Movies News Talk
Should another live-action Dragon Ball film ever be produced, it cannot mercilessly ignore the first 195 chapters of Goku's original manga tale.
Getting right a live-action Dragon Ball film would be quite challenging, and choosing how to portray Goku's early years would be among its toughest challenges. Not that long ago, the term "best live-action anime adaptation" was the equivalent of stating "best way to pull out your own teeth." With the necessary love and dedication, mercifully Netflix's One Piece showed that even the most fanciful anime can transition into deserving live-action films. Another shot at live-action Dragon Ball seems natural given Hollywood remakes of Naruto, One Punch-Man, and several more on tap.
Obviously, Hollywood has been there before. From casting and characterizing to the action sequences and mythology, the abject catastrophe that was 2009's Dragonball Evolution misinterpreted the source material on practically every level. Choosing which part of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball chronology to modify proved to be one of Dragonball Evolution's several mistakes. Any future adaptation would probably skip Goku's first 194 chapters, hoping to stay clear of the same rocky seas.
One rare anime series that experienced its greatest popularity spike several years after first airing is Dragon Ball. The most identifiable, iconic form of Goku still burnt into the national mind is the grown-up warrior fighting Frieza on Namek who transforms into a Super Saiyan and bickers with Vegeta. But the first 199 manga chapters in Akira Toriyama's work chronicle Goku's early childhood escapades, and Saiyans are completely absent.
A live-action film would have to skip past Goku's upbringing totally - approximately 200 chapters - and go straight into the Saiyan epic, which marked the birth of the Dragon Ball Z era, to capture the most iconic and adored elements of the Dragon Ball series. This would let the live-action film introduce all the components one expects a Dragon Ball story to offer: the sci-fi overtones, flying martial arts combat, Goku as a grown man, and essential supporting characters like Vegeta and Gohan.
It would seem strange indeed to create a Dragon Ball film without those basic elements, and it helps somewhat explain why Dragonball Evolution went so catastrophically wrong. Though not yet the fully-grown father from Dragon Ball Z, James Wong's live-action effort sought to condense Akira Toriyama's opening 195 chapters into a single movie, introducing an adolescent Goku who was older than the child protagonist from Dragon Ball's early volumes. The resultant mishmash only vaguely reflected the great Toriyama tale cherished by so many, not fit either age.
Cutting Goku's early years from a live-action Dragon Ball film poses two challenges. First of all, those chapters include an introduction to the Dragon Balls themselves as well as crucial background information including the first interactions between Goku and many of his buddies. Second, although not as action-packed and intense as later sagas, Dragon Ball's early chapters are nonetheless really fun. Dragonball Evolution shows that none of the sagas portraying Goku as a child are epic or strong enough to maintain a feature-length blockbuster as efficiently as Dragon Ball Z's Saiyan saga or Frieza saga.
Any future live-action Dragon Ball film would thus have to balance how to portray the required basics from those first 195 chapters without overly focusing on Goku's history. Including a little preamble at the movie's opening would seem to be the clear fix. The next live-action Dragon Ball film might start with a flashback in which Goku and Bulma meet each other as young people and then fast-fire montage covering the Emperor Pilaf, Red Ribbon Army, and King Piccolo sagas before the film opens normally with Raditz on Earth.
Starting with Goku's battles before he became a father, an opening sequence outlining his adventures will acknowledge the whole scope of Goku's path while nevertheless providing a nice midway ground skipping to the interesting section. At least acknowledging that the Saiyan tale does not reflect Goku's first saving-the-world rodeo, a 15 to 20 minute prologue reviewing the story so far would That could only be seen as an insult to the source material if a live-action Dragon Ball film disregarded Goku's past and behaved like the Saiyan saga marks the very beginning of his journey.
Adapting Dragon Ball's first 194 chapters on a completely other media might be a preferable approach. Successful movie franchises are increasingly branching out into TV shows as streaming becomes more popular; Sonic the Hedgehog coexisting with Paramount+'s Knuckles TV show is a perfect illustration of how this phenomena can function in reality. Should a live-action Dragon Ball film covering the Saiyan story be popular, a TV series might then feature a younger actor as Goku and record his efforts gathering the Dragon Balls, competing in the Tenkaichi Budokai, undermining the Red Ribbon Army, etc.
Although more significantly a "Young Goku" spinoff would have a greater chance of accurately maintaining the whimsical, lighter tone that dominated that early era of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga, Goku's boyhood exploits are considerably more suited for the TV format than a 2-hour movie. Conversely, a cinematic adaptation would have to contend with pressure to adopt the action-based mentality that made Dragon Ball Z so successful, therefore running the danger of replicating Dragonball Evolution's errors all over again.