Dragon Ball Z movie WTF?!

Dragon Ball Z is one of those things that is considered to be ‘unadaptable’ into a live action movie. But you know, the Lord of the Rings trilogy was considered to be ’unadaptable’ and so was Transformers. So I think it’s possible to adapt Dragon Ball Z’s crazy mid air fights and power balls with today’s technology (we kinda achieved it with Matrix Revolutions). But the problem is not whether we can adapt it or not but whether we can adapt it ‘correctly’. There is a Dragon Ball live action movie in the making and the recent casting news would definitely divide fans. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Goku and Piccolo (who will be the villain in the movie).

  VS   

Yes that’s right!! It’s that kid from War of the Worlds vs Spike!!! Here’s the story from ComingSoon.net:

“20th Century Fox has set Justin Chatwin (The Invisible, War of the Worlds) to play Goku and James Marsters (“Smallville,” “Angel,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) as the villain Piccolo in Dragon Ball Z.In the big screen adaptation, Goku is a powerful warrior who protects the Earth from an endless stream of rogues bent on dominating the universe and controlling the mystical objects from which the film takes its name. Actor/writer/director Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle) is producing. Final Destinationhelmer James Wong will direct from a script he wrote. Ben Ramsey wrote an earlier draft.The story is based on Akira Toriyama’s popular manga that has spawned graphic novels, a long-running TV series and more than 25 video games. The Jump Comics division of Tokyo-based Shueisha published the “Dragon Ball” manga.With shooting scheduled to begin later this month, Fox will bow the sci-fi/adventure worldwide Aug. 15. Chatwin has already begun training with 87Eleven, the stunt performance company behind the action sequences in The Matrix, The Bourne Supremacy,Mr. & Mrs. Smith and 300.”

I kinda see Marsters as Piccolo but Goku played by Justin Chatwin? Nah! But despite my mixed feelings for the casting I’m still going watch it anyway. I hope it’s at least entertaining and filled with crazy martial arts action like the anime (someone in this movie needs to throw someone else to ground and leave behind a crater!!). But as an adaptation of Dragon Ball Z, this project is not looking good. But who knows, Justin Chatwin could surprise us all as Goku!

Stephen King’s The Stand – A review

It’s been tough for Lost fans for the past few months because we have to wait till February next year for a new season instead of this Fall. What’s even more depressing is that we might get to see only 8 new episodes next year if the the writers’ strike does not stop immediately. To get my Lost “fix” I decided to buy The Stand a novel by Stephen King which the writers of Lost have mentioned to be their inspiration for the show. This can be clearly seen from the many parallels between the novel and the TV show (I’ll save that for another post). Anyway, I finished it in two weeks and it is easily one of my favourite novel. Furthermore, this is my first Stephen King novel (I’ve only watch movie adaptations of his work)

**BEWARE OF MAJOR SPOILERS**

Plot

The novel is thick (approx. 1300 pages) and it has an evolving story. It started as an account of the fall of the American society due to an outbreak of a deadly virus (created by the government of course) through the eyes of several characters who are mysteriously  immune to it. By the middle of the book the story shifted gear into some sort of “road trip” story where the characters travel across America and meeting new characters. Eventually, the survivors are divided into two camps: the “good guys” at Boulder, Colorado under Mother Abigail (a 108 years old black woman who talks to God) and the “bad guys” at Sin City itself, Las Vegas ruled by Randall Flagg aka the dark man aka Walkin dude. By this time, the story changes into a socio-political commentary where our heroes tries to rebuild civilization from scratch. Towards the end, some of our heroes make a ‘Stand’ against Flagg at Las Vegas with a surprise ending that some readers may dislike.

Characters

You could say that I’ve basically ruined the whole plot in the last paragraph but the real strength of the novel is not the plot but the characters. This novel is long and the story drags in the first half of the book but slow plot development is compensated with deep character development. By the end of the book, you will feel as if you’ve known these characters for a long time. Stu, Frannie, Glen, Harold Lauder, Nick, Larry Underwood, Tom Cullen, Randall Flagg, THE TRASHCAN MAN! and even minor characters such as the Kid and Rat-man are all simply unforgettable. What makes it more depressing is that more than half of the main characters don’t make it till the end of the novel!

I like all the characters and have enjoyed reading them but if I have to pick I would say Larry Underwood and Glen Bateman. Larry is a cocky, short tempered, one hit wonder rock star who turned into one of the leaders of the survivors and made a huge sacrifice at the end. Glen is an old pessimistic sociologist who always comes up with theories that actually prophesized the events of the novel (eg. the Society A & Society B hypothesis). His ‘confrontation’ with Randall Flagg is one of my favourite part of the book.

The Ending **SPOILERS**

I know there are people who hated the conclusion at Las Vegas. Why didn’t the ‘Hand of God’ just destroy Flagg in the beginning? Personally, I believe that the ‘Hand of God’ can only be summoned until the characters reached their so called ‘redemption’ or apotheosis in their personal journey. This story isn’t simply about good vs evil, its about the individual journey that these characters take. Glen was an atheist (Or an agnostic, i can’t remember) but later he accepted his fate when he was sent by Abigail to go West. Out of the four guys that went West, he was the strongest and most ready to face death. Consequently, he got killed first but not before laughing his ass off at Randall. But hey, maybe Stephen King was just plain lazy and drunk when he wrote about the ‘Hand of God’ but whatever the real reason behind the sudden appearance of the ’Hand of God’, I like stick with my explanation.

As for the Epilogue where Randall Flagg is alive, that fits in with the theme of Good vs Evil where instead of one side winning over another, they are locked into an eternal battle.

In short, I highly recommend this book. I hope they can adapt this into the big screen but since its long so it would probably divided into 2 or 3 movies. Yeah I know, there was a miniseries starring Gary Sinise in which I remember watching when I was a kid. I can’t remember how faithful the miniseries was to the novel, it was so long ago.

Welcome to my Corner

The idea of creating a new blog have always been in my head for a long time now. At last, here I am at WordPress publishing my first post. Now there are several reasons that made me create a blog now rather than sooner or later:

No.1:I always have several thoughts/ideas or opinions that i just keep in my mind. Storing your thoughts in your head for a very long time isn’t a good idea because it would be too distracting if have lots of stuff in your mind. So I decided to do something about it and it’s urgent because I realize that I have come to a point in my life where I need to focus on my priorities and set aside all those other ideas that I have. You could say that this blog act as my way putting those thoughts out of my head. It’s a thought reliever.

No.2: When I started blogging back in 2005 with “MSN Space” nobody I knew was blogging. Now almost everyone I know is blogging!! So i want to hop into the blogging bandwagon again. BTW, for those who are curious here’s my old blog Yes, this one is kind of a “remake” of my old MSN space (random thoughts & musings)

N0.3: My brother used to have a blog at WordPress (although he sort of retired from blogging because he got a job or in other words he has a life now). Since I usually does the “backstage” work for his blog thus I’m already familiar with most of the features of WordPress.

N0.4: I was bored.

I can admit that this blog is work in progress. But hopefully it will grow unless I decided to pull the plug. I never intended this blog to last for a very long time but hey..who knows, we’ll just see what happens. So I guess that’s it for today (I think). Stay tuned for some random thoughts or musings from me.

Trylobyte

PS: English is not my first language so I’m sorry if I butchered the language with horrible grammar. I’m trying my best