DBZ U.S live Action Movie will never happen

[Tyro]

A day late but not a dollar short. Dragon Ball Z: Light of Hope episode 1 was surprisingly fun to watch. Check it out.

[lord turbo]

The issue with doing a movie based on Dragon Ball is that studios would probably wan't to get to get to Dragon Ball Z as quickly as possible as it's that which was the phenomenon.

I think it'd be doable because Dragon Ball had three tournaments which were really entertaining in the series but just wouldn't work in a film because it'd be repetitive and it'd eat up too much screen time.

An easy workaround would be to not have the tournaments but still have a big fight scene with Goku and Roshi, Goku and Tenshinhan and Goku and Piccolo that sorta recreated the final matches of the tournament but just not as part of a tournament.

They need to go the Marvel route and first get people accustomed to the characters otherwise its just meaningless fights from one scene to the next which is why I had some serious issues with the last half of MoS. A DB film works best by establishing the foundations first. Start low with Pilaf arc, go to 21st Budokai (One of two movies is options), start to kick up things with a Red Ribbon arc for two movies. Then things really take off for the fifth or fifth and sixth movie when we entered the 22nd Budokai arc which has all the action that people crave for in DBZ.

The problem would be story direction, too many studios think they know what's best and that's where things can go wrong real quick.

[NitroEX]

Going the Dragonball route for a live action film franchise would be the wrong way to go imo. They can't squander one film let alone a trilogy on Martial arts tournaments, Dragonball hunting and the Red Ribbon army when the majority of the fanbase obviously wants to see Saiyans, Freeza, large scale battles and potentially a live action Super Saiyan. Fans and even general audience members aren't going to be compelled to buy a ticket to see a Dragonball film even if it's done right, it would just inevitably flop. An action packed Z film will attract more viewers just on premise alone nevermind all the hardcore nostalgic Z fans already out there.

That's not to say there can never be a DragonBall film trilogy. If the Z films make enough money they can follow them up with Dragonball prequels similar to what the Hobbit films were to The Lord of The Rings franchise. The Z films are just needed first to create an opening in the market.

As far as establishing characters go you have a perfectly good protagonist throughout the Z arcs in Gohan. Through him the audience can learn about the cinematic DBZ universe as the events play out and at the same time introduce us to the rest of the cast. THere really is no need to start at stage one with Goku's origin as his character is pretty cut and dry and can easily be established in a Z film.

[Drabaz]

It's not a movie but Robot Underdog's live action Dragon Ball Z: Light of Hope series begins this Monday. I'm interested to see how it will turn out. The script was written by Derek Padula, the creator of The Dao of Dragon Ball website and blog.

Ooooh! That's why I didn't completely hate this live action adaption. I think this is as good as it's going to get though. Because even though the script was good, it still just didn't feel right.

[UltimateHammerBro]

That's not to say there can never be a DragonBall film trilogy. If the Z films make enough money they can follow them up with Dragonball prequels similar to what the Hobbit films were to The Lord of The Rings franchise. The Z films are just needed first to create an opening in the market.

I'd be OK with a film which started by the beginning of DBZ, but recapped the story of DB in some way, not unlike Kai. After all, The Lord of the Rings started by quickly recapping the parts of "The Hobbit" which were important for the story of LOTR.
How about an opening scene where Goku's telling Gohan his previous adventures as a bedtime story?

[Bullza]

Start low with Pilaf arc, go to 21st Budokai (One of two movies is options), start to kick up things with a Red Ribbon arc for two movies.

That just wouldn't work for reasons like Nitro said above. The Dragon Ball fan base by and large are into the Z portion of the series and don't care for the Pilaf and RRA arcs which are arguably the worst arcs of the series that hardly resemble what it is that most people like the franchise for.

A movie mainly centered on the Piccolo arcs with bits and pieces from the other arcs would be the best option because it'd still have the adult cast, the big fight scenes, powering up scenes, transformations and flashy attacks that people would expect to see.

That way they could get around to Z by the second movie and they wouldn't just be jumping into the middle of the story.

[lord turbo]

Start low with Pilaf arc, go to 21st Budokai (One of two movies is options), start to kick up things with a Red Ribbon arc for two movies.

That just wouldn't work for reasons like Nitro said above. The Dragon Ball fan base by and large are into the Z portion of the series and don't care for the Pilaf and RRA arcs which are arguably the worst arcs of the series that hardly resemble what it is that most people like the franchise for.

A movie mainly centered on the Piccolo arcs with bits and pieces from the other arcs would be the best option because it'd still have the adult cast, the big fight scenes, powering up scenes, transformations and flashy attacks that people would expect to see.

That way they could get around to Z by the second movie and they wouldn't just be jumping into the middle of the story.

You are basically saying you prefer all flash and no substance and a Dragon Ball like that is not really Dragon Ball to begin with.

[Bullza]

I'm not saying that at all, I'm saying it's pointless for a studio to pump $100-200 million into a few Dragon Ball films centered around the Pilaf and Red Ribbon arcs that people wouldn't care to see.

What's the sense in making two Dragon Ball films based on the Red Ribbon arc if most fans aren't even bothered with it? You said this

Then things really take off for the fifth or fifth and sixth movie when we entered the 22nd Budokai arc which has all the action that people crave for in DBZ.

Why even bother making a Dragon Ball movie series if it's going to 5 or 6 movies before it takes off and provides fans with what they wanted?

[SaiyamanMS]

I absolutely adore the Pilaf and Red Ribbon arcs, but doing 5 or 6 movies of pre-Z material is downright inane. A lot of successful film franchises don't go beyond three movies, and even fewer go beyond something like six. If there's one thing that Evolution actually did right, it was choosing the Piccolo Daimao arc to begin with, as leaping straight into Z would be a terrible idea too. The absolute maximum you could do with pre-Z Dragon Ball would have to be two films in my opinion.

[Monkey King Vegeta]

Always get a chuckle from the fan-made DBZ movie, the acting always seems off for DBZ, screaming into the sky for long periods of times seems silly in real life, lol.

Anyways, they did a good job, better than DBE, although theres some things they could have done better.

Like 18's hair, 17's attitude being more dark, Gohan more protective and the whole scenery looked dull.

Whether its Hollywood or some fans making these adapatations, it seems there will always be disagreements with "what race should play the Saiaya-jins".

Theres good arguments for all parties, but I believe the cast should be in favor of the Asians, goven the fact that they where looking up to these heroes before we knew of them, plus Americans have Sups to mess around with, don't touch Goku!

As for the trailer, there are many comments criticizing Trunks for looking "too young and too Asian", while this sounds rude, they should've have taken the timeline into consideration, Trunks did look like in his late teens, and he was "bi-racial" with a presumably white mother, so they could have avoided that.

Over all, they did a fantastic job, can't wait to see more from them.

[Ringworm128]

DB is still fairly young compared to Superman, especially in the west. Batman and Superman had been around for over 4o years when they finally got their big live action movies. Also DBZ (like most anime outside Pokemon) is a cult classic at best, excluding 15 years ago. Really only one gen of kids have grown up with Z, two soon with Kai. Superman on the
other hand is older than some peoples grandparents and has probably had more heavy popularity even without the advantage of being older. A DBZ movie is possible but it will probably take another 10-20 years. As for DBZ translating to live action, if comic book movies like Spider-Man and Batman can be done well I don't see how the same couldn't be done with DBZ. Even Street Fighter was done right with Assassin's Fist after being messed up two times.