GT Writer Atsushi Maekawa Story Q&A

[sintzu]

You can tell from this interview and the one recently posted that the people behind GT had some really great ideas and a good understanding of the source material but lacked the proper direction and possibly time to fully realize them.

[ABED]

ABED, so beacuse of that interaction way in the past Piccolo is never allowed to do anything by himself?

Piccolo has a connection with Goku so there is no reason why he can't interact with him at anytime.

This Gohan and Piccolo thing is why as a Piccolo fan I hope that Gohan is not involved in some future arcs so Toei can't force this interaction and will have to listen to Toriyama's script like they had to for the Universe 6 vs Universe 7 tournament.

If you look back over my posts, I said quite the opposite. Piccolo is still his own being, but his relationship to Gohan is important. One doesn't cancel out the other. He can be on his own and then come back to his dynamic with Gohan. I like seeing him fight as well, but I can't say I remember much of what he does in the last two movies, but I do remember him teach Goten and Trunks the fusion dance, which was a great use of his character in that arc.

[Kinokima]

So you only like the Gohan and Piccolo relationship because of how nice they are to each other? They is ridiculous. If Piccolo was your favourite character then you would realise why I hate this relationship. Toei are basically saying to Piccolo fans that if you ever want to see Piccolo fight or anything else then you have to have Gohan involved as well.

That means I will never get a good Piccolo solo ever again if Toei had their way. No other character is treated like this by Toei. It is why as a Piccolo fan I want Toriyama to write very detailed scripts as he does not have this obsession with this connection. The proof of this is in the original Dragon Ball series and the movie versions of Battle of Gods and Resurrection of F.

No I like the Gohan and Piccolo relationship because of how they both developed as characters because of each other. Piccolo is who made Gohan stronger and taught him to learn to rely on himself whereas Gohan gave Piccolo humanity and showed he could learn to care about someone even as innocent as a child. When Piccolo first sacrifices himself to save Gohan against Nappa there is no benefit for him and that really shows how much Piccolo changed as character. And even now seeing how Piccolo has grown to love Pan too warms the cockles of my heart because I understand how the relationship with Gohan has started and has grown throughout the series.

And while Piccolo may not be my favorite I still love Piccolo so no I don't see why a Piccolo fan would hate the relationship with Gohan. I don't understand it at all. And no where is it saying that Piccolo can only fight if Gohan is involved. That is ridiculous. But Piccolo's relationship with Gohan is one of the the things that definitely defines his character.

Relationships and connections add depth to a character there is nothing negative about it. But then for me these relationships actually are why I love Dragon Ball not a character's fighting power so what do I know.

[Michsi]

[
Not really. The only time they interacted because of Gohan was during the Cell games and later in the Buu arc when they all thought Gohan was dead and Piccolo asked Goku to pass on his condolence.
Does nobody remember that Goku made Piccolo perform the fusion dance with him and Piccolo looked like he wanted to crawl inside a hole in embarrassment? That was great. Or how Piccolo knew that Goku had been holding back when he went to face Buu the first time. Or how Goku was ready to give the Kaioshin a piece of his mind because he thought he had been rude to Piccolo and Piccolo flipped out. That is the type of fun and silly interaction that I loved and severely miss.
A lot of people assume that Vegeta already fills up the position of foil to Goku and that he and Piccolo are too similar to both be shown alongside them, but that's exactly the kind of shoehorned, color-coded archetype driven storytelling that I dislike.

Goku and Piccolo do have a relationship & history (because like I said Goku is the character that has a relationship with practically everyone) but personally I do think Goku & Vegeta have a lot more chemistry and play off each other a lot better than Goku & Piccolo do. More because Vegeta is a lot less of calm character than Piccolo is which leads to a lot more humor than Goku & Piccolo could. Vegeta's personality just works better with Goku in my honest opinion and they really are a popular pairing (not to mention the fact that they are both Saiyans and yet opposites in many ways)

Personally I don't think Vegeta took over for Piccolo at all because Piccolo's "rivalry" with Goku ended pretty quickly and the set-up of Piccolo with Gohan happened as early as the Saiyan arc (in fact I would argue this happened before Vegeta became a main character so another reason why I don't think Vegeta took Piccolo's place at all in the story)

For me Piccolo's relationship with Gohan is definitely a defining part of his character. Not really sure why people see this as a negative thing though. Gohan's sweetness is also a good contrast to Piccolo's character and we can see how that rubbed off on Piccolo.

I think you are misinterpreting my wish to see other types of interaction with completely stopping and replacing the Goku/Vegeta and Piccolo/Gohan dynamic . By all means keep them, but for Pete's sake, spice things up once in a while. Hell, at this point I'll take Piccolo and Bulman or Vegeta and Krillin.
The whole bickering rivals is a popular dynamic, you see it everywhere nowadays, and it is in part because of Goku and Vegeta, and I occasionally like it too if done well. It's just overused in this case.

I don't think Piccolo would've trained with Goku for the cyborgs had it not been for Gohan.

I disagree. With the exception of Vegeta who was too unsociable at that point to train with anybody, Piccolo and Goku were the strongest fighters around. It just made sense. And either way, it was Goku who extended the invitation.

Not sure exactly what you mean by this.

When groups are formed based on superficial and popular character traits. The fun, energetic one; the moody, silent one, the sweet innocent one; the loud, temperamental one - can't have two serious type characters! They'd clash!

[Kinokima]

I think you are misinterpreting my wish to see other types of interaction with completely stopping and replacing the Goku/Vegeta and Piccolo/Gohan dynamic . By all means keep them, but for Pete's sake, spice things up once in a while. Hell, at this point I'll take Piccolo and Bulman or Vegeta and Krillin.
The whole bickering rivals is a popular dynamic, you see it everywhere nowadays, and it is in part because of Goku and Vegeta, and I occasionally like it too if done well. It's just overused in this case.

Well I think we may agree to disagree about Vegeta and Goku because I personally love it but as I said I am certainly not against characters interacting with other characters too from time to time. And with a franchise as long as DB there certainly should be ample opportunities.

What I mean I don't want the story to ever move on from Goku/Vegeta and Gohan/Piccolo but yes I certainly am happy to see new interaction and relationships form too.

[ABED]

Goku was the one to invite him like he invited others, but Piccolo didn't say no.

When groups are formed based on superficial and popular character traits. The fun, energetic one; the moody, silent one, the sweet innocent one; the loud, temperamental one - can't have two serious type characters! They'd clash!

But that's not the case here at all. You want conflict. I'm still not seeing the issue. You seem to think we don't want to see Goku interact with Piccolo b/c Piccolo can only interact with Gohan. Given that all these characters aren't merely archetypal, so there isn't much of a danger of that, I don't see what your issue is. It's not like Piccolo and Goku have a rivalry. Goku and Vegeta still do. It's different, but they still push each other.

[ekrolo2]

I've got to agree with Michsi in that the current material sets people in pairs a bit too strict for my liking. Goku & Vegeta and Piccolo & Gohan are for the vast majority of the time joined to the hip and they don't do enough interesting things with the pairings to warrant strictly keeping to them as they do in Super. It's precisely why Goku & Hit teaming up on U11 or Vegeta & Roshi fighting U6 are breaths of fresh air.

[Michsi]

I think you are misinterpreting my wish to see other types of interaction with completely stopping and replacing the Goku/Vegeta and Piccolo/Gohan dynamic . By all means keep them, but for Pete's sake, spice things up once in a while. Hell, at this point I'll take Piccolo and Bulman or Vegeta and Krillin.
The whole bickering rivals is a popular dynamic, you see it everywhere nowadays, and it is in part because of Goku and Vegeta, and I occasionally like it too if done well. It's just overused in this case.

Well I think we may agree to disagree about Vegeta and Goku because I personally love it but as I said I am certainly not against characters interacting with other characters too from time to time. And with a franchise as long as DB there certainly should be ample opportunities.

What I mean I don't want the story to ever move on from Goku/Vegeta and Gohan/Piccolo but yes I certainly am happy to see new interaction and relationships form too.

Goku/Vegeta and Piccolo/Gohan are practically emblematic to DB, so there is no reason to worry they'll ever stop using this dynamic. Problem is, it also got a bit perfunctory.

I was just really annoyed with Piccolo's role in GT being determined by Gohan, as if his character had no other value to add to the story aside from his relationship with him. (I'm surprised they didn't think of jumping on the Piccolo/Pan train the way DBS did.)
Ironically, out of the like 4 lines of dialog he has in that series, only one is with Gohan, and the rest with Goku, including the ending scene. Go figure.

But that's not the case here at all. Typically you want conflict. I'm still not seeing the issue. You seem to think we don't want to see Goku interact with Piccolo b/c Piccolo can only interact with Gohan. Given that all these characters aren't merely archetypal, so there isn't much of a danger of that, I don't see what your issue is.

This time I'm the one that doesn't understand. It's not me that thinks Piccolo shouldn't interact with Goku because he has been handed over to Gohan, I sure as hell don't support that practice, but it's one that you often see in a brain storming room. I was simply paraphrasing how sometimes these roles get decided on. And yes, DB characters can be very archetypal, or written that. Hell, they even started some of those archetypes.

[Lord Beerus]

I'm so conflicted by the interview.

I love the fact that there was very much an apparent thought process of bringing the new generation into the fold, wanting to expand on the universe, and also branching out the story in the vein of how the original story progressed and ended. But I hated the fact they basically pussied out on having the youth of Dragon Ball take the mantle, and just went back on the conventional narrative route of "It's Goku who does all the main things". I also really resent the idea that certain characters can only function when they have another specific character with them.

Some of the subplots there were proposed but got scrapped sounded really good. Especially the Gohan one.

[namekiansaiyan]

So you only like the Gohan and Piccolo relationship because of how nice they are to each other? They is ridiculous. If Piccolo was your favourite character then you would realise why I hate this relationship. Toei are basically saying to Piccolo fans that if you ever want to see Piccolo fight or anything else then you have to have Gohan involved as well.

That means I will never get a good Piccolo solo ever again if Toei had their way. No other character is treated like this by Toei. It is why as a Piccolo fan I want Toriyama to write very detailed scripts as he does not have this obsession with this connection. The proof of this is in the original Dragon Ball series and the movie versions of Battle of Gods and Resurrection of F.

No I like the Gohan and Piccolo relationship because of how they both developed as characters because of each other. Piccolo is who made Gohan stronger and taught him to learn to rely on himself whereas Gohan gave Piccolo humanity and showed he could learn to care about someone even as innocent as a child. When Piccolo first sacrifices himself to save Gohan against Nappa there is no benefit for him and that really shows how much Piccolo changed as character. And even now seeing how Piccolo has grown to love Pan too warms the cockles of my heart because I understand how the relationship with Gohan has started and has grown throughout the series.

And while Piccolo may not be my favorite I still love Piccolo so no I don't see why a Piccolo fan would hate the relationship with Gohan. I don't understand it at all. And no where is it saying that Piccolo can only fight if Gohan is involved. That is ridiculous. But Piccolo's relationship with Gohan is one of the the things that definitely defines his character.

Relationships and connections add depth to a character there is nothing negative about it. But then for me these relationships actually are why I love Dragon Ball not a character's fighting power so what do I know.

I am someone who thinks that every character should interact with as many other others characters as possible. If this is done then the writers do not limit themselces in terms of storytelling.

I don't understand how you can agree with the principle that Vegeta can only appear with Goku and Piccolo can only appear with Gohan. It does not expand the story but can only restrict it. I am not the only fan who wants to see different interactions and I don't see what the problem is since relationships have to start from somewhere.

I watch Dragon ball specifically for the fights so when I say see Piccolo babysitting Pan or Vegeta going crazy over Bulma I don't like like it. These characters are fighters and I will only like the type of scenes I mentioned when they are used as jokes not when they are used to define them as a characters going forward.

[ABED]

I am someone who thinks that every character should interact with as many other others characters as possible. If this is done then the writers do not limit themselces in terms of storytelling.

But there's only so much room. I like seeing characters branch out and interact with new ones, but stories require selectivity. And while new dynamics are interesting, maintaining solid, established dynamics are vital.

I don't understand how you can agree with the principle that Vegeta can only appear with Goku and Piccolo can only appear with Gohan. It does not expand the story but can only restrict it. I am not the only fan who wants to see different interactions and I don't see what the problem is since relationships have to start from somewhere.

That's not a principle and no one is saying Piccolo can only appear with Gohan.

I watch Dragon ball specifically for the fights so when I say see Piccolo babysitting Pan or Vegeta going crazy over Bulma I don't like like it. These characters are fighters and I will only like the type of scenes I mentioned when they are used as jokes not when they are used to define them as a characters going forward.

While we all have our preferences, I don't think you quite understand the story. Yes, there's fighting, but there's plenty of humor and if you don't care about the characters, the fights mean nothing.

[Kinokima]

I don't understand how you can agree with the principle that Vegeta can only appear with Goku and Piccolo can only appear with Gohan. It does not expand the story but can only restrict it. I am not the only fan who wants to see different interactions and I don't see what the problem is since relationships have to start from somewhere.

Nowhere did I say that I want Vegeta to only interact with Goku or that I want Piccolo to only interact with Gohan. I just said that I love both these relationships and want to see them continue. I don't want them to move on from these relationships. That doesn't mean I don't want new interactions/relationships to form too. But as for characters interacting and having extremely well developed relationships with every single character well that is just not going to happen. Like I said Goku makes out the best here because his is the central role in the story.

I watch Dragon ball specifically for the fights so when I say see Piccolo babysitting Pan or Vegeta going crazy over Bulma I don't like like it. These characters are fighters and I will only like the type of scenes I mentioned when they are used as jokes not when they are used to define them as a characters going forward.

Dragon Ball is a fighting series so of course fights are always going to be the focus so you don't have to worry but scenes like Piccolo babysitting Pan and Vegeta showing he cares about Bulma add depth to their characters. They might be funny scenes but they aren't just there for humor. Those type of scenes flesh out a character and make them more developed and dimensional.

Goku/Vegeta and Piccolo/Gohan are practically emblematic to DB, so there is no reason to worry they'll ever stop using this dynamic. Problem is, it also got a bit perfunctory.

I was just really annoyed with Piccolo's role in GT being determined by Gohan, as if his character had no other value to add to the story aside from his relationship with him. (I'm surprised they didn't think of jumping on the Piccolo/Pan train the way DBS did.)
Ironically, out of the like 4 lines of dialog he has in that series, only one is with Gohan, and the rest with Goku, including the ending scene. Go figure.

Well then maybe we agree more than we thought. I thought GT did a horrible job of using its wealth of characters in significant ways. So I am not defending GT. I was just saying I agree with them that Gohan/Piccolo & Vegeta/Goku symbolically go well together and are an important part of Dragon Ball. Not that I think that these characters should only ever interact with each other. Of course I love to see characters interacting with new characters or in new ways.

[Majin Jator]

Kudos to kanzenshuu for sharing those interviews. Even for someone like me who doesn't care about GT, it's realy interesting to see how the creative process and the decision making behind it worked.

It also brings some light about how they appoach Super. You can tell they still have the same mindset about a lot of things, like Goku needed to be onscreen no matter what, and the mandatory pairing of some characters.

The answer about Piccolo seems to stir up people and I can see why, specially because is still infecting Super. Piccolo's participation on the events was never dependant of Gohan, and considering his involvement with the dragon balls he certainly didn't need him to be involved with the plot. (BTW, I never felt that GT were the story of Goku and Vegeta, but whatever).

I'm looking forward to the day that we will read similar interviews about Super. Even if I dread the levels of salt the forum will reach.

[namekiansaiyan]

I am someone who thinks that every character should interact with as many other others characters as possible. If this is done then the writers do not limit themselces in terms of storytelling.

But there's only so much room. I like seeing characters branch out and interact with new ones, but stories require selectivity. And while new dynamics are interesting, maintaining solid, established dynamics are vital.

I don't understand how you can agree with the principle that Vegeta can only appear with Goku and Piccolo can only appear with Gohan. It does not expand the story but can only restrict it. I am not the only fan who wants to see different interactions and I don't see what the problem is since relationships have to start from somewhere.

That's not a principle and no one is saying Piccolo can only appear with Gohan.

I watch Dragon ball specifically for the fights so when I say see Piccolo babysitting Pan or Vegeta going crazy over Bulma I don't like like it. These characters are fighters and I will only like the type of scenes I mentioned when they are used as jokes not when they are used to define them as a characters going forward.

While we all have our preferences, I don't think you quite understand the story. Yes, there's fighting, but there's plenty of humor and if you don't care about the characters, the fights mean nothing.

As I mentioned new relationships only become when the writer actually tries to make the relationshio a proper tbing and Toei do not try and make new relationships happen at all. You obviously like restrictions on stories whereas I don't as you believe these relationships are the most important thing to Dragon Ball.

Toei obviously thinks that Piccolo can no longet appear without Gohan.

I said they can use these jokes for humour but not to define them moving forward. I care about these characters and that is excatly why the jokes about Piccolo and Pan along with Vegeta and his family should stop. They can create something new.

[Kinokima]

I said they can use these jokes for humour but not to define them moving forward. I care about these characters and that is excatly why the jokes about Piccolo and Pan along with Vegeta and his family should stop. They can create something new.

So you think Piccolo caring about Pan or Vegeta caring about his family makes them a joke? These may be funny lighthearted scenes. But they don't make Piccolo or Vegeta jokes it makes them 3 dimensional characters. We care about them as characters too.

[ABED]

As I mentioned new relationships only become when the writer actually tries to make the relationshio a proper tbing and Toei do not try and make new relationships happen at all. You obviously like restrictions on stories whereas I don't as you believe these relationships are the most important thing to Dragon Ball.

Or you just don't understand that there are always restrictions on story. If a story has a million relationships and all are serviced as well as the plot, the chances of it being focused and well paced are practically non-existent. The relationships are very important. Fighting matters in the story, but if we don't care about the characters, the fighting is meaningless.

Anyway, I liked reading the writers view about what they were going for with the ending. As I figured, it was to imply that Goku was gone and couldn't be brought back. He was in effect dead.

[namekiansaiyan]

I said they can use these jokes for humour but not to define them moving forward. I care about these characters and that is excatly why the jokes about Piccolo and Pan along with Vegeta and his family should stop. They can create something new.

So you think Piccolo caring about Pan or Vegeta caring about his family makes them a joke? These may be funny lighthearted scenes. But they don't make Piccolo or Vegeta jokes it makes them 3 dimensional characters. We care about them as characters too.

That is not the Piccolo or Vegeta I want. We know they care about the others so why take it so far. These scenes are in the inbetween episodes anyway and I prefer episodes like the baseball episode or the driving episode. Even though they continued with the interactions in the baseball episode it did Yamcha very good to me.

The one episode that annoys me the most is episode 43 becaue they went way to far with the Piccolo and Pan thing. They have interpreted the scene from the RoF movie wrong where Piccolo is looking after Pan as Toei forget that he did not actually really want to be there but have convinced themselves he wants to babysit her all the time. They should make it a joke that he is forced to look after her and not him wanting to look after her and not trusting anyone else to.

As I mentioned new relationships only become when the writer actually tries to make the relationshio a proper tbing and Toei do not try and make new relationships happen at all. You obviously like restrictions on stories whereas I don't as you believe these relationships are the most important thing to Dragon Ball.

Or you just don't understand that there are always restrictions on story. If a story has a million relationships and all are serviced as well as the plot, the chances of it being focused and well paced are practically non-existent. The relationships are very important. Fighting matters in the story, but if we don't care about the characters, the fighting is meaningless.

There are plenty of other stories that do relationships much better. Generally when you have a group of characters together they generally all have a unique relationship with each other and they don't generally don't ignore certain characters in the group while being 100% focused on a few others.

[sintzu]

By the end of Dragon Ball Z, there was a sense that the series had already done battles to the utter limit. How, in creating new original material from there, could we make it fun, At this planning stage, the staff at the time were already really scratching their heads...

If they didn't know where to go exactly then why not wait then ? Z at the time was the biggest anime in Japan so would people have forgotten about DB if they waited a few years ?

We came up with the idea of, “if we deliberately turn Goku back into a child and give him various limitations, it’ll open up the adventure even more”. As a result of that idea having come up, we ended up deliberately turning Goku back into a child.

The problem is they didn't, they turned him back yet not only was he not weaker but he ended up stronger than before. Had his power went down to what it was against King Piccolo (the last we saw him as a kid) then that would've created real tension and a sense of danger that would require the others to help Goku get back to an adult.

I was given quite a bit of freedom working on GT, so aside from whether they were animated or not, the ideas were limitless.

Yet it takes so much from the original and by the time they got to a truly original concept with the shadow dragons, it was too late.

Around the Super 17 arc in the animation, Gohan came back as a super-warrior all of a sudden, but actually, I personally wanted to put in a heroic episode telling the reason he started fighting again, he happened to open up his wardrobe, inside was his dōgi from fondly-remembered times. Together with the line, “To think there’d come a day I’d wear this again…”

Why not ? It would've taken a few minutes at the most and make the world of difference for him.

Going with Trunks was not just his strong sense of responsibility, but because he combines it with the almighty facet of, “Having someone close to Capsule Corp., they’ll be able to respond to any situation!” In short, we had Trunks shoulder the aspect of, “Having the elements of Bulma that are impossible for Pan”.

It makes sense to have him but why not have other characters that he, Goku & Pan can work with better ? Uub, Vegeta & Goten should've also went to further develop what was established in the Buu arc.

Why didn’t Piccolo participate in the battles?
Because Piccolo is a character who should appear in relation to Gohan.

Piccolo was a separate character to start with and barely did anything with Gohan during both the Cell and Buu arcs so where on earth did they get that idea ? Even if that was the case, why not change things up ?

GT comes to focus around the story of Goku and Vegeta.

With Vegeta being taken over by baby, being saved by Goku from 17 & being the only other ssj4, I can see what he means by that but the problem is that Vegeta was completely overshadowed by him. Vegeta should've gotten more to do like in Z if that's what they were going for.

Why does Super Saiyan 4 have the form of an adult?

A better question would be, why didn't Goku stay as an adult ? surely that would've helped the ratings and maybe even sales.

Whenever he transforms into Super Saiyan 4, Goku briefly becomes a giant monkey?

Why does Vegeta himself suggest Fusion to Goku?

I liked both of these, The monkey because of what was set up on Namek and Vegeta for showing how much he'd developed.

I assumed that, as GT approached its climax, the flow of the story would come to focus on the tale of two men… Goku and Vegeta. Their rivalry, which had continued on and on since the era of Dragon Ball Z, and their subtle friendship; I felt I should depict it as a sort of culmination of these various strands of fate.

It seems like this is what Super is doing but clearly better.

“I am an Earthling with the pride of the Saiya!”

They know how powerful that scene was so why ruin it with Goku ? why not let Vegeta power up to a Ssj3 and have his own fight for awhile before Goku shows up ? He keeps going on about Vegeta yet they wasted countless chances to make him really shine WITHOUT taking anything away from Goku. Super and especially the manga are showing how he can be written as a 2nd main character.

Normally, the cities are restored at the same time that the people are revived. This time, however, what’s conclusively different from usual is that only the people are revived, and the deep scars in the cityscape remain. In other words, the people have to restore the broken city, not with the power of the Dragon Balls, but with their own hands. I wrote that scene with that sort of desire in mind.

I never noticed that but it's something that would've been interesting to see exploared.

At the time of the TV broadcast, in the midst of everyone coming back to life, I received the criticism from many fans, “It’s mean not to have No. 17 come back!” Certainly, while it was cut due to screen time constraints and wasn’t in the episode, at the scenario stage that scene was in there, complete with dialogue! If any of you were bothered by it, please understand it that way. (laughs)

Keeping characters like him and Piccolo dead was something I liked cause it showed not everything could be fixed at the end.

I wanted the viewers to picture “death” in that way, and feel a sadness close to it in reality. So I had a “change” come over Goku.

It was sad watching the hero I've known since he was 12 seemingly die like that, I like closed endings but I wish we got something else.

Vegeta is the only one who notices where he’s headed.

Again, why not go more into it ? there are so many great concepts that gets swept under the rug for some reason even though the writers know they're good ideas.

[ABED]

There are plenty of other stories that do relationships much better. Generally when you have a group of characters together they generally all have a unique relationship with each other and they don't generally don't ignore certain characters in the group while being 100% focused on a few others.

Yes, some shows do it better, but there's no show where everyone has a relationship with everyone much less an equal relation to everyone. That's also true in life. Some are closer to some than others.

Again, why not go more into it ? there are so many great concepts that gets swept under the rug for some reason even though the writers know they're good ideas.

Go more into what? It's the end. It was time to wrap things up, so there's no reason to go into an overly elaborate exploration of where exactly Goku is going or how Vegeta knows.

[Bardo117]

Good read. But I don't understand why they just didn't create more unique and bizarre situations while they were in space.... There's an insane amount of ideas that could go into space travel concepts and adventures.... They began to lose interest in writing space adventures because they noticed that their ideas were bland so they decided to take it back to Earth.