I have been alluding to this for a while, and now I must deliver. Yes, Hollywood does tend to ruin our favorite franchises with bad movies. They invest huge amounts of time and money in TV shows, toys and video games getting u to love a property, then someone decides to make a movie and apparently nobody at the Hollywood studio thinks they actually have to make any effort to match the source material and then they are surprised why it bombs. The good news and bad news is they are actually improving, it's good news because they are getting better, it's bad news because the bar was set so low, that better as a relative measure is still bad. In fact, I have been so numbed I've actually taken to defending some recent attempts because my standards are such that, compared to the crap I've seen, I actually believe they are at least heading in the right direction.
Let's start at the beginning, with the movie that taught me the true meaning of disappointment, Super Mario Bros. If you have not seen this movie, I would recommend you see this only if you are a masochist who wants to see the worst movie ever based on a video game or any other property related to anything you loved as a kid, because this movie is the worst. WORST! WORST! Let's start with what they get right, because that's the short list; characters with the following names from the Super Mario franchise appear in the movie: Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Koopa, Yoshi, Toad, Iggy (koopa kid) Spike, Big Bertha, and Bob-omb(last three from SMB3, Bob-omb isn't a character, just a wind-up explosive toy that is actually the most accurately depicted element in the entire movie). Yoshi is a dinosaur, Mario is portly and has a mustache, both brothers are Italian plumbers from Brooklyn, which at least at the time was considered canon. Also there is fungus everywhere although it rarely f ever comes in the form of a mushroom, and thus concludes the list of what was right, and we still have over an hour of screentime...oh boy. The movie starts with a backstory that the meteor that ended the dinosaurs actually created a parallel dimension where dinosaurs were sent and continued to evolve into humanoids, and the meteor happened to land where what is now the river between Brooklyn and Manhattan. At the time, dinosaurs and evolution were hot subjects but the whole thing was only relevant for the existence of Yoshi who is little more than a cameo, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Luigi gets a date with Daisy, a paleontologist who has discovered the missing link between dinosaurs and humans, something that you will never actually hear about again because it only exists in this movie. Daisy's dig site is interfering with the land development of Scarpacci(yes, I actually remember the name to decades later) who happens to be Mario's rival and least favorite person, who decides to flood the digsite from nearby sewers. Daisy decides to call the plumbers she met that day, Mario and Luigi, to fix the leak in the pipes down under Brooklyn. Of course this takes them near the meteor and the portal to Dinohattan. Yes, Dinohattan, the other dimension's Manhattan populated by dinosaurs who have evolved, at least superficially, into humans. Iggy and Spike abduct Daisy and Lugi pursues her, and Mario pursues Luigi. Soon we learn Daisy is actually the princess of Dinohattan who was sent to our world as a baby to protect her when Koopa took over. They don't explain a whole lot about how Koopa took over, but apparently he got access to a machine that causes virtually instantaneous reversal of evolution that allowed him to turn the old king, Daisy's father, into a fungus that now covers Dinohattan and anyone who opposes him gets devolved into a goomba, which looks nothing like the goombas from the games, they're just reptilian enough to be stupid goons. Now, as bad as this plot is so far, it is very important to point out that Koopa, Iggy and Spike are not even remotely reptilian looking, Koopa is portrayed as being more like Donald Trump here. He doesn't even have any interesting quirks, except that he seems to be a germaphobe, which in retrospect makes sense when you realize the old King is a fungus, but is still putting up a fight so he's probably afraid the old King will infect him, but they never make that clear so it's just weird. Anyway, what Koopa really wants is Daisy's crystal pendant which is actually the missing piece of the meteor and if it gets put back the two worlds will fuse back together and Dinohattan and all of it's inhabitants will superimpose themselves on Manhattan. However, Daisy doesn't have the pendant, when Luigi was trying to save her back in Brooklyn, he accidentally snatched it from her. Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi get arrested along with Toad who is singing a protest song, a crime punishable by de-evolution into a goomba, while the brothers get mugshots but then manage to get away. When Koopa realizes he needs the brothers they become public enemy number one with a bounty of a million Koopons and the chase is on, although Koopa is such a terrible tyrant that nobody is loyal and many actually choose to help the brothers, including Big Bertha, who gives them Thwomp-Stompers, jet boots that let them jump away from their pursuers. Finally there's a climactic showdown where a Bob-omb that Luigi wound up at the beginning of the movie that has been guided around Dinohattan by the fungal king finally explodes at just the right time to hit Koopa and save the brothers. This leads to an accident with a portable de-evolution ray gun that turns Koopa into a Tyranosaurus, but don't blink because no sooner does he show his true face than the brothers use the devo guns to turn him into primordial ooze. If you are still reading this, congratulations, you have more patience than the Super Mario Bros. movie deserves. It was so bad that Bob Hoskins who played Mario admits to drinking his way through the movie knowing it was bad while he made it and when asked the worst project he ever worked on in three distinct and different ways in one interview unequivocally answered this one. Even Nintendo Power, on a Mario Timeline, simply said "Yeah it happened, let's move on." I have never seen anyone write anything positive about this movie and I will not be the first, in my opinion it was every bit as bad as everyone else says it is, if not worse. Really, if you get the chance to see this movie, even for free, even if someone pays you, run away.
Hollywood did not learn their lesson and went on to make more movies based on video games, which I could not bring myself to watch after the trauma of Super Mario Brothers. I caught Double Dragon on cable once, which was actually more on the mark, but still awful. Double Dragon focused on Billy and Jimmy Lee who were street fighters facing the shadow gang including Abobo, the Shadow Boss, and I think Linda and Mary Anne/Marion fit in too. However, they once again went with a dystopian post-apocalyptic city vibe and to tie in the dragon of the title threw in medallions that granted super strength and shadow magic, which just took the whole thing too far. I got my money's worth when I watched it for free. Then there was Street Fighter, which I still haven't seen because Dhalsim is a scientist rather than a yogi and as soon as I read that in the promotional materials I just gave up. There was an animated series that followed it up where Dhalsim turned to yoga while seeking redemption after mutating Blanka and many other efforts were made to redeem the project which proves it's not altogether impossible, it's just that feature films do not seem to be the place. Then came Mortal Kombat. Now, some of you may think the movie was garbage, but let me make this clear, when it first came out, I had just seen three movies go by where it was clear Hollywood looked at a list of characters and said "we don't need to know anymore, we'll just make up some crap, nobody will care." So in light of the horrors I had seen, Mortal Kombat was refreshing in how well it actually followed source material. The movie featured the original cast, characters that didn't appear for very long were at least made to look and sound exactly like the characters in the game so we knew exactly who they were, the extra characters, Kitana and Reptile were actually relevant and taken from the direct sequel so their stories were kept consistent, and the story was actually taken directly from the game instead of making up something completely different and unrelated. I was so happy, my faith in movies based on video games was restored. And then came Final Fantasy Spirits Within. I have already mentioned this in an earlier post(see Final Fantasy in the post history) but since then I have found out not only was it made in house, but the director was Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, as in the original video game that started the series and everything since. This is like finding out that Akira Toriyama was the director for Dragonball Evolution(I'll get to that later). I actually do have a plan for redeeming Spirits Within but it is an ambitious project that involves not only a sequel movie, but also an anime series and not one, but two video games. I can't say too much because I would need Square to back me to get anywhere near anything worth doing, but so far I have plans for a story involving Biggs and Wedge Highwind as a Dragoon and a Red Mage respectively who were chocobo ranchers for Cid, an eccentric airship mechanic, until Aki the Summoner, Gogo the Black Mage, and Sara the White Mage meet them while running from Emperor Garland and his henchman Gilgamesh. For comic relief, the entire thing will be chronicled by Gilbert the Spoony Bard. Yes, I am serious about this, and I guarantee no matter how bad that pitch sounds, it's still not worse than Spirits Within.
So now we come to Dragonball Evolution. Part of why I go easy on this one is that I waited for about a decade for it to happen. I first heard about the Dragonball movie back when DBZ was first airing on Toonami, I think the androids were just appearing for the first time. For years I believed it wouldn't happene at all, so when it did, I was just like, "well, they did it, let's see" and I will admit, it was disappointing. Personally, my biggest disappointment was that I learned they had the same stunt coordinators as the Matrix, which I thought was a good sign, because if you have ever seen the final fight between Neo and Agent Smith in Matrix Revolutions, you can tell that was lifted from Goku vs Frieza. The whole time I was waiting for Neo to unleash a Kamehameha. Sadly, they apparently did not have the budget to give us that kind of sequence in Dragonball Evolution, and if they had, it would have made a huge difference. I know most fans hate the whole movie. Before you slam me for defending it, let me remind you from earlier posts that I am a hardcore Dragonball fan. I actually own a four star dragon ball, just because I couldn't help myself when I saw it at Roc Con. I have cosplayed as Gohan and Piccolo. I have attempted Kamehameha and Kaioken, more than once. I have a Level 99 Piccolo on DBZ Budokai 3. When I defend Dragonball Evolution, I do this as a sacred defender of all things Dragon Ball, so hear me out. Yes, the movie screwed up a lot of things, but, bear in mind, it was covering two out of three story arcs in about two hours, and the story arcs were pretty weird to begin with. If they had been more loyal to the source material, Goku would have befriended a shapeshifting pig, two talking cats, one of which flies, and Piccolo's minions would have been dinosaurs named after instruments. The truth is, the American audience really wanted the fight with Vegeta but Dragon Ball wasn't getting the green light until they explained what the dragon balls were, which means doing the early seasons. The movie did get some things right, the dragon balls were fine, we introduced Chi Chi, Gohan's mother, Roshi, the guy who teaches Goku the Kamehameha, and of course the Kamehameha itself. One of my biggest pet peeves when arguing about this movie is that people complain about Roshi because he doesn't look like he should. Yes, that's true, if they do a sequel, he needs to sit in a make-up chair and get his beard and bald cap or head shaved, but before you get too upset, do you realize who that was? It was Chow Yun Fat from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Do you realize how lucky we are he even bothered to show up on set at all? They probably blew most of their budget on his salary for the film. Yes, he will have to be appropriately aged before they use him again, but be nice to the guy he could just as easily throw you through the wall. Also, only one stripe of blue hair Emmy Rossum? If Ramona Flowers could dye her whole head of hair blue for Scott Pilgrim,you can go all the way for Bulma. Fine, we'll recast the whole movie with Asian actors, it would make more sense, but do you want to go back and do this again, or do you want to just move on to the fight with Vegeta? Here's my pitch for Dragonball Reborn: Five to ten years after Evolution, Goku and Chi Chi are married and have a son, Gohan, who is now old enough to fight. Goku makes a living officially as a security guard for Bulma on her Dragon Ball project, and he actually still owns his dragon ball which is part of the arrangement. Roshi is a martial arts instructor teaching Yamcha and new students, Krillin, Tienshihan and Chiaotzu. Piccolo has been recovering from his fight with Goku and summons a new Oozaru minion, which took some time, explaining the time difference between the movies. The new Oozaru finally arrives near the beginning of the movie and Goku recognizes right away it's one of his kind and goes to fight it. Then the Oozaru changes to human form when it realizes Goku is the former Oozaru who has actually chosen to defy Piccolo, something that never occurred to Oozaru before. The new oozaru turns out to be Raditz and he's more dangerous than Goku because he's not tempered by any sense of kindness and Piccolo actually needs Goku to stop Raditz. They defeat Raditz within the first third of the movie but Goku dies and Raditz says Prince Vegeta is on his way. Piccolo grabs Gohan, the last of the Oozaru blood and desperately tries to train him to fight against Vegeta. Roshi takes his students to see the true master of his order, Kami, who in turn sends Goku to train under King Kai. Vegeta and Nappa appear a year later, Goku is wished back to life, and the ultimate battle plays out in the last third of the movie. Of course the whole movie will be recast with people that hopefully make the fans happy. Now if you don't like that idea, I just give up. One last thing, when DBZ first came to America, I found one site from Japan that refused to talk about Brolly because he wasn't canon. That's right Brolly fans, think about it, given that both future Trunks and baby Trunks are in Legendary Super Saiyan and everybody seems to be able to become Super Saiyan, the only way that movie could fit in the main timeline is one or two days after Cell announces the the Cell Games. Before you rule out a part of the Dragon Ball franchise, try giving it another look, relax and see that Evolution was a good set up for what we want even if it wasn't that great in itself.
Finally, I come to the Last Airbender. When I meet fans at conventions, they hate it, ignoring the irony that they are white people cosplaying while complaining about white people playing the same characters professionally. Compared to the crap I have seen before, I give mad props to M. Night Shamylan for staying mostly on point. Okay, so some details were off, but do you realize how much worse it could have been? Appa and Momo were recognizable, as compared to Super Mario Bros. and even Dragon Ball Evolution (Shenron...not bad, but not right). The story actually went along what it was supposed to be with minimal changes. Ultimately, the biggest flaw was casting. I think the races of the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom should have been reversed, clearly the Fire Nation is Japanese. Also, the Water Tribes were clearly Inuit, not caucasian. And yes, I caught that the Earthbenders should have been imprisoned on a ship and firebending without an external source of fire shouldn't have been as arcane as they made it seem. That said, everything happened in order without any extra events being added in, Night, clearly paid more attention to the source material than any one in Hollywood has since the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie(which I did not list because the movies that I did mention are in a whole other league). After watching the movie, I was actually excited about a sequel, but because of you bratty little hipsters who don't even know what bad is, the project got canned. Listen, kids, I feel your pain, but my point is, if you want a movie at all, you can't just hate whatever they make because you didn't get cast. You need to put it on the scale, and you need to decide did they at least kinda try. Did they get anything right or did they slap a title on something completely irrelevant? Demand better yes, but when they do make an improvement, no matter how small, give them some positive feedback that they are at least going in the right direction, or they will stop making stuff for us altogether. That's how we lost Toonami the first time.
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