Few titles receive the kind of contempt and hatred that Dragonball Evolution is doing. For years before the movie came out, there was a lot of demand from fans of Dragon Ball Z for a live-action adaptation. While there have been previous live-action adaptations of the source material – Dragon Ball: The Magical Creatures and Dragon Ball: Son Goku Fights, Son Goku Wins for example, there had yet to be a big-budget Hollywood adaptation that fans believed would do the series justice on the big screen.
At one point, it was announced that 20th Century Fox had acquired the rights to make a series of films based on the Dragon Ball franchise, and fans eagerly speculated about what they would look like. The film’s development began in 2002 and the world got to see the final result in 2009. To say the critical and fan reception was poor would be… to say the least. Still, many fans will be surprised to learn that if it wasn’t for this movie, the Dragon Ball franchise would most likely still be dead and dormant, and it wouldn’t experience the newfound popularity it is experiencing today.
Dragon Ball GT ends the franchise
When Akira Toriyama put down his pen and decided he was done… Dragon Ballhe meant it. There would be no more adventures for Goku and his friends. The Z Fighters would officially retire. Not wanting to let a popular series die just yet, Toei Animation reached out to Toriyama and offered to make more. Dragon Ball anime without him, and he gave them their blessing. The result of that deal was: Dragon Ball GT, a series long despised and ended with a lamentation. Today, the series has been re-evaluated by fans, but the series’ failure meant they were the last fans to see Goku for years, and the demand for more anime was surprisingly minimal.
Sure, America longed for more Dragon Ball because the series arrived on American shores later than most countries, but for the most part, the world had moved on with the franchise. It was American fans who were most vocal about wanting a live-action movie from the franchise, thinking that the high-octane action sequences would make for an excellent live-action movie (they even started dreaming that their favorite directors could do it). would undertake the project). American studios took note of this desire and offers were soon made to Toriyama to bring his creation to life. For reasons we may never know, Toriyama ultimately chose 20th Century Fox to bring his creation to life. Thus began an almost ten-year journey to turn around Dragon Ball Z into a live-action Hollywood movie.
Dragonball Evolution Wasn’t Super Saiyan
The story of Dragonball Evolution is almost as much a tragedy as the final product. We could probably write at least three to five articles about the movie’s troubled production (and we might one of these days), but to save time we’ll just say the movie was five years into Hell’s development before things came eventually together. It was decided that Goku would not be a free-spirited child, but rather a moody teenager. It would adapt the King Piccolo storyline as the first movie and eventually move on to the Saiyan Saga that Americans were more familiar with later on. While many of the actors were seasoned professionals, fans were quick to point out that none of the characters behaved like their anime counterparts.
The action scenes were terrible and the music was lifeless. Critics found the film a confusing mess, while fans of the anime felt it was a mess overall. The box office was abysmal, with a worldwide box office total of $58.2 million. While this was over the $30 million production budget, the film’s marketing was not taken into account. Not only did 20th Century Fox lose money on the film, but the poor reception caused a series to be canceled. Given the poor reception the fans gave it, many fans decided it was for the best that nothing came of it. Or did it?
Akira Toriyama hated the movie so much it inspired him
While it was pretty obvious Toriyama wasn’t interested in doing much with Dragon Ball more and had virtually no input into the film, he decided to watch anyway Dragonball Evolution and see what the finished product looked like. He was shocked by what he saw. His creation, which had made him a household name, was slaughtered beyond recognition. He couldn’t believe this was the final result of the studio. As he claimed in an interview for the 30th Anniversary Dragon Ball Super History Book years later:
Dragon Ball was once a thing of the past for me, but after that I got mad about the live-action movie, rewrote an entire movie script, and now I’m complaining about the quality of the new TV anime, so it seems DB is so much like has grown to me that I can’t leave it alone.
So there you have it: as much as we all hate Dragonball EvolutionToriyama himself hated it so much that he decided to return to the franchise so it wouldn’t be the last word on his legacy. So make your YouTube videos and write your mean comments, but if you enjoy the Dragon Ball Super anime as much as i am you might want that old dvd of Dragonball Evolution a kiss. Yes, I know you own a copy (and no, I won’t tell anyone).
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