Evolution had this one scene where Goku "kills" Mai. He confidently glares to the left, then remembers what he was supposed to be doing and leaves, without even questioning why a female assassin just attacked him, or even checking to see if she was dead.
I wonder what was going on in the camera man's head when that scene was filmed.
Some food for thought for any fans of TFS:
When there's something strange in your neighborhood,
Guess who it is?
Dragon Ball Evolution is about to start on FX. Anyone else want to see how bad it is?
I've already watched that turd once. Only movie that pissed me off more was The Last Airbender.
I've always thought Dragon Ball Evolution falls more into the So Bad, It's Good category.
Geek-o.
I feel like I'm laughing at this movie, not with it. And I'm still not sure if this is an intentional mockery or a bad homage. I also feel like they can't settle on one pronunciation for anything.
- The sad thing is, if not for the ridiculously over the top effects, the first fight scene was a good display (of Deadly Dodging), which actually is like the series.
- Piccolo's greenface looks bad.
- Calling the locator a "DBE" as a really bad title drop.
- "Promethium Orb".
- Just... stop with the special effects.
- Roshi isn't as offensive as canon Yoshi.
- Yamcha is just too ridiculous for words.
- Why did they call it "airbending"? Just, why?
- Okay, one thing I can compliment. Making a bridge through lava, by making more of your regenerating enemies and throwing them in, was actually a pretty cool idea, Convection, Schmonvection aside.
- It's a good thing chesty girls in movies throw themselves at their love interests.
- Punished for shooting his load early?
- Once you get used to how bad it is, this movie indeed becomes So Bad, It's Good.
- Mai... can shapeshift. Well, I suppose the original series had Puar and Oolong.
- He just Kamehameha'd the life back into Goku. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
- Don't you love a movie that makes no justification for its antagonists' motivations or allegiances?
- SO. MUCH. NARM. "Dragon! The test of seven has been fulfilled! I compel you to come forth and grant my wish!"
All in all, a bad movie that didn't quite reach Narm Charm, though it tried. Really hard.
edited 3rd Jan '14 11:17:05 PM by wanderlustwarrior
I was looking for the DBZ thread after I just watched a bunch of episodes and was getting back into DBZ but everyone just talks about it here don't they?
You are not alone.We've got a thread here
. Though it tends to be discussed here, that's usually in regards to questions people have that they think of while following abridged (eg. "Wait, how did this scene originally go down?") and if you're watching the anime, you're probably better off reading the manga posting in that thread.
Agreed with Mai. The very fact that Pilaf is nowhere in sight already makes Mai In Name Only. Might as well go as far as you can with it.
James Marsden's Piccolo is easily the best performance in the whole movie, mainly because he's the only one who actually manages to accurately portray his character. One of the biggest sins the film commits is giving him barely 10 minutes of screentime.
Chow-Yun Fat is second-best to me, if only because for the first 5 seconds you see him he nails Roshi perfectly. Then he decides to turn into Kenobi Knock-Off #1006 and it all just goes downhill.
They really should have just tried to do the Pilaf arc, and then moved on to stuff like Demon King Piccolo. Yes, there's enough material in the Pilaf Arc tha it'd probably have run into the same wall as Last Airbender, but mixing Piccolo into it only compounded it. And the Pilaf arc can, and has, been streamlined into a movie, albeit with some changes made to he story to compensate.
I have a message from another time...Honestly, Dragon Ball is such a massive franchise and is in a weird spot where the signature story arcs take place after the titular artifacts have been relegated to a fancy plot device AND after a whole lot of development has happened. Adapting it to a live-action movie should be done in a "Spirit of" kind of way. Instead of taking entire arcs, just throw in unbelievably epic and devastating martial arts battles and people will go "Oh yeah, this is Dragon Ball".
Give us an adult Goku who is already considered the World's Strongest Man and then have a Outside-Context Villain show up looking for the Dragon Balls and take things from there. It's how Dragon Ball Z first started and how countless people where introduced to the series with the appearance of Raditz and such.
Evolution seemingly lacks both the structure and the spirit of dragon ball. It doesn't synch up with anything except in the vague term and doesn't include the insanity of DBZ fight scenes. Goku... Isn't Goku. It's just... Urgh.
You are not alone.Evolution was trying to set up an origin story, because shockingly not everyone has watched Dragon Ball Z.
That doesn't excuse mangling several storyline together into a mound of nonsense, or putting Goku in high school and having bullies picking on him.
Evolution could have been both less confusing to non-fans and more faithful to the original manga at the same time.
Start the movie with Goku fighting some guy with three eyes in the final of a martial arts tournament (Puts us at a recognizable place in the franchise for fans, but doesn't require much explanation for non-fans. It's a tournament. Those happen.). Right before the match, show him with a strange orange orb, and saying something like "This is for you, Grandpa!". After the match we see him talking to someone who is obviously his friend, and have him offer to go get Goku's stuff. Then a monster shows up, kills him, and steals the orb.
Goku's backstory isn't very complicated, and can be explained through dialog, just like most backstories are. He was found as a child and raised in a remote jungle by a kindly old man, who eventually died. Then Goku started travelling the world and fighting in tournaments. Done. We already have enough stuff to fill out a movie here, we don't need to add the Oozaru into it. Just leave space to put it in later if you actually get a sequel.
The Dragon Balls aren't hard to explain either. Goku's was his grandpa's, and he doesn't really know what it is. At some point, the heroes find out that if they collect all seven they can summon the Dragon and make a wish, and that Piccolo is going to use them to make himself younger and more powerful.
All of the other characters? Friends of Goku's he's met during his adventures. Just avoid the urge to explain more of the early manga's story than is actually necessary for the plot and you'll be fine. Bulma is a scientist that Goku met during his travels, who he goes to for help. Establish that in a couple lines of dialog and it won't occur to non-fans that there's really a much more complicated story behind it that they're missing. That's how movies introduce their characters all the time, and it works just fine.
And there's still plenty of room in that setup to change things that need to be changed. Want to put Goku's love interest in the movie? Maybe Chi-Chi is the one who knows about the Dragon Balls and meets Goku while they're both trying to stop one of Piccolo's minions from stealing one of them. It practically writes itself.
As far as actual origin stories go, the ones in the movie weren't bad (except for Piccolo and Oozaru, and Mai, which went unexplained). Your complaint isn't that they were bad, it's that they weren't the same as the show. A non-fan wouldn't really care much. But then again, how many non-fans was that movie going to get?

@Enlong: I was actually referring to when he came back in that supernatural tournament Baba held. He was brought back for that by Baba, and passed peacefully afterward.