What'd you guys think of the movie?

If it were simply an action/adventure movie, I would have said it was a pleasant waste of time. The CGI is sufficient to make the ki attacks look good in live action, the fight scenes are entertaining, Piccolo doesn't look like Piccolo but he doesn't look completely ridiculous as a live action villian either. The plot is thin, but it moves along quickly and there are good moments.

As an adaptation of "Dragon Ball", it has some very serious issues. Mostly characterization, Muten Roshi basically made it through the adaptation intact, he's still a slightly weird, perverted guy, middle-aged instead of old, but nothing worth getting worked up about. Goku, Yamcha and Bulma have simply been written with the wrong characters in mind. American stereotypes, not anything close to what they should be.

Son Goku is supposed to be naive, confident, open-hearted, powerful and did I mention naive? He is not a cross between Clark Kent and Peter Parker. He does not worry about talking to girls or fitting in at high school. Yes, he's different from everyone else, it never crosses his mind to care. He has more trouble differentiating girls and boys than he has talking to either sex. Because of his cheerful, open deminor he makes friends everywhere he goes, he's not a high school outcast who has trouble with bullies. Goku is not meek, especially not in Dragon Ball, he wouldn't put up with bullies.

Bulma and Yamcha are not hardened merecinaries. In the movie Yamcha is all about money, Bulma is all about fame. There's no trace of the boy who gets terrified at the sight of girls and wants a wish to make it better or the girl who built the Dragon Ball radar on a lark so she could wish for a ultra cute boyfriend (or possibly a life-time supply of strawberries).

The good-guy half of the story is roughly based on the first Dragon Ball hunt. Their obstacles include a fight against a shapeshifter and a mountain of fire. Bulma and Goku meet Roshi and Yamcha through the quest. But the quest and teaming up is Goku's plan rather than Bulma's. The shapeshifter is Mao using some sort of device to disguise herself as Chichi, not Oolong. The mountain of fire is a volcano, and Goku deals with the lava by using the dead bodies of Piccolo's hench-monsters as stepping stones rather than having it be something silly like Frying-Pan Mountain.

The bad-guy half of the quest is Piccolo Sr. trying to get his wish, only he's not old so he just want world domination. And they made Goku's Oozaru-form Piccolo's henchmen from when he last tried to conquer the Earth. In addition to completely mis-interpreting pretty much every character, the script-writers seem to think Oozaru is a proper name, rather than a description of the Saiyans' giant monkey form.

The movie all comes down to Goku, due to his good and loving upbringing by Grandpa Gohan, defeating the evil of the Oozaru within him. Having Goku spend most the movie thinking of Oozaru as some sort of enemy that he has to fight only to have him learn at the last moment that he is Oozaru is a nice plot twist, it's totally wrong for Dragon Ball, but if the movie weren't based on anything it's a well set-up plot twist, the kind I enjoy seeing in a story.

It's not Dragon Ball by any stretch of the imagination. The script writers Americanized the hell out of most of the characters, probably to make them more appealing to a 'mainstream' audience. Then they turned around and threw in enough elements from cannon to turn off a mainstream audience, ex: the wise old mentor being a perv. So I think it will probably fail with both Fans and people unfamiliar with the source material. Still the movie moves along at a rapid clip, you never get bored, the effects look okay, there are good moments, the characters have personality (even if they're the wrong personalities), except for Goku the character designs look okay, and even with Goku the scene with him trying and failing to control his hair with hair-gel made me laugh. It's not painful to watch... as long as you don't think about what it's supposed to be.

Oh, I should also say, it's blanently a set-up for a sequal, which probably won't get made because I'd be really surprised if the movie makes enough money to justify one.

I knew the movie was going to be horrible b4 I watched it. Like the guy said, If you watch it without knowing the about dragon ball you'll probably think it is an okay movie that you more than likely will never watch again. But knowing about dragon ball makes you think the director should have taken the script and wiped his but with it. I would love to know where krillan was. They ruined so much of the movie, not just cutting out characters, that they can't call it dragon ball. Did you know that Akira Toriyama was behind the making of this movie? How can you mess up your own show! I thought some fools who didn't even know about Dragon ball z had made this but...Now he's trying to redo Dragon ball z as a new show with some changes. Very little changes mind you. They only seem to add in movie scenes but I've only seen one episode. Wonder if he'll go past the buu saga's. Doesn't really matter to me. By the time he gets there I probably won't even care. Besides, He's botched up this movie so badly that I don't even want to think about what he will do to dragon ball z.

Well I saw it with friends and I came there with the absoulute lowest expectation of the movie. I was suprised it wasn't as bad as I had said it was going to be. At first I wanted to puke with the whole 7 mystics banned together part. Then Me and my friends had fun with it. You have to see it for it's fun. It was kinda like a whole parody of the show. HA! If you have younger siblings or young family members you can easily take them to this and they'll like it. Then sneak some real dragonball in them. Now I'm going to buy Season 7 and I'm having marathons of DB anything at my house. I even started back writing so this movie in my eyes wasn't a horid thing.

lovelove

What about you VSM?

Na'Janay it was actually exactly the same for me. I went with my best friend and we became friends through Dragon ball, haha! But I'd already heard from other friends that it really sucked. So I went into the cinema expecting the worst, but I cam out and I had really enjoyed it. I already knew from the start that it would not stick to the storyline after all because there are American actors in it to begin with and I think that's why it was called Dragonball Evolution. I actually really really enjoyed it, but I think that's because I knew beforehand that the characters didn't look like they were supposed to and when I first saw that Bulma didn't have blue hair I was like nu uhhhh! But then I liked how she was portrayed and I especially liked James Marsters as Piccolo!

well the whole Bulma thing...eehh! No blue hair! That's what kinda made her unique y'know. My brother was like at least tey got someone hot to play her. I loled!

Well that's true and I liked the actress that portrayed her as well. Hehe.

Gah! I saw this movie for my 21st birthday and I hated it! lolz I wasn't even much of a DB fan to begin with, being as my favorite part of the storyline and favorite characters never appear in DB, but I HAD to see it because it said Dragon Ball in the name. If it weren't supposed to be based off of Dragon Ball it would have been a decent movie. I have to say that the only good thing to come out of this is my rekindled love for Dragon Ball Z and the fact that my husband actually wanted to see how different the movie was from the show. He isn't exactly fond of DBZ and often refers to it as a show about a bunch of guys hopped up on steroids screaming at each other for hours on end and not getting anything done. So it makes me glad we went to see the movie so I could show him why I love DBZ so much. :D

I also loved the fact that it is rekindling DB/DBZ/DBGT. Because they aren't going to make new episodes, so making movies is the next best thing!

It wasn't Dragonball, but it wasn't bad either.

I liked how they kept little things in though. There were some apartment complexes named after Mount Paozu, Roshi's house was still on some sort of island and Bulma told Yamcha she liked "Bad Men" XD

I hope for a sequel only so that they can correct the Oozaru mistake, get to the Saiyan goodness and hopefully have some Bulma x Vegeta moments.

The film did pretty well, so there will probably be a sequel. Whether it goes far enough to get into the realm of Z is doubtful though.

Though Piccolo was pretty awesome though.

If there is a sequel, I'd like to see how they make Vegeta/which actors plays him.

1. Forums are not to be used to post stories.
2. All discussions including language and content must be suitable for teens.
3. The owner/moderator(s) of this forum is solely responsible for content posted within this area.
4. All forum abuse must be reported to the moderator(s).

1. Forum admin/moderator
2. Fanatic (on site for more than 2 years)
3. Fan (on site for more than a year)
4. Regular (on site for more than 6 months)
5. Camper (on site for more than a month)
6. Apprentice (on site for more than a week)
7. Newbie (on site for less than a week)