Live-action what now?

I found out this week about the Hollywood adaptatioins of DragonBall Z and Akira. My reactions: mixed.

Now, I own the first volume of the Akira manga, and I treasure it dearly. I've also seen the movie, which was pretty good, though a two-hour movie is hardly enough to do a six-volume series justice. I'm hoping these two movies, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, will get more of the story in. One of my qualms, though, is that the setting is New Manhattan, not Neo Tokyo. I'm not a fan of westernizing things like that. Though I guess, for it to be accessible to an American audience, there can't be too many slanty eyes. Which totally explains the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the like. Are there really so little English-speaking Japanese actors out there that they had to change the setting to New York?

The DragonBall Z movie, though. Oh, man. This is going to suck hardcore. For one, the show sucks hardcore. The story is a generic quest with a villain-of-the-week plot. The main character is an unstoppable musclebound machine with the personality of a toaster. No, scratch that. My toaster and I actually have some lively conversations about toast. All Goku cares about is SAVING PEOPLE and GETTING STRONGER. And, of course, the balls.

I'll still watch it, though.

So. I've got two movies born on the trailing end of the "let's make movies based on comic books" trend, and one movie in the "let's make movies based on old cartoons" trend, a trend which really should have died after the first Scooby Doo live-action disaster. Why the hell can't people just write their own shit?