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Pojo's Dragonball - What If?

What if.... a live Action DBZ Film was actually made...?

There's been lots of rumors of a live action DBZ Film in the works.  20th Century Fox had purchased the rights to DBZ and hired Ben Ramsey of The Big Hit to write an adapted script - that was June of 2004.  The height of DBZ's popularity was when it was a regular on the Cartoon Network rotation, but those days are LONG gone.  Where's the project now?  Probably on some producer's back burner favoring the next Ashton Kutcher buddy/romantic/comedy flop.  But let's think about a very serious what if, namely, what if Dragon Ball Z were made into a film and what exactly would result from it?
 
The first thing you must admit to yourself as a FAN of DBZ is that any live adaptation would result in the kind of failure that fanboys across the country felt about The Phantom Menace.  The fact remains that popular franchises do not translate well to the screen (Super Mario Bros. movie, Resident Evil, Garfield, Daredevil, The Incredible Hulk) but those that have found the right mix of reinventing the franchise while maintaining enough of its original spirit to result in a better all around film (Blade, Spiderman, X-Men).  The reason why these franchises traditionally fail and become token box office successes during the summer is because the scripts are written with the specific intent of "dumbing down" the subject matter to not only attract ticket sales outside the target demographic (males 18-25) but to cram as many kids into the theaters as possible.  This is why the PG-13 rating is practically the kiss of death for hardcore fans because they know they will receive a watered down vision. 
 
Granted, DBZ has several moments of random humor, but at the end of the day, Roshi oogling women in his skin mags isn't what compels the true believers to continue popping in those old tapes from the Cell Games saga.  DBZ is about action and drama (yeah drama, you heard me) and although it is a bit over the top at times (like every five minutes) there are some very serious themes that can be developed in a no-holds-barred reinvention of the franchise: self empowerment, appreciating the extended family, multiculturalism, the dangers of unchecked scientific research, the possibility of extra terrestrials and of course, the end of the world.  All of these themes could lead to a very thick and engaging plot, but it would never materialize into anything resembling our ideal DBZ film without an R rating for intense combat, adult situations and some language issues.  I'm not saying it would be impossible to fully exploit the emotional value of all these themes with a PG-13, but I'd rather have a writer feel completely free to explore the extremes of the DBZ universe, unhindered by target audiences and child-proofed plot.
 
The story within a live action DBZ film would take itself only half seriously because a writer who is a non fan would be so compelled to work in the random humor as a means of "dumbing down" that the real fans would cringe every time Goku slips on a bannana peel or something like that (I find that a relentless beating of Krillin to be humorous enough).  Therefore, to a very large extent, a live action DBZ movie would "fail" the fans because of money issues, as in, the demand to make more.  It is an everlasting paradox that is the big budgeted, bad, summer blockbuster film that always makes money hand over fist because everyone would rather see crap than nothing at all.  And WE are to blame, the fans, because we hand over the ten bucks time and time again. 
 
So the DBZ film would not kick ass (think about the Mortal Kombat films).  Perhaps this is something that the otherwise completely oblivious executives over at 20th Century Fox have actually realized themselves.  DBZ is simply not hot right now and nothing short of the introduction of an entirely new animated series (or a massive re-release in coordination with Cartoon netowrk, the Sci-Fi channel and anyone else) will ever return DBZ to the forefront in the United States.  I don't mean to be the bringer of potentially bad tidings, but these theories have a lot of history to fall back on and stand on their own.  With any luck, we'll get that new animated series and all this talk about a live adaptation will be forgotten.
 
Lawrence (formerly DarthNaps) 


 


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