As with any adaptation of a TV Series to the big screen there are changes. The purists stomp their feet barking at the inconsistencies like an under socialized comic book collector who hangs out in the shop to debate. Like it matters. Well some of the more die hard anime fans are about to be in an uproar again as the hotly debated adaptation of Dragonball heads to the big screen.
Now one of the lead stars of the film James Marsters has come out to reveal that there are going to be plenty of changes, but he is still confident.
James Marsters, who plays the villainous Lord Piccolo in the movie, recently told the Japanese magazine Jump Square (via the Dragonball movie site) that there are plenty of changes. “Definitely the story of this movie is different from the original.” Uh oh. “But it’s a necessary change,” continues Marsters, “because we need to condense the long story of the original for a movie.”Another bad sign for the purists is Marsters’ admission that “some characters in the original don’t appear in the movie.” — Besides, as Marsters points out, “Though there are differences between the two, I think it is all right if the core part of Dragonball remains.”
Hopefully, that’ll be good enough for the die hards and the newcomers, as well.
The casting has already been challenged but the real fans are upset over the omission of some of the characters that started out the Dragonball saga, and how some of the characters that didn’t arrive until Dragonball Z (the second volume in the story) are going to be introduced or referenced.
There is a LOT of story in Dragonball. They are trying to condense five American seasons of the series to one movie. And they want it to be a good story that works on screen. They are not attempting to retell the Dragonball story, or continue where the cartoon left off. This is all new stuff. Personally I have no emotional investment in Dragonball so I fall in their target demographic. If they ONLY wanted the Dragonball fans to be drawn to this, they could have gone purist. As it is, they are hoping to capture the spirit of the anime and make something new from it.
As a die hard Transformers fan I have seen MANY incarnations over the years, and honestly I think the franchise is better off for it. I am not a fan of all of the variations, but at the core it is still Transformers. The movie is just one more version. Perhaps the same could be said about Dragonball. You can still be a fan of the movie continuity as well as the anime continuity, or the manga line etc. Marsters is content that the spirit of Dragonball is still there, so the fans can appreciate it in parallel.
