Dragonball Evolution

What's the point?

Really, what's the point?

I mean it, what's the point?

What is to point for me to review Dragon Ball Evolution?

Seriously, over these past few years Dragon Ball Evolution has garnered somewhat of a reputation, much like C&C 4 and incase you don't know the reputation that Dragon Ball Evolution has, here is an opinion of a hardcore Dragon Ball fan:

BETRAYAL! BETRAYAL! THIS MOVIE SUCKS!

What's that? You want hear an opinion of C&C 4 from a hardcore C&C fan? Why that is impossible because C&C 4 doesn't exist! And since it doesn't exist it's pretty hard for me to give you an opinion of a hardcore C&C fan about a C&C game that doesn't exist.

But here is the thing, I wouldn't be writing this review about Dragon Ball Evolution if I thought that movie is a "Betrayal". You see I don't consider Dragon Ball Evolution to be a "betrayal" at all, in all honesty I think that Dragon Ball Evolution is -

                            - underrated.

And by saying that I just signed my own death warrant. But allow me to explain and by explaining I mean that I'm going to tell you my history with Dragon Ball.

It was early the 2000 and we had just got our very first digibox and with that opened a whole new world for us, me and my sister started channel surfing and we found SubTv and the very first show that we ever saw on that channel with our own very eyes was: Dragon Ball Z it was part of the Frieza Saga, Frieza and Goku were fighting and Goku had just finished charging up the spirit bomb. From that second me and my sister were hooked.

But remember when I told you that it sucks being into anime in Finland?

You see in Finland they only showed one episode of DBZ a week.

 I'm not even kidding.

And here is the thing DBZ is not a show that you watch only a episode a week, I wish!

DBZ is a show you watch 5 episodes a day, because it literally takes five episodes til something happens in that show! And for reasons unknown there is only two DBZ movies released in Finland and they are only on VHS tapes, that's right! In Finland we don't have, DVD releases of DBZ we don't even have box sets of any kind. Sure there is the internet, but my point still stands! In Finland DBZ is just as big thing as it is in everywhere else and no DVD releases?

Seriously?

But anyways, despite the fact that they only showed a episode of DBZ a week me and my sisters still liked it. My other sister eventually grew out of it but that's bound to happen. I still feel nostalgic for the show mainly because of Videl, Chi-Chi and Bulma, I know I'm so going to hell.

 But back then I also liked DBZ because it was awesome and really that's the only word worthy enough to describe DBZ: It was awesome, sure it was ridiculous to the point of being downright stupid and silly and I don't consider it as one of the best anime series ever, simply because there is bound to be better stuff than DBZ.

But still at the core DBZ was surprisingly good and heartwarming show. Sure it was stupid and most of the characters aside from Goku were pretty useless, but at least I still cared for all of them, even Yamcha and Krillin.

Oh and I also know about Dragon Ball Z abridged and I love it!

Now I didn't hear about Dragon Ball Evolution 'till I saw Jesuotaku's, Todd in the Shadow's, Rollo T's and Y Ruler of Time's review of Avatar the Last Airbender and it got me interested on the crossover that they did a year before that and thus I went and saw the Dragon Ball Evolution review and then I eventually saw Blockbuster Buster's review of it, because in my book BB is cool.

I eventually did find a DVD copy of Dragon Ball Evolution and incase you want to know what average Finnish DBZ fan thinks about the movie it's pretty much considered to be a BETRAYAL! too.

So why do I like this movie?

Because in all honesty I think it's decent.

In my opinion Dragon Ball Evolution captured the feel of the show and in my book that is pretty important for a movie adaptation.

Does that mean that Dragon Ball Evolution is perfect? Of course not!

Even though I believe that it captured the feel of Dragon Ball that's not enough. Like the whole Goku going to high school and the stupidity that is that Goku is bullied because he is a fighter even though Chi Chi is a fighter too but no-one bullies her, yet then again Chi Chi is so very lovely.

Oh and the fact that half of the characters are missing is pretty stupid too, but I think that I have an answer for it: You see the original Dragon Ball even though it's a lot shorter than Dragon Ball Z still has 153 episodes and 519 chapters in it's manga series you still have a lot to do in a one movie. Not to mention the studio probably wanted to play it safe meaning that they wanted to make it more for not DB fans - oh and FYI here I seen DB anime series too - but here's the thing they didn't count on the fact that most of the Dragon Ball fans are otakus, mainly because other people went on from Dragon Ball to like other anime series and otakus are the kind of people that you don't wanna mess with!

 So that and the fact that the Dragon Ball is pretty long TV series, I actually think that it would have been a lot smarter move to simply make an independent live action Dragon Ball movie for the fans, like they did in Japan with all of those DBZ anime movies, but alas that wasn't the way they decided to go. Instead they rolled with the more difficult option, to sum up the whole 153 episode anime series into a one live action movie with most of the characters removed, this and all lead to the Dragon Ball movie we got.

And before I comment on the casting of Goku, there are a couple of gripes I have with this movie:

Number 3
Piccolo looks stupid! Seriously what the hell!

Number 2
The Kamehameha wave heals, because they didn't want to have Korin and the senzu beans.

Number 1
Ok, this is a really stupid thing and I can't believe that even to this day in all the two reviews I've seen about this movie and including the comments, no-one has brought this up. In order for them to do those energy wave attacks they use bending!

As in "Avatar the Last Airbender bending"! It's not even something small they downright say it in the middle of the movie! That is not how it works! It works through concentration and controlling one's Ki it has nothing do with bending!

Now that I got the bending bullshit out of the way let's now talk about the casting of Justin Chatwin as Goku. This caused a lot of hate among the Dragon Ball fans mainly because "Goku is Asian and there for must be portrayed by an Asian actor!"

To me that claim that Goku must be portrayed by an Asian actor is bullshit!

Because Justin Chatwin is a great actor!

 Seriously when I was watching this movie, all I was seeing was Goku, I didn't care that Goku wasn't doing anything that Goku was suppose to be doing, because the movie was way too short for that! But Justin Chatwin really was Goku to me.

Now I'll admit this movie really isn't that good, but in all honesty it really isn't that bad either. All the problems just come from the fact that the studio just wanted to play it safe in order to get as much money as possible. It was just like Star Trek 2009 in that aspect. But where as the 2009 Star Trek movie succeeded Dragon Ball Evolution failed, simply because of it's fans and here is the difference between these movies:

Star Trek 2009 is a Star Trek movie and Star Trek as a franchise, has been around since 1966 and has become a household name, when I was a kid I had barely seen a full episode of Star Trek, but I still knew who Spock was and because Star Trek has been around since -66 it has ton of fans and movies and so on people know what Star Trek is and in the case of Star Trek 2009 the reason why it did so well wasn't just, because of the fans Star Trek it was, because people knew that Star Trek is a quality franchise so the movies will be most likely enjoyable. Not to mention that deep in they're hearts people love space adventure films and that's what Star Trek 2009 is.

Dragon Ball has been around ever since 1984 as a manga series and then as an anime series and even though  Dragon Ball has fans that are just as loyal to it all over the globe, the problem is that these are the fans who consider every single last change to the source material as a betrayal and consider Dragon Ball to be up there with Shakespeare. Meaning that even though Star Trek has it's hardcore fans who call BETRAYAL over the 2009 movie there still are some Star Trek fans who just enjoy that movie, because much like DBZ Star Trek 2009 is just awesome. Not to mention the fact that to you're average Joe, Dragon Ball is really weird because it's Japanese and let's face it Asian culture is weird! I mean we are talking about the culture that gave to the world of porn genres like: Tentacle porn and Bukkake.

 I'm not saying that Star Trek isn't weird, but the thing is that Star Trek takes place in space and in the future no less, so it has every single reason to be weird. Where as Dragon Ball no-one knows when it takes place and despite the fact the Earth in Dragon Ball doesn't have a space program, for some unknown reason, they still have dogs walking and living they're daily lives just like normal people. Then there is the humor of Dragon Ball and Master Roshi. Again not saying that Star Trek doesn't have humor and perverts, but it's still more down to earth than Dragon Ball is.

So making Dragon Ball movie that wasn't that much for the fans as it was more for everybody was pretty stupid, but seriously what they were suppose to do? Make live action adaptation of Dragon Ball which includes every single thing from the anime series? Do you have any idea how long that would have been? Even if you we're going to make a simple trilogy or a film series out of Dragon Ball it would, still last longer than people would like to spend in a movie theatre! Not to mention people have lives outside they're obsessions! So making a faithful adaptation of Dragon Ball that has a total running time of six months would have been impossible.

So yeah, despite the fact that the Dragon Ball Evolution got many, many things wrong I still though that it was enjoyable and fun and like I said it captured the feel of the anime, there are many big budget movies out there that don't do that *cough* The Lord Of The Rings *cough* and like the Sage said, we finally are in that place and time that all the old otakus wished we been since the early 90's that: someone would do something like this, not saying that it was that great, but God dammit it was they're first try!

And considering how poorly Dragon Ball Evolution did at the box office it was most likely they're last.

Oh and one more thing!

What was up with Yamcha in this one? He looked nothing like in the anime! Hell the only character who should have been played by an Asian actor and they got it completely wrong!

Here is the link for Jesuotakus Avatar The Last Airbender review:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/yrt/specials/30277-the-last-airbender

Here is the link for the Dragon Ball Evolution review:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/paw/specials/16364-dragonball-evolution

Here is the link for the Blockbuster Buster's review of Avatar The Last Airbender:
http://blip.tv/the-blockbuster-buster/the-last-air-bender-review-by-the-blockbuster-buster-5013533

Here is the link for the YouTube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lw30apKN3Q

Here is the link for the Blocbuster Buster's Dragon Ball Evolution review:
http://blip.tv/the-blockbuster-buster/dragon-ball-evolution-review-by-the-blockbuster-buster-4233067

Here is the link for the YouTube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHk7O5E62bI