The utter failure that is Revival of F.

[Faustus]

To call this film an out-and-out abomination would be the understatement of the century, honestly -- no, the millennium. What complete garbage. What tripe. Utter dreck. In fact, I’m positive it's listed in bold under the entry for "atrocity" in the latest Oxford, complete with a Final Form Freeza coloring page (to fill in at your choice).

Just kidding. I quite enjoyed it! Not that I don’t naturally have my own share of grievances, but…

Dialogue is generally on point, as is the voice-work; and I like that Goku and Vegeta are co-pupils under Whis now. Besides, there’s no lack of cute/funny little bits and pieces for me to latch onto to counteract the effects of some of the duller stretches. Add Freeza in Hell, to Piccolo rocking baby Pan in her crib, to Cop Krillin, to Whis stepping in pink poo, to Beerus discovering pizza (and cheesu!), to Jaco and Bulma both in their interactions with one another and in general, and no doubt I'm having a jolly old time. Without forgetting, of course, the delicious ironic touch of classically Toriyama-esque hilarity that is Freeza training FOR THE FIRST TIME EVAR and getting "SUPER SAIYAN"... only to find out that gold is old now.

The peppering in of irl martial arts tricks certainly didn’t hurt it either (Don't lie: IT WAS SO FUCKING COOL!!).

@ the OP: To your tonal concerns, you're accusing the film of falling short of goals I don't think it ever had any pretensions of trying to achieve. I am also not clear on what your issue is with a spoiled aristocratic brat acting sophisticated and intelligent; sophistication of speech and explosiveness of temper aren't mutually exclusive by any definition of either. Freeza's a well-mannered, verbose, excessively polite, pompous, egomaniacal, self-aggrandizing asshole with an unwarranted (in some respects) superiority complex, a fragile ego and a tissue-thin shell -- this is just as true of the original. The assumption that Freeza was meant to be actually intelligent I think is entirely on you, as is the observation that the sadistic elements of his personality were somehow totally eschewed out -- especially when he has no qualms whatsoever about executing one of the minions to whom he owes his return shortly on revival, destroying a city immediately on arrival, nearly dispatching Gohan and relishing Goku's torture when he finally has him beat by sneak attack.

And, finally, does your third point really have anything to do with Toriyama himself per se (I only point this out because of your conclusion)?
Oh and *chuckle* also, "sesquipedalianism" is a funny word. Sorry. Hem.

[ABED]

But where does it end? I feel like it's aimless because they're already stronger than practically 99% of the DB universe. Beerus and Whis are the only real threats but they seem to be on good terms with Earth's fighters now. It's not as if they're training to prepare for an incoming threat so it does feel kind of pointless to me.

Maybe they've got big plans for future movies but judging from what I've seen so far I don't have high hopes.

The point isn't to be stronger than anyone else, the aim is to get stronger, to better themselves. That is an aim. They have a rational goal, and take steps towards that goal. It's like someone who goes into a gym to lift as much as they can. They're aim isn't to be the best, it's just to continually better themselves. That is in fact an aim.

[Bullza]

Resurrection F > Battle of Gods >> Any of the other movies.

It's the best one they've ever made.

[Kid Buu]

the token "bad" DBZ film

No way, man. That's Bio Broly.

Really? I just thought that people disliked the character, rather than his films.

Though, if it were up to me, I'd say DBZ Movie 7 deserves that fate. I'd put ROF over that since ROF did have some funny humor, while DBZ Movie 7 bores me to tears.

[Zephyr]

the token "bad" DBZ film

No way, man. That's Bio Broly.

Really? I just thought that people disliked the character, rather than his films.

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=32101
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=31527

I feel that these two threads show Movie 11 to be the "the bad DBZ movie" by far. As for my own personal feelings on the matter, I haven't watched any of the original 13 films recently enough to really assess their relative quality.

[ShadowDude112]

While I prefer Battle of Gods to Revival of F, F is still a good movie. It's story isn't groundbreaking by any means, but Dragon Ball never had a groundbreaking story. It had great arcs though. Sure, F feels like Toriyama e-mailed Toei and was like, "Hey guys, I'm writing a script. I'm bringing back Freeza for funsies. Toriyama out." But that doesn't make it bad by any means. It has it's flaws, but so did everything Dragon Ball related. F is just a fun ride. You get to watch some characters shine again which is great to see, both Ayres and Nakao both kill it as Freeza, and we get a fun new blue haired form to go with it. Sure, not seeing how Vegeta got his god form isn't fun, but the rest is pretty okay. Dragon Ball isn't this super serious, super thought out story like One Piece, or... uh, JoJo is thought out, right? I don't follow much anime/manga. Basically, it's not this big 42 volume thought out story some people think it is. But even though it's not, it's still fun. Now we have new content from the creator that feels just like he would write it in his run on the manga, and I think that, while there are many glaring holes, it's not meant to be taken seriously and examined in every frame.

Take Jurassic World for example. There are claw marks on that wall and they think the Indominus Rex escaped. Well, there are holes with that if you think about it for more than a minute. If it escaped, people would have heard it because, you know, it's a dinosaur and it's super huge. They had that tracking device, they could have used that. But it's not a well thought out movie. It's meant to be big dumb fun. It accomplishes that. That's why Jurassic World was well received. It had holes, but it was still pretty okay. So consider F like that. It has holes, but other than that, it's still pretty okay. I mean, I personally think F is better than Jurassic World, but, that's just me.

[The Patrolman]

You know the ending for me just left a bad taste in my mouth because of how is like a big fuck you to people who wanted Vegeta to beat Frieza. People can make the argument that he should'nt have done it but DID HE REALLY NEED TO DIE TO FRIEZA AGAIN? Does no one see how stupid of a decision that is? All for this minimum character development for Goku that doesnt add up to anything. They straight up pulled an GOKU TIME right under us. The other thing that I found stupid was the reason Trunks and Goten wasnt in the film

"It’s because everyone didn’t want to risk losing the next generation of warriors."

Right with warriors with the power of TEN FREAKING THOUSAND. And are they forgetting the whole earth was blown up with them in it. OOPS!

Instead of continuing off with the whole 12 Universe thing. They made a fan service movie that added nothing besides the Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan.

[Lord Beerus]

The story may have lacked drama and substance and the ending may have been anticlimactic as hell, but that doesn't negate the fantastic character interactions, the great fight scenes throughout the movie and the stunning animation at times. Resurrection F was not perfect, and I do certainly prefer Battle Of Gods over it, but in its own regard, it's a damn good DBZ movie and holds up very well on its own.

[Bullza]

Goten and Trunks got the fight scenes in the Yo Son Goku special, Trunks in particular had a good amount of screentime in Battle of Gods more so than Gohan or Piccolo and even in the first episode of Super, Goten and Trunks took up most of the screentime in the episode.

Actually even going back Movie 10 had a huge amount of Goten and Trunks. Movie 11 had them as main characters. Movie 13 gave Trunks a lot of screentime.

So the fact that they weren't in Resurrection F at all was one of the best things about the movie. Between seeing their childish antics again or having Roshi and Tien actually do something for once the latter was much better.

[SaintEvolution]

The movie is not the best. Battle of Gods is considerably better but is easier better than some of the old shits like Lord Slug, Android 13, Bio-Broly, Garlic Jr and most of the older movies.

And some of yours arguments like "Beerus and Wiss are terrible" aren't strong arguments.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

I cannot understand people complaining about Freeza being cocky and making stupid decisions. He's ALWAYS been like that. Its what leads to his downfall time and time again. Freeza thinks he's above everyone else but the moment someone equals or surpasses him in power he gets desperate and frustrated. We saw it happen the way he toyed around on Namek in his second and third forms with Vegeta/Krillin/Gohan instead of finishing them off quickly, then was surprised at how strong Gohan and Piccolo were. In his final form he also toys around with Goku until the Spirit Bomb hits him. Then once he becomes Super Saiyan, Freeza goes nuts. Freeza rushing to Earth in a new form is the same thing he did as a cyborg in the early Cell saga. Revenge is always on Freeza's mind, that's why he always rushes back to exterminate those beneath him without preparing first. Hell Freeza could have blown up the entire Earth from space (in both the Cell saga and in Return of F), rather than ever landing on the planet. But he's so cocky he wants to show his superiority to everyone.

The problem is that he lost his threat from how easy it is now to exploit him and toy with him once you surpass him. He never has a back up plan, Vegeta, Cell and Super Buu both did. He just let himself get scared again and then resorted to the exact same tactic to win. Even though he technically would have that time if not for Whis, it's still underwhelming to see how much of a joke he is now by even the characters who just toy with him at SSGSS level. When characters don't fear your franchise's best villain, you've really undercut your own writing. Not to mention it only made the movie feel pointless from scenario redundancy. Freeza didn't even bring them a challenge either. If he was supposed to return, his new form should have corrected his flaws, as Cooler's seemingly did. A new plan would have justified it a lot more with a newer flaw. If Freeza lost because he didn't expect to meet Vegeta a God as well and fight BOTH goku and Vegeta at the same time, that would have made a better exploitation.

The story may have lacked drama and substance and the ending may have been anticlimactic as hell, but that doesn't negate the fantastic character interactions, the great fight scenes throughout the movie and the stunning animation at times. Resurrection F was not perfect, and I do certainly prefer Battle Of Gods over it, but in its own regard, it's a damn good DBZ movie and holds up very well on its own.

The fight itself was the only thing in the movie of any value, the dialogue in both dub and sub between Freeza and everyone he talked to was excellent. It just didn't lead anywhere. It was more of a waste than anything else, like Paragus's solid build up and backstory, for the lackluster climax of Broly's character.

[Lord Exor]

@ the OP: To your tonal concerns, you're accusing the film of falling short of goals I don't think it ever had any pretensions of trying to achieve. I am also not clear on what your issue is with a spoiled aristocratic brat acting sophisticated and intelligent; sophistication of speech and explosiveness of temper aren't mutually exclusive by any definition of either. Freeza's a well-mannered, verbose, excessively polite, pompous, egomaniacal, self-aggrandizing asshole with an unwarranted (in some respects) superiority complex, a fragile ego and a tissue-thin shell -- this is just as true of the original. The assumption that Freeza was meant to be actually intelligent I think is entirely on you, as is the observation that the sadistic elements of his personality were somehow totally eschewed out -- especially when he has no qualms whatsoever about executing one of the minions to whom he owes his return shortly on revival, destroying a city immediately on arrival, nearly dispatching Gohan and relishing Goku's torture when he finally has him beat by sneak attack.

And, finally, does your third point really have anything to do with Toriyama himself per se (I only point this out because of your conclusion)?

I recognize that the movie never endeavored to be dramatic or serious, and that's part my of critique. When you consider that Frieza as a villain (no matter the version or localization) was never a topic of levity, then there is most assuredly a tonal dissonance between his antecedent appearances and this movie.

I also never stated that his sadistic personality traits were entirely absent in his actions, merely that his dialogue and performance fails to punctuate it in favor of highlighting the spoiled brat component. And as far as conveying a sinister aristocratic air, even Brad Jackson did a superior job of it as King Cold--what with his voice vacillating between pampered and rough depending on his mood, adding a sort of capricious duality to his personality. There's being verbose and supercilious, and then there's florid blathering at 200 words a minute; Chris Ayres' Frieza happens to be the latter. It isn't remotely intimidating and--as far as I'm aware--doesn't happen to be 100% accurate to the source material either. That isn't to say I actually care about slavish adherence to source materials when it comes to localizations/adaptations, but if that's going to be used as a justification for FUNimation's writing and voice direction, then I'm going to point it out.

As far as Toriyama is concerned, I was speaking about him in conclusion.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

Freeza's a well-mannered, verbose, excessively polite, pompous, egomaniacal, self-aggrandizing asshole with an unwarranted (in some respects) superiority complex, a fragile ego and a tissue-thin shell.

This is the best description of Freeza I've ever read.

[TheAmericanDream]

Goten and Trunks got the fight scenes in the Yo Son Goku special, Trunks in particular had a good amount of screentime in Battle of Gods more so than Gohan or Piccolo and even in the first episode of Super, Goten and Trunks took up most of the screentime in the episode.

Actually even going back Movie 10 had a huge amount of Goten and Trunks. Movie 11 had them as main characters. Movie 13 gave Trunks a lot of screentime.

So the fact that they weren't in Resurrection F at all was one of the best things about the movie. Between seeing their childish antics again or having Roshi and Tenshinhan actually do something for once the latter was much better.

After all the whining that felt like "no Goten or Trunks, this movie is 0/10", I'm happy to hear someone point out how frequently they're given spotlight in almost everything else. Giving the kids a rest so other characters can shine was a nice change of pace. Having the entire cast makes it harder to manage so I enjoyed that Resurrection F focused on the mainstays along with two characters who haven't had any combat fan service or love in the franchise in years!

[The Patrolman]

Goten and Trunks got the fight scenes in the Yo Son Goku special, Trunks in particular had a good amount of screentime in Battle of Gods more so than Gohan or Piccolo and even in the first episode of Super, Goten and Trunks took up most of the screentime in the episode.

Actually even going back Movie 10 had a huge amount of Goten and Trunks. Movie 11 had them as main characters. Movie 13 gave Trunks a lot of screentime.

So the fact that they weren't in Resurrection F at all was one of the best things about the movie. Between seeing their childish antics again or having Roshi and Tenshinhan actually do something for once the latter was much better.

After all the whining that felt like "no Goten or Trunks, this movie is 0/10", I'm happy to hear someone point out how frequently they're given spotlight in almost everything else. Giving the kids a rest so other characters can shine was a nice change of pace. Having the entire cast makes it harder to manage so I enjoyed that Resurrection F focused on the mainstays along with two characters who haven't had any combat fan service or love in the franchise in years!

I'm alright with them not being in the film. It was the reasoning why they werent in there.

[shinmaru]

I liked the movie, but the story felt rushed, but I think the story will be much better in Super.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

It is no secret that the Kai dub as a whole got flowery as times, with Freeza as its cornerstone. There are creative liberties and there are creative liberties.

[TheGreatness25]

I actually enjoyed this movie more than Battle of Gods. With Battle of Gods, I guess I expected too much. Plus, people severely over-hyped it, it was just a fun little movie. I think what really made Battle of Gods not enjoyable for me was that it started messing with the 28th Tenkaichi Budokai part as well as GT. But, by the time I got around to watching Resurrection "F," I really was kind of over all of it and for some reason, that time between the two movies really changed my outlook on the series. Also, by the time I saw Resurrection "F," the news with Super came out, so I basically came to the conclusion that the story as I knew it was broken. So keeping an "I don't really give a damn either way" mentality through it helped a lot. Maybe if I re-watch Battle of Gods, I'd feel better about it. I just felt like it wasn't worth all the hype. I felt like that movie had no stakes in it. I felt that Vegeta and the others were portrayed hilariously badly. Gohan getting drunk and singing at Bulma's party, Vegeta doing his little bingo song and dance, Pilaf and the gang's mysterious little kid versions of themselves (by the way, to anyone who had Pilaf, Shu, and Mai being alive as a plothole in GT, well there you go), and all of that really made me not think too highly of the movie. Plus, I mean the fight had no stake in it. We knew Beers wasn't going to destroy Earth. It's like they gained another frienemy. Also, I thought Super Saiyan God was dumb and unnecessary. Then again, Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan was incredibly laughable, but hey, since we got to that bridge, might as well cross it, right? Also, yeah, introducing Beers and Whis does make any villain really silly, but you have to remember that they have no stake in the fights, so they're not going to get involved and help the Z Warriors. I mean I'm sure they will at one point, but they didn't in Resurrection "F," so that's not really an issue for me. Well, besides the fact that I think those two characters themselves are pretty dumb.

Overall, I went into Resurrection "F" not giving a crap and it worked out better. I cared too much with Battle of Gods. With that said, if people took Resurrection "F" seriously, then how come there's such strong praise for Battle of Gods?

In the end, what the hell is a Super Saiyan God? We know the word "God" as one thing. DB characterizes "God" as a being who watches over a world. So Earth has a "God," and the Other World has "Gods" for each quadrant, overseen by a grand "God," who answers to another four (well, one, but there were once four) "Gods." I understand Beers as a "God" of destruction because he oversees the destruction within the universe. But...what the hell is a Super Saiyan God? What does he oversee? Is it just a particular Ki type? That doesn't even make sense.

I swear on my life that I made "Super Saiyan God" when I was about 12 years old. I was writing a fanfic that took place after GT and decided that it would be cool if after GT, Goku rode Shen Long to Other World where he destroyed him, but having absorbed the Dragon Balls, he became a "God" (after all, the Dragon Balls were made by Earth's "God"). I used that to explain why he was alive in the TV special. In the form he...yes, I swear, had a transformation that was basically his base form that had a red aura with gold and silver sparks. I used "God Mode" for the first arc of my story and had him change the name to "Dragon Rage Mode" later on. That's what I feel Super Saiyan God is - a 12 year old creation. Like in the lunch room at school, "Did you know that Goku can like turn into a God?" "No way!" "Yeah! He's a Super Saiyan God!" "Whoaaa!"

[FutureProtagonist]

I think this quotation from Toriyama really sums up what's wrong with Resurrection F, especially compared to Battle of Gods:

Akira Toriyama’s Inside Story: What did you pay attention to in the script?
Looking back on it, Battle of Gods was a lot of fun for me, but there wasn’t much action, and maybe not enough fan service. So with Revival of “F” I threw in a lot more action scenes!

Source: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/ ... -comments/

The attitude Toriyama displays here is problematic. What he says is "Battle of Gods didn't have enough action scenes and fanservice, so I put that in Resurrection F." That's just the wrong way of looking at something like this; you don't throw in action scenes for the sake of having action scenes, you have an action scene when the story demands there be one, and it should drive the story forward, and fanservice should not be the selling point of the movie; fanservice is fine, in moderation, but a movie should not be written for the sheer purpose of delivering it.

It's uncanny how well that one answer exposes why this movie had these problems and why they weren't as bad in BoG. Toriyama had fun writing BoG because he was writing a real story, something he wanted to tell, but the feedback he got was "need action scenes and fanservice", so he doesn't care anymore. Now we've got him writing a glorified memo instead of "practically writing the entire script" and letting Toei handle the bulk of this effort because it's the stuff that Toei deals in 24/7. It's no different from M1-13.

It's not an utter failure. It delivered what it intended to deliver - action scenes and fanservice, not to mention loads of money, but that's not the movie I want.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I think this quotation from Toriyama really sums up what's wrong with Resurrection F, especially compared to Battle of Gods:

Akira Toriyama’s Inside Story: What did you pay attention to in the script?
Looking back on it, Battle of Gods was a lot of fun for me, but there wasn’t much action, and maybe not enough fan service. So with Revival of “F” I threw in a lot more action scenes!

Source: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/ ... -comments/

The attitude Toriyama displays here is problematic. What he says is "Battle of Gods didn't have enough action scenes and fanservice, so I put that in Resurrection F." That's just the wrong way of looking at something like this; you don't throw in action scenes for the sake of having action scenes, you have an action scene when the story demands there be one, and it should drive the story forward, and fanservice should not be the selling point of the movie; fanservice is fine, in moderation, but a movie should not be written for the sheer purpose of delivering it.

It's uncanny how well that one answer exposes why this movie had these problems and why they weren't as bad in BoG. Toriyama had fun writing BoG because he was writing a real story, something he wanted to tell, but the feedback he got was "need action scenes and fanservice", so he doesn't care anymore. Now we've got him writing a glorified memo instead of "practically writing the entire script" and letting Toei handle the bulk of this effort because it's the stuff that Toei deals in 24/7. It's no different from M1-13.

It's not an utter failure. It delivered what it intended to deliver - action scenes and fanservice, not to mention loads of money, but that's not the movie I want.

The above quote doesn't mention anything about feedback it was all Toriyama's thinking that he needed to up the anti in terms of action. Toriyama had no obligation to write this movie like with with BoG so you can't say it wasn't a story he wanted to tell, this was his baby from start to finish. The only thing Toei did was animate the fight scenes, something I am sure they did for BoG too, Toriyama wrote the dialogue and plot for the movie, that alone doesn't put it in the boat as M1-13.