Where did DBE fail, where the Autobots and Joes succeeded?

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Super Sonic
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Where did DBE fail, where the Autobots and Joes succeeded?

Post by Super Sonic » Thu Dec 24, 2009 10:18 pm

Hey, you know how we all saw Dragon Ball Evolution flop earlier this year, we also two other movies based off cartoon/comics/toylines come out this year, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra come out and were big hits. For any of you guys who saw DBE and the latter two movies, what would you guys say were about them you noticed that made them big hits and not a bomb like DBE? For myself, saw they were made by a studio that actually cared about them and promoted them quite enough, and in my own area didn't open at time when potential audience was at anime convention.

And for any of you guys who didn't like them, I'm referring to them being financial hits.

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Post by LeprikanGT » Thu Dec 24, 2009 10:29 pm

I'm going to go with 'they treated it like a joke'.

Avater the last air bender is an american anime thats like less than 10 years old and it go tthis super huge budgetted movie and LOOKS like a real action type movie with the trailer that I was.

Now DragonBall being a HUGE Anime and Manga from Japan being 25 years old, got a cheaply [looking] made movie that flopped almost before it even came out.

They need to take it seriously and make a movie that DB deserves.

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Post by Big Momma » Thu Dec 24, 2009 10:31 pm

-Not taken seriously
-Poor advertising
-DragonBall just isn't as popular in America as it used to be. This movie was, sadly, about 7-9 years too late.
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Post by Armymanis » Thu Dec 24, 2009 10:41 pm

I have seen all three movies, and I have noticed that the special effects played a big role in those movies.

Transformers 2: They used CGI to create the robots and it has gotten so advanced that they look like the real thing. They also had really good actors who interacted which each robot character. The world of the auto bots also seemed real even though it was produced in CGI. The story in Transformers 2 was also creative and I think had some things that the comic book had.

GI Joe: It also had really awesome special effects. The ships and all of the gadgets were what really sold me on GI Joe. It seemed like the director and the producer actually cared enough to make the gadgets neat and like able for the average fan like myself. They also stuck really close to the story since the comic books were all about the GI Joe team defeating the Cobras.
I do not know if they used CGI for some of their stuff, but I am pretty sure they did.

Now for Dragonball Evolution! This movie just sucked monkey butt! There was not enough CGI in the movie and they made no attempt to make the actors look like the anime version. As many of you have noticed on youtube, the producers and directors of those videos use a Adobe Aftereffects program that really make the kamahameha wave look real and awesome.

While were on the topic of actors, they did not make Bulma look like Bulma. I get that all of these characters were suppose to be Japanese people, but the least they could have done was made Bulma's hair all blue or have a wig or something! Goku's hair did not look like Goku at all either, neither did Yamcha's hair.

Now that I think about it, the only Character that looked right was piccolo. Thats the only character that the director and producer really spent the time on creating! The rest of the characters they just said F it and went onto trying to get the film done.

The only cool special effects of the movie were the Dragonballs.

Now for the story, fans were expecting more from the hit series Dragonball, but they got utter crap. Goku started off at high school when he was suppose to be in the forest. I get they were trying to gather new fans into the series, but this was not the way to do it. Goku's grandfather was also alive in the movie, which to me was a big no no! We never see him die in the anime, so why should they do that in the movie?

Master Roshi's island is another major flaw! It was located in the ocean in the anime and for some reason the director wanted to put it in the fing middle of the city and just have a mote around it! I am like what!? Come on!!!!

Another thing that they did not do correctly, was they mentioned that Oozaro or however you spell the monkeys name was controlled by Piccolo which was a complete flaw.

I am sure there are many more problems I could point out. But, let me sum this up by saying that Dragonball had bad actors, bad CGI, and it seemed like the Directors and the Producers did not even take the time to read the Manga or watch any of the anime show before starting this film because they would have known they f'd up big time.

That is why Transformers 2 and GI Joes were more successful then that piece of crap.

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Post by Kaboom » Thu Dec 24, 2009 10:44 pm

Lack of marketing. THAT is the primary reason why DBE flopped in the US. It got a good amount of promotion in lots of other places, and it raked in a decent amount of cash because of it.

But over here, if you weren't tracking it via the internet like us folks at DaizEX spent our days doing, odds are you wouldn't even know about it until you saw it on the marquee at the theaters... while you were there seeing something else.
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Post by goku the krump dancer » Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:15 pm

Its been noted that the story for both Transformers movie were horrible to true fans.
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Post by Rocketman » Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:31 pm

Armymanis wrote:Goku's hair did not look like Goku at all either
CGI hair on a real person will not go well, putting aside that Goku's hair is impossible anyway.

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Post by Armymanis » Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:34 pm

Rocketman wrote:
Armymanis wrote:Goku's hair did not look like Goku at all either
CGI hair on a real person will not go well, putting aside that Goku's hair is impossible anyway.
Not really. I look on ebay and they have a costume Hair for Goku and they have his hair even for his super saiyan stuff.

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Post by Rocketman » Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:42 pm

Armymanis wrote:Not really. I look on ebay and they have a costume Hair for Goku and they have his hair even for his super saiyan stuff.
So? Does that hair blow in the wind? Does it stick to the forehead when wet? Does it fly out in all directions if one turns their head rapidly? Does it flow back if one runs quickly. In other words, does it act like hair?

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Post by OutlawTorn » Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:24 am

goku the krump dancer wrote:Its been noted that the story for both Transformers movie were horrible to true fans.
Ah, the "true fan" thing. (oh, how I hate it with a passion)

I had picked up the first movie because of the rather nice Autobot logo steelbook packaging. For some reason, I just don't like the updated Decepticon logo, it doesn't look as good as the original. I decided to give the movie a chance and watched it with an open mind, ignoring the rather ugly character designs for the Transformers. On the first viewing, I fell asleep so I felt somewhat obligated to watch it again to the end in order to form a fair opinion.

After making it through a full viewing, I was left with two impressions:

1. It was just a bit too long.
2. It was certainly true to the original series in that it didn't make a lick of sense.

I wasn't impressed enough with the movie to even consider watching Revenge of the Fallen and every trailer or preview I saw of DBE made me think "lame" so I have never really had any desire to see it. Honestly, I don't have any desire to see a live action incarnation of an animated property and don't see why people salivate at the prospect.

With DBE, of course, you need to add in the rabid purists (not the average purist, who just want something done right, but the zealous purist who jump down the throats of the creators for even the slightest deviation) who would proclaim at every opportunity it ruined Dragon Ball FOR EVAR! After all, people would complain about the pronunciation of "Kamehameha" which probably isn't really pronounced the way it is in Dragon Ball.

But based upon the movie itself, it just looked like pure cheese and, sadly, downright embarrassing. It would be like willingly subjecting oneself to a John Cena movie.

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Post by Sn4tcH » Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:18 am

I think it's safe to agree that all three movies are cinematic failures.
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Post by B » Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:27 am

Transformers and G.I. Joe originated in the U.S., which could have been a factor. Dragon Ball was more or less a 90's fad.

Oh, and budgets. Nice, big, fat, explodey, CGI budgets. And almost no hype for Evolution at all.
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Post by theoriginalbilis » Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:30 am

To be fair, I thought Transformers, GIJoe, and DBE were all equally horrible movies... But the former two were definitely successful in terms of profit. But that was mainly due to advertising and both of them being established pop culture icons since the 80s in the US.
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Post by Ununbium » Fri Dec 25, 2009 3:22 am

I have only seen DBE and Transformers 2 but I must say Transformers was much worse than DBE: Though I was never really a fan of that franchise.
And I'll have to go with lack of advertising.

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Post by bkev » Fri Dec 25, 2009 3:36 am

There were plenty of commercials on the target audience's main channel (CN)... for about three days. Then they kind of just went away.
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Post by Commander_Red » Fri Dec 25, 2009 4:13 am

Maybe a bunch of people on the internet predicting how much it will suck played a part.

What's a "true" fan? Someone that watches the show every day on dvd and then heads onto every internet fan forum available and intimately discusses their love for why X did Y? Or is it just someone that happened to watch the show when it actually ran when they were little?

Doesnt The Last Airbender actually have the shows creators working on it? All Toriyama did was glance at it and say "good job" ..

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Post by caejones » Fri Dec 25, 2009 6:39 am

Transformers and GI Jo... did they ... ur... target the existing fanbase to any extent?
DBE... did it target _anyone_? :?

I mean, sure, DBE was a content disasterpiece, but even ignoring that, what the heck was the studio even trying to do? "Well, we got a license sitting over here... I'm bored."?

And seeing as I've known people with purple hair... "normal" Bulma, who thumbs-ups the camera ("DBE? Sounds catchy!") pretty well exemplifies how completely and utterly clueless the executives involved were.
Flipping off the established fanbase? Check.
Trying to target the single-digit-aged audience by putting 0 effort into advertising, writing, and character designs? Check.

The comments I've heard "in the wild" on DBE?
"Free movienight is coming up, and we were thinking of seeing Dragonball Evolution; if we're going to see a horrible movie, might as well not pay for it."

Overall, I have to congratulate 20th Century Fox on taking something like Dragonball and making such a spectacular and well-received adaptation. *

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Post by TripleRach » Fri Dec 25, 2009 8:02 am

Transformers and Joe had:

-A budget
-B-list actors
-Mass marketing and promotion
-Great release dates
-An appeal for the general "popcorn flick" crowd

Evolution had none of those things. It had no budget, and looked like crap even for what it did have. Most of the actors were nobodies to the general public, save for Chow Yun-Fat, and I'd even question his relevance to the average American. Promotion-wise, the week that Evolution came out, Wolverine had more commercials than it did, and Wolverine didn't come out until a month later. It was a spring release with a lot of competition, and had almost no general "big movie" appeal to it.

Let me compare it to two other movies that also came out this year. Legend of Chun-Li was similarly a cheap-looking movie with a cast of nobodies, and also did very poorly. Watchmen, meanwhile, also had a cast of unknowns, but had much higher production values and marketing, and thus did much better than the likes of Evolution (although I believe it's still considered a "bomb" on the big comic movie scale). And Street Fighter and Dragon Ball are more relevant brands nowadays than Watchmen is, at least in theory.

But trying to be as objective as possible, the trailers and ads for Evolution just look like complete jokes compared to things like Transformers and Joe.
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Post by SHINOBI-03 » Fri Dec 25, 2009 9:19 am

I didn't see G.I.Joe, but I saw the Transformers movies and in my opinion... they both sucked.

I have no knowledge about Transformers, but is the story supposed to be dark and full of sex jokes?

And I think what Evolution could've used was a little bit of comedy because I thought it was a bit too serious for a PG movie.

A question... do you think the live action verion of Fist of the North star made in 1995 was better than those three in quality and story?

I say it was... and I don't think it's that famous in the United States at that time. Am I right?

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Post by Piccolo Daimao » Fri Dec 25, 2009 10:44 am

Dragon Ball Evolution, along with a much better budget and advertising, could've done with some decent acting. Justin Chatwin was, without a doubt, the wrong choice for the lead character.
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