Dragonball?? No!

It's no secret that Hollywood is making a killing off of video game adaptations, cartoon nostalgia films, computer animated family features, sequels and superheroes. As part of my Google desktop, I get news clips from Rotten Tomatoes (no, I don't reference Rotten Tomatoes for opinions, just gossip). Each tidbit of news is referring to some kind of film that fits into one of those aforementioned categories: Punisher, Seagal's Under Siege 3, Prince of Persia, Kung Fu Panda 2, a Yogi Bear CGI hybrid film, 300 pt. 2, Iron Man 2, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and the list goes on.

Another movie on that list is Dragonball. I absolutely loved Dragonball as a kid. I would buy the Japanese manga books and just look at the pictures to get the story, not having any idea what the characters on the page were saying. Those characters were everything I drew and they fit every definition of cool until I got into high school (after which point I became too cool, apparently). Though I think it's kind of silly now, Dragonball (technically, Dragonball Z) will always have a piece of my childhood heart, lodged snugly in my nostalgia. Today, browsing these infernal tidbits of "news" I see that there is a teaser trailer for the upcoming live action film. Against my better judgement, I clicked on the link, causing a slight aneurysm. The film looks like an inane mix of teen drama, a B kung fu picture, Ewe Boll, cleavage, and someone's idea of a bad joke. Awful! It's not that I expected to like a film adaptation of Dragonball - my childhood love will be soiled no matter what - but to stray so far from anything resembling the real thing and investing so little into "authenticity" is just so disheartening. I almost wish the Wachowskis had the rights to and interest in the material instead - though I haven't seen Speed Racer, the investment into that kind of visual aesthetic seems to come a lot closer to the spirit of anime than what I see in this god awful trailer.

It's not that Hollywood's interest in comics and video games or whatever is so terrible - I liked The Dark Knight as much as anyone else and I look forward to The Watchmen - but sometimes enough is enough. The proliferation of garbage is just shoving me into a corner of cynicism and distaste for popular culture. So, while the content on this site may seem to focus too much on art house pictures or academically-centered pieces, I feel I have some kind of responsibility to take the movies seriously. The gap between art and entertainment seems to have widened within the last ten years, or maybe that's just me. Watching old Hollywood films - films that were as mainstream and popular as these films are now - makes me wish for days in which I was merely an idea. Anyway, no one's forcing me to watch these movies; I just wanted to vent. When I saw that Dragonball trailer, I felt offended. Ha. Maybe I should stop reading these news bits.

Here's the trailer I'm talking about: