Dragon Ball Z Kai to Air on Nicktoons

Dragon Ball Z Kai to Air on Nicktoons

It has been confirmed. Everyone in the U.S. will get the chance to watch Dragon Ball Z Kai on television this spring. Here is an ...

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Dragonball Evolution to Release in Theaters Again?

Dragonball Evolution to Release in Theaters Again?

There have been numerous rumored reports stating that the Dragonball Evolution film will re-release into theaters. However, nothing is neither official or confirmed on this. ...

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New Dragonball Evolution Set Pictures

New Dragonball Evolution Set Pictures

Thanks to our user Iron Maiden, we have acquired a ton of new pictures from the set of Dragonball Evolution. This set mainly consists of ...

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FUNimation's Involvement on the Live Action Dragon Ball Film

This is the second edition of our classic news articles. This portion gets into how FUNimation was originally set to work with 20th Century FOX ...

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Dragonball Evolution World Premiere Footage

For those that missed out seeing this huge event live last year (in which we covered) can now check out a few clips of the ...

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James Marsters talks Dragonball Evolution Sequel

James Marsters talks Dragonball Evolution Sequel

Sci FI Talk has posted a new interview today with James Marsters. Although it is mainly about his other projects, they do get into some ...

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411 Talks with James Marsters on the Sequel Again

About a year back James Marsters told 411 Mania that the sequel has been green lit. This year he now says he has yet to ...

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You are browsing the archive for 2009 March.

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HQ Dragonball Evolution Clips

March 31, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Movie Scenes by avenged

IGN has posted six “semi” new high quality clips from Dragonball Evolution! Check out a few below and visit IGN for the rest.

Dragonball Energy

You Are The Key

I Will Have The Dragonball

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Message from Emmy Rossum

March 31, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Interviews by avenged

It seems Emmy Rossum (who plays Bulma) has a little message to anyone doubting this movie.

“It is called ‘Dragonball Evolution’ because it is an evolution of the series, and I think that when you’re going from a comic to live-action things are going to change,” Rossum explained in an exclusive chat with MTV News. “When you take it into 3D that way, it’s just going to be a little different. but I think the core of what it it and the core of the story and the core of the characters is the same.”

And while Rossum admits that she’s tried her best not to pay attention to the detractors out in message board land in terms of the overall look and feel of the adaptation, she feels that what changes have been made will be for the better, and are a natural progression when a comic makes the jump to the screen.

“When you’re talking about translating a comic into real life, a lot of things change,” said Rossum. “My hair isn’t all blue in the film and Justin Chatwin’s hair isn’t 10-feet high, so I think everything changes a bit or gets lost in translation, so I hope that [the fans are] pleased.”

Here is the full video interview.

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Dragonball Sequels Exclusive

March 30, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Dragonball Reborn News, Interviews, Movie Cast by avenged

IGN recently spoke with James Marsters and Justin Chatwin (Lord Piccolo and Son Goku) which whom spilled the beans on the upcoming sequels to Evolution.

Firstly, Marsters told us why he hopes the film is successful enough to get a sequel and how many DB movies he’d like to see: “I hope [the movie does well] because my character only really gets interesting in the second film, I mean he’s interesting now! But his journey is really developed in the script for the second movie.”

He went on: “All I know is I’ve been signed to three movies, but I would like to make five — seven of them. You could just pretty much paint by numbers using the wealth of source material to easily get the seven films. There’s that much there.”

Meanwhile, Chatwin is also obviously thinking about Dragonball as a series of movies, with the actor seeing Evolution as an introduction piece to the wider universe.

dragonball evolution 20090330074930352 Dragonball Sequels Exclusive

Marsters as Lord Piccolo and Chatwin as Goku.


He said: “There’s a whole generation of kids waiting to be introduced to Dragonball, so this first movie is really important for that. I mean the main plot is the battle between Piccolo and Goku, but this first film still serves to introduce the characters and where they’re from and what they’re deals are. And so to cover that ground really takes up most of the first movie.”

He goes on: “I know what they have in store for the second one and it’s really cool! It’s more in the vein of the Dragonball saga… it goes into other places, there’s other characters, other fighters and there’s a lot of action that is just really awesome.

“It actually goes more into Dragon Ball Z land and it’s just really exciting. It goes into the whole legend of Dragonball. I cant really say more than that, but it made me think this is a cool franchise to be a part off because there’s so much we haven’t shown yet.”

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New Release Date

March 27, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Movie News by avenged

20th Century FOX has pushed Dragonball Evolution back from the 8th to the 10th of April for the US. Iam guessing this is for weekend promotion since the 10th is a Friday. It has also been reported that the domestic version will be 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Source

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Sneak Peeks From MTV

March 26, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Movie Scenes by avenged

MTV has posted several new clips from Dragonball Evolution in high quality. View a few of them below!

Goku and Chi Chi at school

The Beginning of the Apocalypse

Goku vs Gohan

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Two New HQ Clips

March 26, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Movie Scenes by avenged

IGN has posted two high quality clips from Dragonball Evolution.

Find the Dragonballs

Evil Twin

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Cast and Crew Interviews

March 26, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Interviews, Movie Cast, Movie Crew by avenged

Several new cast and crew interviews have hit the internet. The first (and longer) one comes from UGO Movie Blog.

Chow Yun-Fat

chow yun fat dragonball Cast and Crew InterviewsHe fires two guns simultaneously better than any other actor living or deceased.  He’s fought on paper-thin branches in the lush forests of QING China.  He’s danced with Jodie Foster while commanding his own kingdom.  And now international superstar Chow Yun-Fat takes on his what is perhaps his most diverse challenge yet; Master Roshi, mentor to Earth-saving hero Goku in the upcoming film version of the wildly successful Japanese mangas Dragonball.

Chow was not familiar with the Dragonball series until the role in the film was brought to his attention.  At the time of the manga release, the actor says, “I was so busy doing all of John Woo’s movies, I didn’t see it when it first came out.” But a number of elements in the script appealed to him; the action, the humor, the mythology, but most of all, the relationship between Roshi and his student Goku (played by Justin Chatwin).  Their dynamic was key to the actor in both his decision to take the role and how he played the part.  “It’s not a traditional master and student relationship, it’s more like a friendship,” he says.

In the manga, Roshi’s character is portrayed as something of a dirty old man.  But Chow explains how the character has been toned down, “The way it is now is very appropriate for my character.” He then expounds, “Master Roshi is a very funny guy with a sense of humor.” says Chow .  “I never have played this kind of character and for me it’s very brand new; comedy, drama, action, all the CGI.” Having done comedy in his native Hong Kong films before, Western comedy is something the actor was quite new to.  He found this to be the most challenging aspect of his role.  Speaking of comedy, he says, “It’s very cultural. It’s not easy.  (Writer/Director) James Wong gave me a lot of room to create Master Roshi,” he says.  “All the time I’m over the top and he’s telling me, Mr. Chow, too much, too much.” Compared to his previous work, the actor explains, “Action is more physical, comedy is difficult for every actor, except Jim Carrey.  I try and I hope that (people) like it.”

And while the actor is very used to squibs and heavy physical stunts, CGI is something he’s relatively new to.  “I did some wire work in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but not like in this movie.  This movie is like forty to fifty percent CGI.” He describes the process of acting against a blue or green screen as quite demanding, or more specifically, like “Acting to the air.”

Chow also cites the opportunity for diversity that Dragonball affords him.  He mentions the limited amount of roles Hollywood typically affords Asian actors.  Usually, he says he’ll be a “Gangster, a waiter, a drug dealer.  This is a great opportunity to let an audience see the other side of Chow Yun-Fat.  They can see the guy in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or maybe they see the King of Siam. I want more different directions for my characters.” And his ideal role?  “A character who doesn’t speak a word.” Then he adds with a laugh, “I wouldn’t need a dialogue coach at all.”

James Marsters

james marsters dragon ball movie stills mq 08 Cast and Crew Interviews“I’d been a fan for five years and had seen ninety-eight percent of the Dragonball episodes before I got the role,” says James Marsters who plays Big Bad Piccolo, archnemesis of Goku in Twentieth Century Fox’s upcoming live action adaptation of the immensely popular Japanses manga.  Then he adds, “I’ve got a son who will kill me if I get this wrong.”

Marsters, best known for his infamous role as Spike, the seductively nefarious vampire in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is in full makeup (a four hour ordeal) waiting for a climactic battle scene to be lit on the set of the film in Durango, Mexico.  “When I first got cast, I thought that I was not right for Piccolo,” Marsters continues.  “I have to give it to (screenwriter/director) Jim Wong, I understand why he cast me now, now I feel like there’s not another human being who can do the role.”

Marsters doesn’t consider his character to be a villain in the traditional sense.  “Piccolo was working with the Mystics.  He did one thing the Mystics didn’t agree with, and instead of talking about it, they threw him in jail.  And it was not a nice a jail, it was like where no molecule in your body moves for two thousand years.  I don’t think Piccolo’s evil, he’s just really mad.” The actor expounds by comparing this aspect of the film to literary classics.  “In Shakespeare, there really are no villains or heroes, there would just be people behaving in a villainous manner or a heroic manner; it depends on what chapter of their life that you happened to climb in on.  And I think Dragonball has the same kind of universe where people start really evil and get redeemed in a fairly realistic way.  I think that takes it away from white hats and black hats stapled on characters.”
Marsters also took on the role for personal reasons.  When speaking of both the film and the manga, Marsters comments, “I’m a fan because it helped me raise my son to understand his aggression and his anger is not a bad thing.  It’s a dragon you have to ride.  You can’t kill your own dragon, but at the same time, you can’t let your dragon run you out of control.  Dragonball helps to teach young boys that being a real man is being a goofy man sometimes. Being a kind man, being a gentle man.  And that has nothing to do with being weak.  That is a good role model and it’s helped me explain to my son how to be a man.”

Knowing what magnitude Piccolo holds in the story, Marsters has put his own unique stamp on the role.  “I really wanted the character to be hungry, old, decrepit and ugly.  And for that to work for me, I had to look in the mirror and think myself ugly and decrepit.  I wanted a makeup that my girlfriend would not want to kiss.” Then he pauses and comments, “Which I got, and which is really frustrating.”

Writer and Director James Wong

james wong dragonball Cast and Crew InterviewsTaking a break from the genre he’s most known for (see Final Destinations 1 and 3 and the X-Files for more on this), writer/director James Wong turns his talents to adapting Akira Toriyama’s hugely popular manga Dragonball to the big screen in a tentpole film larger in scope than anything the filmmaker has undertaken before.

Wong was not all that familiar with the series before he began work on the movie.  “Except through my kids, who were watching Dragonball Z, I didn’t really know too much about it.  When I heard about it, I thought ‘wow,’ I don’t know what to do with this thing, it’s so crazy.” But that was enough to spark his interest.  “I looked at the mangas and it gave me a whole different perspective of what this movie could be.  So I read the books and I was totally enthralled by them.  They’re really charming and fun.”

Wong found himself dealing with the challenge of staying faithful to his source material and adapting the work so it can be enjoyed by all audiences, not just diehard fans of the original.  “There’s eighteen books, so there’s an incredible amount of story that can be put into one movie.” He explains further, “I also wanted to age up Goku, because in the mangas he’s only about twelve years old and it’s not until the end that he becomes a teenager.  So we wanted to start him on his eighteenth birthday, and that changes a lot. But I think the most important thing in the movie is to capture the tone and the fun that Dragonball is.  It was a matter of trying to figure out the journey for Goku, how he comes to realize who he is.”

Adapting a work of such fantastical depths was another pressing aspect of putting the film together.  “We obviously had to take out parts that we could do.  The mangas are so fantastic, there are so many different places you can go.” The filmmaker’s goal is to take Goku from relatability into this otherworldly universe.  Wong explains, “As he goes on his adventure, things that he visits and environments that he’s in become much more fantastic.  We wanted to bring in people who don’t know Dragonball into the world and hopefully (that) allows them to go out, look back at the Manga and get caught up in it the same way like I did.”

Another aspect of the picture Wong is looking to make an impression with are the fight sequences.  He says, “One of the things Fox asked was, ‘how is this gonna look different and feel from other martial arts movies that we’ve seen?’” From this question, the filmmakers responded with two different approaches.  The first involved the use of state-of-the-art high-tech tiny cameras—so small they can actually be fitted directly onto an actor. Wong explains, “Our visual effects supervisor suggested you can have actually a “fist-cam.” To which he demonstrates by indicating an area on his arm he’d mount the camera and then throwing a slow-motion punch.  The other approach involved shutter speed.  Wong says, “(Director of photography) Robert McLachlan showed me this thing on YouTube where a scientist poked a hole in a balloon shot at a thousand frames per second. And when the pin hit the balloon, the balloon broke apart immediately, but the water retained the shape (of the balloon), and then it started cascading down.  We thought that was a really interesting look, and we thought how can we employ this technology, this camera within our fight sequences.  We built some moments around this incredible device.”

Ultimately, Wong speaks of his greatest hope in making Dragonball, the live action film.  “If we can get this movie to get people excited and have them read mangas, that would be the greatest thing, to introduce this world of Dragonball to the public and if they get into it, they’ll really get into the whole saga.  So I think this is a really special project and I’m really excited to be doing it.”

Producer & Costume Designer

dragonball evolution Cast and Crew InterviewsBringing a manga/video game/animated series to life is no small feat.  In order to successfully adapt the sights, tone and feel of the work, every department has to think way outside the box of what they’re normally accustomed to.  Writer/Director James Wong’s Dragonballscreenplay, based on Akira Toriyama’s massively successful series, creates a larger-than-life universe where an ordinary kid becomes a master warrior who defends the Earth from unspeakable aliens, proved to be a chief qualifier of this rule.

While the film is packed with stunts and gizmos of all shapes and sizes (weapons and gadgets range from a Humvee/tank built from spare parts to a small capsule that mutates into a motorcycle), Dragonball will also be a very visual effects-heavy film.  Producer Tim Van Rellim claims the movie will present, “A realistic future, you don’t know where you are, or what time period you’re in,” and to achieve this, somewhere close to eight hundred visual effects will be employed to bring the world to life.

But the aesthetic look of the film is only one aspect of the production.  Costume designer Mayes Rubeo was told to study Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai in order to capture the wardrobe style the filmmakers are going for.  In paying homage to Dragonball creator Toriyama, Rubeo explains, “We tried to make the costumes as close to a Japanese gee as we could.” She then continues by saying that while tradition was important, her department is also aware of the movie’s audience.  Alas, the costume department tried to modernize their costumes to a degree.  The result is a hybrid of Old East meets New West.

Costumes were tailored specifically to characters.  Rubeo says, “Piccolo (the movie’s predominant antagonist) was the most important guy in terms of power, so we wanted to give him a rich fabric, and elegant look, but also keep the interesting elements from the anime.” Conversely, Master Roshi, who serves as hero Goku’s teacher and mentor, is always seen sporting a Hawaiian shirt.  “He’s sort of like the Big Lebowski of them all,” Rubeo explains, “with an interesting philosophy.”

Propmaster Colin Thurston also found his team creating devices and gadgets not of this Earth.  With a dragonball locator, which is a palm-sized tracking device, Thurston was able to save the visual effects department a great deal of time and money.  “We’ve actually got a live action working object, which everyone is gonna think is really good but is really just light through a piece with computer graphics (drawn) on it,” he says with a smile.  The movie’s guns, of which there are a wide variety of types and calibers, were a long time in discussion before they were constructed.  “We had conversations about whether we were gonna adapt real guns to make them work, but you can never come up with a really good design that you don’t have to have the basis of a real gun on it,” says Thurston.  “So we went completely independently.”

Originally set to be released in August of 2008, Dragonball has been pushed to April 2009.  The producers seem relieved by this, as now they’ll have more time to render the movie’s effects to the level they were initially designed at.  A strong credo around the set is that the film is not just aimed at manga fans.  The filmmakers are looking to bring in a much wider audience, appealing to everyone between the ages of eight and thirty.

And here’s a new interview with James Marsters. This actually came from the magazine, Death Ray.

DR: So what liberties have you taken with Lord Piccolo?

JM: In the cartoon, Lord Piccolo is this old, wizened man. He looks like he is 95 years old and he’s green. He looks like a wart. He’s got so many wrinkles and he walks with a stick. He’s this crone figure in a big hood. But Piccolo is younger than that in our film, he’s more powerful than that, but he’s still old and in some ways decrepit. His transformation is something we’re going to save until later.

DR: Spike, Braniac, Captain John an now Lord Piccolo – you have a reputation for playing sympathetic monsters . . .

JM: I cut my teeth in regional theatre, which means we did a lot of Shakespeare because you didn’t have to pay any rights. And I’m very happy that I sis. IN Shakespeare there are not good and band guys. There are just people who are in conflict or who are making mistakes. That is reflected very much in Dragonball and Dragon Ball Z.

DR: What about Piccolo? You could have chosen to play him as irredeemably evil . .

JM: I don’t think he is evil at all! He has a very good reason for being angry. He was a victim of this binding spell. He was in a place where he couldn’t breathe, his molecules couldn’t move and a though would take a thousand years to come to the outside of his consciousness . . . simply for being in disagreement with the mystics., They rob him of his youth. When he finally bursts out of prison, he’s an old man and he’s mad! And so he has to find the dragonballs.

DR You’ve been filming in Mexico, but there is, of course, a Japanese influence everywhere. What kind of world is this?

JM: It’s just like the cartoon. It’s in the near future. It’s a multi national world where ethnicity is not really addressed. IN the cartoon they had a dog as president of the world! It’s the weirdest thing. So we’ve cast it from all over the world without an eye towards ethnicity.

Read the rest of the interview here!

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On The Set Articles

March 25, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Interviews, Movie Cast, Movie Crew by avenged

Super Hero Flix and Sci Fi Wire posted two articles about their set visit for Dragonball Evolution. They are pretty long so I have taken a brief couple paragraphs from each article.

“What we saw on the Mexico set of Dragonball Evolution”

In the scene, Goku and Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) are squaring off against Lord Piccolo: Marsters unrecognizably covered neck to toe in black armor and wearing full-head makeup that turns him into a greenish pointy-eared alien.

“It’s a four-hour makeup job,” Marsters, encased in layers of prosthetics, says between takes, sitting in a chair to keep cool so that he doesn’t sweat the makeup right off.

The set is lit: amber spots, smoke, bits of flame in the background. Master Roshi is on the ground, Goku on all fours. Piccolo strides up to them to finish them off. But Goko rises to punch Piccolo in the face. Piccolo parries the blow. Cut!

Part of the challenge has been to adapt and translate for an American audience a 20-year-old franchise that comprises by one count a manga series, three anime series, 17 animated feature films, a card game, several electronic games and a series of collectible action figures.

“I looked at all the mangas, the Dragon Ball 18 books that they provided me,” writer/director Wong says during a break in filming. He adds: “I didn’t really know too much about it, and Dragon Ball Z [a later animated series] is so different than Dragon Ball that, you know, when I heard about it, I thought, ‘Wow, I don’t know … what to do with this thing.’ Because it’s so crazy, with all the aliens and stuff like that. So I looked at the mangas, and it gave me a whole different perspective on what this movie can be.”

READ THE REST AT SCIFI WIRE

“We battle the cast of Dragonball Evolution in Durango, Mexico!”

Dragon Ball is especially important to the fans. They are the ones that will be most interested in seeing this property achieve glory on the big screen. Wong, of course, took that into consideration when crafting the look of the film, “There is an incredible amount of story that can’t be put into just one movie. The biggest change we had to make was with Goku. We wanted to age-up the character. In the mangas, he is twelve and fourteen. It’s not until the end that he becomes a teenager. We wanted to start with him on his eighteenth birthday. That changes a lot of things. The most important thing to capture in the movie is the tone. Its important to capture the fun that Dragonball offers. We had to take out the parts we couldn’t do. The mangas are just so fantastic. There are so many places we could go. We had to figure out this journey for Goku. How he comes to realize his destiny.”

More than anything, it was important for Wong to take a realistic approach to this world and its iconic characters. He had to ease the more fantastical elements in with great finesse, “In the manga, you are thrust into this magical world that is overrun with pterodactyls and dinosaurs, and a bunch of other crazy things. Those are in the book right from the get-go. Our approach was to make that world more relatable to those audience members who aren’t familiar with Dragon Ball. We slowly turned it into a more fantastical type of world as the story progresses. As Goku goes on his adventure, the things that he visits, and the creatures that he runs into become much more bizarre and crazy. My hope is that people will want to go back and check out the comics after seeing the movie. Then they will be even more excited about it. Hopefully, they will get caught up in it like I did with the mangas.”

Wong proved to be a very busy man on set, as he was bounced from one location to the next. While setting up the fight sequence in the Temple with Emmy and Joon, he was also hustling to set up shots inside a giant foam volcano. There, Justin Chatwin’s Goku and James Marsters’ Lord Piccolo would be throwing down in one of the greatest climactic battles ever put to screen. We started to follow Wong out to the volcano when he got sidetracked by a second unit team filming Chow Yun-Fat in the back of an Airstream trailer against a green screen. As the trailer was jostled by a couple of off-screen prop-masters, a giant fan blew Chow’s hair back. He was wearing Roshi’s signature Hawaiian shirt, and a pervert’s grin. Wong’s eyes lit up. He liked what he was seeing, “You guys are going to like this scene. He’s taking a joy ride. I think you will also like the fighting in this movie. One of the things Fox asked before we started shooting was, “What is this going to look like? Why is it so special? How are you going to make Dragonball different in feel from the other martial arts movies we have seen?” I started thinking about that a lot. Two different approaches came to me. We wanted to make these fight sequences really different. So we chose the Iconic camera, which is really tiny. You can hook them onto an actor. You can have a fist-cam. You can follow their punches. We also liked the idea of a super-slow motion camera. We thought that would bring an interesting look. We thought, ‘How can we employ new technology into the film to make it look unique and special?’ One of the first things we did was think about Goku. We wanted to show some of the magic moments that the Phantom camera can capture. So that’s how we decided to do the fighting scenes. After you read the mangas, you can’t help but want to make something special out of them. This is a really exciting project, and I am excited to be doing it.”

READ THE REST AT SUPER HERO FLIX

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Marsters Becoming Piccolo

March 25, 2009 in Dragonball Evolution, Interviews, Movie Cast by avenged

IGN recently caught up with Marsters to find out what his version of Piccolo is like and how he compares to what fans of other incarnations of Dragonball are familiar with. As we learned, Marsters is quite knowledgeable on the subject…

IGN: Dragonball is a property that obviously has a huge following. When you signed on to the film, did you have any idea how large the fandom was?

Marsters: Oh, I’m one of them, yeah! I’ve seen every episode of Dragon Ball Z, about two thirds of GT, and about half of Dragon Ball — only because Dragon Ball, to me anyway, was hard to find. But yeah, I know it very well. In fact, I have a son who’s now into Jimi Hendrix more than Dragon Ball — he’s 13. He grew up watching it and it led to many good conversations, actually, between he and I. We have all of the little toys, and I always play Piccolo whenever we play with the action figures.

dragonball evolution 20090324010637252 Marsters Becoming Piccolo

- 20th Century Fox
James Marsters as Piccolo in Dragonball: Evolution

IGN: So when this part was even a possibility, I would assume both you and your son were excited.

Marsters: Very much. It was the first role that he cared about at all. And that’s normal – kids care if you’re there for Christmas. They care if you’re going to feed them on time. But finally, I got a role that he really was like, “Dad, that’s something I want to watch!” I play villains a lot and I remember one time I was playing a time agent, and I was telling my son, “Oh, dude. I’ve got swords. I’ve got guns. I’ve got this wrist strap. I can travel through time.” And he goes, “Dad, do you win?” And I said, “What?” He goes, “Do you win at the end? Do you win or lose?” I said, “Well, I’m the villain. I lose.” He goes, “Well… OK. Whatever.”

IGN: You knew Piccolo very well going in. What is the take on him like in the film versus what most people know from Dragon Ball Z and other source material?

Marsters: This character is nothing like you’re going to recognize from Dragon Ball Z because this is a story that happens before Dragon Ball Z. In the actual source material that we were adapting, we were only dealing with Dragon Ball. In Dragon Ball, Lord Piccolo is a very old, kind of shriveled Namic. This green guy who has to walk with a walking stick, he’s so old. And at the very end of the season, when he finally fights little Goku – and Goku in the manga is only 7 years old – he throws off his coat and it’s actually kind of surprising he has a body left at all. So, my kind of template to do this Piccolo was, “Let’s make him as old as possible.” We don’t want to make him as decrepit as the manga because he is the only villain for this part of the story of Goku, so we should make him maybe a little more powerful. But let’s not give the audience the young Piccolo yet, because in the story, Lord Piccolo comes back to the Earth to get the Dragonballs to wish himself young and then take over the Earth. And if we started Piccolo being young, there would be no reason for him to get the Dragonballs in the first place.

IGN: I’m very impressed talking to you about your knowledge of the source material. I’d assume some of your costars might have been a lot more unfamiliar with it all. Did anyone ever come to you for some advice?

Marsters: [Laughs] I think that if any of them didn’t know the source material going into the project, they certainly started reading it and watching it to prepare for the shoot because I didn’t really get the sense that anyone was behind the ball. We didn’t really talk about the plotline in Dragon Ball Z. There’s enough plotline to be talking about in Dragon Ball. But I didn’t start talking to them about Vegeta or Bojack and all of that – or Boo. [Laughs] I just kept my mouth shut about that because that’s just too complex.

IGN: Fans are always concerned when there’s an adaptation that it holds true to or respects the source material. As a fan yourself, can you speak to that?

Marsters: Well, that’s the thing, man. I think that we have made an artistic risk because we have decided to be very respectful of the source material. I think Akira Toriyama – I hope, I haven’t talked to him about it – but I suspect he would be pleased that we didn’t start this movie with Dragon Ball Z. That the first shot of our hero is not blond Goku firing a massive energy blast and wiping a mountain out. That would be very cool, but that’s not the beginning of the story. The beginning of the story, for the manga, is a 7 year old kid fighting midgets. He starts it way more on a smaller level and builds it up. And then by the time that Goku is that massive guy with the blond hair, then we’re more invested in him. And so, we have decided not to do Dragon Ball Z, but to do Dragon Ball.

Instead of having Goku as a 7 year old fighting midgets, we take him at 17, just on his 18th birthday, so thematically, we’re in the same ball park, but we get to push it a little more towards Z. But still doing justice to this character of Goku and where he starts. Remember in the first Spider-Man movie, everyone was like, “Where are all the special effects? Where is all the big stuff?” And Sam Raimi was like, “We’ve got to start this dude at the beginning. This is what we’re doing.” And I think it would have been easier money if we would have just blown it out with Dragon Ball Z right from the beginning. But I don’t think that would have been as true to the story and to the source material. I’m kind of proud that we’ve taken the risk in trusting the audience and that they’ll want to see the beginning of this character. In that way, when he is more massive, it’ll be way cooler.

So I don’t know, man. People that only know Dragon Ball Z and only want Dragon Ball Z, they’re going to have to get used to this. But people that really know the material, they’re going to be well pleased.

dragonball evolution 20090324010638174 Marsters Becoming Piccolo

- 20th Century Fox

IGN: You obviously have experience with makeup and prosthetics. How did this experience compare?

Marsters: Oh, man… The first time we did it, it took 14 hours. It was really mainly me being really specific about wanting to look older. They got all the pieces on fairly quickly. I forget how many there were, but there was something like 10 different pieces that made up the look. But it was the painting of them, where I kept going, “No, that’s not old enough! More here, more there.” And by the end of it, the makeup artist was so mad at me, he just hit me. But I didn’t want to be young. I wanted to be as decrepit as possible. But we got it down to four hours. We were shooting 12 to 14 hours a day, and then I had another six [hours] to get in and out. So I had pretty long days.

IGN: Did you do much fight training for the film?

Marsters: Oh, yeah. There was a point at which I think Jim Wong, the director, kind of figured out that I was showing off for my girlfriend. Because every time he asked me to do some kind of insane wirework, I’d be like, “Oh, yeah. Let’s do it!” And so by the end of it, we were about at the last shot and I was just getting kicked in the face, actually, like about 14 times in a row. And I realized, “I’m not going to get a stunt man… this is the last day. We’re almost at the end of this. And I’m doing all my own stunts. This is very cool.” Jim just has a very calm way of taking you one day at a time and making it seem like not such a deal. Not making you look at the whole mountain, but just take one step at a time. So yeah, we did train – we trained with the 8711, which is the fight crew that did 300, did the Bourne films. They do just a whole lot of good action movies. We went down to their facility here in Los Angeles for a month before we went to Durango, Mexico and trained there. Got nice and sore. And then went up to Durango, and Durango was a 1400 foot elevation. So that was a whole new level of getting fit. I passed out, dude. The first day we were training, they were running me pretty hard because we’d done well in L.A. and I just toppled right over. Just saw stars and was out. But after about 10 days, you acclimatize and your hemoglobin gets higher and you can wake back up.

Also, IGN has revealed several new official Dragonball Evolution movie stills.

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by avenged

Dragon Ball Kai The Game

March 23, 2009 in Dragon Ball Anime, Dragon Ball Kai, Dragonball Evolution, Promotion Material by avenged

Details were released a while back that a Dragon Ball Kai based video game for the Nintendo DS would be released. An official trailer for that game is now available!

Also, there was rumor that part of the Bardock special would be shown in the first episode of Dragon Ball Kai. That is now confirmed along with that Freeza will also make an appearance. Jump confirms this. Visit Daizex for the latest scans!

You can even now listen to the new opening to Dragon Ball Kai, entitled Dragon Soul.

On a side note, you can purchase a Dragonball Evolution posterzine that contains 11 brand new movie posters! Visit Shonen Jump to check those out!

Also, visit Civilized James to check out scans from the DBE sticker book!

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