How do you picture a Hollywood version of "Dragon Ball Z"?

[SSJGoku93]

With the recent release of the Superman film, "Man of Steel"; it got me thinking.... high octane and intense battles can be portrayed pretty well in film. In fact, I noticed many of the fight scenes and effects within the film itself are very "DBZ-Esque". Superhero films are now arguably the kings of Hollywood motion pictures. Others such as "The Avengers" showcase even more of what is capable using modern movie making techniques to portray beings far above the abilities of average people. That being said, I believe there is no reason a well-made "Dragon Ball Z" film wouldn't do well.

Now, let's imagine that a movie director is given the task of creating a "Dragon Ball Z" film, note the Z. Said director is given around a 200 million dollar budget (comparable to movies such as Avengers and MoS). What synopsis would you like to see? Keep in mind many Hollywood films do not follow all source material to a T. Which characters would be featured in the film? Who's the villain? How does the film portray enough back-story to make non-DB fans care and understand the characters? A complex series such as the Dragon Ball franchise would be no easy task to squeeze into a 2 - 2 1/2 hour film...but could it be done, and done well? Let's erase "Dragon Ball Evolution" from existence, and start fresh. What are some of your ideas for DBZ film synopsis!?

Basically let's answer these -

Director -
Synopsis (brief summary) -
Which characters are featured? (feel free to add actors to them)
Who/what are the villains? (same as above)
How do we market it? (PG? PG-13?)

My personal attempt at what could make a worthy Hollywood DBZ film

Dragon Ball Z
Directed by J.J. Abrams (films such as Super 8, Star Strek, upcoming Star Wars Episode 7)

An alien refugee from a nearly extinct race defends Earth from space fairing pirates, those of his own heritage. This man, named Goku, leads Earth's Special Forces, super-powered warriors who dedicate their lives to the defense of earth and the seven Dragon Balls, legendary objects that when gathered, grant the collector one wish. Now, the vicious Saiyan Prince Vegeta has come to earth, seeking out the Dragon Balls in an attempt to be granted immortality; but not before seeking out Goku and attempting to annex the earth.

Main Characters - Goku, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Gohan
Others - Bulma, Chi Chi, Master Roshi
Main villains - Prince Vegeta, Nappa, Saibamen
Rated - PG-13

This version will be grounded in more realism. Intense sci-fi action and battle sequences.
My idea for establishing a back-story would be something along the lines of an opening narration with flashbacks that briefly explains Goku's backstory and that the earth is recovering from a recent war sparked by the tyrannical Demon King Piccolo, in which Goku defeats him. Piccolo is the son of King Piccolo, and has a change of heart, going against his father and helping Goku and the others defeat him. This is when you introduce the others as well, Krillin who is a monk, Tien and Chiatozu, deadly assassins, Yamcha a former criminal, Bulma a female scientist, Master Roshi a wise hermit/sage who trained Goku, Chi Chi a female martial artist and love interest of Goku etc.

Of course I'm not going to write the entire idea for the story here but that's essentially how I would do it. Also, no Raditz, establishing a brother for Goku would be difficult to do in this case, just in my opinion.


So, what are your ideas? You've got creative freedom here, what would be your idea for the Hollywood version of "Dragon Ball Z"?

[B]

I would take the less fantastical/animated parts of the series and make movies out of that. A straight adaptation would just look goofy. I haven't seen Man of Steel but 1) Superman is a lot more live-action-friendly anyway, and 2) those comic book movies do plenty of story-alteration already.

[Hellspawn28]

I think something similar to Man of Steel can work for a DBZ movie as long if it has a good story and characters. I doubt we will see a big budget DBZ movie anytime soon. Seeing that DBE did poorly at the box office, I doubt they will take a risk on a huge budget DBZ movie. I would start off with the Saiyan saga for the first movie since that's the story that most people are familiar with. Start the movie out with Goku being sent to Earth as a baby then do the origins in the intro credits.

I do think JJ would make a good DBZ movie. He is one of the best directors at the moment and his Trek movies are very good in my opinion. He took Star Trek into the right direction after the shitty TNG movies and Enterprise. Sadly he is busy with Star Wars 7 and he might do 8-9 if Episode 7 turns out well.

[TheMightyOzaru]

I picture it being terrible. I highly doubt they can take DBZ and do good with it .

[Hellspawn28]

You just have to find someone who respect the franchise well enough to make it good. James Wong said he is a fan, but he is just a shitty director. His movies pretty much suck and his only decent movie that he did was the first Final Destination. I think there is not enough people in Hollywood that are fans of the franchise.

[Makaioshin]

Get someone with some experience or passion for wuxia. Or someone at least familiar with the franchise.
I think it would be better for the story to still start off with Goku as a martial arts student. Have him train under Muten Roshi/Gohan/Karin/God/Popo/Kaio/Gyumao/whoever, befriend the others, and discover the Dragon Balls.

You just have to find someone who respect the franchise well enough to make it good. James Wong said he is a fan, but he is just a shitty director. His movies pretty much suck and his only decent movie that he did was the first Final Destination. I think there is not enough people in Hollywood that are fans of the franchise.

This is why it is a real shame that Stephen Chow didn't really get to help with Evolution.

[Ringworm128]

Buu saga by Tim Burton with music by Danny Elfman and Johny Depp as Kaioshin. And yes I'm being serious.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Honestly, I still think starting with something from the original Dragon Ball, to establish the characters better, is still a better idea than launching into the Z material, even if that is what society in general knows the best. Evolution may have turned out badly, but they were on the right track with where to start at least - though if it were me, I'd have started it out in a story that was a take off of the Red Ribbon Army arc.

I'll have to do some thinking on fleshing it out a little more than that before I can really answer the mini-questions here though.

[Cursed Lemon]

Basically as The Avengers.

[tinlunlau]

The way I see it, it should be done in a Harry Potter like style.
7 movies. Start the films with Goku as a young child and make the sequels as the actor playing Goku progressively grows up.

It would be like a 10 year project. I'd keep Hollywood far away from this as possible.
Clearly, they don't know how to deal with this franchise.

[Ajay]

Personally, I think there's certain things that work and certain things that don't work for cinema. Dragon Ball is one of those things that I just can't see ever being done well.

The look of the series is one of the most unique and recognisable things about it and it doesn't translate to film. It's either unrecognisable or it just looks silly - anyone's hair and costume basically. Man of Steel proved the fight scenes can be done but at the same time, the fight scenes are the most criticised part of that film. That's what bothers me the most about an adaptation - whilst the series over its hundreds of episodes proves that it's a series about the characters more so than it is about the fights, to do that in a cinematic production would be incredibly hard without being subject to huge pacing issues.

You can't squeeze Vegeta and Piccolo's transformations personality-wise into a 2 hour flick. Just like you can't capture the unbelievable intensity of the battles without it seeming rushed or tacked on.

If they were to try it, it would have to be a series rather than just an all encompassing film. It would require fans to accept that the over the top designs would have to go and that many changes would have to be made to avoid infringement and comparisons being made by the general public.

I just get a horrible feeling even thinking about it. Things like Thor and X-Men work because they rely heavily on humour to excuse the more ridiculous designs of the comic books. Dragon Ball, to me, is more akin to the villains of Green Lantern and we all know how that turned out.

If it were to happen, they'd have to do the complete opposite of what Evolution did. Don't go down the route of - 'this is a funny martial arts kiddy film'. Treat it like a character based drama, include the fights in moderation at the end and hire the best damn designed in the world to come up with a look that doesn't suck. I would like to see them get advice from Japanese fans (for the sake of avoiding funi-freaks and a total western outlook) and use them as a test pool for potential character designs and production design ideas.

Director choice would be very tough. I'd be interested to see how Yimou Zhang dealt with it personally.

EDIT: Found a gif showing the fight scene in Man of Steel that reminded me of DBZ -

[Hellspawn28]

I don't mind changes if they are done right. Goku's hair was fine, but his personally in DBE was awful. I wonder if Ridley Scott could pull off a DBZ movie seeing how well Prometheus turn out?

[Ajay]

I don't mind changes if they are done right. Goku's hair was fine, but his personally in DBE was awful. I wonder if Ridley Scott could pull off a DBZ movie seeing how well Prometheus turn out?

Personally, I thought Prometheus was painfully average and full of plotholes but aside from that, one thing I thought about Man of Steel was that the armour is so heavily inspired by H R Giger, that it loses a bit of its personality. It's becoming a bit of a trend and I would hate to see that kind of design tacked onto DB.

[BlackCatScott]

The way I see it, it should be done in a Harry Potter like style.
7 movies. Start the films with Goku as a young child and make the sequels as the actor playing Goku progressively grows up.

It would be like a 10 year project. I'd keep Hollywood far away from this as possible.
Clearly, they don't know how to deal with this franchise.

This is what I hope they don't do. I'd much rather they started with Z... with maybe a few flash backs (like in Man of Steel) and went from there. Would there really be enough interest in the film if it started with Dragonball? With Goku as a child? Also, the series is hard enough to adapt as it is but making it believable having a child going around kicking everybodys ass is even less believable. That's just what I think anyway.

Perhaps Dragonball Evolution got one thing right when they started with King Piccolo? In my opinion that was the right decision because from there you can adapt the Piccolo turning from bad to good progression pretty well and there wouldn't be too much packed into it so you could take a bit of time to explain how Goku has grown up and got to this stage, and then for the sequel bring in the Saiyans.

I really hope now after seeing Man of Steel, that DBZ does get another shot. Just not with 20th Century FOX. I think they should the series quite a bit of disrespect and they actually done quite a bit of damage to it. I think seeing a live action success of DBZ is one of my dreams... doubt it will ever come true but there is always hope!

[Cipher]

Like an even sillier version of Kung-Fu Hustle, or not at all.

[Hellspawn28]

The only directors that I want to stay away from Dragon Ball are people like Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich. I won't worry about Uwe Boll since he stop working for Hollywood after In The Name of the King bombed.

[Dalesy]

To be perfectly honest, I would be completely content with a full on adaptation were they to get a good director. I would go with someone like James Cameron just because I envision him being able to recreate the series in a way that is faithful, yet believable. It's not like you need a fantastic director in order to tell the Dragon Ball story. I'd like a retelling of the Pilaf Arc with no arc blending. It would be nice to avoid a lot of the heavy exposition needed when you pick up on an arc that already has a back-story. The Pilaf arc more or less avoids this. What makes DB great is the fantastical environments, and I'm fairly confident that they could be recreated given the proper talent. I think that's really where DB:E failed. Having the Dragon Ball story in the real world makes next to no sense whatsoever.

[Ajay]

I would go with someone like James Cameron just because I envision him being able to recreate the series in a way that is faithful, yet believable.

My brain right now

[Gokuden]

I have nightmares thinking about anything Hollywood. But if they were to do something à la Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, I would love it.