Almost everyone who has seen the original Dragon Ball series, created by the great, late Akira Toriyama, agrees that the 2009 live-action adaptation, Dragonball Evolution, was a disaster that never should’ve happened. However, we’re not alone in this view, since James Marsters, who played Piccolo in the film, shares the same sentiment. Often labeled as one of the worst live-action films ever made, Dragonball Evolution follows Son Goku (played by Justin Chatwin), a teenager who embarks on a journey to find Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) after learning about the wicked Piccolo’s plan to take over the world. To stop him, Goku and a handful of heroic warriors must gather all seven Dragon Balls before the next solar eclipse.
Although it’s been 15 years since the movie’s release, not many actors have brought it up for very good reason. However, Marsters, who appeared on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast on YouTube, recently reflected on his Dragon Ball Super role, and his role in Dragon Ball Evolution, making a particular point of emphasizing that no one should watch the movie. In his words,
“I just didn’t want any credit on Dragon Ball because I wanted it just to be known to the people at conventions, to the real Dragon Ball Super fans. People would come in my lines and ask what happened with that film. I was in this film, a really not-good Dragon Ball movie called Dragonball Evolution. It was offensively bad. That is the one good thing about the movie: not a lot of people saw it. And to everyone who is watching, don’t go see that film.”
The actor also described how the film’s screening in Japan confirmed that it was a really poor adaptation. However, when he was later cast as the voice of Zamasu in Dragon Ball Super, Marsters saw it as a form of redemption. He continued,
“We went to Japan and they were very quiet. It was just this slow dawning, sinking feeling that it was just really horrible. The point is that I was tired of catching guff at conventions for this film, so when I got the chance to be on Dragon Ball Super, I was like – let’s tell them that I am Zamasu and it’s an apology for that film.”
How Bad is Dragonball Evolution?
Even those who are unfamiliar with the original anime will find many faults in Dragonball Evolution, so, needless to say, it was a terrible film that has been disowned by practically everyone who was part of its production. So, what exactly went wrong with the film that made it a horrible live-action feature?
For starters, anime fans are very particular about the faithfulness to the story, which Dragonball Evolution completely butchered, changing every part of the franchise’s mythology. However, the most significant aspect that many fans despised was the teenage trope incorporated into the traditional Dragon Ball storyline, which absolutely wrecked it for those who grew up watching the iconic anime.
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Overall, Dragonball Evolution is not something that fans of Dragon Ball can stomach, despite its impressive visuals and creative action sequences. It very quickly turned from a potentially huge leap forward in live-action adaptations of its time, to a movie that completely misunderstood – or disregarded – its core audience of anime fans. Based on that, the commercial and critical failure of the movie is hardly surprising. Recent forays into the anime/live-action arena, such as Netflix’s One Piece, have seemingly learned some valuable lessons from the past, and avoided completely alienating their waiting fan base. Hopefully, this means we will not see the likes of Dragonball Evolution again.