I never really got into Dragonball Z. If there's an adaptation of a cartoon that needs to be remade, I have to say it's Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Each season should be broken down into two or three movies, making it a series of six to nine complete films. Aang should be played by an Asian kid. Katara and Sokka should be played by Native American kids. Prince Zuko and General Iroh should be played by Japanese actors, as should everyone else from the Fire Nation. The movies should maintain the fun and excitement of the series. The characters' names should be pronounced properly. The element bending should be as impressive as in the show. And most important . . .
M Night Shamalamadingdong should not be allowed ANYWHERE near these movies. He doesn't write, direct, or produce them . . . EVER!
I wasn't talking about Dragon Ball Z, but Dragon Ball on the whole, trust me, when you start watching the saga from the beginning when Goku is a kid, it gets much easier to get into Dragon Ball Z, Z is just the second half of the manga, that was divided when it was adapted in anime form, but was published as the same story without any real hiatus or rebranding in between.
From the production in TLA it seems like a lot of problems were beyond Shyamalan, i'm all for another try on Avatar, as long as they don't white wash the universe, do the elements better and try giving an actualy good and complete film. Breaking each Season into so many films would be tricky, i think the only one that needs to be broken down that is Book 3, the end of "Day of the Black Sun" is a perfect cliffhanger. I think Shyamalan did chose some of the most important bits from Book 1 to adapt, he just didn't make a cohesive story with them at all, first arc deals with the water tribe, therefore the entire film needs to build up to the siege of the north.
One think that would probably need to change are the ages of the characters, instead of taking place in a single year, the events would probably need to take place throghout 3-5 years.
Since we're in the subject of cartoons being adapted, i think shonen anime/ manga (usualy targeted at the teenage demographic, Avatar had a lot of characteristics from Battle shonen mangas/ anime) are ripe for live action adaptations, many of them have exactly what Hollywood has been trying to find in young adult books, which is an interesting universe to explore.
Dragon Ball was already mentioned, and i think the best way to do it is by not tryng to make it gritty and realistic, it should practicaly be Wizard of Oz with martial arts, mixed with a bit of Star Wars. Another one that would be perfect is Fullmetal Alchemist:
It's similar to Avatar in the fact that it tells a complete and cohesive story, with an interesting power system (Alchemy) that's controled enough in order to not be overpowered, and all the set-up leads into a grand finale. Unlike with Avatar, you wouldn't have to worry about whitewashing, since the world is based on early 20th Century Europe and America.
