Dragon Ball: Evolution- Speculation and Discussion

Dr. Casey · Post by **Dr. Casey** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:40 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:Well, now that people have had a chance to experience the disappointment in "lawl englush speeking territorees," tell me: Was anything actually changed from the Asian theatrical version of the film?

-Corey

Nope. The only difference is that the people who left the theater going "That was the worst movie I've ever seen in my life!" were Americans, not Asians.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:41 pm

Dr. Casey wrote:Nope. The only difference is that the people who left the theater going "That was the worst movie I've ever seen in my life!" were Americans, not Asians.

Hm...I wonder what I should spend the $200 Onikage and ShinRogafuken owe me on... ;p

-Corey

Tsukento · Post by **Tsukento** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:46 pm

Wait, the movie's out in theaters already?

Was completely unaware. Never saw a single TV ad.

jda95 · Post by **jda95** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:48 pm

Tsukento wrote:Wait, the movie's out in theaters already?

Was completely unaware. Never saw a single TV ad.

Don't get me started on the idiotic marketing campaign.

Over here in Australia, I saw one ad during a Dragon Ball marathon.

Tsukento · Post by **Tsukento** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:56 pm

They still air Dragon Ba--wait, nevermind. Your CN is better than ours. You get uncut One Piece.

DBZOceanHD · Post by **DBZOceanHD** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:01 pm

I will post my thoughts later, but as jda95 said, the marketing here is beyond terrible. No novels, no PSP game, no soundtrack. Heck, I didn't even see an ad. The most I saw was at Supanova they were handing out posters. But generally when you want people to go see a movie, you advertise it. I mean, come on.

jda95 · Post by **jda95** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:04 pm

Tsukento wrote:They still air Dragon Ba--wait, nevermind. Your CN is better than ours. You get uncut One Piece.

Yes, at one in the morning. Seeing it on at a reasonable hour excited me, but when I saw 'this program was brought to you by Dragonball Evolution' I understood why. It was still fun to see.

Rod · Post by **Rod** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:20 pm

DBZOceanHD wrote:I will post my thoughts later, but as jda95 said, the marketing here is beyond terrible. No novels, no PSP game, no soundtrack. Heck, I didn't even see an ad. The most I saw was at Supanova they were handing out posters. But generally when you want people to go see a movie, you advertise it. I mean, come on.

Maybe
they figured it's bad, why bother?

DBZOceanHD · Post by **DBZOceanHD** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:31 pm

I know what you're saying Rod. By the same token, freakin' nothing? The PSP game doesn't have a release date and neither does the soundtrack. The novels are coming to my local store, but they're taking forever. It's just shoddy advertising. More advertising = more money. I mean, I'm not saying spend millions in Australia. Some television spots to put on during shows and the merchandise is all I'm asking.

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:38 pm

So, I just got back from the theatre, me and 2 friends saw it.. we were the only people in the entire cinema seeing it too, until this 50-something guy came in by himself. Some big blockbuster eh? Opening day, and it's an empty screen. Anyway, as for the actual film itself, I actually.. really liked it. I was very suprised, I honestly thought it was going to be awful, but while watching, I couldn't resist liking the characters, Chatwin especially was a great lead, not "emo" in the slightest, though he did spout a few cheesy one-liners. His attitude was all-Goku, and I loved it. Piccolo has practically no character development, and not over 10 minutes screentime. But that final battle was pretty badass (especially Chatwin's final Kamehameha). The love scenes were bad.. not Padme/Skywalker AWFUL, but pretty bad. The fight scenes are really well choregraphed! Especially that first fight with Goku and Gohan! It's really subliminal, but you really get a Dragonball feel during some of the scenes in this film, especially those "on the road scenes". Though strangley, once the Dragonballs are collected towards the end (you don't realise how fast this movie flies by), it seems to go turbo and all of a sudden "We gotta fight Piccolo!!", kinda threw me off a little.
All I have to say now, is go in with an open mind, and you'll find a nice action film, that sets up a really interesting Dragonball continuity.

omegacwa · Post by **omegacwa** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:58 pm

A friend of mine who is only an occasional DB fans said the following after watching it online:

"It was garbage"

I said "Why?"

He said "Because it was catered toward children and felt like a generic Kung Fu flick with some DB elements."

His opinion appears to be the same as a lot of other peoples.

I am going to see the movie tomorrow at the 9:20 pm show I believe. I watched it online and liked it, but I still really want to see it in theaters.

SSJ Helldog · Post by **SSJ Helldog** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:24 pm

Nice write-up, Rory. It's been really interesting to hear the range of reactions to it, from "worse than Street Fighter" to "great movie, bad DB movie." I'll be catching the midnight showing after numerous adult beverages this evening; scathing criticism and wry wit to follow.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:38 pm

Bura wrote:Anyway, it was a fun time despite it being a bad movie. XD

I was REALLY hoping to get that from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, but was severely disappointed.

I really want to enjoy this move, regardless of how terrible it may be. I want it to be "terrible but fun".

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:04 am

I want to go. I've wanted to go for months and months now- but I'm still struggling with myself whether I want to drag myself to this thing alone or sit around all day listening to you guys talk about it.

Dr. Casey · Post by **Dr. Casey** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:24 am

Velasa wrote:I want to go. I've wanted to go for months and months now- but I'm still struggling with myself whether I want to drag myself to this thing alone or sit around all day listening to you guys talk about it.

I would take up your offer to go watch it with you, but Tennessee's a pretty long way from Philadelphia. D:

Do you not enjoy watching movies by yourself period, or do you just think Dragon Ball Evolution won't be good if you lack someone to laugh at it with?

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:35 am

Warning, depressed rant upcoming.

The problem is that up until a few days ago I had someone who was going to go with me, and we were going to laugh our heads off. Then she stops talking to me for two months, bails on everything we were going to do and tells me that 4/11 (yes, very next day) she's going to be going to a movie with somebody because "it just seems like a good time to see a movie." Ahem. WHAT THE FUCK.

So thinking about seeing it by myself when I had counted so long on a friend is extremely depressing. Especially because of the delightful level of how fucked over I feel right now, as things in general have been not so good for the last few months.

/endsad

Dr. Casey · Post by **Dr. Casey** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:55 am

... hmm. The situation's a lot different than I expected, then.

:(

She stopped talking to you for two months? Damn. I can't stand being ignored by someone. I can't figure out what the problem is, I'm not given a chance to defend myself or apologize... it's frustrating. Since you two are speaking again, is there a chance that you could go watch it sometime past opening day? April 12th or 13th?

Yeah, continuing this in PMs.

SSJ Helldog · Post by **SSJ Helldog** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:51 am

Saw it!

... where to begin? I wish I could have seen it with no knowledge of Dragonball. As a stand-alone sci-fi piece, it could have been really cool. The setting was confusing. It tried to borrow from Dragon World, in that we were presented with a world that was close to our own, but slightly more technologically advanced. But because it was live action, I was quicker to judge it. All-in-all, I feel like the creators tried to cram a lot of Dragonball into something that wasn't.
The acting was good for the most part. Goku was sort of clueless, but in a much more human way than in the anime. Since he wasn't a kid, a Goku who acted like Goku at the beginning of DB would have come off as mentally retarded. Goku was alright.
I loved Bulma. Sure, she was a lot more... violent than in the source material, but they were playing off of her first appearance. Unloading a gun at an innocent is an extreme reaction, and her movie counterpart draws heavily upon that. Very likeable.
Yamcha blew. He was heavily based off of the Funi dub. It was like having Michaelangelo from the Ninja Turtles along for the ride. Throw in -zero- backstory, as well as a forced romantic involvement, and you have a character who could have been excluded in exchange for better pacing.

[ SEGWAY! ]

Speaking of pacing, this is where I start the fecal-flinging segment of the review. This thing was awkward! It dragged on with unnecessary exposition for twenty minutes. Why are we meeting these high school bullies? You say Goku can beat up some teenagers? Whooptie-do! It starts slow, picks up half an hour in, then starts sprinting. At one point the drinking I'd done to pre-game caught up with me, so I RAN out and took a leak. When I came back, they were IN A VOLCANO. I said to my friend, "why are they in a volcano?" He replied, "fuck if I know." By the end of the movie, it feels like you're watching a trailer, the pace is moving so fast. The final, climactic battle with Piccolo is probably the shortest and least impressive part of the movie.

I have a short attention span, and this was the first movie that I honestly felt could have benefited from an extra half-hour of running time.

I'm going to be complementary again, for a second. The changes they made in order to make DB a Hollywood movie were carefully considered and actually well-executed. Considering how much material was condensed, it was amazing. You could honestly watch DBE, then start watching Dragon Ball Z(/Kai), and most of it would make sense. I've often thought that there should be a compilation movie, a la DB movies 1 and 4, that combined the beginning of DB with the early demon king Piccolo stuff. Did they ever say "demon" in DBE? They made vague references to "aliens" and mentions "Nameks" once, but that part of the story was left for a sequel.

Now for the real lashing; the movie was poorly made. The writing was amateurish. I often found myself feeling bad for the actors having to deliver such hackneyed dialogue. It was bad, but at least it was sparse. You won't find any Star Wars 'new' trilogy soliloquies here. Where the plot succeeds, the delivery fails. In addition to a heavy front-end (the high school BS), the ending, where we could use some explanation, is at a minimum. There is one sentence that explains Goku becoming the Oozaru, and it only gets halfway there. You really have to connect your own dots here. And that's the strange part - if you know the source material, you can do that. If you don't... you can't. But either way, you're not satisfied.
I just feel like Fox pulled out their C-Team for this one. Editing skills aren't up to par? Just make lots of quick cuts and speed up/down the action. The kids eat that shit up. CGI looks lousy? Just boost the contrast up or down so no one can see it that clearly. Dialogue sucks? Screw it, everyone's too busy looking at the half-assed effects.

For everyone who skipped the above and wants the bottom-line, here we go: IF you can get past your preconceived notions about this movie, what you're left with is an unevenly balanced juvenile sci-fi flick. It's fun sometimes, face-palm inducing in others. I'm honestly impressed with the adaptation. It feels like they were trying to keep as much of DB intact while dealing with clueless Hollywood producers who demanded certain elements. 6.5/10.

Son Wukong · Post by **Son Wukong** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:22 am

Castor Troy wrote:I was REALLY hoping to get that from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, but was severely disappointed.

I really want to enjoy this move, regardless of how terrible it may be. I want it to be "terrible but fun".

Rest assured, relatively to Chun Li it is way better though still bad on its own.

GotenZ1 · Post by **GotenZ1** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:48 am

Guys, I just saw the movie.

The Citizen Kane of the 21st Century.

I'm completely kidding of course. I had a fun time, and I was very surprised in the middle of the movie when they started sticking close to the manga....and then it stopped doing that.

Pacing is atrocious and it really has a difficult time fleshing out characters. I was really impressed with Bulma-both the actress and the way the script portrayed her- and enjoyed most of her scenes. Still, this movie is about 85 minutes long and isn't long enough to make us care about the NUMEROUS characters we are introduced to.

I can't imagine this movie reading too well with audiences not familiar with DB. But I guess we'll see what the numbers say when the studios put out their estimates on Saturday morning.

I still want a sequel though. I want more, if not to just laugh my ass off some more. Seriously, this movie is pretty funny at points....and it isn't intentional. Except for when Bulma mentions "DBE". God, the entire theater groaned.