Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

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Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by 90sDBZ » Sat Apr 10, 2021 2:49 pm

I always found it strange how Vegeta doesn't even acknowledge that they're fighting Frieza's brother. After all his history with Frieza you'd expect there to at least be a line about it, but there's nothing. He just acts like they're fighting any other villain. Cooler doesn't acknowledge Vegeta as the Prince of Saiyans who worked under his brother for decades either.

They could have had some interesting back and forths, but there just isn't anything. Movie 6 kind of feels like it could have featured any villain and nothing would change. Thoughts?

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Apr 10, 2021 3:14 pm

Vegeta feels like an afterthought tbh. Like he wasn’t even supposed to be in the movie and then there was some studio demand to throw him in there.

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by KBABZ » Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:16 pm

It's a Dragon Ball Z movie from the 90s, anything beyond basic story-telling was beyond what they were trying to achieve with them.

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by Yuli Ban » Sun Apr 11, 2021 5:28 am

KBABZ wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:16 pm It's a Dragon Ball Z movie from the 90s, anything beyond basic story-telling was beyond what they were trying to achieve with them.
Some movies were better than others with it.

The chief thing the movies needed was that the fighting had context.

When the movies relied too much on the main series or an earlier movie for that context, that's when they suffered.

Movie 6 could have been one of the better ones. But the only way to enjoy that story is to watch movie 5 and the Freeza arc. Otherwise nothing is properly explained and you had multiple character inconsistencies. Vegeta may have put Freeza behind and beneath him, but Cooler represented a chance to show off his strength against the Freeza family. And yeah, for what it is, it works. Except that this was arguably the worst looking movie, with some dreadful off model scenes at just about every point.

Movie 7 had the worst of it. That movie was as bare and pure of a DBZ movie as you could get. No set up, no backstory, nothing. Just a bunch of androids appear, and fight. Movie 9 is about as barebones.

It's funny because they sometimes did try to have these elaborate stories, like with the first Broly movie and Hirudegarn's. That latter one actually felt like a movie with story that had some modicum of structure, and yet it always felt a little "off" for Dragon Ball.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by 90sDBZ » Sun Apr 11, 2021 6:37 am

MasenkoHA wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 3:14 pm Vegeta feels like an afterthought tbh. Like he wasn’t even supposed to be in the movie and then there was some studio demand to throw him in there.
He kind of does in a way. Him showing up feels a bit too convenient. How did he get a Saiyan pod to travel in? How did he get there so fast? Surely it took the others several days. He must have left shortly after them to arrive the same day, which throws his motivation into question. He couldn't have known in advance a worthy opponent would be there.
KBABZ wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:16 pm It's a Dragon Ball Z movie from the 90s, anything beyond basic story-telling was beyond what they were trying to achieve with them.
Some of the others at least make more effort than this one. Movie 5 established Cooler as caring about the honour of his family, being more serious than Frieza, and wanting to avenge his brother despite hating him. Movie 8 took its time and dived into Broly's backstory, tying it into King Vegeta and the destruction of the Planet Vegeta.

Movie 6 feels like they wrote the entire thing and then decided last minute Cooler would be the villain.

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by Hellspawn28 » Sun Apr 11, 2021 1:08 pm

My theory is that Vegeta has meet Coola before in the past which explains why he never mistaken him for Freeza like the other characters do.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by WittyUsername » Sun Apr 11, 2021 1:33 pm

Yuli Ban wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 5:28 am
KBABZ wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:16 pm It's a Dragon Ball Z movie from the 90s, anything beyond basic story-telling was beyond what they were trying to achieve with them.
Some movies were better than others with it.

The chief thing the movies needed was that the fighting had context.

When the movies relied too much on the main series or an earlier movie for that context, that's when they suffered.

Movie 6 could have been one of the better ones. But the only way to enjoy that story is to watch movie 5 and the Freeza arc. Otherwise nothing is properly explained and you had multiple character inconsistencies. Vegeta may have put Freeza behind and beneath him, but Cooler represented a chance to show off his strength against the Freeza family. And yeah, for what it is, it works. Except that this was arguably the worst looking movie, with some dreadful off model scenes at just about every point.

Movie 7 had the worst of it. That movie was as bare and pure of a DBZ movie as you could get. No set up, no backstory, nothing. Just a bunch of androids appear, and fight. Movie 9 is about as barebones.

It's funny because they sometimes did try to have these elaborate stories, like with the first Broly movie and Hirudegarn's. That latter one actually felt like a movie with story that had some modicum of structure, and yet it always felt a little "off" for Dragon Ball.
I wouldn’t call Movie 9 barebones. The villains are pretty dull, but the movie does try to go in a somewhat unique direction and it does have some solid character moments.

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 11, 2021 2:13 pm

Yuli Ban, I think you overestimate people's need to have seen previous material to get the context for the battles to make sense. Movie 6's revenge story is a fairly straightforward plot. It's the most understandable part of the film.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by Yuli Ban » Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:49 pm

ABED wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 2:13 pm Yuli Ban, I think you overestimate people's need to have seen previous material to get the context for the battles to make sense.
I really don't think this needs to be said on a Dragon Ball Z forum /joke
The second part of your response is what I'm talking about, though. We only get enough plot to know what's going on, and for any added context, you need to see the previous movie and the series itself. Because the movies are really extended what-if episodes of the series, so there's never really been a need for more story in the movies. However, when taking the movies by themselves if you haven't seen the series, things do become baffling, especially when the movies go on mini-series themselves with Cooler and Broly, so now you also need to have seen previous movies on top of the series.

It's not difficult to understand because virtually nothing about DB is even remotely hard to understand, but it does ask for extra on part of the viewer to get the most out of them.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 11, 2021 4:33 pm

There isn't much context necessary. It's a very understandable story. He's looking for revenge after being defeated. People get it, he was defeated and he wants payback. Nothing about it is baffling except the plot of the film. The backstory is easy to understand. It's all the stuff about the Big Gete Star. I don't think it's asking much of the audience as revenge is one of the most understandable motivations for any character. What isn't clear is what the Big Gete Star is doing. What does it want? What does New Namek have to do with it? Was the Star malevolent before it encountered Coola? Those are questions that need answering since they are basic motivational questions. Coola's motivation is simple - retribution. All that seeing the TV show and the previous film does is show the context but they aren't a prerequisite for comprehending Coola's motives.

Movie 5 works really well because it's even simpler and it isn't setting up everything. The other films have the burden of setting up everything and then paying it all off.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by MasenkoHA » Sun Apr 11, 2021 4:38 pm

Most of Dragon Ball is usually pretty broad that you don’t need too much context to understand what’s going on. That’s why so many people came into the series during the Saiyan or Namek or Cell saga without a problem

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Sun Apr 11, 2021 7:24 pm

Cooler Jr/Sr isn't worth Vegeta's attention compared to Frieza.

Which isn't exactly right judgement for Vegeta, but he's always been singularly focused on one person at a time. First to surpass Goku, then to defeat Freeza.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by 90sDBZ » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:09 pm

Out of all the movies, 6 has one of the most convoluted plots. The odds of Cooler surviving his first fight with Goku and being integrated into the Big Geti star (which just happens to end up on New Namek) are astronomical. The movie has some cool fights and fun moments, but is best enjoyed by turning your brain off.

As silly as the plot is I think Movie 11 managed to outdo it with Broly being cloned. We're supposed to believe that village chief guy from Movie 10 somehow extracted Broly's DNA after he was blown into space, and had the connections to do a deal with some corrupt scientists who knew about Broly beforehand and wanted to clone him?

Movie 7 at least makes some sense as we can naturally assume that there were Androids 9-15 at some point. It's just that it relies on the same "secret bunker" thing that Cell's reveal does. How many secret bunkers does Gero's lab have exactly?

Movie 2's plot also comes to mind. How the hell does Dr Willow intend to fit his huge brain in Goku's head? Why doesn't he try Piccolo's body before he finds out about Goku? It does work as a homage to the old Universal and Hammer Frankenstein films though, as many of them had silly but fun plots.

Back on topic I wonder how Movie 5 would have went down if Vegeta had been present.

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by Polyphase Avatron » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:32 pm

Well the Abridged version did something with it IIRC...
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:42 pm

Either they've met before or Vegeta just doesn't believe Cooler's worth acknowledging compared to Freeza. After all, Freeza was the emperor of the North Galaxy while Cooler was a relative nobody.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:48 pm

DBZAOTA482 wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:42 pm Either they've met before or Vegeta just doesn't believe Cooler's worth acknowledging compared to Freeza. After all, Freeza was the emperor of the North Galaxy while Cooler was a relative nobody.
It definitely wouldn't surprise me if Cooler was living in the shadows of King Cold and Freeza and didn't have nearly the same amount of power or influence as either of them. I mean, it's not a stretch to think he was envious or perhaps even jealous that his brother was higher in status as such within their family/organization. Cooler was a lesser regarded member and i'll bet there was a potential sibling rivalry, butting of heads or whatever in play between them at some point.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by 90sDBZ » Mon Apr 12, 2021 2:19 pm

DBZAOTA482 wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:42 pm Either they've met before or Vegeta just doesn't believe Cooler's worth acknowledging compared to Freeza. After all, Freeza was the emperor of the North Galaxy while Cooler was a relative nobody.
In either case it would make more sense for him to say something, like "You're Frieza's pathetic brother" or something. And Cooler was much stronger than Frieza at the time, so you'd think that would justify Vegeta acknowledging him. The film acts like Vegeta doesn't even know who he is.

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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Mon Apr 12, 2021 3:33 pm

90sDBZ wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 2:19 pm
DBZAOTA482 wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:42 pm Either they've met before or Vegeta just doesn't believe Cooler's worth acknowledging compared to Freeza. After all, Freeza was the emperor of the North Galaxy while Cooler was a relative nobody.
In either case it would make more sense for him to say something, like "You're Frieza's pathetic brother" or something. And Cooler was much stronger than Frieza at the time, so you'd think that would justify Vegeta acknowledging him. The film acts like Vegeta doesn't even know who he is.
That was the part i found really odd about it, especially given you would think for as long as Vegeta had been serving under Freeza that he would have likely encountered Cooler at some point or another during that time and remembered yet after freeing Goku from the latter's choke hold acts as though he'd never even seen him before. Giving him something like that line to say would make sense given he'd been around Freeza and his family/organization since he was still a young boy.
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by coola » Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:07 pm

I loved TFS interpretation of it "Don't you know who I am?" "Should i?"
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Re: Vegeta's lack of reaction to Cooler in Movie 6

Post by WittyUsername » Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:23 pm

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:48 pm
DBZAOTA482 wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:42 pm Either they've met before or Vegeta just doesn't believe Cooler's worth acknowledging compared to Freeza. After all, Freeza was the emperor of the North Galaxy while Cooler was a relative nobody.
It definitely wouldn't surprise me if Cooler was living in the shadows of King Cold and Freeza and didn't have nearly the same amount of power or influence as either of them. I mean, it's not a stretch to think he was envious or perhaps even jealous that his brother was higher in status as such within their family/organization. Cooler was a lesser regarded member and i'll bet there was a potential sibling rivalry, butting of heads or whatever in play between them at some point.
That’s an interesting interpretation, but I’m certain that was never what Toei was going for. The whole point of Cooler is that he’s Freeza big bad older brother who’s superior to him. You’re just not supposed to think too much about it, just like with all these other movies.

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