Bardock the Mexican wrote:
You have to understand that the transition to live action was made in a shaky way and it would be difficult to do otherwise. It would be nothing short of a miracle if they had been able to make anything look the way we all expect it to look. Even if it was 95% perfect there would still be a 5% that would be crap. Even if you look for the good/bad and focus on it, you lose your ability to appreciate the movie. It's best if you treat your memories of Dragonball as if they never happened while watching this movie. Just enjoy it for what it presents itself to be and don't take it too seriously. You have seen worse movies in your life.
Nothing short of a miracle? Really? For a $100 million movie?
Independence Day was made on less money. And over a decade ago. And it won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. So I fail to see how Dragon Ball, which isn't even half as visually complicated, is somehow too hard to accurately portray with modern moviemaking technology on that budget.
In fact, this new Piccolo costume actually looks
more expensive than the original would have been. I mean honestly, it’s just purple cloth with a big ol’
kanji on the front, plus a red belt and green makeup. Any fanboy could do that on a shoestring budget easily. The custom plastics and latex or whatever they used for that thing undoubtedly cost a hell of a lot more. And the oldness couldn’t possibly have been an issue when four or five full-suit Fulums weren’t.
If it did turn out 95% perfect I’d be be more than content with it, but the way things are turning up I don’t see this being any more than 50% perfect, if we’re lucky.
xzero wrote:I think the option that they saw before them was ostracization of the DBZ fanbase or of the general movie-going public. They made the business decision that the public was probably a larger constituency to cater to, and would probably be more inclined to see the movie, discarding respect for the fans along the way. I could be totally wrong about this, but my expectations are decidedly low for this film.
That sounds fairly plausible, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was the case. But for the producers to even
come to that decision seems rather daft of them, because DB is already a cash cow in its present form. It in no way
requires tampering with to make it sell. They just as easily could have appeased both hardcore fans and casual viewers by sticking to its roots,
the same way every superhero movie to come out in the last few years has been doing. You would think that with this recent trend, and how much money it’s generating (How much did
The Dark Knight make again? $500 million?), they might take a look at this property, which fits all of the same criteria for success as other comic book adaptations, and think a little bit more carefully about its creative strategy, but no, their top priority seems to be making it “more realistic”—which just seems to be an excuse for abusing artistic license, because really, what does making Chi-chi an “It” girl have to do with realism?—when that never should have been a requirement in the first place. It’s almost like saying, “This story isn’t good enough in its present form. It needs to be conformed so that it fits our current model of society to be considered acceptable.”
SSj Kaboom wrote:For the time being, I'm willing to take the changes in appearance with a grain of salt, and trust what Mr. Marsters has told us: "There have been some changes, but it’s true to the heart of DragonBall."
Well, the thing about that statement is that it’s very vague. Notice how he doesn’t say that it’s true to the original story, or the actual characters; just “the heart,” which could be interpreted so many different ways, that it probably won’t be too difficult to meet for a lot of people. I mean, if the only requirement for you is that Goku collects the Dragon Balls and fights a bad guy, then yeah, it’ll stay true the heart of DB. While I don’t think he’s necessarily
lying, I think that if it were true on a broader scale, he might say something a little more promising than that, judging by his prior enthusiasm for the role.
Whether that sort of thing is true or not isn't going to be determined merely by costumes and makeup. That's going to depend on the acting, the story, and the creators' and actors' passion for the project. And signs in that regard are promising.
This is certainly true, but the costumes and makeup
are important aspects of the characters, especially when dealing with icons such as these. You wouldn’t dress up Spider-Man in a French maid uniform the same way you wouldn’t dress up Queen Elizabeth in street rags. Costumes, when done right, compliment rather than contrast the personality of the wearer, and in some aspects are regarded as having a personality themselves. Though the
gi in Dragon Ball all tend to follow a similar pattern, they’re what we’ve come to associate with these characters, so putting Goku in preppy attire; same as Bulma in generic “action hero” leather tights; and Piccolo in a melted
X-Men uniform, won’t ever be congruous.
Velasa wrote:On Daimaou- pretty much everyone is upset about his coloring, particularly me. Marsters had said distinctly about being green in previous interviews though, so the thought now is that Daimaou fresh from the Denshi is paled, but when he's young again/Pic he's actually green. I actually like his costume- black and red armor on a Daimaou man? I'm all for that. But there have been complaints on that as well, and that's a matter of opinion. He actually is the right age though- as this is Daimaou, not Pic, and he’s suppose to be so old most people had forgotten he was real and not a story.
Well, okay, but how distinctly did he say this? I’m sure there were plenty of changes in-between whichever interviews he had, and the final costuming decision. The director could just have said, “Nah, you know what? I don’t like him green,” or “Applying all that makeup plus everything else is taking too long. Just throw him in as-is.” Directors frequently make these kinds of calls, so I definitely wouldn’t rule it out just because it was true that Piccolo was going to be green at one point. As for the age thing, I don’t really see what you mean—he looks young as hell to me. And Marsters had to fight to put some years back on him. So we know that the script doesn’t call for a decrepit Pic. And, as others have mentioned, they’re just taking the Daimaou and Ma Jr. identities and combining them into one, so in terms of appearance they’re probably just siding with Jr.’s features for simplicity. His motivation in this seems to be “destroying the earth,” not rejuvenation. Unless I’m missing some bit of news indicating otherwise.
School stuff/setting- The current thought/hope is that this part is just small and in the beginning and then we get back to the Dragonball part. Apparently Teto's scenes were filmed in a day and he is not Son's best friend. On the monks, they're probably from the Dragon temple- the man at the top of that shot is the guy playing Mutaito- and at least in my opinion, the order of monks is pretty cool because (especially given as Mutaito's there) they're the people who actually remember that Daimaou was real all that time ago and they're still keeping an eye on him. In that picture, it may be the Denshi jar at the center of the table.
I see. But then, wasn’t Ernie Hudson going to play Mutaito? Or was that just a rumor?
Xyex wrote:How so? Because we've got 10 to 15 minutes of a Highschool before we go to the desolate wastelands and forests and volcanoes? There's nothing in this movie that doesn't appear in Dragonworld.
Whatever the timing of the high school scenes is doesn’t matter (though I’m not sure how you can claim it’ll only be 10 to 15 minutes). The larger setting of the movie, the contemporary, “what if this happened in 2009 in Los Angeles” setting; that's the wrong one.
Roshi's got his gaudy shirts (and perv shirts too, for that matter!). Goku's got both gis, something I never expected. The only things off are Roshi not being bald or having (far as we've seen) glasses and 'Daimou' not wearing a gi. Though we don't know what 'Piccolo' will wear yet.
Goku wearing his proper
gi is only a plus when it’s taken
in spite of everything else. It should have been a given, as should the others’ costumes. The perv shirt is a nice touch, yes, but Roshi has no business being in those types of clothes to begin with. That he wears a Hawaiin shirt in another scene isn’t really a big deal because overall, he’s still a long way off from what he should look like.
So he's an exta 1700 years old, big deal. XD They probably felt that 300 years wasn't long enough for him to become nothing more than legend to the world.
I actually wasn’t aware that they increased his age, but was merely referring to his appearance. He doesn’t even look 300 to me, let alone 2,000…
While this is true, I don't see the Fulum being anything more than generic foot soldiers (much like the generic Foot Soldiers from the Turtles movie) they've still got Mai. And let's face it, Mai's a lot more fun to stare at for 2 hours than Tamborine would be.
Haha, true, but it would have been nice to see Piccolo’s
actual, unique henchmen in there,
rather than generic footsoldiers. Those seem more Freeza’s department. And it would be nice to introduce some more of DB to American audiences. Even I’ve only had limited exposure to it.
Though, honestly, they're just background characters. The exist for the same reason that Background Person #5869 in the Android Arc exists. To fill the world. Only they get to have a name and a few lines as well, that's all.
Emi is supposed to be Chi-chi’s best friend. That’s not quite the same as a background actor. I don’t know what Teto’s deal is but he looks like a gay crack dealer and I can’t see any justification for adding him even if it’s only for two seconds.
But they at least could have put some more effort into giving these guys names that actually fit with the rest of the cast. I mean honestly, can you imagine the attendance check? “Goku… Chi-Chi…
Emi…
Teto…” They just stick out. Yeah, some of the native characters in DB have ridiculous names, but at least they have some kind of meaning behind them. There's no pun or anything to even get with the new characters.
That Dragonball was glowing pretty brightly, so who knows. And since this is leaked stuff anyway it's possible that it hadn't been fully finished in post production yet. For some... odd reason they're adding the stars in post.
Well, that’s how I’d do it anyway. First you render the ball (make sure it can fit in your pocket too, for easy summoning), then you add in a bunch metaphysical gyrations indicated by swirly lines on the inside (despite the fact that it isn’t hollow), you know, to show it’s activated, though a simple glow would have sufficed, and THEN, finally, the finishing touch: the stars that actually make it unique from all those other, not-as-cool sci-fi orbs.
It's a minor plot element. So what?
From what I can tell the eclipse is what enables Piccolo to free himself and/or do whatever the hell he’s supposed to do. Plus we’ve seen it about a million times already. Now, if you
enjoy uninspired, recycled, clichés, on the other hand…
SSj Kaboom wrote:To build on what omegacwa just said, a lot of the negative viewpoints seems to be based on the false assumption that they somehow HAVE to have everything be the same as the manga. They don't. They pick and choose what they do or don't need to tell their story, and carry things over accordingly. That's what 's an "adaptation" is.
I understand that some changes are inevitable in an adaptation. The optimists seem to be interpreting the negativity here as shock in the sense of, “how dare they change something to make it fit the movie!”, but it isn’t that. Rather, it’s: “how dare they change something that we’ve grown to appreciate, and that
didn’t even need to be changed to make it fit the movie!” There’s a big difference.
I get the feeling a lot of people are only setting themselves up for disappointment when they see it and all they can let themselves think is "that's not how the MANGA did it."
Yes but existing fans should be able to walk into a theater without having their expectations of who the characters are and the nature of the world they inhabit completely shattered. To put things in perspective, just take the inverse: it’d be like going into a movie based on events that happened in a school setting (
Freedom Writers comes to mind) only to find it being placed in the forest. It doesn’t make any sense given the context of the original plot. It has no reason for being other than as a streamlining of the adaptation effort.
We're not getting the DragonBall manga in live-action. We're getting a live-action movie based on the DragonBall manga.
If that’s the case then why even bother to call it Dragon Ball? If being based on another story means changing everything about that story, what’s the point in referring to it by the same title?
Just like the Iron Man and Spider-Man were based on their comic books. Just like the Lord of the Rings films were based on the books by J. R. R. Tolkien. Just like The Passion of the Christ was based on the crucifixion stories from the gospels. The credits of this movie will say "based on the series by Akira Toriyama," not "the series by Akira Toriyama with real people." There's a big difference, and it should be judged accordingly.
Yes but
Iron Man and
Spider-Man and
Rings and
The Passion were all incredibly faithful to their source material—to varying degrees, of course, but the plots and characters were all still recognizably pertinent to their derivations. When you stray too far from that you start losing touch with what the purpose of an adaptation is in the first place: to take something that already exists, and portray it in a new light.
Changing the source doesn’t adapt it; it creates something else entirely.
So why, in light of and in contrast to that, is this movie from FOX automatically receiving so much widespread hate, before it's even released? Just because it's in live-action? Just because it's being made by a western studio? Given the medium and the development, OBVIOUSLY things aren't going to LOOK the same as the manga, nor is it logical to expect them to. But in terms of that and story, it's an original work, meant to accompany the manga and "be its own thing." To hold it up against the manga, and cite the differences as fatal flaws, is simply unfair. If you're going to judge this movie, judge it by its own standards, not the manga's.
I would hardly describe it as automatic; at least, that wasn’t the case with me. I strongly believe in the adaptability of Dragon Ball into a live action movie, and I think it could be very good, even when handled by a Western studio. I’m not normally pessimistic unless I have specific reason to be. But you have to admit, FOX could be treating this property better. And they probably
would be treating it better if it were a U.S. franchise with cultural significance like any of the Marvel or DC titles. And while it’s true that not every difference is a flaw, most if not all “flaws” can be derived from differences. The title is doomed to be compared to its source, just as any adaptation is. That’s only fair. You’re specifically recalling the mental image of the source in people’s minds by giving it the same title. We already have ideas of what the story is and isn’t. When the result defies more of these perceptions than it respects, then it’s appropriate to say that it’s a failed adaptation. I don’t know what more it would take to earn such a designation.
SSj_Rambo wrote:Good point, I didn't think of that. After reading
the Wikipedia page for blue/green screens I am starting to believe this "it's blue because Piccolo is green" theory even more. Green screens are much more popular and technically better, so why would they use a blue screen unless the green one wouldn't work?
Well, there are few reasons which I can list off the top of my head:
- Blue screen has been in professional use longer than green screen has, and Hollywood tends to favor tradition
- Blue is a complimentary color to skin tone, so if any of the blue color “spills” (reflects) onto the subject, it doesn’t look as bad as something like green, which tends to stand out more
- Green screen is popular in digital video, where green light is sampled at a higher frequency than its primary counterparts, red and blue. (Since the human eye is more sensitive to green, the manufacturers can cut back on the other colors to reduce filesize). In cinema however, digital is rarely used, in favor of actual film cameras (à la Panavision), which typically afford better resolution, detail, and light sensitivity. When digital is used, the colors are usually sampled about equally, because they’re higher-grade and with massive storage facilities and budgets, filesize isn’t as much of an issue. So there’s less imperative for them to use a green key.
Though it could conceivably be because of some green character, I think this is just wishful thinking.
I'm thinking along the lines of Josh Hartnett or Shane West... 
