Even if its just a rehash with fancier animation like they did for the DB 10th Anniversary Movie.
Saiya-jin and/or Freeza saga re-do could be feasable with some alterations. If it's just the Saiya-jin saga then that would definately be doable. If it's Raditz through Freeza it would take some cramming and cutting but a 2 1/2 hour+ movie would be possible.
Minutes 1-10: start to Raditz and Goku's death. 10-15: Explain what the heroes are going to do for training, skim through it. 15-18: Nappa and Vegeta arrive, Shenron is summoned. 18-33: Battle against Nappa (Saibamen would be cut for time) up to the point of Goku's arrival. 33-43: Goku fighting Nappa up to the Kamehameha/Gallick Gun exchange. 43-58: Oozaru Vegeta and Spirit Bomb. 58-63: Vegeta's escape and Z Fighters leaving for Namek.
63-70: Z Fighters and Vegeta land on Namek, Dende rescued, Vegeta fights Dodoria (Kui cut for time). Freeza calls for the Ginyu Force. 70-80: Krillin and Gohan (together) meet Guru and get powered up, Vegeta fights and beats Zarbon (only one battle, but he still gets pummeled). 80-83: Gohan and Krillin find Vegeta, barely conscious. They sense the Ginyu Force and Vegeta convinces them to use their last senzu to heal him so they can work together to beat them. 83-100: Battle against the Ginyu Force, Freeza fights Nail, and Goku lands.
100-105: Goku heals the others, beats Recoome and Burter, and scares off Jeice. Ginyu arrives at the battle. 105-112: Ginyu fight with body switching and stuff. 112-118: Parunga summoned by Gohan and Krillin while Goku heals, Piccolo revived, pissed off Freeza arrives. 118-122: Piccolo finds Nail, Vegeta's first scuffle with Freeza, Freeza transforms. 122-127: Piccolo arrives and fights Freeza, Freeza transforms. 127-130: Third form Freeza shows off some, transforms.
130-138: Freeza kills Dende, beats the crap out of Vegeta, Goku recovers and arrives, Vegeta dies. 138-145: Goku fights Freeza, starts charging the Spirit Bomb. Shenron Summoned, Nameks revived. 145-146: Goku fires the Spirit Bomb. Dende heads to Parunga. 146-148: Spirit Bomb explodes, Freeza survives, Krillin dies, Goku goes SSJ. 148-163: SSJ Goku and Freeza fight. Everyone on Namek sent to Earth but Goku and Freeza. 163-165: Namek explodes. 165-170: Ending stuff followed by credits.
So... it'd be long but it'd be fun. >>
The point is that Goku himself is a character from a Japanese franchise,
So is Hercule, but I doubt anyone would expect a Japanese person to play him.
and the character Goku is based on is a historic icon from Chinese mythology...
Meh. Based is the key word there.
One might assume he'd be... at least, SOME kind of Asian... The damn NAME Son Goku doesn't even fit a white guy.
And Trunks Briefs doesn't fit a person at all so I fail to see the point.
Independance Day and Turkish Star Wars are entertaining too, but it doesn't prevent them from being two damn crappy movies.
I like Independance Day. And last I checked, the entire point of watching a movie was to be entertained. So long as that's accomplished then who the hell cares about the rest?
I don't care about the cast, it's the last of my worries. What makes me sad is the synopsis. You don't seem to give a damn, but so far, it's a complete betrayal to the manga. I mean, I'm not expecting something absolutely identical, because it would probably be ridiculous, but come on, Goku in High School ? Yeah, and why not Peter Parker living in the jungle ?
Peter Parker goes on an expidition to the amazon where he gets bitten by a spider mutated by toxic waste dumping and becomes Spider-man to save the people the in small village his expidition is staying at from... I don't know, some crazed jungle dude (craven, perhaps?). Either way, it's passable and the change of locations wouldn't even have to have any impact on the over all plot or character.
My point is this. We know Goku's supposed to be in highschool, he's not very popular (would you people be complaining less if he was some sort of all star jock? Geez), and that's really about it. I don't see anything about Piccolo era-Goku that is completely incompatable with being with this that would require so much change to match it that he wouldn't be Goku anymore.
Besides, how would you get him to meet everyone he has to meet in the span of the opening of the movie with the time constraints of a movie if you spent the first 10 minutes just getting him to figure out what the hell civilization is (and then another 15 explaining the differences between boys and girls)?
His upbringing aside, there's no special points that specifically identify Dragonball's Son Goku as Asian.
Yeah. There's only a few characters that really come off as this or that as an ethnic basis. Bora and Upa, Nam, King Chappa, and Uub, and Hercule (though his daughter is up in the air) are really the only ones that come to mind.
