Here we go again...

I've been hearing about a live action movie based on Dragonball for quite some time. Years. Ever since I first got into anime back in the day. Even before the whole army of "movies-based-on-video-games" were released, and consequently destroyed their source material. Back then, my thought was, "Oh, that would be cool." Nowadays, I'm obviously more skeptical.

I've come to expect that no movie from Hollywood based on an external source material that is not a book will ever be good. And the reason for this is two-fold. One, most of the time someone is making the movie not because they loved the source material and want to do it justice, but because they want to capitalize on that source's popularity as quickly as possible and make a quick buck. And two, because the SOURCE is the best place for the material in question, which is why it was a video game, anime series, TV show, or whatever else in the first place.

But consider this: Is that really so bad? I mean, come on, what are you expecting to find? Oscar worthy performances? A story so engaging it wins the best screenplay Golden Globe? If you answered yes, then answer me this: Is that what you expected to find when you watched or played the source material? I certainly hope not, else you are a fool. We play video games for entertainment. We watch anime for entertainment. Therefore, I think if people would go to the movies based on these sources with the same mentality, the general opinion of them would be in a more positive light.

Did Doom have a good story? It wasn't bad, but that's not why I watched it. I watched it to see the monsters that I spent COUNTLESS hours blasting away on my computer brought to life. Max Payne had a HORRIBLE story. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. But I got to see Mark Wahlberg do all the shoot dodging that I got to do in the game.

So anyway, back to Dragonball. It looks as though the story is going to be a combination of the original "Dragon Ball", and the start of "Dragonball Z". You've got Goku trying to get the Dragonballs gathered up before Piccolo does (Dragon Ball), so he can defeat the Saiyans (Dragonball Z). Fine, I can live with that story.

The movie has a few good things going for it. For starters, it's directed by James Wong. He is responsible for most of my favorite episodes of The X-Files. He helped write the story, as well, so that's very encouraging. Secondly, Chow Yun-Fat is playing Master Roshi. That's pretty huge. And lastly, James Marsters looks really, really good as Piccolo.

The movie comes out on April 8th, 2009.