sholio | oh god my braaaaaaiiiiin

The casting is very, very bizarre, even setting aside the whole whitewashing issue.

From what I'd heard, I was expecting Avatar-style whitewashing fail, but it's much weirder than that! Right now I'm just wondering if the whole casting department was on LSD or something.

Okay, I am officially scared of the movie. I just went to wikipedia to look at the cast list again and saw that there are some original characters, one of whom is a school bully and the other is a classmate of Goku's.

WHAT

WHAT??????????

I had never read any plot synopses and just (naively, I guess!) assumed it was, you know, a live-action version of the story, not something completely made up with some characters with the same names as the Dragonball cast... D:

Oh my god it's a high school AU! It's a canon high school AU!!!!!

DBZ was the fandom that I credit with turning me off AUs (until SGA lured me back in) because you could not turn around in that fandom without tripping over goddawful high school AUs written by 13-year-olds. I still look askance at high school AUs, even though I can read other sorts without kneejerking now. I swear, it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but at the time it seemed like every other fic in the fandom was a high school AU.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or hide ...

I love high school AUs, but I don't really want to read ones by teenagers. :p (The fact that the DBZ ones were probably all horribly Americanised, even if they purported to take place at a Japanese school, just adds to the badness.)

I had no plans to see the movie just on principal, but now I'm curious to hear just how bad it really is.

The fact that the DBZ ones were probably all horribly Americanised, even if they purported to take place at a Japanese school, just adds to the badness.

YES! That's it exactly ... they were basically, at heart, "Goku and Bulma and Vegeta and ChiChi go to my high school", and the result was exactly as awful as you would imagine.

I don't have anything in theory against high school AUs; it's just that encountering so many bad ones seems to have turned me off them in a major way (though I can still be lured in occasionally).

I'm sort of morbidly curious about the movie; it's certainly not something I would want to pay to see in the theatre, but it might be fun with a group of friends and a lot of alcohol ...

For me it's not particularly the school setting so much as I like writing about teens and kids, and I like writing stuff set when I was a teen/kid, and thus I write stuff like Life and Written Your Own Directions.

*nods* I should add that I do enjoy yours; they're very different from what I associate with "high school AU" in my head, and I think it's mainly because you're writing about people, and not trying to live out a "my favorite characters transfer to my high school!" sort of fantasy.

My own adolescence was unpleasant enough that it's only been the last few years that I've gained enough distance I can enjoy reading and writing about teenage characters, and I suspect that this ties into it, too ...

Yeah, I have managed to avoid coming across that genre of high school AU for the most part (I think the closest is the sort of American transfer student to Hogwarts story, and even those I only see through the filter of

babb_chronicles and other badfic comms) so it's not really what I think of first.

It is, isn't it? I can't wait for that movie!

It's either going to be so awful it's hilarious, or just awful. I am currently waffling between which I consider more likely. :D

Did you see the trailer? I'm betting my money on hilarious. :D

That was pretty much my reaction right there. :D

Also, did you see Bulma yet? Gah.

I'm still ... kinda torn on Bulma. My first thought when I looked at the pictures of her was "NOOOOO!", because what I loved most about her in the manga/anime was her nerdiness and her big-sister thing with little Goku, and it looks like the movie has turned her into a random, hot chick on a motorcycle. But I was watching clips here and I don't think she's as far off from the original as I'd thought. (Also, her hair is at least *tinted* blue.) She still doesn't have the right Bulma gestalt [does that mean in German what it's come to mean in English?] to really work for me, but I *was* kinda bouncing in my chair when she uncapsulized the motorcycle, which is probably a bad sign for my sanity. *g*

I hope you're right. Bulma was one of my favourite characters. :D

And to be honest, I don't know? If it's come to mean form or built, then yes. Otherwise, no.

We can be insane together! *bounces*

Oh, I *adored* Bulma. She was definitely one of my favorites on the show -- actually, one of my favorite female anime characters in general, I think.

You know, I think "gestalt" actually does mean something different in English, then. We usually use it to mean "the whole thing" -- everything that sums up a concept or object or person.

Yeah, mine too. I think it's because she was such a strong, independent woman who was ~~feared~~ respected by her friends without being too cold (no one could ever call Bulma cold *g*). Even when she was in danger, she was never the damsel in distress. I admired that about her.

Huh. Yeah, that'd be pretty different, unless there's a German version I'm unaware of. But as far as I know, the German "Gestalt" is entirely superficial (and somewhat old-fashioned). "Er war von ansehnlicher Gestalt" = he was easy to look at.

*snort* But hey, at least he knows how to act! (and would he be green and bald with pointy ears?)

...would he be green and bald with pointy ears?

That's the mental image that's currently breaking my brain, yes. :D

Bahahahaha! XD

I really just about died laughing when I saw that. It's just so ODD!

And now, I'm actually willing to see this flick. Maybe even on the big screen.

Hee! Better you than me, I think. XD I'll probably watch it eventually, but definitely not in the theatre, I don't think.

I don't know anything about this movie, but I can see the resemblance around the eyes. ;-)

I am curious what he'll look like in makeup...

That is... weird. The casting people do know that James dear is like 5 feet tall, right? Is he gonna be like wearing stilts? Or are they gonna do the Hagrid CGI thing. I was a huge fan of DBZ and look forward to the movie, however silly and wrong it might be.

Stilts! Bwaha! I loved the show and wrote a bunch of fanfic for it ... the movie is scaring me just a bit, though. *g* I suppose that if we go into it with low expectations, we can't be disappointed ...?

Okay, see, I was okay with that until I went back and read "live-action".

WOW.

Yeah, that's the really scary part ... :D

This is going to be interesting. I heard rumor - and I emphasize rumor - that Keanu Reeves was going to be in it, but I don't know if that's fact (and I keep forgetting to check). Is it?. Nothing against Keanu, he's an okay guy (from the little I know about him) but if he is going to be in it then it's going to be... special.

But I try not to judge a movie until I see it. For one, I'm pretty dang easy to please ;). For another, every time I do make assumptions, I always end up pleasently surprised by how wrong my assumptions were.

He's not on imbd.com if he is. I think it's going to be more than special enough without him, though, from the sound of things ...

I heard about this a while ago. And kept having to hear it because I kept disbelieving it every time; I'm still trying to figure out if someone is hoaxing IMDB or what, because, um. Yes.

This movie looks like it might be hysterical, but somehow I doubt it's going to help my arguments that DBZ really isn't as terrible as the Western anime fan collective wants you to think XPPPP

(have you seen Toriyama's thoughts on the fiasco? He's been very "...")

I'm still trying to figure out if someone is hoaxing IMDB or what, because, um. Yes.

Ha, I KNOW. I had to do a bit of googling after I saw that last night just to make sure that it wasn't someone messing with IMDB. But apparently it's true, because I found a clip on Youtube where he's talking about it (and is utterly adorable about it; apparently he's got a little kid, is familiar with the cartoon and he's totally geeked out about playing the role). Now I kinda hope the whole movie doesn't suck as much as it looks like it's going to, because I feel bad for the actor. XD

(I don't even want to know what Toriyama thinks of it! Poor guy...)

Edit: Wow, he really got into it ...! Here's another Youtube clip where he talks about going to bat to get the character's makeup done right ("I'd rather be fired than mess up Piccolo") ... I think he might be a bigger DBZ fan than I am. XD

Edited 2009-03-12 04:49 (UTC)

...Okay, James Marsters wins the ADORKABLE GEEK award of the year. (I kind of am in love with the guy and I've never even seen Buffy...) And yeah, it's gonna suck...but maybe Piccolo won't? (I hope he doesn't - Piccolo's one of my favorite characters, after Vegeta...well, he was the first major redemption char, and I am *such* a sucker for that.)

Toriyama weighed in here (http://dbthemovie.com/2009/02/08/akira-toriyama-comments-on-evolution/)...he's had a strange relationships with DBZ anyway, since it went on rather longer than he wanted it to, and I don't think he had much to do with GT anyway...

(sorry for all the edits, I suck at this whole WRITING MY NATIVE LANGUAGE thing XP

Edited 2009-03-12 09:33 (UTC)

HAHAHA!!!!

That was my reaction ... :D

LOL!! Well, he pics interesting roles, good for him.

Yeah, I actually felt kind of bad for him, but I've been looking up Youtube clips (see my comment to xparrot above) and he appears to be totally geeked out about playing the role ... either that, or he lies very well. *g*

oh god my braaaaaaiiiiin

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