Your opinion for the original 3 Dragon Ball movies.

[Dragon ball master]

What is your guys opinion of Curse of the blood rubies,sleeping princess in devil's castle, and l, mystical adventure

[Dragon ball master]

I watched the blt dub of Curse of the blood rubies, the Creative products dub of sleeping princess, and the harmony gold dub of Mystical adventure. Movie 1 is ok but its a B- for me. The story is most beat to beat. The villans I dont realy care about them. plaf is better in opinion. Its short but ok

[Yuji]

I don't really care for the first two but the third one is a nice condensation of three arcs, even if it feels rushed at times, while providing a unique spin on the backstory of these characters. I feel the Penguin Village segment is out of place but the rest of the film is great.

[MasenkoHA]

The first film is fine, it relies too much on recreating the first arc and cramming it into a 50 movie movie with its original plot jammed but its an adequate alternative to rewatching the first 13 episodes if you want to get the gist of things.

Sleeping Princess is a lot of fun. As a horror fan it's always fun watching Dragon Ball dabble in that genre

Mystical Adventure has a solid first half but once Goku gets Dodonpa'd to Karin Tower the movie kind of loses itself

[GokuHater]

For me each one of them is better than the last.

Each one is meant to represent the arc it takes place in (kind of like Z movies) but still this doesn't mean they can't be original or creatvive.

Curse of the Blood Rubbies is hands down the worst of the bunch. It's basically the whole first arc squished toghether into several minutes and the effect is not good. While animation is okay, there's an original villain, story and they try to find some creative ways to introduce all the characters, the whole thing is so rushed and quick, we really can't focus on it.
The ending is unsatysfying, though the way they summoned Shenron was interesting and new. Basically it's a Path to Power alpha and nothing this movie does better.

Sleeping Princess is a lot better and I think that's beacuse it doesn't exactly follow the anime's plot but comes up with a new one, having simillar beats. The framing device for the movie is also creative and somewhat even believable. Thank's to this, the movie gets to breathe, to let you know the characters and even have a laugh here and there.
I like seeing Ozzaru Goku here as in the original story we didn't see it as much.

Mystical Adventure is the BEAST in comparison. While the second movie proves beneficial by not cramping in too much, the first suffers as they had to cramp the whole arc. This one has RR saga, Tao Pai Pai and 22 Tenkaichi Budokai cramped in it but somehow it works.
The setting is on of the most original for the series and truthfully Chiaotzu is the best we ever will see him - also his relantionhip with Tien is adorable.
I think the movie suffers by Tao part of the story but that's not much and is also done quite intelligently with what they had.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

This thread inspired me to give Blood Rubies another watch, and I appreciate it a lot more on the second go around. A lot more good jokes and silly still frames than I remembered (poor Bulma's reaction to Roshi's terms for exchanging his Dragon Ball) and a few beautiful quick shots of Shenron. (Well, the movie was named after him after all). It does inevitably fall to third place on account of being mostly a condensation of the first arc, and the lack of dramatic finesse that arc has as a self-contained story. It was a product of when the series was still young and the TV anime was decades away from being readily available, and with that no longer being the case it loses luster.

Sleeping Princess is usually my easy pick for favorite. The Goku and Krillin sections are worth the price of admission by themselves, very simple but effective character-building, and the gags at Krillin's expense always hit. Lucifer's castle is easily up there with the best Z movie locales and some of that flashback and background artwork is just striking and un-Dragon Ball in a welcome way. Bulma's obliviousness to her plight runs a bit long, but it is justified in giving enough time for everything around her to happen.

I want to like Mystical Adventure more than I do. The repurposing of the Crane crew and Red Ribbon army into a slightly more typical drama is effortless and effective, and we get a lot of build-up in that short runtime. Bulma dogfighting with the Mifan pilots, Upa and Bora getting their own introduction and then meeting the Turtle squad to sell their struggle. Then the moment it feels like everything is coming together, Goku and Tao go to Penguin Village because the kids probably haven't seen animated Arale in years. Another maneuver that made sense in 1988, less so now. It reminds me of Tree of Might, both already good movies with cute swerves that the movie might have been better without, or better served if those movies had a little more runtime.

[Psajdak]

For me at least, movies are best when Seen between the episodes that aired during their release.

[MrSatan2099]

I've never been crazy about the first movie, even when I was a kid. I don't think it's bad or anything, just very bland as the movies go. The most fun I've ever had watching it is when the 1994 dub found it's way online a couple years ago.

Movie two is my favorite of the bunch. I love the horror slant, great pacing, just good weird fun. I think it gets kind of unfairly forgotten, might have something to do with the fact that it difficult to come by on video for a while. I had actually never seen it until that 2005 DVD release.

I think movie three is probably objectively the best. I appreciate how it just rearranges elements from the series instead of creating new characters, makes it feel more like a movie version of the series than just a one off story. I also watched this one constantly in my teenage years after a picked up the old FUNimation single disc for cheap at GameStop. First thing from the original Dragon Ball I ever watched subbed instead of dubbed.

[TheGreatness25]

I didn't really like them, to be honest. When I was a kid, getting VHS tapes of the first 13 episodes and first two movies, I thought that the movies were just great--but that's because I liked anything to do with Dragon Ball.

As I got more desensitized to Dragon Ball (meaning, the "WOW!" factor wore off because the original Dragon Ball series wasn't so rare), I really stopped caring about the first two movies. Then, I got the third movie later on in life and felt that it was boring. I was never really able to pay attention to it all the way through.

[aleksandrored]

The second is my favorite, I really like the horror style mixed with adventure. The first one I think is pretty average, not very good, but not bad either. I never really liked the third film.

[WittyUsername]

The first movie is the weakest of the bunch, but as a whole, they’re a fun little reinvention of the early arcs of the series that take some creative turns. I much prefer Chaozu in the movie over Chaozu in the actual series, and the campy horror elements of the second movie are pretty fun too.

It’s a bit of a shame that we never got anything else from that continuity. It would’ve been interesting to see how they would’ve handled Piccolo or even the Saiyans.

[ABED]

1st film does a good job of condensing the first arc but its preachy plot doesn't feel like DB.
2nd film's horror elements also don't feel like DB, but it's fun.
3rd film feels like DB and does a great job of meshing so many story arcs. I wish it had maybe 10 minutes more to breathe, but it works well by and large.

[Majin Buu]

I randomly decided to watch all three of these films (and Path to Power) for the first time yesterday to finally cross them off of my watch list (With this I finally have all of theatrical Dragon Ball under my belt).

Curse of the Blood Rubies: As a condensed retelling of Dragon Ball's first arc it's ok for what it is, but it's definitely the weakest of the three in terms of story. It's first couple chapters of Dragon Ball's first story with Toei's own original story spliced into it and definitely feels like that: Like someone took a story with a certain tone and spliced it into an existing story that's tonally very different. That being said, the animation on display is simply gorgeous, particularly the amazing opening animation and establishing shots. It frequently gave me DBZ Movie 1 vibes since that film has similarly gorgeous visuals so it was neat to see where that started. I also like how Gurumes, the Pilaf stand in, functions like an anti-Pilaf: Pilaf is small, non-threatening, and comical; while Gurumes is large, monstrous, and not played for laughs at all. Though I don't love how it feels like he got off a bit too easy considering how hard the film goes in establishing him as a dictator who's destroying his country and making his people suffer simply to fuel his gluttony.

Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle: Features visuals that are just as gorgeous as the first film, but with a better crafted story. It's still not high art, but it's far more solid for what it is than the first film's story. It's interesting that this film borrowed very little from the series proper and ended up being better than the previous film that drew heavily from it to its own detriment. Krillin's character arc of going from Goku's rival to his friend was well-executed and gave the film some good emotional stakes. I love when Dragon Ball trades in monsters and demons so I enjoyed that the villains are a vampire and his demon horde that want to plunge the world into eternal darkness by destroying the sun (It vaguely feels like the Piccolo arc in that one respect). I also love that they use advanced technology that looks like it's from a bygone era. It plays on the series' mash up of sci-fi and mystical elements in a very cool way and makes sense for the story as the legend of the Sleeping Princess is established to be very old. Finally, I found it satisfying that in the end Lucifer gets freaking vaporized, and by his own laser at that. It's the complete opposite of how the first film let Gurumes off with virtually no comeuppance considering all the suffering he caused.

Mystical Adventure: I can't decide if this is better than Sleeping Princess or simply just as good. On the one hand, it adapts elements from 3 story arcs into an original story and does it mostly seamlessly. It feels like this is where Toei more or less perfected the formula of "take elements from the series proper and make an original story out of it" that the Z movies would rely on (to varying degrees of success). I also like how this film goes hard on Tenshinhan and Chaozu's friendship. This feels like the most development their friendship has ever gotten and it gives the film some good emotional stakes similar to Krillin's arc in the last film. On the other hand, Bulma and co.'s presence in the story feels the most superfluous here. Oolong accusing Bulma of using "finding Goku" as an excuse for a Dragon Ball hunt felt like the film acknowledging that this is a pretty flimsy justification for having these characters in this story. Admittedly, the gang's presence already felt kinda superfluous in Sleeping Princess, but wanting to visit Goku while on break felt like a more justified excuse than this does and their part of that film was entertaining enough for it to not matter. Karin's and Arale's scenes feel just as superfluous, despite how fun Arale's is.