Nooooo! I gotta watch anime!!!!

Wait, live action? Alright! I'm not sure who Piccolo is, but I bet my son had the action figure.

redeem147 | November 14, 07:41 CET

Ok I am going to let my dork out but when Son Goku fought Piccolo he was a kid. Adult Son Goku got along with Piccolo. Just saying. So are they going to go the whole way with Piccolo, green and everything? Green James Marsters, fun.

theMidnighter | November 14, 07:50 CET

Honestly, this sounds like an awful idea.

Now a "Bleach" live action...

pollaxt | November 14, 07:57 CET

Good for JM!!!

Now I have to ask my son about this. I've always hated these things.

newcj | November 14, 07:59 CET

Part of me can see this, but most of me started twitching at the words "live action Dragonball" and won't stop. Dragonball would be towards the bottom of my list of anime that would work as live action.

Lady Brick | November 14, 08:10 CET

I like James Wong & James Marsters. But this... this doesn't excite me. And presumably the script won't need rewriting during production...

crossoverman | November 14, 08:14 CET

Lady Brick, you're not the only one who is twitching.

*twitches*

Sweet Fragility | November 14, 08:45 CET

This isn't going to end well. While Dragonball may be a somewhat-okay anime and manga, it won't work as live action at all.

Congrats to Marsters, though. I'm sure it will be loads of fun to be in.

HydeMe | November 14, 08:54 CET

/me joins in the twitching.

Yeah... I watched Shadow Puppets, but I think my fandom has limits.

kishi | November 14, 08:54 CET

Haaaa ha ha ha ha ha.

It's going to come out before the Avatar movie.

Polter-Cow | November 14, 08:54 CET

I can't believe that they are making a live action version of this. Then again, they have a live-action Sailor Moon movie so I guess anything is possible... Not only do I have geek friends that are going to drag me to see this to reminisce over a childhood obsession that I would rather forget, but I have this gut feeling that this is going to be a horrible, horrible movie. But then again... Steven Chow... apparently everything he touches is golden. Has anyone here seen Kung Fu Hustle?

mustbebunnies | November 14, 09:16 CET

Apparently JM is also soon to record another Dresden Files audiobook-not the next in the series from the beginning, but rather the most recent , not yet released, Small Favor, due out in April. New publisher-Penguin Audio, rather than Buzzy Multimedia, which did the others.

toast | November 14, 09:17 CET

Picolo is not a villian, he's Gohans teacher and yes at one time was Goku rival (for a short period) but if this is the Saiyans storyline, the Vegetta would be the villian.

Not only that but Picolo is the tallest character in Dragonball.

This a decription of Picolo:
Picolo
Occupation: Teacher/Grudging Friend
Status: Annoyed
Picolo has set aside his usual aloofness to help Gohan train in the skills he will need to have to protect the Earth after his father is killed(this is only temporary, but it will still take Goku a year to make his way back). Though always wanting to appear uncaring, Picolo cames to care very much for Gohan even at the cost of his own life.

The film's synopsis:
This is an epic story between good and evil, centering on the character Goku and a handful of friends who battle for the Earth against the deadly forces of the Saiyans, who are sweeping across the universe, leaving a path of destruction. Goku and friends' best chance of survival rests with the Namekian DragonBalls, which provide them the power to summon a mighty dragon.

This movie has been rumored about since Fox bought the rights in 2002. Huh, you think because of the writers strike they are going to the vaults. Because as big as Dragonball maybe, it doesn't have the draw it once did.

[ edited by RavenU on 2007-11-14 06:37 ]

RavenU | November 14, 09:20 CET

Okay, I confess to being a Dragonball Z fan back in the day, but there's no way this isn't going to be ridiculous. I mean...wtf?

RaisedByMongrels | November 14, 09:21 CET

My brother and sister just freaked when i called them about what that link said.

I just want to see James marsters on the big screen.
I'm a huge James Marsters fan and I don't care for dragon ball z. but it says its being produced by Stephen Chow and I'll see anything he does. although I've never seen stephen Chow do anything serious. It should be interesting.

ssick | November 14, 09:23 CET

mustbebunnies: Do you mean the live action Sailor Moon TV series? That's actually quite enjoyable in a "Those wacky Japanese!" way.

If James Marsters could star in any live-action anime, I'd like to see him as Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. And the name has nothing to do with it.

Lady Brick | November 14, 09:41 CET

I think this is great. James goes from a small role in PSILY to the lead villain in a movie that has the potential to be seen by lots of anime-niacs + others. Maybe even sequels. Sure, I want him to be offered roles where he gets to use all his acting talent but this will be fun and a step in the right direction (toward being known by TPTB in the industry. Go,James!

Berry | November 14, 09:43 CET

....Bizarre. In so many ways.

I may give it a shot though. I've been really curious for some time how Dragonball was possibly based on on the classic epic poem or whatever, "Journey to the West," and it'd be way easier to give it a shot if they condensed it into a a film length.

Stephen Chow actually started off as some sort of reputable drama actor in the early 80s from what I've heard, he just found his way successfully into the HK "new year's fluff flick" genre and did really successfully in it. While I've mostly just seen his really newest stuff, I think there have still been some nice efforts to put a little heart into what could easily just end up being slightly dumb and crude stuff, like that Kung Pow movie.

orangewaxlion | November 14, 09:46 CET

Yay James!

Glad to see him land a big fat juicy role in a potentially big summer movie.

anindoorkitty | November 14, 10:15 CET

nooooo! I just want to shake him and say "James, I love you but what were you thinking... are you really that hard up for cash?" This sounds like it could be damaging to his career, and we don't want that! I personally don't think that live action movies from cartoons work very well unless they are very grim and very dark, like Batman Begins, or somewhat dark like X-men. I just don't think that this kind of thing could work, it will either be way to over the top or it will let down fans of the anime because it can never be as bombastic as the cartoon was. I wish James or anyone in the buffyverse could get some really meaty acting roles, I just don't understand why these people are so afraid of casting them.

dulce_serenidad | November 14, 10:20 CET

Yeah, really what's next? A Spiderman movie?
A Space Western?
What are they thinking?

Open your minds people.

Xane | November 14, 11:06 CET

This made me sad to read. I've been a huge Draginball fan for many, MANY years and have been dead against a live action movie since it was first rumored. Then, not too long ago, I heard about the plot to this pile and was sickened. Now I read this... James is too good for this mockery.

Dan Corson | November 14, 11:13 CET

I think this sounds like great fun ... In fact it's already great fun watching people's heads exploding

Every time someone makes a live action film from a comic book or anime the geekboys ( and girls) scream the place down in protest ( it was even the subject of a recent episode of Smallville). But the majority of the potential audience for these things have probably never opened a comic/ graphic novel or watched an anime in their lives and just want an entertaining romp. See also X Men, Spiderman,Fantastic Four , League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and lots of other stuff I'd never heard of till I read the howls of internet anguish . And actually I rather enjoyed the finished films .


Go James!!

And RavenU ... Hollywood doesn't move fast enough to dust off a script and greenlight and cast a production to begin filming less than a month after the beginning of the writer's strike . Looking at the Dragonball fansites ( SCARY!) the buzz ( or rather howl of rage) about this film has been building up all year .

debw | November 14, 11:50 CET

See also X Men, Spiderman,Fantastic Four , League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and lots of other stuff I'd never heard of till I read the howls of internet anguish . And actually I rather enjoyed the finished films .

Well, i'm happy you enjoyed the films but surely you can put yourself in their (OK, on occasion our ;) place debw ? Imagine your very favourite book/TV show/whatever being made into a film which does the source material absolutely no justice at all and even perpetuates the myth that comics/cartoons are shallow, vapid entertainment aimed straight at the lowest common denominator (and yep, i'm looking at you "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "Fantastic Four"). Wouldn't you be a bit pissed off ?

(not that I don't agree that a lot of fan-boy/girls take it to extremes - i've seen all kinds of insults aimed at screenwriters/directors on forums etc. and even personal threats. That's just bloody madness IMO)

That said, good for James because I personally have no interest in this and probably won't see it, even for him, so as far as i'm concerned it's more paying work for a decent actor with no downside for me. Win-win ;).

Saje | November 14, 13:20 CET

Why does the fanboy reaction to this remind me of the cries of horror when it was announced that Adam Baldwin and James would be voicing Clark and Lex in Superman: Doomsday? Oh no, you can only have one voice and one design for the characters for ever and ever, and you must animate every single panel of the whole saga with no changes or edits, because DC's Superman crossovers with other titles were absolutely necessary for the plot and not a blatant attempt to make fans buy DC's other comics, and the whole "Which of these four are actually Superman? Whoops, none of them were" needed to be included in full, because in no way was that just a ploy to introduce new characters who would be getting their own comics. But Superman: Doomsday turned out great, got really good reviews, sold very well, and didn't cause the general public to riot in the streets in outrage.

I've never tried getting into Fireball or most other manga, but turning it into live action (and OMG! changing a few things from the original!) isn't any different than any of the other comics-turned-movies, such as the Superman, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and X-Men series. None of those were horribly grim or dark (or at least no more than the comics themselves), yet they worked fine and got good box office, even though they *gasp* changed things from the original comics. I don't see any reason to think that a live-action Dragonball would be automatically terrible. At least it's not Pokémon, but that's just a personal aversion to overhyped collectible card games.

But I'm very happy for James, who will have a big part in a major motion picture with international appeal. Where's the bad in that? And if it turns out to bomb? Well, Waterworld didn't damage Joss' career, after all.

deanna b | November 14, 13:31 CET

Well, Waterworld didn't damage Joss' career, after all.

Yeah but it damaged Kevin Costner's quite a bit (who, like JM with this, was actually seen to be associated with the film rather than having an - uncredited - hand in the writing) so maybe not a perfect analogy ;).

Personally I don't think 'Doomsday' turned out brilliantly, it wasn't bad though and its faults were certainly nothing to do with Adam Baldwin or James Marsters - his Lex was the best thing in it I reckon - or even where they strayed from the comic, it had pacing and characterisation issues as a film and just felt a bit flat IMO (considering the event it depicted, it didn't have the almost mythical "feel" of e.g. "Mask of the Phantasm").

People get attached to certain actors though (even just their voices). We've had the debate before but what if we found out tomorrow that 'Firefly' was being made again with the same characters but with an entirely different cast ? Can you honestly say deanna b that that wouldn't bother you at all , wouldn't make any difference to how you felt about it ?

As said, I agree that comics fans often go over the top (like Buffy, they seem to attract people that are really passionate about their chosen story/characters) but I also don't see the need to have a "Silly fan-persons at it again" response to their worries, some of which may be legitimate.

(course, the flip-side is that, as comics fans, we should be much more used to different continuities, creative teams, approaches to a character etc. than fans of pretty much any other kind i.e. don't like the "Doomsday" Superman ? Cool, just stick to the version you do like, there're plenty to choose from)

Saje | November 14, 14:01 CET

Please be kidding.

Craig Oxbrow | November 14, 14:04 CET

I know nothing about Doomsday but am fascinated by the polarity of opinion as to the film - yes! best ever!; no! what a disaster! - and his role - great for him!; it'll be his Waterworld!. I agree with some of the comments above that, unless he is terrible in it (which is highly unlikely given his degree of talent), it will undoubtedly be an overall plus to get that kind of exposure.

baxter | November 14, 14:38 CET

I seem to remember the same kerfuffle when SMG signed on Scooby Doo. Saying that if this thread gets any further into wank territory I'll be laying down the law quite heavily so you have been warned.

Simon | November 14, 14:56 CET

Actually deanna b, it's very different. With most American comics (especially the ones you've listed) there are so many different writers and artists, and so many different stories and timelines or whatever that it's a lot easier to accept a movie as just another story. With something like Dragonball (and MOST other manga) however, there was one writer/artist (or sometimes a writer AND an artist) and one long-running story.

And from what I've read they aren't just 'changing a few things from the original' but are changing just about everything that made the series what it was. Last I heard, they were making Goku an American high-school student! What!? C'mon!

So, what next? Will we be seeing a 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' movie with Ving Rhames starring as 48 year old pizza delivery man Buffy Summers who, by cover of night, hunts werewolves and robots by order of the government in a never-ending quest to save Jupiter from the clutches of the menacing A.N.G.E.L. (Automatic Nitro-Generating Electronic Lemur)? Sounds pretty asinine, no? Well that's how I feel about this 'Dragonball' movie.

Dan Corson | November 14, 15:10 CET

Well, I talked to my 11 year old son who still is a fan of Dragonball Z. He immediately said he thought JM would make a better Vagida (Sp?) than Piccolo and was ready to go to the internet to check out the rest of the casting.

JM has been going for high profile genre jobs with lots of long term fan recognition potential. This seems like another excellent building block.

I can understand the trepidation of fans anytime a book, comic, TV show, cartoon or whatever is announced as a movie. Film history is full of bad adaptations. Personally I don't think there is any way to know how t will turn out in advance. Things that sound doomed turn out to be classics and projects that seem perfect end up terrible. ...And then you have the ones that do not surprise you at all. ;-)

We saw Superman Doomsday last week because of JM and the reviews. Two adults and an 11 year old boy, none of whom had ever seen the comic, thought it was pretty awful. Then again, none of us are Superman fans. The performances all seemed fine, but the drawing and script made us all wince. I am thinking different people just look for different things in movies. (I'm feeling very profound right now. ;-) )

newcj | November 14, 15:42 CET

No, James should definitely play Vegeta, who is very much like Spike. Vegeta was also one of the, if not the most developed character on the show. But then again, i don't think a live-action DB movie would work.

Vergil | November 14, 16:05 CET

I have nothing about anime or any other comic books but the Buffy and Angel ones. This movie might turn out to be the worst idea since pantyhose but I'm very happy that JM got cast in a big-budget film.

Reddygirl | November 14, 16:21 CET

There was also this whole "Everything's being changed! It'll suck!!" brouhaha over the new Battlestar Galactica,which was changing just about everything from the cult classic original series. But... it's actually good. Different, even completely different, doesn't say anything about how good or bad it'll be. Female Starbuck? American Goku? Whatever, just make sure the story's entertaining.

And a better analogy is that Waterworld didn't seem to hurt Dennis Hopper.

People get attached to certain actors though (even just their voices). We've had the debate before but what if we found out tomorrow that 'Firefly' was being made again with the same characters but with an entirely different cast ? Can you honestly say deanna b that that wouldn't bother you at all , wouldn't make any difference to how you felt about it ?

See, that was exactly the point, that, just like the Dragonball fans freaking out at every rumored change, long before anyone saw a single frame of Doomsday, people were here with wails of horror just because the seventh actor to voice Superman and the third (and not even the current one) to voice Lex were being replaced for that project, because things that had been changed so many times before were, horrors, being changed again. At least in this case it's a little more understandable, since this'll be the first big change for Dragonball. But change happens, and that's not always a bad thing, and the majority of the audience never even notices or cares. And, no, it honestly wouldn't bother me if the entire cast of Firefly was replaced at some point, as long as the new version was also intelligent and entertaining. We've got a new Kirk and Spock coming, for heaven's sake, as well as all the remakes of other classic series that we've had over the years, many of which were actually good. I don't hold Firefly to be more sacred than other classic shows. I don't expect Summer Glau to still be playing River when she's in her late forties. I expect in a decade or two there'll be a complete reimagining and recasting of Buffy. I hope it's good.

But on topic, yay James, but I hope they don't make him bright green, at least not for the entire thing.

deanna b | November 14, 16:21 CET

Wasn't talking about decades away or "some point" hence my "we found out tomorrow". I agree it's different when a long time has passed, you have to make allowances for people ageing/dying, "franchises" being re-booted etc. To me, who's playing the characters matters though, they're not interchangeable parts, they're often a large portion of the appeal of a film or TV show (just as a specific writer/artist team might be for a comic).

And who cares what the majority of the audience thinks ? I'm not the studio head so how well a project does financially is less important to me than how good it is and being in the majority has never been the final arbiter of quality - their opinions aren't any better or worse, they're just more numerous. And of course change isn't necessarily bad, just as it's not necessarily good it's only necessarily different and if you're a fan of a particular approach to a story/character and that's apparently changing radically then you've every right to be worried IMO (though not, i'd completely agree, to pre-judge or not even give the new version a chance).

Still, probably best we agree to disagree, i'm not exactly sure what "wank territory" means but i'm sure I don't want to go there, i'm much happier in Arse-Scratch Land ;).

Saje | November 14, 16:45 CET

I know absolutely NOTHING about DragonBall Z...but I think we have recently seen a huge trend towards the live action remakes of a lot of popular 'cartoon' series.
Isn't the highly anticipated 'Speed Racer' film coming out this Christmas or sometime soon????

Now granted, I would rather see James in a different type of movie, as a different type of character, but hey...Hollywood seems like a tough place to be right now, so if nothing else I'm just glad to see him involved with a high profile project.
Maybe he wants to do this for his kids...and I think thats pretty cool.

I remember folks weren't too happy about James being Brainiac...but that all seemed to work out well for him.

kathylovesspike | November 14, 17:03 CET

Oh dear. I have no idea what Dragonball Z is. But kudos to James for being employed!

Kirochka | November 14, 17:53 CET

Congratulations to James for landing this pretty impressive role. Big studio, massive budget, potentially huge audience. I'm not seeing anything bad careerwise in this. At worst the film will suck but the reviewers will say he was the best thing in it, going by previous experience that is.

I just can't help thinking that if any other alum other than James had been cast the reaction would have been on the whole a lot more positive. Seems the poor bloke can't do right for doing wrong. Which is a shame as the support for others on this site is usually so strong.

Well, I sat through The Mountain, I can do it again. ;0)

JuliaL | November 14, 18:20 CET

Okay, lets stop right there.



This is exactly the kind of thing that there will be NO MORE OF in this thread or any other. This leads nowhere that we want to go and it stops now.

zeitgeist | November 14, 18:49 CET

Personally, I think Kevin Costner was the worst thing about Waterworld, and therefore it should have hurt him. Other than his performance, I liked the movie.

I am just amazed that everyone has decided already that this movie is horrible. Its just weird. Given the people involved, the budget, I don't see why this conclusion has been drawn. Of course I know nothing about Dragonball, but does anyone know if there is always this negativity about comics made into movies?

Has there ever been any that had postive buzz? I mean is this just normal stuff? I hadn't read comics since I was a child (until recently) but I was still always excited about these types of movies. I guess they are just my thing. Genre. Hellboy, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, X-men, I had no idea about Hellboy or X-men, hadn't read the others in decades, but still got excited about these movies.

I was also excited about League, especially the cast, but that was so poorly made I thought, like they spent all their money on the cast and had to shake the camera to make it look like explosions. But I digress. What I mean to say is, Yay James! Big budget genre movie!

[ edited by zeitgeist -no content changed, just spacing, every sentence doesn't need to be its own paragraph- on 2007-11-14 16:21 ]

Xane | November 14, 19:15 CET

Has there ever been any that had postive buzz? I mean is this just normal stuff?

It's fairly normal mainly because there've been quite a few comic/cartoon based movies that have seemingly been made with total disregard for the source material (and fans of it) - "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" being a recent example IMO, even Big Sean couldn't save that one though it had its moments. That's understandable from the financial perspective of the studio (they're trying to get many bums on seats, not just the few that already like the story/character) but doesn't exactly fill fans with warm fuzzies. I'm for instance waiting on the "Watchmen" film with some trepidation.

Good buzz ? Hmm, 'Wonder Woman' started out with reasonable buzz, most people seemed to think that if anyone could do her justice it'd be Joss. Normally if the director/writer has a good track record in comics films or is known to be a comics fan then the buzz is positive (from what I remember "Superman Returns" started out with good buzz peaking when Singer showed early footage at ComicCon as did "Spiderman" owing to Sam Raimi and his widely known regard for the comics). Both directors had a fair bit of "geek cred" too based on past work (X-Men 1 and 2 and Evil Dead/Xena respectively).

(inspired casting choices or early, well received leaks of the script can also generate initial good faith - I think this applies to "Batman Begins" though Christopher Nolan also had some cred based on "Memento")

Saje | November 14, 19:44 CET

zeitgeist I apologise if my opinion offends, it was not my intent.

Still very happy that James' work just keeps on coming. He's been very busy lately and this further exposure can only do him further good imo.

It is indeed a very good time to be a James Marsters fan. :0)

*draws eyebrows*

JuliaL | November 14, 20:10 CET

Ummm, I did read this right, didn't I? :-o

Don't get me wrong, I was a DBZ fan back in the day. This is just...words can't describe. Will take time to get used to the idea and congratulate James in the meanwhile.

deepgirl187 | November 14, 20:23 CET

JuliaL - Coming here and proclaiming that a majority of the posters hate James Marsters is counterproductive and just leads to arguments. Thats if we sidestep the fact that I really don't believe it to be the case (I imagine the same reaction would abound if Nick or Sarah were in this film).

zeitgeist | November 14, 20:32 CET

Big budget movie and lead character? Sounds good to me.

spikeylover | November 14, 20:39 CET

Well, i'm happy you enjoyed the films but surely you can put yourself in their (OK, on occasion our ;) place debw ? Imagine your very favourite book/TV show/whatever being made into a film which does the source material absolutely no justice at all ....Wouldn't you be a bit pissed off ?


Saje

It's happened a lot, books I love being made into films that, initially I was sceptical about . Lord Of The Rings being a good case in point. I wasn't at all sure how it could be done and frankly, thought it would be a bit of a disaster . But I went to see the finished product(s) and I loved what they'd done. In other cases a film has really messed with a favourite book and I've seen the film once then gone back to the book . I think the new version of The Dark Is Rising may fall into that catagory but I haven't seen it yet so I reserve judgement .

And it's that reserving judgement thing which seems to me to be important. I simply don't have the time or energy to waste in angsting about every detail of a film script based on rumours and spoilers.

Come release day I shall go take a look and then decide if I like it or not .

But even if I hate it YAY! For a lead role in a big budget movie for one of my favourite actors .

debw | November 14, 20:58 CET

I would guess that the fan backlash against a live-action Dragonball movie has less to do with with adapting a cartoon into a live-action series and more to do with Americanizing a foreign property. Even the insanely popular dubbed version of Dragonball Z had a lot of detractors, especially the earliest episodes where there were hilariously heavy-handed efforts to remove all evidence of death (which was especially silly since the main character spent the whole first arc dead.)

Most of the comedy elements also haven't translated all that well to American audiences. The more risque humor was cut out of the anime (though it could feasibly be tossed back in for a movie depending on the target audience.) Piccolo, the character James will be playing, is actually a Romanized version of the Japanese pronunciation of the English word Pickle (quite a few characters are named after food and Piccolo is green.) There's also the Briefs family, which includes Bulma (Bloomers) and her kids Trunks and Bura (Bra.) It ends up being a bit like tossing a pun into Babelfish, translating it, and translating it back.

Structurally, as the series progresses, the story arcs get longer and longer. There's a fight between two characters that lasts for more than 20 episodes. Seriously. One fight that's probably longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. The pacing would obviously have to be altered for a feature film. (There actually were several anime features, but they look like they assumed the audiences knew who all the characters are.)

Streamlining the story quite a bit shouldn't be too hard, and it sounds like they're already planing on adding a lot of American elements. But the final result is obviously going to be quite different from a series that is so dependent on slow pacing, Japanese humor, and a popular Chinese folk tale. And when there are hardcore fans who will have rabid arguments about what power level so-and-so was at in so-and-so episode... well, you can imagine the backlash.

And now I can totally see James as Vegeta.

(Not trying to stir the wank pot at all... just wanted to give a little background info for the folks who have never heard of the series before.)

Lady Brick | November 14, 21:16 CET

Come on, folks, aren't we getting a wee bit wanky? It's a summer movie. Remember, popcorn, high on adventure/fluff?

I don't think it is fair to compare this to Waterworld. Waterworld was marketed as the "most expensive film eva!!!11" and as Costner's big ginormous opus that would supposedly define him as THE actor of his generation.

This isn't Marster's defining role. It isn't marketed as such. He has A role in A movie that happens to be genre and fluffy (and happens to have a huge cult following.) So if it is a summer success, great! If it tanks, so what.

But, squee, as much as I don't know the first thing about manga, I do realize it is an enormous genre (go to Toronto SFX for example and feel the love for manga) so I am not worried there wouldn't be mass appeal.

As for the "hard up for money" role, why begrudge any actor the opportunity to jump at a large summer movie? Was Hugh Jackman foolish for donning the Wolverine costume? How about the numerous actors that have played Batman?

[ edited by kellyhk on 2007-11-14 18:17 ]

kellyhk | November 14, 21:17 CET

I simply don't have the time or energy to waste in angsting about every detail of a film script based on rumours and spoilers.

See, you're just not working on your angsting muscles enough ;-).

Yep, as you can hopefully already tell, I broadly agree with you debw. Most comics fans are probably in the same situation as most Whedonverse fans are re: Fox TV though - you want to believe it'll all work out for the best but that doesn't particularly mesh with experience. Wait and see is almost always the best policy though, ultimately "Dragonball Z" the cartoon etc. will still be there, even if the film's terrible.

And i'm getting more and more confused about this thread's use of the word "wank". Think I may be out of the loop on this one.

How about the numerous actors that have played Batman?

George Clooney probably isn't all that happy he took on the role (he often describes himself in interview as the man that killed Batman ;).

Saje | November 14, 21:23 CET

I know absolutely nothing about Dragonball. All I know is James is going to be in a big movie with a major part and I am so excited and I am supporting him all the way!! Any opportunity to see him on the big screen is great news to me, and not only on the big screen, but finally in a major role. It just seems like everything he is on lately doesn't give him much screen time, hopefully this movie will be different. I don't even care if the movie turns out sucky, I know he'll be great, as always. Go James!!!!! Also excited to hear about the Dresden File Audio Book, been waiting for that news.

luvspike | November 14, 21:24 CET

But...bald and green with antennae?

For some reason, I'm imagining something like the live action Grinch, which while entertaining...is not something I'm sure will work for serious material(as I assume Dragonball is).

But who knows. Hubby was a Dragonball fan, so I'll drag him to PSILY and he can drag me to this. It's all good.

Rogue Slayer | November 14, 22:20 CET

X-Men wouldn't exist (in its current form, at least) were it not for Hugh Jackman, end of story. ;)

And definitely agree with Lady Brick about the James as Vegeta thing. But I don't want to pigeonhole the guy into bad guy roles either.

I guess what drew my initial hesitation to seeing James in the film was the fact that the DBZ episodes Americans saw tended to be on the uneven, over-the-top side of things. I'm sure the originals in Japanese wasn't nearly as bad, so I hope they'll use that version more than the one we saw.

Moving on, does anyone know what storyline the film will be based off of? I favored the Android/Cell storyline myself.

deepgirl187 | November 14, 23:00 CET

I wonder if they're going to make the actors' hair stand up really straight and big like in the cartoon... LOL. Well James doesn't have to worry about that... Picolo wears a turban and has pointy green ears!

mustbebunnies | November 14, 23:58 CET

Eh. Um. A lover of anime here. But never watched Dragonball (perhaps due to the graphics or was it the plot that didn't capture my interest or maybe how my little brother could talk about nothing else). Anyway, first I thought "Hmmm, James doing voice over. Not so bad" I mean there's the cool news about a new Dresden Files audio book. Then I followed what my momma always said and read a complete sentence before I voiced my opinion. Now it's a live action movie! Ack. Detective Conan was okay for me only because it was farce-like, acted by Japanese actors and well, I know the show.

Darn. I love James! I have to watch this (I've already committed myself to watching four Smallville epis - this might actually turn out *crosses fingers and searches the sky for a dozen fallen stars* good). God, why wasn't it a Naruto movie! I could SO see James as Kakashi! *fades into a daydream about just that*

But I hear this show has a large fanbase, who knows, maybe this could be a big chance for someone to see the talent under that green face. I know enough to know about the big role he'll be playing and about the green. Yes. *smiles sheepishly* I do hope he looks as good in it as Lorne had! Congrats Mr. Marsters, I'll watching :) Just need my bro to fill me in on the plot though.

[ edited by Mirage on 2007-11-14 22:37 ]

Mirage | November 15, 00:31 CET

JuliaL - Coming here and proclaiming that a majority of the posters hate James Marsters is counterproductive and just leads to arguments.

I'm sorry if that's what you saw in my post, but it's not actually what I said.

I'll just get back to squeeeeeing over James being in a big budget summer blockbuster movie, given the price tag, and being a very busy boy and making me very happy. It's going to be a very busy year and I'm looking forward to it all.

JuliaL | November 15, 01:06 CET

James plus work? That's a good thing. I can very easily see how there might be lots of concern about the translation from book to screen but James and working alot? WOOT!

ruthless1 | November 15, 01:48 CET

This movie sounds fun, yay for James.

Succatash | November 15, 03:26 CET

Amazing amount of press today - can't hurt James' 'star power'. Great for him.

baxter | November 15, 05:12 CET

Seriously baxter, I've been linked to about 20 articles, many with lovely pictures of James, and all but one have been postive about the whole thing, including our James. It's a good day!

[ edited by Xane on 2007-11-15 06:21 ]

Xane | November 15, 06:23 CET

They featured this story on tonights 'Feed' on G4's Attack of the Show.

Dan Corson | November 15, 08:09 CET

Know nothing about this and care less, content-wise. I'm simply not a fan of anything animated, so I have no idea what's so controversial. But it's obviously well known to many, either from personal interest or through their kids, so I say "Yay James".

Shey | November 15, 09:35 CET

You seemed to be implying very strongly that people here as a whole are less happy to see James get work than they are to see other cast get work. This inevitably leads to escalated pro-James/anti-James threads and its not at all useful or desirable. Email me if you'd like to discuss further.

zeitgeist | November 15, 17:28 CET

I've left this discussion behind already.

Like I said, I'm just thrilled that James is busy at the moment. He's had parts since Ats finished, but he's got so much going on at the moment that I'm on cloud nine.

I've never seen DBZ and haven't a clue what to expect, but big screen, big budget James is a thing of beauty in my book.

JuliaL | November 15, 18:25 CET

I am actually quite the manga fan (less so of an anime one), but Dragonball is a series that I don't know much about, so thanks to Lady Brick for giving some background detail.

Kathylovesspike said:

I think we have recently seen a huge trend towards the live action remakes of a lot of popular 'cartoon' series.

This is a trend that is currently big in Japan, as well. Where manga were previously adapted into anime, quite a few have now been adapted into live action shows as well. Soon, some of these will be available in America, as Viz (major manga and anime licensor) has recently announced the acquisition of four feature-length live action properties.

swanjun | November 15, 18:28 CET

<---- snip ---->

[banned] - Simon

[ edited by Simon on 2007-11-15 16:04 ]

betwixt | November 15, 18:49 CET

Hopefully they will spend some of that money on the script to give the man something he can really show off with.

zeitgeist | November 15, 19:35 CET

I've got a feeling that given who is scripting, directing, and acting in the movie it may turn out better than expected by many a DB and DBZ fan. Even should it tank ( which I doubt ), getting that size role in a really big budget (I heard 100 million being bandied about )film should help him to get noticed bu casting directors.

cousine | November 17, 23:57 CET