I wasn’t that much of a James Marsters fan back in the Buffy the Vampire days. For some reason, that character never worked for me (although to he honest, I was never that much of a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the first place). But for some reason, when he switched over to the spin off, Angel, I just loved the character (Spike) and started to really appreciate the screen presence Marsters has. His short stint on Smallville was also amazing.
At any rate, I’ve always been a little baffled by that lack of quality roles Marsters has been offered since his Angel days ended. He was pretty much considered a heartthrob, had s solid screen presence and seemed to be ready to break out… but that big break never came. How sad for the rest of us.
Then came news that Marsters landed the role of Piccolo, the villain, in the upcoming Dragonball Z movie. He recently talked just a little about the project and our friends at Cinimatical offer us this:
The actor told TV Guide: “Oh, Dragonball is the coolest television cartoon in the last 50,000 years. It’s got a Shakespearean sense of good and evil. The movie has incredible action scenes with characters with unbelievable powers. It’s going to be really visually exciting.”
Sadly, even the addition of James Marters, Chow-Yun Fat (Master Roshi), Justin Chatwin (Goku), and Emily Rossum (Bulma) doesn’t change the fact that I think this movie is a mistake. That’s not a knock on the TV cartoon at all… it’s actually a compliment. That show can not be turned into a live action film with any sense of the spirit of the original because the original was so perfectly suited to its medium (animation). Putting that show on the big screen in a live action adaptation is going to either:
1) Seriously break with the spirit of the show and piss off all the existing fans. Or…
2) Stick to the spirit outside its original medium (animation) and look totally ridiculous.
And for the record, I still don’t think this film will have a following large enough to make this into a franchise.
