Rumor: Disney Developing New Live-Action Dragon Ball Movie With Asian Cast

[WittyUsername]

Such as?

I already provided an example with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is a Marvel movie that’s set to be released in early 2021. Beyond that, there was also Crazy Rich Asians last year and there’s also the upcoming Mulan movie. As I said, the reason for this seems to have more to do with the growing prominence of the Chinese market than anything else, but it does suggest to me that if Disney were to make a live-action Dragon Ball film, they’d probably get a Chinese actor to play Goku.

Wow 3 movies, two of which haven’t come out yet. And of the two one is part of a larger franchise that has mostly been white dominated since 2008 and the other is part of a slew of soulless live action remakes.


I wouldn’t exactly call that gaining traction.

The fact that one of them is part of a larger franchise is precisely why it’s notable, since more people are inevitably going to go out and see it based on brand recognition alone. There’s a pretty obvious reason that something like Black Panther garnered significantly more attention than something like Moonlight.

As for the Mulan remake, who said anything about quality? I dislike the Disney remakes as much as the next online person, but their (lack of) quality is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. My point is that Mulan is a major Hollywood movie with an Asian cast.

As I said, Disney is a studio that has gained somewhat of a reputation for pandering to China, so if they somehow were to do a live-action Dragon Ball film, it’s not far fetched to assume that they’d cast a Chinese actor to play Goku, if for no other reason then to get some of that Chinese money.

[Anonymous Friend]

First, I look forward to any attempt to take a favorite thing of mine to the big screen. Disney is at the top of my, and many other's, lists of companies to do Dragonball any sort of justice. WB has proven they can do similarly with LotRs and Harry Potter. And both of these would be willing to spend the money needed.

Second, as for story, the series can definitely start with the begininng of Z. We don't need loads of explaining who these people are. Saiyan and Namek sagas don't really relate to anything in OG DB. As long as the characters and story are written competently, it's good. Plus, no 2 -2.5 hour film will ever cover everything nerds want it to. Heck, DBZA seems to be enough to let you care able it's characters without having a DBA.

Abridged is NOT dragon ball it's a parody show. You don't care about the characters because it's not that sort of show. It's not a retelling, it's a parody. It presumes you've already seen the series.

And a big part of the Saiyan arc is Piccolo's journey which most of it is predicated on being the former demon king.

Why does this stuff have to be explained over and over? DBZ is not the place to start.

Starting with Z was fine enough for a large majority of US fans and many of them never got around to watching DB. With a decent enough intro we can grasp that Piccolo is a bad guy. And over the course of the film through the power of friendship sacrifices himself for Gohan. We don't need hours of backstory.

As for DBZA, I've watched that with people who've never watch anything else Dragonball related and they get a decent grasp of what the actual show is about. Don't presume the only people watching it are already Dragonball fans.

[Anonymous Friend]

"Saiyan saga doesn't relate to anything in OG Dragon Ball" except, you know, the main character who you've followed being revealed as a father and as an alien, finding out he is the one responsible for killing his adoptive father, teaming up with his mortal evil rival, who ends up training the son out of necessity and eventually warming up to him; the main character DYING; all the previously established protagonists training with God, who's also revealed to be an alien, then also DYING... including the evil mortal rival, causing God to die also and the titular Dragon Balls turning to stone... leading into the Namek arc which is all based on finding other Dragon Balls to ressurect all those characters you won't give a shit about because they have no screentime.

Seriously, the Saiyan arc is great, probably the best in all the series, but every single thing that makes it good is a beat that doesn't land unless you have the history to set it up. And it leads directly into the Namek arc. So... yeah, you need to do Dragon Ball first. Unless, of course, you change the story so much to the point there's no point.

How many stories have we had were at the very start we learn that the lead is actually something else? Did we need a separate series of story giving that person entire life up to that point? How many Dragonball Z fans started with Z? How many have never watched DB? I even prefer DB to Z and still feel that DB can easily be skipped. Besides a couple of characters popping up for an episode or two and the mentioning of the RRA, nothing in Z's story really relates greatly to DB.

[KBABZ]

How many stories have we had were at the very start we learn that the lead is actually something else? Did we need a separate series of story giving that person entire life up to that point? How many Dragonball Z fans started with Z? How many have never watched DB? I even prefer DB to Z and still feel that DB can easily be skipped. Besides a couple of characters popping up for an episode or two and the mentioning of the RRA, nothing in Z's story really relates greatly to DB.

You lose a lot of authentic context if you start with Z. The characterizations of many characters you have to trust at face value, such as Piccolo being evil (he doesn't do much of that in Z outside of being grumpy), Roshi being a wise old master (he does groping instead), and so on. Yamcha, Tien, Krillin and Chiaotzu being close friends of Goku and talented martial artists in their own right lands a lot better when you've had several arcs of them actually BEING that, rather than them showing up out of nowhere and getting mostly killed.

Again I point to Star Wars: yes, you COULD start someone with Episode VII and let them get the right context about Vader, Han, Leia and Luke from character reactions, but is that REALLY the correct way to experience the story? No of course not, it wasn't written that way. And don't give me the "it starts at Episode IV" baloney because IV V and VI were written to be stand alone, and everyone knows it.

[MasenkoHA]

"Saiyan saga doesn't relate to anything in OG Dragon Ball" except, you know, the main character who you've followed being revealed as a father and as an alien, finding out he is the one responsible for killing his adoptive father, teaming up with his mortal evil rival, who ends up training the son out of necessity and eventually warming up to him; the main character DYING; all the previously established protagonists training with God, who's also revealed to be an alien, then also DYING... including the evil mortal rival, causing God to die also and the titular Dragon Balls turning to stone... leading into the Namek arc which is all based on finding other Dragon Balls to ressurect all those characters you won't give a shit about because they have no screentime.

Seriously, the Saiyan arc is great, probably the best in all the series, but every single thing that makes it good is a beat that doesn't land unless you have the history to set it up. And it leads directly into the Namek arc. So... yeah, you need to do Dragon Ball first. Unless, of course, you change the story so much to the point there's no point.

How many stories have we had were at the very start we learn that the lead is actually something else? Did we need a separate series of story giving that person entire life up to that point? How many Dragonball Z fans started with Z? How many have never watched DB? I even prefer DB to Z and still feel that DB can easily be skipped. Besides a couple of characters popping up for an episode or two and the mentioning of the RRA, nothing in Z's story really relates greatly to DB.

Most of the story arcs are largely self-contained (there are exceptions like the Saiyan saga leading directly into the Namek saga, and if you don’t consider the Artifical Human/Cell sagas as a single saga) sure you can technically skip the first 153 episodes you can also skip straight ahead to Trunks debut in Dragon Ball Z (a character who is probably the first or second most popular character for Dragon Brawl Zeeeee fans on Toonami) it was a weekly kids tv series that aired for 11 years straight and was presumably aware some of its audience was going to age out of the show (it was aimed at (6-12 year old Japanese boys after all) and be replaced by new viewers who weren’t old enough to start from the beginning.

The point is the Saiyan saga isn’t a great place to start a re-imagining. It’s accessible because of how broadly written the story is but so are many of the story arcs.

There’s no reason for a remake to skip ahead for where characters have already been established.

[jjgp1112]

I think what everyone advocating for starting at Z is missing is that it's FAR easier for fans to fill in the blanks when you have over 30 episodes (roughly 10 hours) worth of content vs. a 2 hour runtime where things are much more briskly paced. All of the humans save for Krillin will feel like faceless fodder.

The "It was fine in '96" argument doesn't really apply here. And even that doesn't hold up to scrutiny when you consider how fractured the fanbase is, the various changes the dub made anyway, and the shocking number of fans clueless about 1-153

[KBABZ]

The point is the Saiyan saga isn’t a great place to start a re-imagining. It’s accessible because of how broadly written the story is but so are many of the story arcs.

There’s no reason for a remake to skip ahead for where characters have already been established.

I've said before here that the "Z is a great place the start" argument only exists because of the strong characterization. What this means is that you can honestly start with ANY arc and get roughly the same introductions and "information from interaction" experience. Buu for example establishes Goku's sacrifice and Gohan's new status quo, Namek establishes Goku's injuries, the death of his friends and Vegeta's villainy, Androids sets up Super Saiyans, how big of a deal Frieza was and even glances Goku's past with the RRA.

That's the symptom of a well-written narrative with strong characters, but it should not be confused for a "hey you can start here if you want to" excuse.

[Robo4900]

Starting with Z was fine enough for a large majority of US fans and many of them never got around to watching DB. With a decent enough intro we can grasp that Piccolo is a bad guy. And over the course of the film through the power of friendship sacrifices himself for Gohan. We don't need hours of backstory.

You're right. And by that note, y'know, I think the MCU made a real mistake by making 20 movies before Infinity War. We don't need all that backstory. Let's just cut to the chase, and perhaps let's start suggesting people skip all that unnecessary stuff and go straight to the good bit that everyone's talking about.

And hey, in Lord Of The Rings, who needs to see Fellowship Of The Ring? The characters being introduced? The Rings being explained? Unnecessary backstory, let's just jump straight in with the second movie, and skip all that unnecessary shit. Peter Jackson shouldn't have even made that first movie.

And y'know those Star Wars movies? Y'know what, the original three movies are old hat, and the prequels aren't very good, how about everyone just starts from Force Awakens. Everything before that is just unnecessary backstory.

.

Seriously though, have you even watched OG DB? Do you even know what you're calling "unnecessary backstory"? And are you aware of the fact that the only reason there's a distinction between DB and Z is because Toei were shuffling around some lead animators and decided they'd get a marketing boost with a new OP and ED song to coincide with the timeskip happening at the same time? In the manga, it was one, continuous, 519-chapter-long story. Toriyama couldn't even remember where the split happened for the longest time, because in his mind, it's one story.
Because it is one story. One story that Funimation skipped the first 2/5ths of because their initial syndication deal didn't work out, and they thought the start of Toei's "Z" was easier to pitch to Saban than either of the first two arcs of Toei's "DB".

Ultimately, while Z isn't exactly an AWFUL place to start, it's still very clearly the middle of the story. Who is Piccolo? Why is he Goku's rival? What's their history? Who's Kuririn? Why does it matter that Goku's dead? Who's this old green guy who's trying to get Goku to go see this Kaio guy? Why is the old green feller dying now that Piccolo's dying? Wait, is it significant that Goku's an alien? Is it significant that he has a son? Who's this blond/blue-haired girl chasing the three-eyed dude?
None of this stuff is explained, because it's the middle of the story. You already should know this stuff if you're watching.

And do you even know what stories you're missing out on by skipping to the start of Z? Do you even have any clue about what happens in the 153 episodes/194 chapters worth of content that you're advocating for skipping, aside from "Goku is a child and meets some friends and isn't known to be an alien"?

[MasenkoHA]

^It should be noted even in Funimation’s ultimate uncut redub if the first 67 episodes,the one your average viewer is probably most familiar with at this point, was dubbed after Dragon Ball and assumed the viewer is at least aware its a sequel series. The first episode is literally titled “The New Threat” and the narrator mentions the 5 years that have passed since Goku defeated Piccolo.

[miguelnuva1]

Such as?

I already provided an example with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is a Marvel movie that’s set to be released in early 2021. Beyond that, there was also Crazy Rich Asians last year and there’s also the upcoming Mulan movie. As I said, the reason for this seems to have more to do with the growing prominence of the Chinese market than anything else, but it does suggest to me that if Disney were to make a live-action Dragon Ball film, they’d probably get a Chinese actor to play Goku.

Wow 3 movies, two of which haven’t come out yet. And of the two one is part of a larger franchise that has mostly been white dominated since 2008 and the other is part of a slew of soulless live action remakes.


I wouldn’t exactly call that gaining traction.

How is Mulan soulless when it's the only one Disney is actively changing?

[Robo4900]

^It should be noted even in Funimation’s ultimate uncut redub if the first 67 episodes,the one your average viewer is probably most familiar with at this point, was dubbed after Dragon Ball and assumed the viewer is at least aware its a sequel series. The first episode is literally titled “The New Threat” and the narrator mentions the 5 years that have passed since Goku defeated Piccolo.

Yep.

And while the original Saban dub cut out the Lunch subplot that ran through a few of the early episodes (which, if you'll recall, Bora and Upa showed up in too!! With no explanation as to who they are!), the uncut redub, naturally, did not.

[WittyUsername]

I already provided an example with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is a Marvel movie that’s set to be released in early 2021. Beyond that, there was also Crazy Rich Asians last year and there’s also the upcoming Mulan movie. As I said, the reason for this seems to have more to do with the growing prominence of the Chinese market than anything else, but it does suggest to me that if Disney were to make a live-action Dragon Ball film, they’d probably get a Chinese actor to play Goku.

Wow 3 movies, two of which haven’t come out yet. And of the two one is part of a larger franchise that has mostly been white dominated since 2008 and the other is part of a slew of soulless live action remakes.


I wouldn’t exactly call that gaining traction.

How is Mulan soulless when it's the only one Disney is actively changing?

If you ask me, pretty much every Disney movie these days is soulless.

[MyVisionity]

Can you do a movie that starts with Z? Absolutely. Should you do a movie that starts with Z? That's another question.

I think it would be hugely disrespectful to both the work and the audience to skip over the first half of the series, for obvious reasons.

It was wrong to start with DBZ back in '96 and it would be just as wrong to start with Z now, if not worse.

[funrush]

I'm concerned that starting with DBZ would be too weird for the average moviegoer. Like here's this Goku guy, he's an alien and he has (had?) a tail and he's friends but not really friends with this green guy and he steals his kid and they all learned to shoot beams somewhere and there's some space aliens on their way and there's power levels and some guy with 3 eyes who shoots triangle blasts and they hurt himself.... etc.

It makes more sense to start from the beginning as an action comedy series, and work your way up to it. Give the viewer the proper context. Plus the CG would be significantly cheaper at first, whereas if you start with Z you have to go to Namek in the second movie and that shit would be expensive.

But then budget would be a problem in a different way if you start with DB, because if you wanna go from DB all the way to Buu, that could be easily like 7+ films. Who knows how well these movies will sell, and if the actors will start getting antsy to leave near the end/wanting big pay raises. Maybe the film execs would wanna start with Z because it's the more proven IP and they might be able to sell more merch that way.

[KBABZ]

Maybe the film execs would wanna start with Z because it's the more proven IP

In an alternate universe DB and Z are the same IP because the name never changed...

[Robo4900]

Maybe the film execs would wanna start with Z because it's the more proven IP

I live in hope that the guys at Disney have learned enough from Marvel (remember when no one knew whoever in hell Iron Man, Captain America, or the Guardians Of The Galaxy were?) to know that you trust your brands when you start them, you pay them respect, you let them get done properly, and only then do they actually do well. Disrespect it in the name of "but the chart says..." and you'll end up with cookie-cutter drivel that no one wants (see: DC's endless flailing to get a universe off the ground).

[Kunzait_83]

(remember when no one knew whoever in hell Iron Man, Captain America, or the Guardians Of The Galaxy were?)

I get the overall point you're making here, but if you'll allow me to get a little nitpicky and pedantic about nuance here: while you're 100% right on the money about Guardians of the Galaxy (even within a significant chunk of comic book fandom they were fairly obscure, at least prior to their 2008 "Annihilation" revival), I think that you're a hairline off in your cultural positioning of where Iron Man and certainly Cap were within the general, non-nerd zeitgeist prior to the MCU.

Its not that the general public didn't KNOW who those characters were. The general public was at the very least somewhat aware of Iron Man, and most DEFINITELY fully aware of who Captain America was 1000%. The distinction rather is that, prior to the MCU, the general public simply didn't give a crap about those characters. Its not that they were unknown or unrecognized outside of comics fandom, its that they were unpopular and generally looked upon with total apathy and boredom.

Prior to the MCU, Marvel had two major properties that were slam dunk monster popular among the general public (Spider-Man and X-Men), and a few properties that were relatively moderate-sized in their popularity among the general public (The Hulk, The Punisher, Daredevil, and to a lesser extent Ghost Rider and the Fantastic Four & the Silver Surfer).

Really, its the Avengers-centric characters specifically (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, etc) who were seen as relative x-factors among the general public: either because the average non-comics reader didn't know who the hell they were in a number of cases (Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Rocket Raccoon, etc) or, in cases like Captain America and Iron Man, they certainly knew who they were (in a "general pop culture osmosis" kind of way that is), but they just thought they were lame and boring. Basically Aquaman syndrome: "Who likes Captain America? He's corny and cheesy." would be the average Joe/Jane Average non-comics fans' appraisal of those characters prior to the late 2000s.

Prior to the MCU, most of Marvel's biggest hit characters were ones who were either within the X-Men sphere of things, or characters who were more "street level" and outside of the Avengers' general sphere (which Spider-Man certainly was pretty much for his entire history up until around 2004/2005). What the MCU did was bring the Avengers-centric chunk of Marvel into either the general public's basic attention and knowledge (such as the Guardians) or in cases like Cap and Iron Man, into the general public's actual enthusiastic goodwill and out of their Aquaman-esque "he's corny and dumb" zone that they'd been stuck in for decades and decades.

Before the MCU, everyone certainly knew damn well who Captain America was and simply just didn't care about him (or for him) at all. Post-MCU though, he's got more mainstream cultural cache and mass public goodwill as a symbol of what's (theoretically/ostensibly) supposed to be good and righteous about America than he's EVER had since probably those original Jack Kirby WWII-era comics roughly 80 years ago (8 years of Bush and post-9/11 society also certainly helped a lot in that).

Black Panther meanwhile was in a much more specific (and frankly, depressing) category than either examples like the Guardians of the Galaxy or S.H.I.E.L.D. (where the general public response would be "Literally who?") or examples like Cap and Iron Man (where the general public response would be "Yeah I know that character. He's goofy and stupid.").

PLENTY of black people - and not even necessarily comic-reading or "geek culture"-centric black people, but like fairly average, regular black people - knew damn well who that character was and what his basic shtick was (King of a 100% culturally advanced African nation); but OUTSIDE of black America, then yeah, most general public had zero clue who the hell he was.

Panther was (prior to his MCU debut) caught in a very heavily racial quandary of being on the one hand, fairly well known within a racially segregated chunk of the mainstream, non-comics reading populace, and almost 100% totally unknown to the rest of Joe/Jane Average non-comics readings in the rest of white (or just generally non-black) America.

In point of fact, a number of black Hollywood filmmakers and actors (including John Singleton and Wesley Snipes) had been trying to get a Black Panther film made since as far back as the early 90s: and ran into resistance from - largely white - producers and studio execs who thought that either the character was too obscure (thinking only in terms of the non-black populace) or, and MUCH more grotesquely, were scared that the depiction of an advanced African society would be "too much to handle" for the mid-Western/southern slice of American audiences and would cause too much outrage and public backlash.

As a final cherry on top of that, the original 1998 Blade movie ended up getting made largely out of Snipes' own frustrations with being unable to get a Black Panther film made for almost a decade prior.

Anyway, to the topic at hand.

Firstly:

You're right. And by that note, y'know, I think the MCU made a real mistake by making 20 movies before Infinity War. We don't need all that backstory. Let's just cut to the chase, and perhaps let's start suggesting people skip all that unnecessary stuff and go straight to the good bit that everyone's talking about.

And hey, in Lord Of The Rings, who needs to see Fellowship Of The Ring? The characters being introduced? The Rings being explained? Unnecessary backstory, let's just jump straight in with the second movie, and skip all that unnecessary shit. Peter Jackson shouldn't have even made that first movie.

And y'know those Star Wars movies? Y'know what, the original three movies are old hat, and the prequels aren't very good, how about everyone just starts from Force Awakens. Everything before that is just unnecessary backstory.

This is a killer awesome post. Spot on.

And secondly:

1. We Got This Covered are like Geekdom101: They're not so much reporting news as just sharing rumours they hear. Don't believe this until a proper reporter corroborates it.

I was gonna say: while its not outside the realm of believability that Disney MIGHT try to go for this, there's literally ZERO tangible substance to hang this on other than a random gossip/rumor site saying "Hey, I heard this from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy...!"

The fact that something that vague, thin, and insubstantial alone dragged this out to 14 pages is kind of a (sad) telling of how BEYOND desperate/thirsty this fanbase still is for a big budget studio Dragon Ball film: which in essence, basically translates for most into "public validation" for their pet property, as well as the whole sports-like "My team's winning!" mentality that people bring to these corporatized geek franchises and how well they do financially and so on.

2. Disney are trying to build on as many franchises as they can after their huge successes with Marvel and Star Wars. It's believable that they'd use the rights they got from the Fox buyout to try to make a live-action Dragon Ball franchise too.
Largely-Asian cast makes sense. With Disney doing Shang-Chi and Black Panther with Marvel, it's clear they're a studio who aren't quite as ready to whitewash such things as many other studios are.

Agreed. This is a relatively rare case where business (i.e. pandering to the Chinese market) actually has a side-benefit of having a positive impact on (at least one specific portion of) the creative-end for a change: in this case, we actually get Asian actors to play our gang of mystical martial artists borrowed from Chinese myths and legends, instead of Justin Chatwin as the whitest of all Gokus this side of Schemmel's "Ally to Good!" speech.

It'd be a thousand times even more promising if they also went and got seasoned Hong Kong stuntmen and fight choreographers to handle the actual martial arts end of this (including how they're blocked, shot, and edited), but I'm hardly holding my breath on that.

Still though, as sad as it is that we even have to acknowledge this in 2019, Chinese actors getting tapped to play characters rooted in Chinese kung fu fairytales would certainly be more than welcome. God knows Hong Kong has more than PLENTY of phenomenally talented actors and martial arts stunt performers that could more than handily do many of these roles justice.

3. If Disney make a Dragon Ball movie, we could expect to see unexpected, unknown casting, directorial, etc. choices. Given the good work they've done with Marvel doing faithful but distinct adaptations, I could see them making some great movies with the Dragon Ball license. At worst, we'd have some fun movies that have the trappings of Dragon Ball, and have a lot of the feel right, but ultimately are just fairly run-of-the-mill blockbusters for this time period. Which... Well... Given the track record of Dragon Ball movies, would actually be pretty good.

To the bolded portion: I'm fairly sure that (given Disney's general track record) that'd basically be the BEST case scenario for this. I don't really foresee something in anyway above that basic appraisal (some trappings of DB, some of the feel, but otherwise a fairly generic, bland summer blockbuster) in store for this kind of project. Largely because that's basically BEEN the very absolute best that they've been putting out there with regards to Marvel and Star Wars and the like.

And this is once again assuming of course that its actually in the pipeline and this isn't just a rumor website doing what a rumor site dies: spreading a rumor.

[KBABZ]

To be fair there's very few of us here under the illusion that Disney is actually going to do this anytime soon. But it is an interesting topic because of the challenges that such a production would have, the many ways to ruin it, and the stars that need to align in order for it to be decent and actually tell the entire story along the way.

A movie format is ultimately not the best way to tell the Dragon Ball arcs unless you were to seriously compress a lot of the details, but even then you'd end up with seven films minimum to tell everything and you'd have to remove and recontextualize a LOT in order for it to work in two and a half hours (especially the longer and more involved arcs like Red Ribbon and Androids/Cell). There's so many creative challenges that'd get in the way (up to something as minor/major as the kid actors being in their late teens by the time they finish the Daimao arc) that all my thoughts at least go back to how an animated TV show is the best way to portray the story in motion. Maybe not with as much relentless filler and padding, but still.

[Kunzait_83]

To be fair there's very few of us here under the illusion that Disney is actually going to do this anytime soon. But it is an interesting topic because of the challenges that such a production would have, the many ways to ruin it, and the stars that need to align in order for it to be decent and actually tell the entire story along the way.

One of those stars that probably would have to align is for Disney to NOT be involved or be the ones who handle this in ANY way in the first place. Which is obviously not possible in this case (rights being where they currently are and whatnot).

Given both Disney's general output AND the homogenized Hollywood summer tentpole landscape of the past decade+, I'm fairly sure that most people here would more than likely end up with EXACTLY what they want out of this: an MCU clone with Dragon Ball characters and iconography stapled onto it (sprinkled with some fanservicey shout outs to the source).

So basically: good acting and chemistry among the cast, competent but pedestrian and TV-movie level direction and filmmaking, a bland and nothing score, dialogue that's more than 85% snarky, quippy, and Whedon-lite (and mistakes witty banter for strong characterization), action and fight scenes that are baseline competent, but excruciatingly weightless, uncreative, monotonous, milquetoast, and lacking any impact or tension whatsoever, etc.

The net effect being something that's pleasing to a VERY diluted and whitebread sensibility of "fun" while lacking in any hint of creative identity or anything the least bit memorable or impacting. Something that is purely and simply just "there" and exists almost like the "filler" preservatives in a supermarket condiment.

Basically, you'll likely get a standard 2000s/2010s superhero movie, which are all largely and effectively big budget live action Saturday morning cartoons with slumming A-list level talent behind the wheel: which in the case of a live action Hollywood Dragon Ball film being made in that model and mindset, will effectively translate to it ending up as the "good and competent" version of FUNimation's DBZ dub.

The overall broader Western fanbase I'm sure will be largely overjoyed for that result: save for the Redpill chucklefucks who will bitterly whine, piss, and moan about the "SJW-ification" of their "Proud White Male" hero Goku (incidentally named and modeled after one of the single most famous and iconic Chinese Wuxia characters of all time) being played by an Asian actor. But really, who gives a fuck about them?

Even in the best possible case scenario (which I just outlined here) however, this won't be a film for me. It won't be a martial arts/Wuxia film (certainly not at least a decent or interesting one, which is the baseline minimum I'd be asking for here), and it certainly won't be Dragon Ball at its core, despite how primed it'll likely be to please its current day Western audience by adhering strictly to the MCU formula.

It'll basically be an Avengers film with martial arts dogi: which, gargantuan and obvious gulfs in talent and craft aside, is to me effectively not THAT much different in the grand scheme of things from FUNimations DBZ "reversion". The raw cringe will be completely diluted of course, but so too will the genre identity, storytelling, and general artistic & cultural personality that made Dragon Ball stand out as something distinctive and worthwhile in the first place (and which was the FAR more crippling missing ingredient from FUNimation's dub beyond the total and abject lack of raw acting, musical, and writing talent).

Wuxia is a genre who's history in film and cinematic language is about a century old at this point: its LONG cultivated its own set of filmmaking tics and tropes (style and aesthetic choices, tone and atmosphere, narrative shorthand, etc), most of which are still very much evident (to one degree or another) in today's Wuxia film & TV output, and many of which were VERY much adhered to in Dragon Ball, certainly within the anime. Within the realm of live action film, Wuxia certainly has not only an older and longer history with it than do superhero films, but also a FAR more developed and established style of filmmaking to go along with it.

Superheroes, as a genre of movies, may have been around since the old serials, but they've only really "found their stride" within the past maybe 20 someodd years or so. Dragon Ball is intrinsically, at its very core, rooted in something that is cinematically FAR older and FAR different and removed from today's style of Hollywood superhero movies. There's a TINY little inkling bit of it found within SOME aspects of how some superhero fight scenes are sometimes handled (and that largely owes itself to the influence of The Matrix, which itself was deeply, DEEPLY rooted in Wuxia as well), but at this stage its pretty heavily diluted and watered down a ton.

There are no shortage of veteran filmmakers (largely Chinese of course) who've been doing this genre for literally decades longer than most folks here have been alive, and plenty of young, up and coming ones who are no slouches themselves: but the likelihood of ANYTHING of that finding its way into a live action Disney DB adaptation is pretty much nill. Assuming this even gets made at all, this will almost 100% guaranteed be a pure outgrowth and byproduct of the MCU formula (which even Disney's Star Wars films, to some extent, have fallen victim to, especially with the "side films" like Rogue One and Solo). Emphasis on the "formula" part.

I can't think of anything I'd want to see LESS on Dragon Ball than the MCU's residue leaking out of its pores. FUNimation's DBZ dub was a terrible, shitty, and godawfully executed superhero cartoon. But a "good", decently well executed live action superhero film version of Dragon Ball (within the context of a post-Avengers world) to me is almost EQUALLY as non-enticing and certainly every bit just as wrong and ill-fitting for this property.

The baseline craft and watchability being notches higher than FUNi technically WOULD make it "better" (though that's hardly a high or difficult bar to clear), but not to the point where it'd still be something I'd have the least bit interest in seeing, or associating with Dragon Ball in general.

Dragon Ball is a mystical/high fantasy Kung Fu franchise. This should have not just Asian actors, but moreover some veteran Kung Fu/Wuxia film stunt crew, fight choreographers, cinematographers, directors, editors, film score composers, screenwriters, etc. who've been doing this shit for eons and eons now.

Basically, Hong Kong should make this instead of Disney. That wouldn't 100% GUARANTEE a good DB film either (Hong Kong is hardly perfect themselves and have certainly made some pretty damn shitty Wuxia films too, along with the canon of great classics and the many solidly good ones to their name), but the odds would damn certainly be ASTRONOMICALLY higher in its favor, and with far infinitely less cultural baggage and bullshit to get in the way.

In essence, I would much more gladly and eagerly take a live action Dragon Ball as an even moderately ok Wuxia film rather than I ever would a live action Dragon Ball film that was the best ever possible rendition of the MCU/Avengers formula to date. Hell, I'd even take something on the level of The Forbidden Kingdom (minus all the bullshit with the "White American Wuxia Fanboy gets transported to Jianghu" subplot) at this point. Give me the white-kid-free version of Forbidden Kingdom but as Dragon Ball. That's a decent approximation of my ROCK BOTTOM LOWEST POSSIBLE BAR for this to clear for me to say "Y'know what? That was an acceptably ok Dragon Ball live action movie!"

Even something roughly equivalent in it as Jet Li's utterly note-fucking-perfect Wukong performance for Goku, while it'd be a wonderfully nice bonus, would by no means be a requirement for me. Just a baseline competent and authentic cinematic Wuxia romp (which get pumped out at almost literally a dime a dozen over in Hong Kong) but for DB is all I'd really ask for to be happy with this.

For reference: Forbidden Kingdom was only a year prior to Dragonball Evolution. And while Forbidden Kingdom is (to put it lightly) hardly an outstanding film by any stretch of the imagination (apart from the incredible turn as Wukong by Li and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Li and Chan duke it out onscreen), it is still INFINITE LIGHTYEARS a better martial arts film than DBE (obviously), and certainly FAR more beyond deeply rooted within Dragon Ball's creative core than either DBE (itself a goddamned 2002 Spider-Man knockoff) or anything that is likely to come out of a post-MCU Disney. I'm certainly not holding it up as my ideal equivalent here: just my absolute lowest barometer for "acceptable".

Oh and lastly: we all know damn well that some chucklefuck screenwriter will not at all be able to resist throwing in some godawful, cringe-worthy "Over 9000" joke in there (in whichever film tackles the Saiya-jin or Freeza) as a "shoutout to the 'source'". That ALONE would almost be enough to make me completely uninterested just on principal alone. To say nothing of whatever Abridged references have an almost equally high chance of worming their way in there as well. Blech. Thanks, but no thanks.

[omegacwa]

I can't think of anything I'd want to see LESS on Dragon Ball than the MCU's residue leaking out of its pores.

I agree with this sentiment. I can't believe how many action/adventure/sci fi movies have been "MCUified". It's almost like everything has to be a "joke" now.

There is a reason Joker was a smash hit, there is a reason people are asking for #releasethesnydercut. People are starting to get hungry for things to be taken seriously again. Say what you will about Zack Snyder (I personally have enjoyed a fair bit of his films and think BvS Ultimate Cut is the version that should have been in theaters), and while Justice League was acceptable trash full of Weadonisms, I would have much preferred to see his (Zack's) vision of Justice League if not for the sole purpose of artistic integrity which I am a strong believer in.

Now, I understand Dragon Ball is a action/adventure/sci fi comedy but it isn't filled with mindless quips every five seconds that constantly break the tension.