Why Battle of Gods will always be THE BEST Dragon Ball Movie EVER!

[GodVegetto91]

Pfff where to start? Who knows.

Everything about this movie was just PERFECT!

First of all, they introduced the concept of God of Destruction Vs Super Saiyan God. That alone is HUGE. Than we saw Beerus’ design, which is just PERFECT! His purple anorexic cat look with the most beautiful looking aura. When i first laid eyes on his character design with the knowledge of him being a God of Destruction, i fell in love. (No homo) but then we saw the design of Super Saiyan God, and once again, i was speechless! Than we had the CGI fighting scenes. Notably the first fist clash between SSG Goku and Beerus just looked OUT OF THIS WORLD! The fight between Beerus Vs SSJ3 Goku was just awesome. But when they released a clip of Beerus powning the Z Fighters, my hype levels went over 9000.! I had never seen a more beautiful and impressive looking pownstomping of the Z Fighters before! This guy literally used CHOPSTICKS! To beat his enemies! It was the most beautifully looking anime fight EVER! I had never been more hyped about anything else dragon ball related. Which is another thing i wanted to talk about.. HYPE! I was never this hyped about Resurrection F, DB Super: Broly, and even the Dragon Ball Super Anime! And in fact, Battle of Gods was actually the movie/thing that started this all! If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t even be where we are now! And than another important factor of the movie... The Musical Score! Norihito Sumitomo was at his Absolute BEST! No other work of him has even come close! Literally every single theme song of that movie was great. Especially the score called “Eternal Universe”. It played when Goku and Beerus were floating in space talking about Whis and the other universes right after their fight. This movie was the very best and always WILL stay the very best imo. Both Resurrection F and DB Super: Broly have got totally NOTHING on Battle of Gods. Despite all this overly hyped “supposive” Animation level and populair character fanservice (Frieza, Broly and Gogeta) it means nothing to me. And animation is subjective afterall. But (in my opinion) the Animation of the Battle of Gods movie FAR eclipses that of any other dragon ball works in existence (save maybe for episode 110 of Super where Goku achieves Ultra Instinct Omen). Oh and don’t even get me started on the Director’s Cut of this movie! These added scenes were EVEN more splendid than the original! All in all i give this movie 10/10! No wait, scratch that, 100000/10! It was also a great time for me personally when this movie was in production and we got spoilers. Good old times! 2012/13 were great years! In fact, even these random trailers had something special about them that i can’t quite explain.

Was anyone else the most hyped for that movie aswell?

[BrolySSJL]

*Worst movie ever.

[Zephyr]

Everything about this movie was just PERFECT!

When it comes to character design/art style, Battle of Gods is tied with Resurrection F for absolute dead last, with everyone looking like they're bulbous and covered in oil. In all three films, the CG was immediately noticeable, and in Battle of Gods specifically, it looked more gross than the rest of the film (which is a pretty high bar).

Sumitomo's.....alright (outside of the first three arcs of the TV series, in which he is largely abysmal), but even at his best, he doesn't hold a candle to Kikuchi; nobody has captured Dragon Ball's kung fu flick musical aesthetic like he did.

[Bullza]

The movie was good but it was severely let down by the middle portion of the movie just being pointless filler where nothing happened but an overabundance of childish gag humour.

It was the first movie in a long time so it seemed like their focus was just to cram as many characters in as possible rather than have a cohesive story. Resurrection F and Broly were better for focusing on a smaller cast.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

I love Battle of Gods, but it is a very flawed film. There's a big chunk of that film where the narrative just stops in favour of gags. Sure, it's funny, but it ends up feeling like they're padding out the run time because the actual plot wasn't long enough for a feature length film, let alone an entire arc of Dragon Ball Super. When Beerus arrives on Earth up until he gets pissed off at Buu, the story just hits pause and what we're left with is just gag scene after gag scene. "Welp. The Super Saiyan God ain't here. Let's just dick around." I love the Pilaf Gang, but dedicating that much screen time to them was a bad call. They had nothing to do with the main plot. It just felt like "Hey! Remember these guys?" It's made even worse in the extended edition that did the film no favours whatsoever.

The movie just doesn't look very good. The final fight between Goku and Beerus looks great, but that's about it. The glossy character designs are bad. Scenes that don't revolve around fighting look really bland. A lot of the jokes aren't as funny as they could've been because of the lack of character acting through the animation. I used to think the film looked great, but then I watched the One Piece: Film series and realised just how much Toei was holding back on Dragon Ball. It wasn't until Broly where it actually felt like genuine effort was being put into a modern Dragon Ball film's production.

It's a very fun Dragon Ball movie if you love this cast of characters. It's just not a good movie, if that makes any sense. Same applies with 'F'.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Battle of Gods is woeful. Technical aspects direction, designs animation all bad, only decent cut in the whole film is Shida and Yamamuro ruins it.

Story wise is just as bad, Beerus has no introduction and we are constantly told he is a super scary GoD oh no, but we were never shown that side of him unlike the retelling when he actually blew up planets before heading to Goku thus showing the audience what a threat he is. And Beerus never once in the film is legitimately scary at all again retelling with #11 fixes this when Beerus says Goku doesn't understand him at all and proceeds to slam Goku on the ground and beat on him! That was scary stuff.

Action the film is never long enough to get the audience invested. SSG the only narrative plot the film basically has barely is one screen long enough and that fight was not out of this world, they fought across some cities then horrible CGI and then taking in a cave. Yawn.

Cast is treated like a total joke, Piccolo had a more effective role in Broly then whatever he got to do in BoG despite having more screen time there for example.

And for large portions of the film nothing is happening. Extended cut makes it feel way worse in this regard.

Easily the worst film in the entire franchise in my honest opinion. Actually scratch that the entire shonen genre I find it that bad.

ResF is just as bad, but at least it doesn't promise something grander and from the the getgo we are told it's just basically gonna be a basic revenge story, at least the cast actually do things in that film too.

[Amir]

I liked it better than RoF but that doesn't say much.

I liked the new concept and lore, Whis and Beerus were awesome too, but everything else was bad to me. I especially hate the useless padding and how bad this movie looks. It's not a well made film at all. It looked worse than RoF.

[SaiyanGod117]

Battle of Gods is still at the top of the list for films that have a lasting impact on the series. Aside from nice action and animation, DBS Broly's story felt incomplete as well as lacking in some aspects, which is to be expected since the movie was made for the aim of cashing in on fanservice. Whereas, BOG was made to cash in on fanservice but also broaden the franchise's horizons with the advents of God Ki, Gods Of Destructions, and the 12 universes. All in all, DBS: Broly is a good popcorn flick inasmuch as the other DB movies but to call it anything more than that is pushing it.

[GodVegetto91]

Battle of Gods is woeful. Technical aspects direction, designs animation all bad, only decent cut in the whole film is Shida and Yamamuro ruins it.

Story wise is just as bad, Beerus has no introduction and we are constantly told he is a super scary GoD oh no, but we were never shown that side of him unlike the retelling when he actually blew up planets before heading to Goku thus showing the audience what a threat he is. And Beerus never once in the film is legitimately scary at all again retelling with #11 fixes this when Beerus says Goku doesn't understand him at all and proceeds to slam Goku on the ground and beat on him! That was scary stuff.

Action the film is never long enough to get the audience invested. SSG the only narrative plot the film basically has barely is one screen long enough and that fight was not out of this world, they fought across some cities then horrible CGI and then taking in a cave. Yawn.

Cast is treated like a total joke, Piccolo had a more effective role in Broly then whatever he got to do in BoG despite having more screen time there for example.

And for large portions of the film nothing is happening. Extended cut makes it feel way worse in this regard.

Easily the worst film in the entire franchise in my honest opinion. Actually scratch that the entire shonen genre I find it that bad.

ResF is just as bad, but at least it doesn't promise something grander and from the the getgo we are told it's just basically gonna be a basic revenge story, at least the cast actually do things in that film too.

And you know what? Despite all of that, i enjoyed this movie more than any other dragon ball movie ever made! In fact, most of these points you made i couldn’t care less about.

The music was the best ever (imo!)

I don’t care about side characters being useless. This is the Goku and Vegeta show. So i made sure to align my preferences with it long ago.

The animation (the good parts) were (in my opinion) the very best. Specifically the part where Beerus powers up against and overpowers the Z Fighters with chopsticks and whatnot, and the part where SSG Goku and Beerus first fist clashed. And i’m talking about the Director’s Cut version here. It was absolutely beautiful, you can’t deny that.

“Beerus wasn’t as threathening as i wanted him to be.” — Well, this movie was to show off how OP Beerus is. Not how evil he is. He is not a villain afterall, so i couldn’t care less about creating unneccesary drama and tension.

“There was too much filler.” Yeah i agree. But that doesn’t take away from this movie’s strong and good points. It didn’t change my mind at all about it.

Yes, there may have not been any good build up to this plot at all. But guess what? I don’t care. Because i got what i wanted, an all powerful “God of Destruction” with the most wonderful design ever.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It definitely gets more praise than it deserves in some circles, but Battle of Gods was the first new animated Dragon Ball movie in well over a decade so in that regard, especially coming off of Evolution it was a breath of fresh air in many regards, watching it for the first time felt like being back to the good old days.

I don't think its horrible though. I think it's more enjoyable when its watched as a gag movie as it was intended to be, it's also more consistent with how Beerus has been portrayed throughout Super. He was depicted as being a bit more threatening in the first arc and I get why people liked that but since then we haven't really seen that side of his character come into play again.

[dragon boss z]

In my opinion it is either the 2nd or 3rd best, with Broly being undisputed number 1, and RoF either being second or third. I think most people let their nostalgia get in the way of their opinions of the old films. Almost all of them were under an hour long, they didn't fit in with the main series, and they were all of a lower budget and quality. Now I'm not saying they weren't good, but they were more like what if extended TV episodes rather than legit movies.

Battle of Gods' strongest point was probably the introduction of Beerus and Whis. Each one of these characters by themselves is better than any movie original character by a long shot, and just them together in this movie and their interactions is already arguably enough to make it better than most of the old movies without any action at all. Then the introduction of a new form, super saiyan god, and the opening up the idea of multiple universes, and Goku actually losing the fight with Beerus all set it apart from the previous movies and creates a bunch of new opportunities for future content and leaves you wanting to see what happens next, while the old movies were just self contained stories where the bad guy loses.

Resurrection F is the weakest story wise out of the new movies, but it's budget and spectacle alone would put it above all the others action wise, besides Broly. It brings back the most popular villain of the franchise, which is kind of a cheap trick, but it does automatically make the villain better than all the other movies, as we know his character already, and don't need to spend much time shown us who he is, while the other movies which are like 40 minutes barely have enough time to introduce the villain before killing them off. Frieza's version of hell was also hilarious, and his new golden form is cool, along with the introduction of SSB, which has become one of the most popular forms. We also finally got to see Vegeta beat up Frieza, and all of the other Z warriors get their turn in the spotlight fighting Frieza soldiers.

(spoilers for Broly below)
Broly is the overall the best though in my opinion, as not only does it easily have the best action in the franchise in general, but the most complete story out of any of the films. We get the flash back to planet Vegeta, seeing the origin of Vegeta, Goku, Broly, and how Frieza took over the empire from his father. We saw Goku's mom and dad, and how they sent him off before Frieza blew up the planet. Paragus killing that other saiyan just so he and his son could have more food, which is realistically savage. Seeing Vegeta's character growth saying he wants to get stronger to defend the planet from Frieza instead of surpassing Goku. Bulma's and Frieza's desired wishes and how they were paralleling each other was hilarious, and the way the Frieza wish was acted out, with the animation and the voice actors (I watched it in english) made it probably the funniest moment in the series for me. Then of course the actual fight scenes. Each one was so good that Veget vs Broly, basically the warm up fight, was better than the climactic fights of both BoG and RoF, and each one of those climactic fights were better than any from the previous movies. Then it was ramped up with Goku vs Broly, and again with Gogeta vs Broly, which was visually the craziest fight of the series. They actually made Broly a likable character as well and make you look forward to seeing more of him in the future.

[MKCSTEALTH]

I think Battle of Gods was the best film in terms of lore building and breathing new life into the franchise. And I will say some of the fight scenes against Beerus were very well animated. But I dont consider it the best film. It has a lot of issues

[BWri]

Battle of Gods is still at the top of the list for films that have a lasting impact on the series. Aside from nice action and animation, DBS Broly's story felt incomplete as well as lacking in some aspects, which is to be expected since the movie was made for the aim of cashing in on fanservice. Whereas, BOG was made to cash in on fanservice but also broaden the franchise's horizons with the advents of God Ki, Gods Of Destructions, and the 12 universes. All in all, DBS: Broly is a good popcorn flick inasmuch as the other DB movies but to call it anything more than that is pushing it.

I'm of the same mindset. I think because it's new and looks really good, people are in the honeymoon phase with it. DBS: Broly is very very flawed. I enjoyed it a lot in the theater, but then again I enjoyed RoF as well and that one isn't very good in hindsight. I consider Broly better than RoF but I do think BoG was the better movie. To the OP, I wouldn't say best ever. It's hard to top the original 3 DBZ movies, but BoG holds up well under multiple viewings and a little bit of scrutiny.

All 3 current era movies rely heavily on fanservice but Broly and BoG have their own stories to tell as well. I think where BoG shines over Broly is it completes the ideas that it sets up and gives a nice payoff by the end. Broly has a lot of ideas but it doesn't really settle anything. The past isn't really addressed (in the current time) nor does it really affect the movie outside of Paragus and when he dies it has no affect at all. Broly is built up as a powerhouse who's in many ways being bullied by Goku and Vegeta, yet he doesn't get the win and the constant powerups are just there for our enjoyment. Frieza is as evil as ever here, but outside of a comedic beatdown, he leaves the movie unscathed. Goku and Vegeta have no real stake in this, because they don't care much about the past. It's just another fight to them. No one learns anything and we're basically left with the same status quo ... except Broly is now around, with Cheelai and Lemo. It's interesting, but its so barebones, just like RoF. The connecting tissue just wasn't quite there. If that tissue was there, DBS:B could have been the best DB movie of them all.

I also didn't think the fight choreography was all that compelling. Pretty colors, yes. Big beams and punches, yes. But I didn't like the new Broly's generic fighting style. I expected something more savage, like a wild animal or at least something as interesting as how the old Broly fought, like a big guy's fighting style.

My main grievance with DBS:B is it shows us a condensed history of the end of planet Vegeta that proves less satisfying than what Toei previously created in the Bardock special. And because it includes DBS minus content, Goku's unique and interesting past is erased in favor of a Superman parallel. Before, we had the interesting parallels of Piccolo and Goku, one alien who was sent to earth to conquer it but who becomes its hero the other sent to escape a dying planet who becomes its villain. DB also loses something by making Goku just another "special born" MC rather than one who becomes special by happenstance. I liked DBS:B, but I didn't leave the theater glowing like everyone else was. Not like BoG, which I admitted at the time had a lot of issues.

[saiyanhajime]

So, I typically have this point of view that stuff should use the medium of choice to great advantage and everything else comes second. The best examples are video games - they should have good gameplay first, way ahead of story or looking good. Of course there are exceptions to the rules, of course just having good gameplay prevents the medium evolving and we'd all be stuck with pong, but in general, right? That's my opinion in general. Usually. Most of the time.

So, movies, first and foremost - have to use moving images and audio to entertain. Story, yeah... Matters, but not as much as that first thing. Most of the time. Especially! Especially in animated films, where the entire point of being animated is to portray something stylistically and artfully.

Broly does that better than any other animated Dragon Ball related anything ever. Therefore, it's my personal favourite. It is gorgeous. It's kinda that simple with me. I'm a pretty simple guy.

I think people have a point that it's very early days yet, but knowing what I'm like and my personal preferences, I suspect DBS: Broly will remain my favourite until something even more gorgeous comes along. All of the valid criticisms of DBS: Broly (not related to aesthetics - because there are some visual issues, obviously) could be worse and I would still think it was perfection. That's just me. I dunno how common that point of view is, but. Yeah. Worth mentioning because it frames my opinion in a more genuine light.


So I re-watched Battle of Gods the other day, which I would agree is on paper the best movie, but in practice... eeeeeeh, no. No. For a start, both Battle of Gods and F loose out a bit to the fact they got retold in the anime, and manga, so it's really difficult not to sit here and say "yeah! I liked x in the anime better", or "I liked y in the movie better!". That really has an impact on the worth of the movie. BoG reignited the franchise, it introduced awesome new characters - I think Beerus is awesome, one of the best visually designed characters in the entire series... I like the lore introduced. I like the story. It looks... okaaaaay? But in a post DBS: Broly world, everything looks 10 times worse than I remember. The CGI in nu_Broly is bad, but my god is it atrocious in BoG. I really dig the underground cavern scene. But, Vegeta absolutely steals the show and is then relegated to unimportant. Also, I think the anime does the telling better *overall*, except for Vegeta's rage is absolutely pants in the anime. So Basically, I watch BoG to see Vegeta be hilarious and a badass, and then... Some crap CGI heeeere, then a lil bit of a cool fight theeeeere, then space chat, then it's over. My main issue with it is that the SSG payoff is not grandiose enough - both in terms of the fight and it being so easily attained. I think SSG could have been so much more interesting and cooler than it actually turned out to be. It's a visually awesome transformation and we barely get to see it or learn much about it that has any wow factor.

It's good, it's objectively one of the better ones if not the best and I can understand why people love it, but yeah, not for me. Honestly, h o n e s t l y... If I hang my potential to ever be taken seriously ever again on the line, I think I prefer Resurrection F.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's good, it's objectively one of the better ones if not the best and I can understand why people love it, but yeah, not for me. Honestly, h o n e s t l y... If I hang my potential to ever be taken seriously ever again on the line, I think I prefer Resurrection F.

I'm not a fan of applying objectivity to art as I feel it undermines what's important about it, as John Campea always says about movies that they affect people in different ways and its always fun to have conversations about why one movie works for one person and not for another and vice versa.

I can totally understand someone preferring Resurrection F, as stated previously it's a less ambitious movie but its execution is on point, it does what it needed to do. Shallow? Sure? But it achieves what it sets out to do. Be a simple revenge story about Freeza that is just fun to watch.

I do love Broly. I think its a great compromise for anyone who wanted more narrative consistency from Battle of Gods and more meaningful battles than what we got in Resurrection F. It also helps that the art and animation completely blows the previous two movies out of the water.

[DHM211]

For the most part I enjoyed the story and soundtrack, but the art/animation was atrocious, perhaps the ugliest DB movie.

[Marlowe89]

Battle of Gods stands out for the sheer magnitude of lore expansion, great characterization, mostly tight storytelling and quirky Toriyama-imbued humor it brought to the table in a successful effort to revitalize the series, but it's certainly not flawless. It's also one of those weird cases in entertainment media where the extended cut isn't all that much better than the theatrical version, since the extended cut adds too much unnecessary fat that really harms the pacing of the story.

It's definitely not as good as Broly, but it's easily in my top three Dragon Ball films.

[garfield15]

Before Broly came out it was my #1 and stood far above the other films. I will definitely say looking at it now, the art is not as good as I thought it was. However, knowing the context of BoG and how it came to exist and the impact it had on the franchise cannot be ignored.

I also strongly believe Beerus and Whis were probably the best ideas for a new character I've seen to reignite a franchise. Which is weird because they aren't 'that' amazing. But there's just something that they bring to the table in personality that gives me so much joy to watch on screen. And we can't forget about the lore BoG introduced either. The things introduced in BoG led to everything we see in the series afterwards and that's an accomplishment

Also, I thought the gags were funny.

DB also loses something by making Goku just another "special born" MC rather than one who becomes special by happenstance.

But isn't that the opposite of what happens? Because Bardock is just some regular Saiyan guy, because he was a lower-class warrior who just didn't want his kid to die, because Bardock doesn't have the ability to see the future and knowing that he was fated to fight Freeza, doesn't that mean Goku is more regular than ever? Goku was a shit-power level baby and Bardock doesn't get the super power boost making him as strong as King Vegeta. They're just lower-class warrior and his son.

I guess it's special in the sense that Bardock wanted his son to live but I don't think that's really "special born"

[BWri]

But isn't that the opposite of what happens? Because Bardock is just some regular Saiyan guy, because he was a lower-class warrior who just didn't want his kid to die, because Bardock doesn't have the ability to see the future and knowing that he was fated to fight Freeza, doesn't that mean Goku is more regular than ever? Goku was a shit-power level baby and Bardock doesn't get the super power boost making him as strong as King Vegeta. They're just lower-class warrior and his son.

I guess it's special in the sense that Bardock wanted his son to live but I don't think that's really "special born"

I see what you mean. Goku isn't special in the same sense as Broly, but he is the child of two exceptional Saiyans. Bardock himself is less special than before, but otherwise he's different from other Saiyans because he has compassion and love and foresight enough to send his kid elsewhere when everyone else can't figure out what's going on. Instead of being an average Saiyan, Goku is now the child of two exceptionally compassionate Saiyans who cared about him even when he's "lowborn trash". That's why I say special born. It's much more compelling that Goku becomes the compassionate hero we know despite his Saiyan heritage, that's why I say DB loses something with the retcon.

[dragon boss z]

But isn't that the opposite of what happens? Because Bardock is just some regular Saiyan guy, because he was a lower-class warrior who just didn't want his kid to die, because Bardock doesn't have the ability to see the future and knowing that he was fated to fight Freeza, doesn't that mean Goku is more regular than ever? Goku was a shit-power level baby and Bardock doesn't get the super power boost making him as strong as King Vegeta. They're just lower-class warrior and his son.

I guess it's special in the sense that Bardock wanted his son to live but I don't think that's really "special born"

I don't think Bardock was a low class warrior. He seemed to be a commoner based on where he lived, but Raditz was teemed up with prince Vegeta (and we saw in the movie how picky the king was with who his son was near), he was the only one standing up to Frieza in the end, and the way he talked about Goku it made it sound like it's just Goku who was a low class warrior, not him and his entire family.
But I do agree that change doesn't make Goku any less special. I like how Bardock actually used his intelligence instead of special future seeing powers.