[Review] DragonBall: Evolution
Apr. 16th, 2009 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfgroveReviewing the movie, DragonBall: Evolution.
Okay, one of the key things with this movie, was that I went in not expecting anything. If anything, I was expecting something way off in left field with only the same names, cheesy kung fu sequences, and a few mocking references to one of my childhood favorites.
And that's the thing. In my generation, there were two primary "Gateway Animes" DragonBall Z and Sailor Moon. Those who know what a tomboy I am already know this answer. I went the DBZ route. Given, DBZ was not actually my starter anime, but of the two gateway series for my generation, it was my drug of choice. (4am every weekday on Fox! Haha.) I still --to this day-- have never watched Sailor Moon in it's entirety. I have seen (I think) every episode of DBZ, and reasonable chunks of DragonBall and DragonBall GT. It's my baby. Trunks (future Trunks especially -- Hey, he was a bad ass back in the day) and Gohan (Goku-esque power levels and kind personality, plus he was a geek "The Great Saiyaman!" *snrk*) were my favorites.
The people I watched it with last night, there was a boy that grew up with DB and DBZ and a girl who was a Moonie with a little basic knowledge of the original.
But I digress. So, I went into the movie with a love of the original that episode-long power ups never truly killed, and no expectations for it to be true to the original. At all.
I advise watching it that way. That is the way to go into this movie.
That said, here's what I walked out with.
I loved it.
It was not perfect, but I enjoyed the hell out of that movie. (And I've been disappointed with movies a lot lately.)
First off, everyone was older. Goku is turning 18 at the beginning of the movie.
They covered the plot of about the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the DragonBall series, and played their cards a little closer to the manga than the anime. They had to cut a lot out and change some things to fit it into a movie that an audience unfamiliar with the source material could understand. Considering that hurdle, I think they did a good job with it. When stuff started happening, you could feel where the flow of the story got a little awkward, but overall, it worked well.
Goku's hair wasn't right. They modernized his personality a lot. This was not the carefree guy who didn't care about anything but martial arts. This was an Alternate Universe version of Goku who grew up around other kids and attended high school. But his awkward high school life and having trouble with girls the not allowed to fight when being harassed by popular kids was a little reminiscent of Gohan's personality at that age. You laughed at him, and felt bad for him. And that first 20 or so minutes was just extremely fun to watch because it was funny.
In a very subtle touch, Goku's last name is never said except once by Mai. Because she is of Asian descent, she refers to him as "Son Goku" rather than "Goku Son" which might have been necessary had he given his surname in response to Bulma Brief's introduction. And there' something awkward sounding about the name when you don't put Son first. Probably just because I've always heard it as "Son Goku". It was a nice touch to never have anyone saying it in the Western personal-then-surname order.
The martial arts in it were fun. It was wire fu that was clearly emulating what you saw in the DragonBall series. Goku's "fight" at the party with the punk kids just screamed young Son Goku's style of fighting. Especially once he was on top of the car. The way he rolled around like a monkey and the sliding across the roof of the car on his head just made me smile, because I could see little animated Goku doing exactly that. It fit.
I loved seeing Goku with Grandpa Gohan. It was nice, and I liked how they handled it. They gave him a lot of personality, and yeah, you just have to see that. There were little references about Grandpa referring to Goku's birthday as his "Grand Entrance" and that Goku found Roshi's house because it "felt like Grandpa" when he was actually homing in on a dragon ball (little Goku originally believed the 4 star dragon ball held his grandpa's spirit). These were nice little touches for those in the know.
I do have to laugh because our Moonie watching with us early on complained about Grandpa being Asian while Goku was white. "Is he supposed to be adopted? Was he in the original?" I just kind of stared at her. "Yeah, pretty much. Goku's an alien. A Saiya-jin." *grins* Duuu~uuh.
Let me turn this into a side note, because I have heard some bitching about the nationalities for this movie. All the Saiyans are aliens. They can bring all of them in and have each be a different nationality and I wouldn't care. They aren't supposed to be Chinese or Japanese. They're not human in the first place. Chichi, Mai, and Yamcha were Asian. I felt this was important, and I'm glad they kept that. Bulma was always introduced as Bulma Briefs even in the Japanese, and her appearance was significantly different from the rest of the DBZ cast with light hair and blue eyes. I think that's indicative of a Western heritage, and I'm glad casting went that direction. So anybody complaining about that can sod off.
I've never been much of a ChiChi fan, so I didn't care as much about her characterization. But the fact that she was obviously from some well-off family (Ox King's daughter XD ) and was outwardly very girly seemed to suit. The reveal that she secretly trained and fought in the big martial arts tourney also fit --her daddy didn't know she was a fighter when she was first introduced and she did secretly enter the tourney under a fake name in the original. The people I watched it with have told me they agree she was a hottie. *shrugs* Not really my type, but I'm partial to boys. ;)
Bulma was awesome. The fact her hair wasn't aqua didn't bug me as much as I thought it might, since they did a neat hairstyle for her, and had an aqua streak that ran the full length of her hair. They took out all the annoying time-wasting aspects of her personality, but kept the genius inventor, do-it-yourself attitude she had about things. She used guns and fought far more than she did in the original, but they made it work. I liked Bulma when she was older, this created a version of younger Bulma that was more reminiscent of the older more-mature Bulma. And OH MY GOD her Capsule Corporation bike. I WANT. WANT IT SO MUCH. I was impressed that they stayed close to the original more truck-like design and the 2 wheels in front, 1 in back. And the special effects to go from capsule to bike were Transformers movie levels of awesome in my book. So frigging cool. *squees like an idiot fangirl*
Master Roshi was fun. He had the shirts perfect, and the pervert aspect was there, if a little more subtle than originally. I just liked him. His lines at the very end may not have been very Roshi-esque, but they worked well for the scene.
I liked Yamcha. The Asian with the bleached hair thief/gang member fit with his original character perfectly for me. And towards the end, his interactions with Bulma during the final fight just meshed perfectly with the guy from old TV show. As much as that flying blue cat could've added, I am glad they left him out. It would've been awkward to explain and make reasonable to non DB fans.
Mai was pretty neat, and a convenient sidekick to Piccolo, but seemed pretty pointless to include in the movie. Just kind of a little oh hai, we didn't forget the Red Ribbon Army, we just didn't have space for them.
Piccolo was nicely done. Not ideal. The make-up was great. The acting a little blah, but he didn't really get much face time to play with the character, and even fewer lines. He was strong silent, and menacing though --so it worked. I did love the bit at the lake. That was very in-character for me.
The dragon balls were pretty. I like the interpretation of the dragon balls.
I really just can't praise the CG and make-up teams enough. They did a great job bring the capsule technology, Piccolo, and the chi/ki use to life. More power to them.
EDIT: Okay, so-- valid point, Shen-Long and Piccolo's minions CG sucked. But I can gloss over it because it was so short. Crazy fighting movie yay.
DBZ was about the crazy fighting and a message of it's okay to get angry, it's okay to fight and train and be strong like this, BUT you must temper it with restraint, kindness, and noble ideals. With the intent to do good. And the movie kept that message that was prevalent throughout the DB & DBZ series.
So overall, if you don't go in expecting much, and you'll come out with a movie you can really enjoy, and a lot of little things you'll love.
Note: There is a scene after the initial part of the credits. Stick around for it.
Okay, one of the key things with this movie, was that I went in not expecting anything. If anything, I was expecting something way off in left field with only the same names, cheesy kung fu sequences, and a few mocking references to one of my childhood favorites.
And that's the thing. In my generation, there were two primary "Gateway Animes" DragonBall Z and Sailor Moon. Those who know what a tomboy I am already know this answer. I went the DBZ route. Given, DBZ was not actually my starter anime, but of the two gateway series for my generation, it was my drug of choice. (4am every weekday on Fox! Haha.) I still --to this day-- have never watched Sailor Moon in it's entirety. I have seen (I think) every episode of DBZ, and reasonable chunks of DragonBall and DragonBall GT. It's my baby. Trunks (future Trunks especially -- Hey, he was a bad ass back in the day) and Gohan (Goku-esque power levels and kind personality, plus he was a geek "The Great Saiyaman!" *snrk*) were my favorites.
The people I watched it with last night, there was a boy that grew up with DB and DBZ and a girl who was a Moonie with a little basic knowledge of the original.
But I digress. So, I went into the movie with a love of the original that episode-long power ups never truly killed, and no expectations for it to be true to the original. At all.
I advise watching it that way. That is the way to go into this movie.
*** SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ***
That said, here's what I walked out with.
I loved it.
It was not perfect, but I enjoyed the hell out of that movie. (And I've been disappointed with movies a lot lately.)
First off, everyone was older. Goku is turning 18 at the beginning of the movie.
They covered the plot of about the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the DragonBall series, and played their cards a little closer to the manga than the anime. They had to cut a lot out and change some things to fit it into a movie that an audience unfamiliar with the source material could understand. Considering that hurdle, I think they did a good job with it. When stuff started happening, you could feel where the flow of the story got a little awkward, but overall, it worked well.
Goku's hair wasn't right. They modernized his personality a lot. This was not the carefree guy who didn't care about anything but martial arts. This was an Alternate Universe version of Goku who grew up around other kids and attended high school. But his awkward high school life and having trouble with girls the not allowed to fight when being harassed by popular kids was a little reminiscent of Gohan's personality at that age. You laughed at him, and felt bad for him. And that first 20 or so minutes was just extremely fun to watch because it was funny.
In a very subtle touch, Goku's last name is never said except once by Mai. Because she is of Asian descent, she refers to him as "Son Goku" rather than "Goku Son" which might have been necessary had he given his surname in response to Bulma Brief's introduction. And there' something awkward sounding about the name when you don't put Son first. Probably just because I've always heard it as "Son Goku". It was a nice touch to never have anyone saying it in the Western personal-then-surname order.
The martial arts in it were fun. It was wire fu that was clearly emulating what you saw in the DragonBall series. Goku's "fight" at the party with the punk kids just screamed young Son Goku's style of fighting. Especially once he was on top of the car. The way he rolled around like a monkey and the sliding across the roof of the car on his head just made me smile, because I could see little animated Goku doing exactly that. It fit.
I loved seeing Goku with Grandpa Gohan. It was nice, and I liked how they handled it. They gave him a lot of personality, and yeah, you just have to see that. There were little references about Grandpa referring to Goku's birthday as his "Grand Entrance" and that Goku found Roshi's house because it "felt like Grandpa" when he was actually homing in on a dragon ball (little Goku originally believed the 4 star dragon ball held his grandpa's spirit). These were nice little touches for those in the know.
I do have to laugh because our Moonie watching with us early on complained about Grandpa being Asian while Goku was white. "Is he supposed to be adopted? Was he in the original?" I just kind of stared at her. "Yeah, pretty much. Goku's an alien. A Saiya-jin." *grins* Duuu~uuh.
Let me turn this into a side note, because I have heard some bitching about the nationalities for this movie. All the Saiyans are aliens. They can bring all of them in and have each be a different nationality and I wouldn't care. They aren't supposed to be Chinese or Japanese. They're not human in the first place. Chichi, Mai, and Yamcha were Asian. I felt this was important, and I'm glad they kept that. Bulma was always introduced as Bulma Briefs even in the Japanese, and her appearance was significantly different from the rest of the DBZ cast with light hair and blue eyes. I think that's indicative of a Western heritage, and I'm glad casting went that direction. So anybody complaining about that can sod off.
I've never been much of a ChiChi fan, so I didn't care as much about her characterization. But the fact that she was obviously from some well-off family (Ox King's daughter XD ) and was outwardly very girly seemed to suit. The reveal that she secretly trained and fought in the big martial arts tourney also fit --her daddy didn't know she was a fighter when she was first introduced and she did secretly enter the tourney under a fake name in the original. The people I watched it with have told me they agree she was a hottie. *shrugs* Not really my type, but I'm partial to boys. ;)
Bulma was awesome. The fact her hair wasn't aqua didn't bug me as much as I thought it might, since they did a neat hairstyle for her, and had an aqua streak that ran the full length of her hair. They took out all the annoying time-wasting aspects of her personality, but kept the genius inventor, do-it-yourself attitude she had about things. She used guns and fought far more than she did in the original, but they made it work. I liked Bulma when she was older, this created a version of younger Bulma that was more reminiscent of the older more-mature Bulma. And OH MY GOD her Capsule Corporation bike. I WANT. WANT IT SO MUCH. I was impressed that they stayed close to the original more truck-like design and the 2 wheels in front, 1 in back. And the special effects to go from capsule to bike were Transformers movie levels of awesome in my book. So frigging cool. *squees like an idiot fangirl*
Master Roshi was fun. He had the shirts perfect, and the pervert aspect was there, if a little more subtle than originally. I just liked him. His lines at the very end may not have been very Roshi-esque, but they worked well for the scene.
I liked Yamcha. The Asian with the bleached hair thief/gang member fit with his original character perfectly for me. And towards the end, his interactions with Bulma during the final fight just meshed perfectly with the guy from old TV show. As much as that flying blue cat could've added, I am glad they left him out. It would've been awkward to explain and make reasonable to non DB fans.
Mai was pretty neat, and a convenient sidekick to Piccolo, but seemed pretty pointless to include in the movie. Just kind of a little oh hai, we didn't forget the Red Ribbon Army, we just didn't have space for them.
Piccolo was nicely done. Not ideal. The make-up was great. The acting a little blah, but he didn't really get much face time to play with the character, and even fewer lines. He was strong silent, and menacing though --so it worked. I did love the bit at the lake. That was very in-character for me.
The dragon balls were pretty. I like the interpretation of the dragon balls.
I really just can't praise the CG and make-up teams enough. They did a great job bring the capsule technology, Piccolo, and the chi/ki use to life. More power to them.
EDIT: Okay, so-- valid point, Shen-Long and Piccolo's minions CG sucked. But I can gloss over it because it was so short. Crazy fighting movie yay.
DBZ was about the crazy fighting and a message of it's okay to get angry, it's okay to fight and train and be strong like this, BUT you must temper it with restraint, kindness, and noble ideals. With the intent to do good. And the movie kept that message that was prevalent throughout the DB & DBZ series.
So overall, if you don't go in expecting much, and you'll come out with a movie you can really enjoy, and a lot of little things you'll love.
*** END SPOILERS END ***
Note: There is a scene after the initial part of the credits. Stick around for it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 06:19 pm (UTC)I liked grandpa gohan. We never got to see him in the original manga, so it was neat to see him.
My main complaint about the movie was no krillin. Krillin is awesome. Of course, after seeing it, I realise there would have been no space for him (his character would have been rushed at best). But it would have been fun to see at least a Krillin cameo at the martial arts tournament.
The dragon balls looked pretty much as I imagined them. I was happy.
OX KING HAD SOME SERIOUS BLING.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 07:48 pm (UTC)Fans wouldn't have been happy had he been called Gohan though, because it was Goku's circumstances.
Yes. Loved Gramps.
I'm hearing that complaint a lot. I actually wonder if he could be seen in cameo if I looked closer at the training area or the tourney. If they had tried to bring him in, the character wouldn't have had time to be used properly. They barely squeezed in Yamcha. ButI was never a huge Krillin fan, so I didn't feel his loss so much. Plenty of room for a sequel to bring him in and flesh him out though.
Yes.
DUDE. HE WAS LOADED.
EDIT: (Sorry I hadn't read your review before to avoid any opinions going in.) I know one of your complaints was it turning into a martial arts movie, but that was what I expected. DB was a martial arts / coming-of-age series, so I expected it to turn into a kung fu movie, and I was glad they fit in as much as they did.
As for bad CG, I mentioned above (in this comment) what I thought was done badly, but I still liked things like evaporating the lake. It was pretty... ^_^ But that's matter of opinion.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 08:13 pm (UTC)I think this movie is a total matter of opinion. I don't mind the kung fu. I mind that it turned into an american style kung fu movie. But it sortoff stayed on the borderline. Basically, I found the movie amusing, and worth seeing at least once. But like you said - go in expecting nothing and considering it a *version* of dragonball much like Stardust and Howl's moving castle are versions of their books (however, those two movies where pretty awesome) I kinda liked teen goku. He was funny. Much like manga!teen gohan. At least he wasn't emo or cocky like hell. That would have been sad.
The turn-on-some-lamps-for-a-kiss made me kinda laugh though. It was cute but at the same time I was thinking man, this is so cheesy. Let's see piccolo vomit some eggs up instead nya?
I was disapointed that piccolo did not vomit eggs. Though I admit his monster!mix machine was funny. A little bit of me, a little bit of you, looky monster. Go forth, my regenerating, lava-resistant bitches.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 08:38 pm (UTC)Heck, I'm all up for doing a several mockery arts of this movie. I love it, but I also would love to openly mock it via arts.
Agreed. Total matter of opinion and must be seen as a different version altogether. It really wasn't ideal, but I love my cheesy shit sometimes. It's why I can still watch original DBZ and still love it. (My dorky butt is gonna buy the DVD of this movie, I know it. I'm debating seeing it again after to get art ideas now.) I need to read the manga. Never did. Hmm... I knows where to acquire collected volumes. BWAHAHA. I think I'm going on a DBZ kick.
Oh geeze. What a horrifying thought. If Goku had gone emo-teen on us, there would be nothing that could save the movie for me. Not even bad-ass!Bulma and awesome capsule Corp vehicles. (I'm an engineer, I love that stuff. Capsule Corp 4-EVAR♥)
Oh yes. Even I was goig, "REALLY? PUH-LEE-ASE." at the lighting lamps for a kiss. But I guess they needed my face time for the chiChi character.
Yeah, Piccolo not vomiting an egg ties back to the blue cat thing. I know why they didn't do it, but I wanted to see it. (NEED TO DRAW THAT AS A MOVIE OUTTAKE. marsters!Piccolo vomits egg.)
"Go forth, my regenerating, lava-resistant bitches."
I can't stop laughing at that phrase. I must draw that.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 09:08 pm (UTC)Yes...Chi-Chi was hot. But I found Goku to be hotter...I wish his hair was crazier. DB is not the same without crazy hair!!!!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 10:27 pm (UTC)Haha. Woman, I am never going to get you about what guys are hot or not. We have totally different tastes. He's certainly not bad looking, but I wouldn't have looked and thought hot. Maybe he looks better with his hair down, I'm not a big fan of spiked hair on most guys.