Dragonball Evolution 15th Anniversary

[PowerPhantom245]

Happy 15th Anniversary to Dragonball Evolution (I guess).

It's been 15 years (April 10, 2009), since the movie came out in USA; it came out March in rest of the world.
Many (if not EVERY) Dragon Ball (in America) considered that to be the most painful and saddest day ever to happen in the franchise, more-so than infamous Dragon Ball Z Orange Brick DVD announcement.
It also happens to be 25th anniversary of manga and this year (2024) marks 40th anniversary, I decided to share my thoughts on this movie.
I won't go into every single details of it, where I will share my honest opinion and retrospect.

My memory of 2009 is very iffy, since it's 15 years ago, where my life kind of sucked (a lot!).
I wasn't much into Dragon Ball at the time; I didn't even go to see any movies in theatre at all.
I did not have opportunity to see this movie in theatre, but part of me ALMOST wished I did (more on that later).
I don't remember when I watched the movie in its entirely, not just video clips, but I think it was sometime in 2017 or 2018.

Before watching, I didn't have much expectation, given the universally negative reviews everywhere, where there were hardly if any positive reviews out there.
After seeing the movie for first time, surprisingly, I didn't hate it.
To be quite honest, I really don't understand the violent criticism that has gotten over the year.
Even though most critics has forgotten about this film, I don't get how it considered to be one of the worst movies EVER made.
It's not a good movie by any means. It has a lots of flaw, but it's nowhere near as bad as people say it is.
As a Dragon Ball property, it's definitely of the weakest/worst thing came out; similar to Godzilla 1998 (which I enjoyed) considered to be the worst thing came out of Godzilla franchise.
I've seen this movie several times, even recently for this review, and my thought hasn't been changed.
Despite the issues with the movie, there were few moments that I enjoyed, such as cheesiness and campiness, and there was some decent attempts to capture the essence of franchise, even for little.

The overall story was essentially a hodgepodge of different era/saga of the franchise; high school element from Teen Gohan and little of Goku Jr. from GT Hero's Legacy special, King Piccolo arc for antagonism, Fu-lum that is Saibaman from Saiyan Saga, hunting Dragon Ball and Oozaru from Saga of Goku, Goku as alien from Saiyan Saga, etc.
Despite movie is criticized for not being faithful, it surprisingly has lots of element lifted from franchise than I thought.
The problems is that they crammed so much stuff and not blended very well in overall narrative for surprisingly short runtime of 86 minutes, which is practically rare for movie based on major franchise.
Had the movie stuck on 1 or 2 plots, I think it would have flowed better.
Even though the overall writing wasn't cohesive, it was trying to tell its story; it did have beginning, middle, and end.

The characters and casting was serviceably fine I guess.
I don't have anything against the casting, where it wouldn't have made much difference if they hired big name award winning actors, given the weak writing and directing.

Goku (or Geeko) - Justin Chatwin did fine as this weird incarnation of Goku, even though he was essentially "Your-Friendly-Neighborhood-American-Superhero" wanna-be character. Even though I haven't seen much of his movie he appeared, other than "War of the Worlds" 2005 remake (which I HATE) and I haven't seen TV series "Shameless", I didn't have much of issue with Justin performance. Even if this was portrayed by big name award winning actor at the time, it wouldn't have made much difference.

Bulma - Among the character, I think she might be the most faithful I guess. Didn't mind that she only had 1 streak of blue hair. Her scientific knowledge and gun fight was fine I guess.

Yamcha - Other than he's a "surfer dude of 90's" type of character, I don't have much to say. A decent live action Yamcha I guess. Had there been sequel, I'm curious how his death would have been handled. lol

Chi-Chi - Even though she was minor character in majority of franchise, she surprisingly had more screen time. I don't like Chi-Chi too much as character, but I kind of enjoyed this incarnation. I think Chi-Chi had more action in this movie than manga and anime.

Master Roshi - This sounds controversial, but I'm not a fan of Chow Yun-Fat. Despite not a fan of him as actor, I thought he was fine as Master Roshi. It did have some charm and campiness from manga.

Grandpa Gohan - Even though we don't get to see Grandpa Gohan too much in manga/anime, since he's already passed away prior to first issue/episode, it was nice to see him interacting with Goku. I did enjoyed "Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" moment, even thought it was corny. Didn't know it was same actor as Keymaker of Matrix Reloaded.

Piccolo - Strangely, pretty much everyone who hate this movie gave a praise to James Marsters performance, which kind of puzzled me. Despite the main antagonist, I found him to be the weakest of the characters, where he didn't do much, other than just standing around for most part, until the climax. Hard to believe James voiced Zamasu in Super many years later.

Mai - When I saw this movie for first time, I thought she was a character made up for the movie and not from manga nor anime original. There really wasn't that many female character nor fighter at the time, I was really confused who she was. I was surprised to find out that she's Mai, a henchman (or henchwoman) for Emperor Pilaf, even though she was nothing like that from manga nor anime. Strangely, I found her to be much more threatening than Piccolo and probably my favorite character of the movie (I think). Had there been streaming series back then, I wouldn't mind seeing spinoff for her character.

I think the weakest part of the movie IMO is probably the special effects.
Despite the movie budget for 30 million dollars, it really begs a question if they used any budget to the effects at all.
It look incredibly cheap and had I not known about the franchise, I would have assumed it would have been made in mid~late 90s.
It almost looks like it came out from direct-to-video or TV-movie, rather than theatrical movie.
Surprisingly, there were quite amount of practical effects, according to behind the scene featurette.
Goku's Oozaru is definitely the worst, especially you could hardly see it due to taking place at night.
It's definitely jarring seeing it on Blu-ray (...which I have. lol) and can't imagine how it would have look like theatrically.

The music by Brian Tyler was fine.
Even though I'm not music aficionado, the score itself was decent to listen.
I love the song "Rule" by Ayumi Hamasaki, even though I'm not huge fan of her work.


Overall, I didn't think movie was bad as everyone said it was.
It definitely has its flaws, but not the worst.
I still don't get some of the vitriol that movie has gotten from critics; seriously, some of the negative reviews makes me wonder if they are talking about the same movie.

It's not the worst movie ever made.
It's not the Top 10 worst movie ever made.
It's not the Top 50 nor 100 worst movie ever made.
It's not even the worst movie came out in 2009; not that it was good year for movie.
I would even go far as to say it's not even the worst live action adaptation movie ever made... yes, there's movie/TV show that is far, FAR, worse... sadly, most of them came out AFTER this movie (no joke!).

The movie was just bland, generic, lackluster, and.... weird.
"Weird" is probably the best to sum of up this hodgepodge mutilated adaptation of the movie.
As fan of Dragon Ball franchise, I don't hate it and I wasn't offended by it, which is probably the best I can say.
It's just a weird adaptation of the movie and probably the one of the weirdest movie I've ever seen.
Because of weird and bizarreness, I ALMOST wished I saw this at theatre back in 2009; though I'm not sure if I would have paid $10 to see the movie in theatre. It definitely would have been an interesting experience.

What are your thoughts on the movie, FIFTEEN YEARS later?

[Tian]

What are your thoughts on the movie, FIFTEEN YEARS later?

Personally, I think that the only good thing that came out of the film were the dubs:

* Latin Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese dubs had people from the anime series' dubbing casts (mostly the BR Portuguese) reprise their roles.
* It was the first time that something DB was dubbed into Russian. Unlike the Dragon Ball Z dub that came after it, the movie was recorded in St. Petersburg and not in Moscu.
* The Japanese dub gave us an idea of how Kappei Yamaguchi would sound as Goku.

Movie was really bad but not as bad as The Room. Not the worst movie ever but it was the most mediocre.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Personally, I think that the only good thing that came out of the film were the dubs

Nice one, while I consider myself a fan of dubs and think the practice deserves to be appreciated more as an art form in of itself I haven't delved into any live action stuff. Only exception is a few clips I checked out of the German dub of Star Wars, which sounded nice, obviously no one can touch James Earl Jones but from what I heard Heinz Petruo had a different, but interesting take on Darth Vader.

I also wonder if the Russian dub of Dragon Ball Z came about because of Evolution? It must have went into production quite soon after as it only began airing 2 years after the movie. Sad to see Dragon Ball seems to now be dead in Russia again with Super only getting a voiceover that lasted 46 episodes, although I guess 2x2's crap timeslots for Z (which as I recall didn't last very long either) didn't help at all.

Back to Evolution, but I'm aware of Kappei Yamaguchi, mainly for being a follower and proponent of the Ocean Kai dub and hearing KaiserNeko's hint before the reveal of Richard Ian Cox it was ironic Yamaguchi dubbed Goku, which was taken to mean Ocean cast an actor who was also the voice of another prominent character Yamaguchi dubbed in Japanese.

Regarding the movie itself I didn't see it in theatres as I wasn't impressed by the promotional images, but a guy in my school saw it, thought it was alright and even showed his parents who were fine with it. I bought the DVD while on holiday in Orlando that summer and watched it.

Its by no means a good movie, but if it didn't masquerade as a "Dragon Ball" movie, taking Akira Toriyama's character names and concepts (many of which of course only vaguely resembled what we know from the manga and anime) it would just be a dumb, low budget campy action fantasy flick that would have been long forgotten.

Alas the Dragon Ball brand name Toriyama's world were hijacked to cash in on the franchises massive success in the USA and because it failed immeasurably both critically and commercially we still talk about it to this day and between that and Toriyama not being impressed with Watanabe's draft for Battle of Gods we got plenty of new content from the man himself as he learned to distrust others handling his property.

The revival era for Dragon Ball was obviously a mixed bag, but some good stuff came out of it, like parts of Super, particularly the slice-of-life episodes, Super Broly, Daima looks interesting. Although now with Toriyama gone I am grateful for all the new material we have to remember him by.

Super was also a fun ride while it lasted, being the first time myself and many fans from around the world got to follow a new series as it was airing. I'm not Latin American but seeing the hype for Goku vs Jiren like it was a major sporting event drawing huge crowds of fans to bars, stadiums and public places also brought a smile to my face. Very few people truly understood what Dragon Ball has meant to me, its very much seen as this nerdy niche in Ireland by most people who are aware of it (and many aren't) but nothing feels better than knowing your not alone in how much the series has changed your life.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Back to Evolution, but I'm aware of Kappei Yamaguchi, mainly for being a follower and proponent of the Ocean Kai dub and hearing KaiserNeko's hint before the reveal of Richard Ian Cox it was ironic Yamaguchi dubbed Goku, which was taken to mean Ocean cast an actor who was also the voice of another prominent character Yamaguchi dubbed in Japanese.

Of course, the irony also extends to Kappei Yamaguchi being the voice of Male Ranma in Ranma 1/2 (with Megumi Hayashibara doing his female side) and InuYasha as the character of the same name and Cox had voiced the two characters in the respective dubs with both having been produced by Ocean, and particularly the former after Sarah Strange departed from doing both forms after a certain point in the Ranma dub.

Therefore, Goku is not the only character that Yamaguchi did a voice for at one point that Cox later did. Even with it having been a dub of a live action movie rather than anime.

[Tian]

Only exception is a few clips I checked out of the German dub of Star Wars, which sounded nice, obviously no one can touch James Earl Jones but from what I heard Heinz Petruo had a different, but interesting take on Darth Vader.

German dubs are usually good thanks to the really big voice talent pool and the directors and script writers' creativity.

One of the best German dubs is SpongeBob SquarePants. When you ask a German about what would be the best German dub, SpongeBob is one of the most likely answers.

And this scene is a good example:
https://youtu.be/6752P9ApfNo?feature=shared

In that scene:

Spoiler:

* You can hear how they found a perfect voice-match for Clancy Brown's Mr. Krabs in Jürgen Kluckert. In fact, Jürgen Kluckert also dubbed Brown in other productions.
* They didn't only stay faithful to the original joke but they made a hilarious reference to a German animated series as well:
- In the original English version, Mr. Krabs fools the Flying Dutchman about being someone else called "Harold Flowers" while in the German dub, Harold Flowers became Benjamin Blümchen, which sticks to the original joke because Blümchen is Blossom in German.
- And now the hilarious part, Benjamin Blümchen is the name of the elephant protagonist of the homonymous German animated series , and like Mr. Krabs, said elephant was also voiced by Jürgen Kluckert.
- And even more hilarious is that Jürgen even modulates his voice from Mr. Krabs' gruff pitch to Benjamin's soft pitch when Mr. Krabs says "Benjamin. Benjamin Blümchen."

No doubt why Germans and international dubbing fans alike consider that dub as one of the best from Germany.

I also wonder if the Russian dub of Dragon Ball Z came about because of Evolution? It must have went into production quite soon after as it only began airing 2 years after the movie. Sad to see Dragon Ball seems to now be dead in Russia again with Super only getting a voiceover that lasted 46 episodes, although I guess 2x2's crap timeslots for Z (which as I recall didn't last very long either) didn't help at all.

I doubt a mediocre movie was the reason why 2x2 decided to get the show's rights from DeAgostini.

2x2 has historically aired anime, both before and after the channel's rebrand to a more older audience (AKA when it started airing Adult Swim shows).

For example, Sailor Moon was aired there during the 90s (1993-1997) with a Russian voice-over of the original Japanese version.

Had 2x2 aired Z at the same time as Sailor Moon, it wouldn't only have had a better run than it had in 2011, but it would have been one of the few European countries that wouldn't have been cursed by the French AB Groupe version, since the latter, if I recall correctly, had no distribution deals in Russia.

But of course, we would've ended up with a voice-over and not a dub because Russian dubs were a rarity on TV back then.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I doubt a mediocre movie was the reason why 2x2 decided to get the show's rights from DeAgostini.

I mean in terms of building interest in the show. From what I've heard people in Russia were familiar with the look of Dragon Ball from magazines and some of the video games, but weren't that familiar because the anime or manga never came to their country for over two decades, but having something with the brand name dubbed, even a poor adaptation must have given some hope for the series finally getting localized.

Had 2x2 aired Z at the same time as Sailor Moon, it wouldn't only have had a better run than it had in 2011, but it would have been one of the few European countries that wouldn't have been cursed by the French AB Groupe version, since the latter, if I recall correctly, had no distribution deals in Russia.

I believe AB Groupe had the Dragon Ball rights in Russia up until about 2010, it was one of the territories they were able to block videos on copyright grounds, but they probably didn't manage to secure any TV or home video deals in that time or didn't see it as a profitable investment. Of course not long after that TOEI were able to partner up with Plus Licens and give De Agostini Partworks Licensing Spa a broadcasting license.

I suspect most European dubs in the 90s and 2000s were based on the French dub because it was cheaper to acquire those materials, but if a Russian dubbing company wanted to dub Dragon Ball in that time it would have been easy enough for them to get the French masters. AB even sent French video tracks all the way to Canada when Ocean were wrapping up Dragon Ball Z and began to dub GT and original Dragon Ball in Calgary.

Some European dubs were still created with the powers that be going their own way though. AB had the rights in Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia when they got their own dubs, although reportedly all three were based on the Japanese version. I suspect there may have been a connection between those three dubs though, I haven't seen the Macedonian dub but I've heard, much like Kosovo's dub Goku is referred to as "Son Joke-U" in it, which would give credence to this idea, so maybe there was some co-operation with them sharing Japanese masters and possibly scripts allowing all three companies to cut costs. They were also all recorded in the early 2000s.

[Tian]

I mean in terms of building interest in the show. From what I've heard people in Russia were familiar with the look of Dragon Ball from magazines and some of the video games, but weren't that familiar because the anime or manga never came to their country for over two decades, but having something with the brand name dubbed, even a poor adaptation must have given some hope for the series finally getting localized.

Oh, now I see what you meant.

Well, from that perspective, I wouldn't rule the possibility that Evolution release in 2009 may have been the starting point or led to the chain of events where the manga was released in 2010 and the anime series in 2011.

Some European dubs were still created with the powers that be going their own way though. AB had the rights in Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia when they got their own dubs, although reportedly all three were based on the Japanese version. I suspect there may have been a connection between those three dubs though, I haven't seen the Macedonian dub but I've heard, much like Kosovo's dub Goku is referred to as "Son Joke-U" in it, which would give credence to this idea, so maybe there was some co-operation with them sharing Japanese masters and possibly scripts allowing all three companies to cut costs. They were also all recorded in the early 2000s.

Since I haven't seen the Macedonian dub in years, I've just checked one of the episodes and well, I can confirm what you said it's true. I heard both Bulma and Oolong calling him "Jo-ku". It is even applied to his grandpa, Son Gohan, as he is pronounced as "Son Jo-han".

Also, I didn't remember that they kept terms like Nyoi-bō.

Yeah, it wouldn't be weird to suggest they may have shared materials or had the same distributor. Both Macedonian and Kosovar Albanian dubs of original DB were produced and aired in 2002.

The Serbian dub was more advanced than them because it was premiered the year before and I dunno too much about the Croatian sub on Nova TV beyond that it was aired in 2002 and didn't pass the 50 episodes.

[Dragon ball master]

What are your thoughts on the movie, FIFTEEN YEARS later?

Personally, I think that the only good thing that came out of the film were the dubs:

Are you also not gonna mention that Toriyama (rip by the way) though it was so bad that he worked on a new dragon ball project that turned out to be super.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I would say the reason Super went into production was the unexpected success of Resurrection F at the Japanese box office beating the current installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise at the time. Fuji TV needed a show to fill Kai The Final Chapter's timeslot on Sunday mornings and Toriko was a failure after the original run of Kai ended and Kai did so well internationally. TOEI evidently rushed Super into production, only airing it less than 3 months after its announcement and rehashing the previous two movies to give Toriyama more time for writing new stories. Granted you could argue Super might have been planned earlier, but given the circumstances I have my doubts.

Like with the original plan for Battle of Gods TOEI probably had the freedom to go ahead with working on new Dragon Ball any time they liked, but since Toriyama was willing to take the time to rewrite the story and character designs and write a memo for Resurrection F he didn't expect to be used for a full blown screenplay I'd be willing to bet TOEI initiated the writing of Super but out of respect for the creator consulted with Toriyama and took whatever brief outlines he could give them.

In fact Toriyama later expressed a dissatisfaction with the Super anime making him want to keep coming back to the series he began in 1984:

I had put Dragon Ball behind me, but seeing how much that live-action film ticked me off, and how I revised that script for the anime movie and complained about the quality of the TV anime, I suppose somewhere along the line it's become a series I like too much to ever leave alone.

So it seems Toriyama was content having closed the book on Dragon Ball in 1995 but as the revival picked up steam his lack of trust in other people working on it that started with Evolution grew stronger.

Even for Daima, Toriyama's last comment revealed it was originally going to be a series made without his input but his advice here and there basically snowballed into writing everything. As such we can see a clear trajectory of him being a part of a project that was started without him, only for him to ultimately take control of the artistic vision.

Similarly in the Super manga we heard in a special episode of the Weekly Dragon Ball News (WDBN) at first it was Toyotaro in charge with the help of Uchida but Toriyama had to approve everything, often via email but it was up to Toyotaro to figure out the flow of the story from his advice and approval of the proposal they come up with. I hear for Moro it was mostly Toyotaro but for Granolah Toriyama expanded upon his ideas and it eventually became more of a collaboration. Again with Dragon Ball being Toriyama's baby ultimately he wants what's best for it and ends up doing more than he originally intended.

In any event we can see for the vast majority of the revival era content it was less a case of Toriyama setting out to write a story he had in mind, but more always course correcting because Evolution set him down a path of not wanting to let anyone mishandled his property. We can't blame the guy though, Dragon Ball, its world and characters will always be Toriyama's creations, so naturally he always wanted to ensure his wishes were being respected, even if that meant all other creative minds were (unintentionally) undermined in the process.

I guess when Daima is released we will see if the final draft is the happy accident were all hoping for.

[Tian]

Are you also not gonna mention that Toriyama (rip by the way) though it was so bad that he worked on a new dragon ball project that turned out to be super.

Well, OP asked for our personal thoughts about the movie itself, not facts that happened after it was premiered.

[WittyUsername]

The movie came out at a period when I had become less interested in Dragon Ball in general, but I still recall being curious about it when I saw the trailer in December 2008. I even went to see it on opening day, where there were maybe a dozen or so people there in total.

I never considered it a good movie, but I didn’t absolutely despise it like a lot of fans did. The online backlash against the movie was pretty noteworthy, I can say that much. Looking back, 2009 in general was a pretty interesting year in pop culture.

[Thanos]

I still resent it as being part of the trend of edgy live action adaptations that arbitrary change a ton of things (Roshi now has hair and no beard because fuck accuracy). I know it's because of the low budget and production team that, by their own admission, didn't really know or care about the franchise and were just trying to get a paycheck--but still. This trend of taking an existing IP and adapting it into an almost unrecognizable thing has been a thing since, what, the 80's? And how many times has that been successful? All you're doing is alienating the existing fanbase, and non-fans aren't going to care. I don't know why it took until Marvel for filmmakers to say, "See this comic/animated character? Let's try to do that, but in real life." Maybe there was a fear of cheesiness, but there's nothing cheesier than trying to make something overly edgy and gritty at the expense of accuracy. It was just pissing millions of dollars down the toilet and it's mindboggling how that trend lasted for decades without anyone going, "This never works."

I also contend that this does not account for an honest attempt at live action Dragon Ball. As far as I'm concerned, that still has yet to be truly attempted. I completely reject the notion of "No more live action Dragon Ball! They tried that and it sucked!" No, this does not count. Might as well reject the notion based on the bootleg Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins movie. Give it a decent budget, and production team that knows/cares about the franchise, then we'll see. It might completely suck too, but it deserves an honest shot.

[WittyUsername]

I still resent it as being part of the trend of edgy live action adaptations that arbitrary change a ton of things (Roshi now has hair and no beard because fuck accuracy). I know it's because of the low budget and production team that, by their own admission, didn't really know or care about the franchise and were just trying to get a paycheck--but still. This trend of taking an existing IP and adapting it into an almost unrecognizable thing has been a thing since, what, the 80's? And how many times has that been successful? All you're doing is alienating the existing fanbase, and non-fans aren't going to care. I don't know why it took until Marvel for filmmakers to say, "See this comic/animated character? Let's try to do that, but in real life." Maybe there was a fear of cheesiness, but there's nothing cheesier than trying to make something overly edgy and gritty at the expense of accuracy. It was just pissing millions of dollars down the toilet and it's mindboggling how that trend lasted for decades without anyone going, "This never works."

I also contend that this does not account for an honest attempt at live action Dragon Ball. As far as I'm concerned, that still has yet to be truly attempted. I completely reject the notion of "No more live action Dragon Ball! They tried that and it sucked!" No, this does not count. Might as well reject the notion based on the bootleg Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins movie. Give it a decent budget, and production team that knows/cares about the franchise, then we'll see. It might completely suck too, but it deserves an honest shot.

I don’t really see how DBE qualifies as an “edgy” adaptation. They couldn’t even be bothered to go for a PG-13 rating.

Also, to be clear, Marvel films have taken all kinds of liberties with the source material. They really aren’t all that faithful, especially not where stuff like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are concerned. They just got a pass because most of the characters they adapted weren’t particularly mainstream prior to the films.

[WittyUsername]

I still resent it as being part of the trend of edgy live action adaptations that arbitrary change a ton of things (Roshi now has hair and no beard because fuck accuracy). I know it's because of the low budget and production team that, by their own admission, didn't really know or care about the franchise and were just trying to get a paycheck--but still. This trend of taking an existing IP and adapting it into an almost unrecognizable thing has been a thing since, what, the 80's? And how many times has that been successful? All you're doing is alienating the existing fanbase, and non-fans aren't going to care. I don't know why it took until Marvel for filmmakers to say, "See this comic/animated character? Let's try to do that, but in real life." Maybe there was a fear of cheesiness, but there's nothing cheesier than trying to make something overly edgy and gritty at the expense of accuracy. It was just pissing millions of dollars down the toilet and it's mindboggling how that trend lasted for decades without anyone going, "This never works."

I also contend that this does not account for an honest attempt at live action Dragon Ball. As far as I'm concerned, that still has yet to be truly attempted. I completely reject the notion of "No more live action Dragon Ball! They tried that and it sucked!" No, this does not count. Might as well reject the notion based on the bootleg Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins movie. Give it a decent budget, and production team that knows/cares about the franchise, then we'll see. It might completely suck too, but it deserves an honest shot.

I don’t really see how DBE qualifies as an “edgy” adaptation. They couldn’t even be bothered to go for a PG-13 rating.

Also, to be clear, Marvel films have taken all kinds of liberties with the source material. They really aren’t all that faithful, especially not where stuff like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are concerned. They just got a pass because most of the characters they adapted weren’t particularly mainstream prior to the films.

[MasenkoHA]

Also, to be clear, Marvel films have taken all kinds of liberties with the source material. They really aren’t all that faithful, especially not where stuff like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are concerned. They just got a pass because most of the characters they adapted weren’t particularly mainstream prior to the films.

I'd also argue the MCU version of Spider-man is by far the least faithful of the 3. The Raimi Spider-man was pretty spiritually faithful to the Stan Lee era. The Webb films seemed like they were at least kind of sorta taking their cue from the Ultimate comics and while those movies were trash, Andrew Garfield was probably the most comic book accurate Peter Parker/Spider-man weird skateboard thing aside.

But the MCU version tries to turn him into Iron Boy, completely missing the point of the character. And, while it was smart just skipping over Uncle Ben's death the way they went out of their way to ignore Uncle Ben even existing was frankly ridiculous. Especially in the Homecoming movie where the context of Peter trying to get Stark's approval would suggest he was looking for a replacement father figure or filling in the void of losing Uncle Ben but no the movie doesn't even bother making that connection because, for whatever reason, that series can't be assed to acknowledge Peter even had an a Uncle Ben.


And yes they appeared to use the ending of No Way Home to course correct but...too little too late in my opinion

[Hellspawn28]

Dragon Ball Evolution came and went. I feel like the only people who talk about it are anime fans when live action adaptions are brought up. The movie had no chance on doing well seeing that everyone on the Internet was hating on the film before it came out. Bad word of mouth is why the movie didn't reach the top 5 charts on its opening weekend. Bad word of mouth can kill a movie before it is released like with Ghostbusters 2016 or Jem and the Holograms.

The best things about the movie is that they use some of the correct terms for characters like for Roshi, Shenlong, and Oozaru. James Marsters did a good job with his performance. I also like the practical effects for the make up, suits, and set designs. It was neat that they got ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.) to do the special effects. The same people who work on the Alien & Predator movies along with Tremors, the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, and Starship Troopers. Too bad the CGI was total dogshit. The CGI looks like it was made in the 90s, but somehow got released in 2009.

I talked to one person who worked on the film in a practical effects group on FB and they were like "This movie was awful and everyone including myself who work on the film hated it. However, we still had a lot of fun making the film. We got to film the movie out in Mexico City, Mexico which was a very cool to travel too".

[GTx10]

Much like with the 98 Godzilla movie I am one of the few people who like this film. I like the blend of elements it has going, it feels like a (og) Dragon Ball movie what with its cherry picking of scenes and iconic moments. When Goku meets Bulma up to point of him making a bridge from the Fu Lum is actually really good and feels like DB to me. The film really slides into meh towards the end though, Goku's transformation into the "Great Ape" and final battle with Piccolo are super rushed and I always hated that.

Shapeshifting Mai is a super neat idea and the world of DBE feels alive despite the short time we see of it. The movie does run of the mill movie plots well, in that Son Goku starts off untrained and weak, he's then given a goal: Defeat Piccolo, who killed his Grandpa and make sure he doesn't get the Dragon Balls. Goku saves the day and grows as a character. Justin Goku is a different character by the time the movie ends.

It may not be "Dragon Ball Son Goku" but Justin certainly is "a Son Goku." As Emmy Rossum is super attractive dressed as Bulma and I will not apology for that!

[Hellspawn28]

I don't think it's the worst movie ever, but I don't consider it to be good. At least it never damaged the DB brand name like other bad movies did to their IP.