my thoughts on the wolverine Chun-Li and Dragonball trailers

My thoughts on the Chun-Li,
Wolverine and Dragonball trailers.

Comic book nerds, video game nerds and anime nerds all over are either incredibly excited or extremely angry at what they have seen in the wolverine Dragonball and Chun-Li trailers that have hit you tube recently. I consider myself a little from all three categories and seeing as how I have been reviewing video game movies I’d like to take a bit to give my thoughts on what I think and expect from these movies.

Before I start let me say something if you go to a movie based on anything else and expect a perfect recreation then you are an idiot. Yes I do my reviews on movies based on games and pick them apart but those are for satirical purposes and to maybe give you some info that you didn’t have before. But in my opinion each medium is good in its own way a good example I can give you is the Bourne identity books and movies. They are almost completely different but they are both good in their own way. The best based on movies take familiar characters from a book comic book video game or whatever and can make a story that is interesting and accurately gets across the characters personalities.

Sometimes to go with the personalities you get familiar stories but not always and almost never exactly the same way they happened in whatever media the movie is getting its source material from. Sometimes the movie blows sometimes it’s great I like the Bourne books and I like the Bourne movies even though they besides the most basic plot outline are completely different same with starship troopers and yes even the resident evil movies.

Each different medium is meant to entertain in its own way. most of the time the stories contained in books video games and comics are much much longer and have way to much content to fit into a single movie and sometimes even a movie series is not enough. So the writers and production crew find ways to get as much of the story into an hour and half long movie and sometimes 2 and 3 hours.

What we get with based on movies is the movie makers take on an original idea. And yes I won’t deny the fact that some changes are geared more towards making money than anything else and sometimes the movie suffers but if enough effort is put into the movie then what we get is a fairly decent take on the source material with enough obscurity to get in people who are new to that particular universe and enough fan service to appease the fans of the source material. And as a bonus result if the movie is good enough those who are new to the ideas will search out the source material. In most instances when I see a movie that is based on a book and I didn’t know it was a book I go read the book. After I learned starship troopers was a book I went to the library and read it cover to cover. The book was great and almost completely different but I didn’t loose any love for the movie and know I had knowledge of 2 different takes on the same idea.

The movie was action oriented with amazing visuals but the book was more of a political commentary and a moral type thing. Some things that are possible in books and video games and comics and some things that make those mediums great don’t work in movies and are cut out and because of the close mindedness of fans the movie gets shunned. It’s one thing to dislike a movie because of bad acting and bad writing but because your favorite character is not included or that one scene you loved didn’t make it is no reason to hate something.

If you don’t want to see a movie because you believe it will ruin your outlook on the source material fine but don’t blast it until you see it speculation is fine and hoping for certain scenes to make it is great but take each medium for what it is and enjoy that particular source of entertainment. Now keep that all in mind as you read the following paragraphs and know my comments are not to nitpick how these are and aren’t like the source material it is to show people who already hate these movies how much stuff is actually in them and possibly give you a different outlook on based on movies from now on.

I’ll start with wolverine as it is the one I will be spending the littlest time on. While wolverine is not an actual x-men 4 it is a film in the same series and if you have seen the other x-men movies and liked them then more than likely you will like this movie if you hated them then you probably won’t. From what I can gather the same liberties taken with the x-men movies have been taken with wolverines origins.
We finally get to see the rivalry between wolverine and saber tooth we get a bit of back story of wolverines incredibly long life. Personally I’m hoping during the war scenes they reference captain America even if it is just a “hey Steve” although I don’t think they will. We also get to see Logan’s relationship with silver fox and how he gets his skeleton. There was one scene that made me nervous and that was one of Logan as a child and he had his claws.

Almost any fan of wolverine can tell you his power is healing and not his claws. His claws came with the skeleton from the weapon x program. I’m hoping that this scene is a flashback of sorts mixed with a nightmare of what he has become. A lot of fans of the comics have complained about gambit being in it and the fact that beak is not a bird man he controls electricity.

Personally I love gambit besides Nightcrawller he is my favorite mutant and I’m so excited to see him on the big screen I don’t really care if he’s supposed to be there or not. But with beak I can understand sort of if you’re going to completely change a mutant’s power why not just use a different mutant but again minor all and all this looks like it will be as good as the other three movies if not better.

Now as for the Chun-Li movie I know a lot of people are extremely skeptical of this movie as street fighter doesn’t have the best track record. So far we have a crappy live action flick one amazing anime and one only ok anime and a pretty decent anime series. There are a few things about the trailer that give me high hopes for this movie.

The first is the action the fighting they showed during the trailer looked good. It did look like mostly wire-fu but that has never really bothered me and fits with the types of moves the street fighter characters can perform. What really is great about this movie is instead of trying to cram a ton of characters into one movie it is focusing on a single character and if the movie does good we may even get other characters witch means we may see a Ryu and ken film next.

I’m not sure if Chun-Li is going to be part of Interpol or not but I do know that she will be hunting down bison. There is one quick scene where gen who is another street fighter character is holding some sort of energy ball and is very possible the Kiko-Ken special move and that’s another thing the street fighter characters that appear in this movie are mainly physical move characters. This means that we can see a lot more specials.

Chun-Li's movies besides the Kiko-Ken are kick based and the lighting kick minus the feet being on fire is do able and the spinning bird kick since we know there is wire fu is also do able. Belrog and Vega are both in the movie and there moves are all physical based as well as a lot of Bison's moves with the exception of his psycho energy but if the Kiko-ken is in the movie then there’s a chance the psycho crusher could be as well. Nash his also in the movie but you may know him better as Charlie. I highly doubt we will be seeing any kind of sonic boom but a flash kick is not out of the question as even Vandamn was able to pull that off.

As far as the actors go I’m not disappointed at all. Michael Clark Duncan is perfect as Belrog he’s a great actor and has the perfect body type. Robin Shou while most people may only remember him as Liu Kang and the ninja from Beverly Hills’ ninja has been doing martial arts flicks in Asia for years. As far as taboo playing Vega I’ve never been a fan of singers acting but I have been proven wrong before in the case of usher. If any of you have seen light it up you’ll know what I’m talking about.
The actor playing bison has given good performances before on TV shoes like band of brothers and tin man and from the pictures I’ve seen he has really beefed up to match Bison’s physique. And of course there’s Kristin Kreuk her mother was Chinese which makes her half so her nationality fits and if you watch Smallville you know she is actually pretty decent at fight scenes and there’s even a season where she’s doing wire-fu so I have trust in her action abilities. This movie looks like it will definitely be better than the first live action flick and if it succeeds we may get more movies which is a huge plus.

Now I’ve saved the best or worst depending on your view for last the Dragonball trailer. Right off the bat you can tell that fox has completely changed the story of Dragonball instead of Namics and what not creating them we get monks. The fighting looks very good in my opinion, Lots of gravity defying things going on. What everyone needs to keep in mind is this is based on the last saga of the original Dragonball series not DBZ. So there probably won’t be high speed fighting and flying as far as I remember Goku could only fly after the start of z but could jump real high.

Piccolo looks ok all I can say is at least he’s green. We do get a quick shot towards the end of the trailer where Goku is starting the kamehameha wave which is promising. His hair is ridiculously spiky like in the anime but not in the same style it’s hard to tell if Roshi is going to be a pervert but with all the quick shots I can gather that Bulma and Goku will have to use the dragon radar to find the seven dragon balls. What I have read says there is a 3 movie deal if this one does well and I’m hoping that for 2 and 3 we get the Sayian and Freeza sagas. I can only assume the next 2 movies will be z because they are doing the last saga of Dragonball so going back to the red ribbon army wouldn’t make much sense.

Also as far as the super fighting goes a few disappear and reappear moves would be cool but if we get into the kicking through mountains and blurry hands and what not we may end up with a whole movie comprised of cg actors and would defeat the purpose of a live action film.

And for everyone who says this isn’t like the anime I have a few things to say to that first read my intro second there is so many stories and so many episodes and so much content in not only Dragonball z but Dragonball as well that cramming it all into 1 or even 10 movies would be almost impossible so you have to know that liberties are going to be taken and a lot of them.

Don’t expect to see energy ball volleys, super speed movements, energy auras or a lot of special moves expect there to be more practical. We may get people being punched through walls because even the matrix had that but I expect a lot of wire-fu a few energy blasts at the very least one kamehameha wave maybe a special beam cannon but I can’t remember if piccolo had that in Dragonball or not.

All I really hope for is fight scenes that are reminiscent of the Dragonball series as well as some of the humor like Goku apatite. The special moves of course and the basic plot outline nothing in depth but basic and from the trailer that’s what I see we got evil piccolo shows up Goku has to find the dragon balls and beat him. Master Roshi trains him and of course he saves the world and hopefully this movie makes enough money so that we can see him do it 2 more times. Stephan chow is one of the producers and he is a huge fan of the series so there may be some hope for it yet.

Well that’s really all I have to say I have high hopes for all three of these movies but my final judgment will be reserved for when I see them all and I think all you should do the same. Of course there will be the hardcore comic video game and anime fans that tell me I’m stupid and that the movies will be bad.

That having gambit in wolverines origin story is stupid or that a half Chinese should not play the strongest women on earth or that anime should never be live action but to you I say watch the movies then judge give them a shot and keep an open mind if you go into them knowing you won’t like them you won’t if you have an open mind you may get some entertainment out of them.