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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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