Justin Chatwin apologizes for Dragonball Evolution

[tinlunlau]

It's not everyday you get to see apology coming from writer and actor.

I dunno: reportedly for many, many years after the movie came out, anytime a fan told George Clooney that they saw Batman & Robin in theaters, he would actually refund them their ticket money out of his own pocket.

Honestly, this movie gets too much hate. Sure, it's bad, but I don't think it was the even the worst film of 2009 when you had shit like Legend of Chun Li, Transformers 2, Wolverine Origins, 2012, etc that year.

C'mon, DBE is at least equally as bad as Legend of Chun Li. They're both right in the same ballpark next to one another.

I don't like the film, but I can get enjoyment out of it for being bad. It has a cheesy martial arts direct to video 90s vibe to it. Feels right at home next to the 90s Fist of the North Star live action film.

As a lover of cheesy, schlocky B action and martial arts movies, I really can't agree with this. DBE has none of the charm or idiosyncrasies of those kinds of movies whatsoever. If it resembles anything at all, its just a 5th rate wannabe knockoff of Spider-Man-esque superhero tentpole summer blockbuster movies. Its just a soulless, empty nothing of a movie. The cinematic equivalent of trying to eat air. In one eyeball and out the other, leaving no lasting impression whatsoever. Easy to forget it even existed. Which to me is among the worst kinds of bad movies.

I've worked on Total Recall as a background actor before so I've had first hand experience in how Hollyweird works.

For a split nanosecond my mind immediately went to the original Verhoeven Total Recall out of sheer reflexive instinct and I thought "Oh that's so cool!" Then I remembered there was that godawful Colin Farrell remake of it in the 2010s and was immediately like "Oh... right. That also happened. Never mind."

Their excuses in the whitewashing and misrepresenting Asian culture has always been "no one will notice". I go into set and I see what is obviously misused Google translations and I just feel nothing but disgust over the inaccuracies. At least, Guillermo del Toro paid the extra effort to get proper Hong Kong taxi cars and double decker buses on set for Pacific Rim.

What's also funny about Total Recall is, I actually checked the movie official website and it clearly stated that the country getting to see this at the earliest is HONG KONG. "No one will notice", what a load of boloney!

Worth reiterating stories like this for all the people who keep insisting "racism doesn't exist/is a thing of the past".

Yes, I was in that Len Wiseman remake of Total Recall. Never really met the director myself. I was mainly working on second unit shots and I've honestly only seen the guy like once at a bird's eye view. Colin Ferrell seemed like a nice guy though. As for Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro was fucking awesome. He even confirmed to me face to face that he is a fan of Doraemon. Even debated how Nobita is a useless character.

I wished Chow Yun Fat would come out and say a few words but he doesn't really have any social media. He's still using an old flip phone from what I've heard.

[Kunzait_83]

As for Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro was fucking awesome. He even confirmed to me face to face that he is a fan of Doraemon. Even debated how Nobita is a useless character.

Doesn't even remotely surprise me to hear that: Del Toro has by all accounts always been an incredibly down to earth, genuinely warm, all around normal guy with minimal to no ego whatsoever, and with a completely sincere, no bullshit love and passion for the source material of stuff that he's adapting or paying homage to in his work. Very approachable and like any regular guy you'd talk to on the street, kind of like the Keanu Reeves of directors.

[UpFromTheSkies]

Whitewashing aside

To be fair Goku isn't Asian, he's an alien, although I've always imagined him as Japanese.

[MasenkoHA]

Whitewashing aside

To be fair Goku isn't Asian, he's an alien, although I've always imagined him as Japanese.

To be even more fair, yes he is. At least in the same way we can understand Superman is an alien who just happens to look like a white guy. Goku is an alien who just happens to resemble an East Asian guy.

And not saying this applies to you, but many of the same people going "he's not Asian, he's an alien" to justify Goku being played by a white guy would throw an absolute bitch fit temper tantrum if Superman was played by a non-white actor.

[KingVegetto]

It's not everyday you get to see apology coming from writer and actor.

I dunno: reportedly for many, many years after the movie came out, anytime a fan told George Clooney that they saw Batman & Robin in theaters, he would actually refund them their ticket money out of his own pocket.

Honestly, this movie gets too much hate. Sure, it's bad, but I don't think it was the even the worst film of 2009 when you had shit like Legend of Chun Li, Transformers 2, Wolverine Origins, 2012, etc that year.

C'mon, DBE is at least equally as bad as Legend of Chun Li. They're both right in the same ballpark next to one another.

I don't like the film, but I can get enjoyment out of it for being bad. It has a cheesy martial arts direct to video 90s vibe to it. Feels right at home next to the 90s Fist of the North Star live action film.

As a lover of cheesy, schlocky B action and martial arts movies, I really can't agree with this. DBE has none of the charm or idiosyncrasies of those kinds of movies whatsoever. If it resembles anything at all, its just a 5th rate wannabe knockoff of Spider-Man-esque superhero tentpole summer blockbuster movies. Its just a soulless, empty nothing of a movie. The cinematic equivalent of trying to eat air. In one eyeball and out the other, leaving no lasting impression whatsoever. Easy to forget it even existed. Which to me is among the worst kinds of bad movies.

I've worked on Total Recall as a background actor before so I've had first hand experience in how Hollyweird works.

For a split nanosecond my mind immediately went to the original Verhoeven Total Recall out of sheer reflexive instinct and I thought "Oh that's so cool!" Then I remembered there was that godawful Colin Farrell remake of it in the 2010s and was immediately like "Oh... right. That also happened. Never mind."

Their excuses in the whitewashing and misrepresenting Asian culture has always been "no one will notice". I go into set and I see what is obviously misused Google translations and I just feel nothing but disgust over the inaccuracies. At least, Guillermo del Toro paid the extra effort to get proper Hong Kong taxi cars and double decker buses on set for Pacific Rim.

What's also funny about Total Recall is, I actually checked the movie official website and it clearly stated that the country getting to see this at the earliest is HONG KONG. "No one will notice", what a load of boloney!

Worth reiterating stories like this for all the people who keep insisting "racism doesn't exist/is a thing of the past".

I think it has plenty of charm and isn't soulless at all and it actually did leave a lasting impression on me personally(which is more then I can say for those last two godawful Robin Hood movies).

I saw the Total Recall remake in theaters and thought it was pretty good overall.

[The Monkey King]

Some could argue that without the awfulness of DBE Toriyama wouldn't have been as fired up when rewriting the BoG script and thus launching the Dragon Ball revival era we're still in today.

And not saying this applies to you, but many of the same people going "he's not Asian, he's an alien" to justify Goku being played by a white guy would throw an absolute bitch fit temper tantrum if Superman was played by a non-white actor.

200% agreed! Goku is so Chinese-coded it hurts.

[coola]

https://youtu.be/r2E7DJEIDsY?t=870 Ben Ramsey also apologised, and wow, just thinking about George Lucas making this movie... (2:50 )

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

https://youtu.be/r2E7DJEIDsY?t=870 Ben Ramsey also apologised, and wow, just thinking about George Lucas making this movie... (2:50 )

I'm pretty sure someone has suggested here the source of the rumour George Lucas was asked to direct Dragonball Evolution was a conflation of the reports of Industrial Light and Magic doing the special effects and Lucas setting up an animation facility in Singapore to try his hand at anime, both of which were news stories around the early stages of the movies development.

It's also unknown whether George Lucas is aware of Dragon Ball, although given its massive popularity and his interest in animation it could be assumed he's at least vaguely knows of it. I don't imagine he would be familiar enough with the series to be comfortable in the director's seat though, he doesn't even like directing his own movies. There's a reason Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand directed Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and other directors were asked to do the prequels initially.

[UpFromTheSkies]

Whitewashing aside

To be fair Goku isn't Asian, he's an alien, although I've always imagined him as Japanese.

To be even more fair, yes he is. At least in the same way we can understand Superman is an alien who just happens to look like a white guy. Goku is an alien who just happens to resemble an East Asian guy.

And not saying this applies to you, but many of the same people going "he's not Asian, he's an alien" to justify Goku being played by a white guy would throw an absolute bitch fit temper tantrum if Superman was played by a non-white actor.

I think most people wouldn't care the race of the actor as long they look roughly the same as the comic character, so they could be white, Japanese, Korean, ect and pass. In fact, the actor who played Superman during the 90s TV series was half Japanese, and it was a very successful show.

[tinlunlau]

As for Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro was fucking awesome. He even confirmed to me face to face that he is a fan of Doraemon. Even debated how Nobita is a useless character.

Doesn't even remotely surprise me to hear that: Del Toro has by all accounts always been an incredibly down to earth, genuinely warm, all around normal guy with minimal to no ego whatsoever, and with a completely sincere, no bullshit love and passion for the source material of stuff that he's adapting or paying homage to in his work. Very approachable and like any regular guy you'd talk to on the street, kind of like the Keanu Reeves of directors.

He's still a ball buster. Never had one moment where Guillermo hasn't cracked a joke about me. I tried to dispute this with the stunt crew and realized it's futile.

[WittyUsername]

Guillermo Del Toro expressed support for Roman Polanski in the past. Just thought I’d put that out there.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

So a request for Justin Chatwin to play Granolah has gotten 217 retweets, so maybe if that manga arc is adapted and Chatwin does a good job we will be able to pretend his portrayal as the Goku in name only character never happened.

[SquadronGOD]

Whitewashing aside he made a decent Boo saga era Gohan, shame that wasn't the character he was supposed to be playing, but that's not his fault just the way the character was written

Goku isn't white?

[JulieYBM]

Perhaps naming a white character Son Gokuu, based on Sun Wukong, is ill-conceived.

[MasenkoHA]

Whitewashing aside he made a decent Boo saga era Gohan, shame that wasn't the character he was supposed to be playing, but that's not his fault just the way the character was written

Goku isn't white?

Oh he's super white. Based on the super caucasian Jackie Chan and the Monkey King from the very white Journey to the West. It's genuinely a surprise we didn't get a scene of him going feral when Don't Stop Believin plays at the bar.

[The Monkey King]

Whitewashing aside he made a decent Boo saga era Gohan, shame that wasn't the character he was supposed to be playing, but that's not his fault just the way the character was written

Goku isn't white?

Oh he's super white. Based on the super caucasian Jackie Chan and the Monkey King from the very white Journey to the West. It's genuinely a surprise we didn't get a scene of him going feral when Don't Stop Believin plays at the bar.

Hmmmm yes I agree, I wonder what European country inspired the appearance of the saiyan race... maybe Sweden?

[DefinitiveDubs]

Goku has to be Asian/Chinese, it's practically in his DNA as a character. But even if he wasn't explicitly Asian, people would still complain about whitewashing in the film. Practically any Hollywood adaptation of an anime, even if they completely change the setting and even if the character isn't explicitly said to be Japanese, gets accused of whitewashing if the lead is white. You simply can't take another non-white nation's character, or even parts of their culture, and repurpose it for your own white nation's culture, even though the opposite is true. It has very little to do with "he's supposed to be Chinese"; that's missing the big picture. There are much bigger, more systemic issues at play here.

It reminds me of when Iron Fist premiered on Netflix and how controversial it was that Danny Rand was white with people saying it should have an Asian lead since everything around his mythology, development, and superpowers is Chinese...even though the character is white in the comics.

[Jord]

If he read the script and then took the money and went on to star in that turd he should apologize.

[MasenkoHA]

. You simply can't take another non-white nation's character, or even parts of their culture, and repurpose it for your own white nation's culture, even though the opposite is true

I'll give you the benefit of a doubt and ask you to elaborate because otherwise fucking yikes

. It has very little to do with "he's supposed to be Chinese"; that's missing the big picture. There are much bigger, more systemic issues at play here.

I mean no it has everything to do with that. Bulma being played by a white woman wasn't a problem because despite being a character from a Japanese manga who's written with a Japanese mindset nothing really specifies her race and she's coded as being American (girl from the west) so color blind casting is a non-issue. It's not a problem for Piccolo to be played by a white guy because he actually is an alien with no specific race l.

One Piece's live action adaptation was diverse because that was the intent of the author.

Detective Pikachu is based on a Japanese IP and had a half black/half white male lead and a white female lead and that wasn't a problem because the series went international in its setting by the 5th gen anyways.

[DefinitiveDubs]

. You simply can't take another non-white nation's character, or even parts of their culture, and repurpose it for your own white nation's culture, even though the opposite is true

I'll give you the benefit of a doubt and ask you to elaborate because otherwise fucking yikes

What the fuck was I supposed to say? Majority white then. Western. Whatever. You know what I meant. Don't pretend I somehow implied the USA belongs to white people or some shit.