair: ...

There. Hair problems solved.

This is very true.

Just take a look at Wolverine's hair in the X-Men movies. I didn't think they'd be able to pull it off when I first heard about it. If you look at the comics, it's spiked and going off in two different directions. And although less exaggerated, with some gel(?) we have Hugh Jackman as a convincing-looking Logan.

Is Dragon Ball hair harder to pull off? Arguably so. But it isn't impossible. I'm surprised that some people think two super-humans flying in the air and shooting fireballs, etc. is nothing and yet Hollywood would somehow be inept at hair styling.

Hell, if it were that big of a problem I'm sure the hair itself could be convincingly real CG with the rest of the actors live-action. But really, I don't think the whole thing should be CG because it completely defeats the purpose. It'd just be another animated feature, and would attract the same audience of fans already out there. I think it would interesting to see if DBZ could be adapted to a real-life movie; that's part of the whole excitement for me. It'd only be "bad" if the people behind it didn't put any effort into it, or needlessly changed critical elements to the story... which could very well be the case in an animated film as well.

As far as the domain goes, I just wish FOX would do something with it, because right now there's no website even situated there. It seems to me that it's up in the air right now: they don't currently have plans (or even rights) for the movie, but the rumors encouraged them to grab the domain before anyone else did, just in case they'd be able to at a later date.

Remix · Post by **Remix** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:06 pm

If it was up to me, I would have the main cast be Asian. I mean, come on, look at the designs of most things in the show. The people have to match. There was some Japanese actor suggested for the role of Goku somewhere in this thread that I agreed with 100%.

Not only would I have the cast be Asian, but I would actually have the film done in Japanese. It would feel much more natural, I think.

MisterFlashdude · Post by **MisterFlashdude** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:29 pm

Remix wrote:Not only would I have the cast be Asian, but I would actually have the film done in Japanese. It would feel much more natural, I think.

That would be the only way I'd watch it. Not because of any 'OMG THINGS ARE BETTER IN JAPAN' but because it's a Japanese series, and I'd feel as uncomfortable seeing an American DBZ movie as I would be watching a Japanese Superman.

Remix · Post by **Remix** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:45 pm

For the action sequences, I would definately draw some inspiration from Spiderman and other superhero films. The action should be unique and exciting, not repetitive.

The Earth's environment should also be lightly stylized in a way to complement the heavy fantasy themes of the story.