Thoughts on a potential Netflix series.

Matches Malone · Post by **Matches Malone** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:03 pm

Jackalope89 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:30 pmThe creators of Avatar the Last Airbender are heading their own live action version of Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix. If it does well, and is well received, I could see it opening the gate for more live adaptations on Netflix.

I think an advantage that Avatar has based on what you're saying is that the creators will be heavily involved with it, which is something we probably won't be able to say about a DB show.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:28 pm

Brojack wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:17 pmJapanese actors are notorious for being horrendous actors.

Uh....

Spoiler:

So those are about 30 standout, critically acclaimed Japanese actors and actresses who've all given at least several incredible, legendary (and in many cases, some downright iconic) performances in exceedingly noteworthy film and TV works across more than 50 years or so. All of whom I literally just pulled from off the top of my head inside around maybe 5 minutes. I could've EASILY kept going well into the triple digits if I wanted.

Even setting completely aside the gross racism (intended or not) on the very face of your statement: on just a raw historical, factual basis (spanning more than a century of Japanese film and TV), this is NOT a hill that I would in any way recommend that you die on. This kind of colossally ignorant assertion is SO easily refutable within literally MINUTES of just cursory glancing through Japanese media, that its frankly pathetic.

Are there shitty Japanese actors? Absolutely and without question. There's also PLENTY of shitty American actors, Canadian actors, Indian/Hindu actors, French actors, German actors, British actors, Spanish actors, Australian actors, Chinese actors, Korean actors, Vietnamese actors, Russian actors, etc. Shitty actors come from all over the world, in all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities, and there are no end of them to be found anywhere on the face of the planet.

But framing Japan, which has over the course of the last century produced more than its ample fair share of outstandingly excellent and landmark film and TV (alongside TONS of absolute garbage to be sure, same as anyplace else), is somehow innately or intrinsically notable for its near complete lack of acting talent...

...I mean, this is about as self-evidently wrong and obviously, demonstrably untrue on its face as claiming that the sky isn't blue but rather plaid. To literally ANYONE who has dipped so much as a PINKY TOE into almost ANY trace of Japanese film and television media that extends beyond crappy kids anime (and their live action adaptations), Tokusatsu, or disposable daytime TV dramas.

Gee, its almost like merch-driven corporate franchise schlock more often than not tends to attract/incentivize a notably decreased degree of talent and quality standards (both in front of and behind the camera) no matter WHAT part of the world you go to.

Setting that bit of nonsense aside and bringing this back around to the main topic in question: guys, its really not that fucking difficult to have a broader, more informed view of international film and television media that extends well past whatever your pet nerd/geek franchises happen to be. It doesn't take a whole LOT of intellectual curiosity to explore what else other genres, cultures, and creative minds from all around the world have done with various different creative concepts and styles throughout the years/decades.

It doesn't take THAT much effort or digging through say... Chinese media and specifically Wuxia genre material, to see that stuff EXACTLY along the same lines as Dragon Ball has not only been successfully accomplished in live action before, its been accomplished in live action a TREMENDOUSLY large number of times, including across numerous years well long before Dragon Ball had ever existed as a thought in Toriyama's head.

This idea that Dragon Ball is somehow uniquely unadaptable in live action, when in reality almost ALL of its biggest martial arts fantasy fiction influences were well within the realm of live action well before its existence (and beyond)... this is literally no different and just as ludicrous as someone bemoaning that Ghost in the Shell is uniquely unadaptable into live action because a story using a dystopian future where cybernetics and robotics have taken root in society as a launching pad to explore the existential questions of the nature of our humanity itself and where flesh and spirit ends and machine/technology begins is something that's NEVER been successfully tackled in live action ever before.

These hand-wringing threads about how "impossibly hard, tricky, and daunting" Dragon Ball supposedly is to make into a live action film (or Netflix show in this case)... they're almost ALWAYS filled to the brim with ridiculously uninformed, totally misguided assumptions that almost always are rooted within and predicated upon the fact that almost NO ONE here has ever actually bothered to sit down and watch very many (if any) of these kinds of martial arts fantasy films and shows, because (once more) most folks here are simply WAY too overly preoccupied with primarily either Shonen anime (that, contrary to what their creators insist, have almost nothing remotely to do with Dragon Ball whatsoever apart from very broad narrative beats) or Western superhero film and cartoon media (namely MCU and DCAU-type stuff).

Even Dragon Ball's humor (hell, ESPECIALLY its humor), the combining tones of goofy comic over the top slapstick silliness with starkly serious drama and fight scenes and shifting between the two abruptly and suddenly on a dime... this EXACT tonal clash has been Wuxia's stock bread and butter for literally almost a century's worth of movies and TV shows.

Stuff like the wild hairdos, some of the more out there alien/demon/creature designs, the bits of unique architecture, and the like... things that are unique to Toriyama's distinctive art style and visual palette.... THOSE are the harder/trickier things to adapt that are genuinely unique to Dragon Ball.

Everything else (and I mean literally just about everything else)? Hong Kong's been cranking this stuff out by the truckloads for over a hundred years now: literally since the silent film era.

This kind of material was EXCEEDINGLY possible to make in live action since well long before any of us here were born just with things like wires and rotoscoping animation: something like Dragon Ball isn't in any way THAT particularly unique of a challenge to nail down in 2020 with today's CGI, when even ultra low budget Taiwanese indie productions have been doing it with WAY less since back in the 1960s and 70s. And CERTAINLY not when it comes to its storytelling style, its tropes and character archetypes, and its distinctive tone and comedic flavor, all of which had become old-hat cliches all across Wuxia/martial arts fantasy media well before most people here were even in diapers.

The trick is getting the right people involved: namely people who have not only a genuine love and understanding of Dragon Ball itself, but also people who have legit experience with producing exactly this kind of martial arts fantasy genre material elsewhere (namely in Hong Kong in particular, which has always been mecca for this stuff).

So instead of looking to some conventional Disney studio hack who worked on Star Wars or Marvel stuff and who's baseline framework and conception for martial arts filmmaking and storytelling is likely still suck on stuff like Enter the Dragon (no disrespect whatsoever to that film, its a huge favorite of mine), Kill Bill, or early 90s Van Damme movies, look instead to an actual Hong Kong director/fight choreographer who's worked on their share actual Wuxia films and TV shows. These guys have been doing this EXACT shit for EONS now.

I know for a fact that a decent number of folks here have seen films like Kung Fu Hustle and Forbidden Kingdom: those movies are NOT any kind of unique outliers. There's literally a whole gigantic UNIVERSE of films just like those, many of which are FAR superior even, that have been out there since decades and decades and decades ago, and are STILL getting pumped out now even today.

The challenge isn't the act of making a decent attempt at a live action Dragon Ball in and of itself: the challenge is in the studio resisting the temptation to Westernize it, to totally misunderstand and miss out on its Eastern genre roots entirely, and to thus make it either as an MCU-like knockoff, or to make it a faithful adaptation of the crappy FUNimation-inspired conception of "DEEBEEZEE" that many/most Americans remember it as, or something along either of those lines.

SuperSaiyaManZ94 · Post by **SuperSaiyaManZ94** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:55 pm

Matches Malone wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:03 pm
Jackalope89 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:30 pmThe creators of Avatar the Last Airbender are heading their own live action version of Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix. If it does well, and is well received, I could see it opening the gate for more live adaptations on Netflix.
I think an advantage that Avatar has based on what you're saying is that the creators will be heavily involved with it, which is something we probably won't be able to say about a DB show.

Glad that it's seeming like the Netflix Avatar show is going to be doing the original animated series justice, unlike that god awful Last Airbender movie from 2010 where it was clear the people making it had little familiarity or care with staying true to the source. Which is something that can also be said about how DB Evolution turned out just one year earlier. As in an poorly produced live action film adaptation of a series that was already translated into animation from a manga of which it bore little to no resemblance at all other than character names and passing references, heck if it didn't have the Dragon Ball name attached it would be just another bland forgettable 2000's action film.

Simply put, some things are better left animated and just cannot be translated to live action.

It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips · Post by **It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:34 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:28 pm These hand-wringing threads about how "impossibly hard, tricky, and daunting" Dragon Ball supposedly is to make into a live action film (or Netflix show in this case)... they're almost ALWAYS filled to the brim with ridiculously uninformed, totally misguided assumptions that almost always are rooted within and predicated upon the fact that almost NO ONE here has ever actually bothered to sit down and watch very many (if any) of these kinds of martial arts fantasy films and shows, because (once more) most folks here are simply WAY too overly preoccupied with primarily either Shonen anime (that, contrary to what their creators insist, have almost nothing remotely to do with Dragon Ball whatsoever apart from very broad narrative beats) or Western superhero film and cartoon media (namely MCU and DCAU-type stuff).

I'm not saying you're wrong but this will be a Western project and Western projects really do have issues with fight scenes. Even boxing sequences, which shouldn't require any special camera work or editing, cut whenever the actors so much as graze each other throwing off the whole sequence. Comparing Jackie Chan's hollywood stuff to his Hong Kong stuff also casts doubt on whether a talented lead can resolve these problems. Maybe if the whole project was handed over to a Chinese team there wouldn't be cause for worry but that doesn't seem likely.

Anyway. Your avatar has me fucked up now that I'm actually looking at it lmao It's amazing

ABED · Post by **ABED** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:57 pm

When you compare Chan's Hong Kong work to his US work, it's important to understand that Hong Kong is WAY more lax w/ safety concerns. He was also younger. One film has a girl being dangled by her hair by a man driving a car down a busy freeway. All the filmmakers did was ask the little girl's parents. You could never get away with that in the US. The gov't red tape would be a nightmare. It's not a matter of lack of quality American stunt people.

I'm aware that plenty of the wuxia stuff DB is known for has been done in live action films, but the production values are mostly awful. While I am by no means an expert, I did grow up in an age where you watched whatever was on TV, and late at night or on weekends, it was kung fu films or Kaiju movies.

goku the krump dancer · Post by **goku the krump dancer** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 6:22 pm

Yeah there's a bunch of "modern" Wuxia stuff on Netflix and most of it is near unwatchable just because of how poor the effects are.Honestly that includes The Forbidden Kingdom, which pains me to say, because I expected to be floored by a Jackie Chan/Jet Li cross over flick.

The whole thread can be summed up as "it comes down to the right director with an actual passion for the series".

Jackie is pass his prime but Donnie Yen and Iko Uwais do amazing fight sequences but I dont think Super Power Stuff is either of their expertise, Ice man was horrible on Donnie Yen's part, Dragon Tiger Gate wasn't half bad though. Iko Uwais' fight scenes are very gritty and gory but he's yet to work on a movie with a stupid high budget. I dont see the issue with using modern comic movies as positive examples of what to hope for should we ever get live action Dragon Ball again. It's a blend of eastern and western cultures so it doesn't really have to bend in one way or the other.

When I think of Dragon Ball done right aesthically in live action I also think of Mortal Kombat. which is an example of old easternisms mixed with modern cultures and it looks good, Hell Black Panther is widely acclaimed for having African motifs and decor mixed so well with western and high technological societies.

emperior · Post by **emperior** » Sat Feb 01, 2020 3:18 am

I doubt a DB live action will ever happen, as I think that Netflix surely tried to get rights to it before or around the same time they got rights to an OP serie (and I cannot see Toriyama approving of it after Evolution, or willing to supervise it).

But if ever became a thing, they would surely try to adapt Dragon Ball Z and skip what came before it, as DBZ is what brings in the money.

Honestly I wouldn’t mind such a thing. It could be terrible, in which case I wouldn’t watch it, but it could also have potential to be entertaining if it’s faithful to the original material. And I am honestly very curious to see a well made real life adaptation of Toriyama’s world and characters.

Matches Malone · Post by **Matches Malone** » Sat Feb 01, 2020 3:59 am

Kunzait_83 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:28 pmThe challenge isn't the act of making a decent attempt at a live action Dragon Ball in and of itself: the challenge is in the studio resisting the temptation to Westernize it, or to make it a faithful adaptation of the crappy FUNimation-inspired conception of "DEEBEEZEE" that many/most Americans remember it as.

I agree with this. With today's tech anything's possible, the problem is that the studio behind it may not have enough respect for the source material to make it as is, and will instead make it how they think it should've been. What made the MCU a success is that the person in charge of it is a comic fan who respects and understands what the source material is. A project like this needs a person who understands DB and who will be willing to work with Toriyama. DB is liked for what it is, not what it isn't or what it might've been, and I think that's an important thing for the studio to understand.

emperior wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2020 3:18 amI doubt a DB live action will ever happen, as I think that Netflix surely tried to get rights to it before or around the same time they got rights to an OP series (and I cannot see Toriyama approving of it after Evolution, or willing to supervise it).

But if ever became a thing, they would surely try to adapt Dragon Ball Z and skip what came before it, as DBZ is what brings in the money.

I don't know if Netflix can get it as there's a chance it went to Disney when they bought Fox who originally had the rights to it. When it comes to Toriyama, I don't know if they'll care about what he wants or thinks as the west don't have anywhere near the amount of respect for an original author like Japan does.

Jumping to Z would be like the MCU jumping into civil war at first, it will lose so much weight and potential profit due to there being no build up to the event of the Saiyans nor there being an installed fan base.

WittyUsername · Post by **WittyUsername** » Sat Feb 01, 2020 5:53 pm

I’m not entirely familiar with how copyright for manga/anime works, but would Toriyama have to sign off on the hypothetical deal for Netflix to do a Dragon Ball series?

Hellspawn28 · Post by **Hellspawn28** » Sat Feb 01, 2020 6:28 pm

I would be up for it if they got a good director that knows how to do Wuixa.

Matches Malone · Post by **Matches Malone** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 12:35 am

WittyUsername wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2020 5:53 pmI’m not entirely familiar with how copyright for manga/anime works, but would Toriyama have to sign off on the hypothetical deal for Netflix to do a Dragon Ball series?

Assuming the rights weren't given to Disney when they bought Fox, Shueisha would be the company that signs such a deal as they're the right holders of the entire franchise.

Kokonoe · Post by **Kokonoe** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:05 am

Honestly might be good maybe they can get people who worked on Faulconer Productions on board? Maybe not Faulconer himself but he's not really needed tbqh.

MasenkoHA · Post by **MasenkoHA** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:27 am

Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:05 am Honestly might be good maybe they can get people who worked on Faulconer Productions on board? Maybe not Faulconer himself but he's not really needed tbqh.

Sweet mercy Jesus in heaven no

Kokonoe · Post by **Kokonoe** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:40 am

MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:27 am
Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:05 am Honestly might be good maybe they can get people who worked on Faulconer Productions on board? Maybe not Faulconer himself but he's not really needed tbqh.
Sweet mercy Jesus in heaven no

Why not? They shaped DBZ in the west and made it popular.

8000 Saiyan · Post by **8000 Saiyan** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:42 am

Nope, not interested.

MasenkoHA · Post by **MasenkoHA** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:52 am

Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:40 am
Why not? They shaped DBZ in the west and made it popular.

It got popular in the West well before the switch to the Transformers fucking each on a washing machine music started but okay Jan

JulieYBM · Post by **JulieYBM** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:04 am

Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:40 am
MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:27 am
Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:05 am Honestly might be good maybe they can get people who worked on Faulconer Productions on board? Maybe not Faulconer himself but he's not really needed tbqh.
Sweet mercy Jesus in heaven no
Why not? They shaped DBZ in the west and made it popular.

This only refers to the US. Everyone else got Kikuchi or Megaman music.

MasenkoHA · Post by **MasenkoHA** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:17 am

JulieYBM wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:04 am
Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:40 am
MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:27 am

Sweet mercy Jesus in heaven no
Why not? They shaped DBZ in the west and made it popular.
This only refers to the US. Everyone else got Kikuchi or Megaman music.

Australia also got the same dub the US iirc.

And any country or region that received the Westwood dub did have the in-house Funi dub with the Faulconer music playing for at least Freeza and Garlic Jr and King Cold portions. I think Canada didn’t make the switch until the Cell Games. And some other counties briefly switched back to the Funi cast dub for the Super Buu stuff?

Regardless the fact that the show was popular in syndication with the Wasserman music, the fact that it became huge on Toonami with the Wasserman music (and Toonami playing Dead Zone and World Strongest with the Kikuchi score) and the fact that in other countries it remained popular when it switched to Megaman music. Or other dubs in the West just straight kept the Kikuchi music proved that the assessment that “Faulconer music shaped DBZ in the West and made it popular ” is a ridiculous and easily debunked claim even if you simplify it to the US it simply isn’t true.

Kokonoe · Post by **Kokonoe** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:19 am

MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:52 am
Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:40 am
Why not? They shaped DBZ in the west and made it popular.
It got popular in the West well before the switch to the Transformers fucking each on a washing machine music started but okay Jan

By that logic DBZ would be popular without the old timey Kikuchi score.

MasenkoHA · Post by **MasenkoHA** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:21 am

Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:19 am
MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:52 am
Kokonoe wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 9:40 am
Why not? They shaped DBZ in the west and made it popular.
It got popular in the West well before the switch to the Transformers fucking each on a washing machine music started but okay Jan
By that logic DBZ would be popular without the old timey Kikuchi score.

Clearly it was popular without the Kikuchi score. I never said it wouldn’t have been? What an odd flex.

Kanzenshuu

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