The OAO Dragon Ball movie thread

[Shooting Star 0]

To start this discussion here are some images of the film. This is even worse than Kids in a Sandbox.

 

http://dvdenlared.com/noticias/primeras_im...05072415_1.html

[Damaramu 0]

Well let's see.....I used to be big into the Japanese version of the show in HS. I bought those terrible fansubs off the internet and tried to avoid the english version as much as possible. I got into arguments with people over how bad the dub was. Then the DVDs came out and I bought a few and watched it subtitled but at that point I'd lost all interest to care. Not like anything was ever going to change, FUNI had no respect for the original work.

 

I'm sure this will be terrible.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Dama...All dubs are terrible. I've heard maybe one or two good/decent ones beyond Cowboy Bebop. Bad dubbing is just...a universal quality to anime and movie imports here. I've gotten to the point where I can't listen to any English dub on anything.

 

As for this...I dunno. That dude doesn't look ANYTHING like Goku which makes it remarkable. I also have no idea who any of the other people pictured are supposed to be. That's not a good sign.

[Damaramu 0]

Dama...All dubs are terrible. I've heard maybe one or two good/decent ones beyond Cowboy Bebop. Bad dubbing is just...a universal quality to anime and movie imports here. I've gotten to the point where I can't listen to any English dub on anything.

 

As for this...I dunno. That dude doesn't look ANYTHING like Goku which makes it remarkable. I also have no idea who any of the other people pictured are supposed to be. That's not a good sign.

 

I have no clue what the story here is. That's not good either.

 

As for the dubs......yeah but the problem with the DBZ one was the way they changed the story and got rid of the old music and etc.

Plus the absolute disrespect the people dubbing had for the original was astounding. Especially the guy doing Goku's voice. Every chance he got he took potshots at Japanese culture and at the original show. He even started talking about how the original VA was a girl and wasn't right, and therefore he was the "real" voice of Goku because there version was superior.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

This thread makes me laugh. How can anyone expect this movie to be any good to begin with?

 

First off, it appears to be made by American people.

Second off, it's live action, people. LIVE ACTION!

Third off, movies are never really made well from animes, especially when it is made by American people and LIVE ACTION, people. LIVE ACTION!

 

 

[Ced 0]

From what I've experienced, Japan rarely converts anime into live action successfully. Looking at the pics, I'm going to assume that Hollywood won't get it right either. I'm holding to my expectations that this will be on a so bad it's funny level, but if they somehow make this a decent movie, then huge success.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

I don't think anyone really said they expected it to be any good. Or have any expectations whatsoever beyond negative.

 

DB/Z wasn't any good at the end to begin with, so a live action with American actors shouldn't fill anyone with hope.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

I'm just saying. I know that this is a thread to bitch about it, and it should be. But I just guess I don't see the point in that. I would NEVER expect it to be any good under those guidelines, so I just move past that. I'd probably watch it just to see what the fuck it's about and how they butcher it/deal with the details that Dragon Ball prides themselves in.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

But this movie is probably going to be like that Speed Racer movie that looks godawful.

[Shooting Star 0]

Anyone think this movie will make money? I can't remember the last time there was such universal hate for one movie. I'd give it the benefit of the doubt but this is basically a B-Movie.

[Guest cobainwasmurdered]

What was wrong with the English dubs of the show? I've actually been rewatching DBZ with my kids lately.

[tekcop 0]

The Cartoon Network era dubs aresn't so bad, I guess. I don't really care anymore, but the really early stuff was horrendous.

[Shooting Star 0]

What was wrong with the English dubs of the show? I've actually been rewatching DBZ with my kids lately.

 

I've only seen a few episodes of the American version and it was just hilarious. They made the show so different from the original that it was just insulting. They changed the music, dialogue and gave it really crappy voice actors.

 

The spanish version was so much better. It's 100% faithful to the original.

[Ravenbomb 0]

For what it's worth, the season sets they're putting out now (orange boxes) have an audio track with the English dub and the original Japanese music as the default audio track. There's also the English dub and broadcast music, and, of course, the original Japanese voices and music.

[Golgo 13 0]

I'm more tolerant of dubs than most and think it's been a while since every dub was terrible. There are still stinkers, sure, but nothing compared to the 80s-90s. Even Funimation has improved since then. There really has been a much better ratio since the success of Cowboy Bebop. Just off the top of my head, Bebop, Trigun, Big O, Fullmetal Alchemist, Full Metal Panic, Eureka Seven, Samurai Champloo, Ghost in the Shell, Paranoia Agent, Naruto, and Death Note, all range from decent to pretty good, even great. That's not counting the big budget Disney/Ghibli collaborations, which always seem to be handled well.

 

I actually like the voices themselves, it's everything else already alluded to regarding DBZ that people have problems with. As I recall, it was partially handled by Saban, at first, and produced for Saturday mornings, which featured even worse cuts and voice acting. It's only after it went to Cartoon Network and Funimation began handling it entirely that there was any improvement, with them eventually releasing new DVDs and making things right, albeit five years after people stopped caring.

 

Anyway, this looks awful, yeah. Speed Racer really doesn't look so bad to me, and I hate the Wachowskis. My sticking point is Christina Ricci.

[Jingus 0]

James "Spike" Marsters is cast as Piccolo. That's kinda weird.

 

As someone who has seen a lot of the show (I even had one ubernerd friend of mine in college show me some imported DBZ movie which had no English translation whatsoever, with him giving me a rough description of what everyone was saying), but never really got into it... what's so appealling about it anyway? At heart it's kind of the He-Man to Sailor Moon's She-Ra. The artwork and animation is pretty average, and the storylines all seem to be slight variations on "villain kicks hero's ass, hero Mega-Powers-Up, hero kicks villain's ass" and yet it takes them a month to tell it all. Some of the fight scenes are cool, but it's dragged out over such a long period, with so many breaks for talking, grunting, and fist-tightening that it never builds much momentum until the last few episodes of the season. And then they do the anime equivalent of two wrestlers trading finishers and kicking out of everything, with a lot of "nobody's ever gotten to this power level before!" type pronouncements. It's sort of the same thing with Inuyasha, another show whose popularity mystifies me.

 

On the issue of dubbing: murdertrain is right about anime dubbing getting much better over the past ten or fifteen years. As to the earlier stuff, I understand not wanting dubbed dialogue in something like a serious live-action foreign film, but never really understood what the difference was if you're watching a goofy action cartoon like DNZ. Hell, the subtitles were often just as bad, just terribly done and full of mistakes. One of my favorites was an imported VHS of Bullet In the Head, where at one point there were Americans speaking English, and the subtitles mistranslated what they were saying!

[Damaramu 0]

What was wrong with the English dubs of the show? I've actually been rewatching DBZ with my kids lately.

 

 

Check out DBZ Uncensored or the Dragonball Z Otaku Alliance. They cover some of the changes.

[Guest Smues]

Is there a grape, guys?

 

On the American dub:

The first two seasons (up to Goku arriving on namek) were edited beyond belief. Something like 67 episodes became 53 or so American episodes, death was changed to 'sent to the next dimension' complete with bodies being edited to disappear instead of laying there dead, HELL became HFIL (the home for infinite losers), beer was painted to become water, blood was edited out as well, Krillen said 'this is nuts!' about 7,000,000 times, the music was lame, and Goku realizes that APE VEGETA KILLED HIS GRAND FATHER.

 

After that another group took it over, and the editing mostly stopped. Blood came back, and I don't recall the story getting changed as mind blowingly as much as GOKU DECIDEDING THAT VEGETA KILLED HIS GRAND FATHER. However, the music got much much worse, the voices changed and most of them were worse IMO, especially Krillen. TONS of unnessessary talking was added, as seeming every time there's silence in the original material they add people talking off screen because god forbid people not talk and we have to rely on the music for dramatic tension. I don't recall beer being painted blue, but they still kiddied it up plenty with things like Bulma grabbing a can labeled BEER and saying "I like this guy, he has ROOT BEER!" Oh and don't forget Mr. Satan becoming Hercule.

 

Eventually they started over again from the beginning with the original (see also: GOOD) music and more true to the original dialouge. Those are what is in the orange boxes. As a DBZ mark you might think I love those season sets, and you'd be partially right, but at the same time I'm angry, because these are 35-40 episodes for ~$40, at around 6 episodes a disc. Wait why am I complaining? Because I spent the prior 7 years paying ~$25 per disc for 3 episodes per disc, very rarely 4 episodes per disc. Money grubbing bastards. What makes it really great is the first season episodes were just released in (I think) mid/late 2005 and 2006 at 20-25 a pop for 3 episodes each, and then very shortly after they do the season sets. Sure take my money, I don't need it!

[Golgo 13 0]

As someone who has seen a lot of the show (I even had one ubernerd friend of mine in college show me some imported DBZ movie which had no English translation whatsoever, with him giving me a rough description of what everyone was saying), but never really got into it... what's so appealling about it anyway? At heart it's kind of the He-Man to Sailor Moon's She-Ra. The artwork and animation is pretty average, and the storylines all seem to be slight variations on "villain kicks hero's ass, hero Mega-Powers-Up, hero kicks villain's ass" and yet it takes them a month to tell it all. Some of the fight scenes are cool, but it's dragged out over such a long period, with so many breaks for talking, grunting, and fist-tightening that it never builds much momentum until the last few episodes of the season. And then they do the anime equivalent of two wrestlers trading finishers and kicking out of everything, with a lot of "nobody's ever gotten to this power level before!" type pronouncements. It's sort of the same thing with Inuyasha, another show whose popularity mystifies me.

 

There are a lot of action shows like that, dragging through fights and jumping up levels, mainly. I can't name one of DB/Z/GT, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc., that don't, but some just handle it better than others. DBZ, as influential as it was by starting the trend, handles most of that stuff badly, while most of its successors have only improved on the formula by, you know, filling dead space with prolonged action or character development, not just measuring their dicks for twenty minutes, or making attempts to show and explain why they've managed to level up.

 

As for why it's so beloved, in a lot of cases it's just because it was their first, I think. There's really no other way to explain it and it was the same for me at one point. For others, it's the same with Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, and Inuyasha, to name a few. In ten years, chances are some kid will be saying the same about Naruto. Speaking of Inuyasha, it isn't that the major fights were ever extraordinarily long, simply that everything in between them is a drag and racked with filler. The anime and manga especially have gone on far too long without any resolution, with the anime eventually going into 'hiatus'. I actually thought it was okay at one point and not too offensive to my sensibilities, until it jumped the shark by resurrecting Kikyo after her supposed second death with Inuyasha eventually discovering the ability to shoot diamond shards out of his sword. Dumb.

[Damaramu 0]

I just got out of anime after a while. I finished Trigun and Kenshin and then got bored.

 

What really got to me was the elitist kids popping up. You know the ones that make fun of the anime you like because it's "mainstream" then go on about how much better Japan is than America and then they proceed to go on and on about the cultural differences and how it's better. They're like indy/scene kids only with anime.

[tekcop 0]

You know, I still kind of dig the DBZ manga. It's basically the exact same thing, but at a much faster pace.

[dubq 0]

Wow something tells me that this movie is going to reach the "Super Mario Brothers" level of stupidity.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

For me, there's a complete disconnect between English Dubs and the anime's their on. In Japan, VA's will often use different voices, different style of speaking, They *emote* with the characters, Most are not annoying. It's very often that you'll hear one English VA use the same style of speaking, the same speech patterns, the same "emotion", everything exactly the same for EVERY role they do. David Lucas is by far the worst of this, his Shishio excluded. He atleast *tried* there.

 

That's not even adding that a large amount of them sound completely idiotic, shrill, or annoying. Little kid, or "hyper" girl voices are the worst of the lot. Japanese women can pull off little kids. English VA's? No. Just...no.

 

When I flipped on CN a month or so back to watch a Death Note episode (I had just finished it with subs), and heard Misa Amane's voice sounding like a VALLEY GIRL, my mind broke. Aya Hirano voiced her as cute and "bubbly", but the English VA just made her sound like a mall girl, vapid, and idiotic. That's not even getting into L sounding nothing like L at all.

 

For my money, the best VA works that I've heard both dubs of are probably Rurouni Kenshin, and the "Of the Stars" series. Both English dubs try really, really hard to keep with the Japanese. Kenshin's not as good as the Banner and Crest series's though.

 

I fully admit I'm one of those elitist fuckers who won't watch Anime if I can't see it with subs. I'm not ashamed of that at all.

 

Anyway, back on topic.

 

I liked DBZ, even when I was getting more and more into Anime and could see the plotholes and idiocy of the final arc, I liked it. I can't really say it's good, but to be fair, I've never seen the uncut Japanese episodes. I probably never will given how long the damn show is. The problem is, DBZ is by FAR the worst offender I've ever seen of "Power creep" that plagues all fighting anime. There's some other bad ones, but in DBZ, they get so strong they can destroy entire WORLDS with a flick of their wrist.

 

I also kind of blame the show for being such a juggernaut that Yu-Yu Hakusho was forced to turn into DBZ-lite. I never finished that show, both due to CN's stupid time slots, and the fact that it had gone so far from what it WAS to a DBZ clone where people flew ten stories in the air and hovered and all kinds of silly stuff.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Something I have to question about this movie:

 

Are we sure it's about DragonBall Z? It COULD be about just DragonBall...which was the more enjoyable of the two for me.

 

On the topic of the DB/Z/GT series life...liked DragonBall better than Z, but didn't hate Z. GT is meh.

 

Then again I'm slightly biased because I help a friend of mine write an "alternate universe" DBZ fanfic called "The 18th"...

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

From what I gather it's more late DB inspired with Demon King Piccolo as the villain. Let's just steal this from wiki:

 

Cast:

 

Justin Chatwin as Goku: The hero of the film.

 

James Marsters as Lord Piccolo: The antagonist of the film. Marsters explained that this incarnation of the character is "thousands of years old and a very long time ago he used to be a force of good, but [he] got into a bad argument and was put into prison for 2000 years. It got him very angry, and he finds a way to escape and then tries to destroy the world. The cool thing is, anybody who has seen Dragonball knows that Lord Piccolo transforms into a character named Piccolo, and that is a whole other ball of wax. [...] Heroic wouldn't be the wrong term by the end, but it's a long journey." He also confirmed Piccolo will retain his physical appearance from the anime. Marsters is a fan of the television series, which he described as being "the coolest television cartoon in the last 50,000 years [because] it’s got a Shakespearean sense of good and evil." He admitted, "When I got the role I had doubts. The more I live with it I realize that I am going to rock this harder than I have anything in my life."

 

Jamie Chung as Chi-Chi: Goku's love interest. Stephen Chow had been interested in casting Zhang Yuqi, whom he worked with on CJ7, in the part.

 

Emmy Rossum as Bulma: She aids Goku after her father's Dragonball is stolen by Piccolo.

 

Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi: Goku's mentor.

 

Joon Park as Yamcha. James Kyson Lee auditioned for the role.

 

Eriko Tamura as Mai: She is a chief enforcer of Piccolo's and a shapeshifter. (Huh? Sounds like a bizarre amalgamation of Oolong / Puar and Pilaf's henchwoman, Mai)

 

Texas Battle as Carey Fuller: A high school bully.

 

Luis Arrieta as Weaver: A classmate and friend of Goku. He is an original character created for the film.

 

Randall Duk Kim as Grandpa Gohan: The adoptive father and grandfather of Goku who teaches Goku everything he knows about martial arts.

 

Ernie Hudson (!) in an unspecified role: He will play an acolyte in a temple who will aid Goku and his friends.

[Damaramu 0]

Umm......no Yamcha, Tienshinhan, Krillen? Why is Goku in school?

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Kids can't relate to a hero that isn't bullied.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Heh, I remember hearing rumors of a DBZ movie being made when I was going to high school. Keanu Reeves was going to be Goku, Jet Li was going to be Vegeta, and Goldberg was going to be Nappa.

[Golgo 13 0]

David Lucas is by far the worst of this, his Shishio excluded. He atleast *tried* there.

 

True. I mean, he's good and can just mail it in and still be the highest paid, most in demand guy out there, but his Spike is just the same as his Roger which is just the same as his Kazuma which is just the same as his Mugen, with little variance. It seems his main roles are always the ones where he mails it in. But I wonder how much of it is his choice and how much of it is typecasting and the director telling him to play Spike because it's what he's most recognizable as and is what 'everyone' expects and wants. Though he tried to do something different from the usual in Naruto, too, where he plays Zabuza and Orochimaru, though I can't remember much of his Zabuza. Crispin Freeman is another one of those guys that basically plays the same character throughout.

 

When I flipped on CN a month or so back to watch a Death Note episode (I had just finished it with subs), and heard Misa Amane's voice sounding like a VALLEY GIRL, my mind broke. Aya Hirano voiced her as cute and "bubbly", but the English VA just made her sound like a mall girl, vapid, and idiotic. That's not even getting into L sounding nothing like L at all.

 

I love Misa's dub voice. She hit the mark and I never thought she did too much of what you described. Whoever played her got as close to Aya Hirano's Misa as anyone could have. In fact, she would have been much more preferable over who they got for the Haruhi dub, who really rolls with the vapid valley girl thing to the point where she misses the character entirely. I didn't like L at first, either, but I thought he came around as time went on, much like Light did.

 

I fully admit I'm one of those elitist fuckers who won't watch Anime if I can't see it with subs. I'm not ashamed of that at all.

 

I think it's because my first exposure to anime, at first, was to dubs. For a lot of years I just watched whatever happened to hit CN. It's only within the past few years that I began watching subs more. It's strange, I dislike whenever an anime, movie, or whatever, deviates from the source material, but I don't mind dubs. I only ask they don't stray too much from how a character should sound or take it upon themselves to alter the music, characters and story, much less to the extent of what was done to anime in the 70s/80s, One Piece and DBZ, just to bring this back around. Even though companies have enough trouble with this, hopefully they hire talented enough writers, directors and actors to take it from there.

[Damaramu 0]

I only watch subs.....I don't think that makes you an elitist. The kids I described above are more of the elitist type.