What did you guys actually think of the heavy metal music in the DBZ movies in the 2000s?

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

What does it mean to be "too commercial"?

Trying too hard to please.

[ShadowBardock89]

I really think it's just the nostalgia factor as like I said, I grew up with it. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Can you and some other folks define the "grew up" portion of your answer?

For comparison's sake, I graduated high school in 2000.

For comparison sake, I was in 5th grade that year and watching it on Toonami. I'm a little thankful because it showed another style of music I was not accustomed to at the time.

[ABED]

What does it mean to be "too commercial"?

Trying too hard to please.

If it's commercial, clearly it pleases quite a few.

[shinmaru]

Watched a part of movie 8 with rock music and I never heard anything this terrible in DBZ. The music was just too hysterical and distracting for me.

[ABED]

I can't remember any of the music. That's not a good sign.

[OmegaRockman]

I do have a bit of a nostalgia boner for the replacement scores in movies 5 and 8, but I wouldn't call them good by any means. The only vaguely fitting track was "Change" for Goku's transformation in movie 5. The Japanese scores fit much better. However, I still can't bring myself to hate the replacement scores for those movies. It's weird because I found myself preferring the Kikuchi score over Faulconer rather quickly once I started listening to the Japanese version, and now I can't stand any of the dubs' replacement scores, whether it's the movies or show, rock bands or not, except for Movies 5 and 8. Call it a guilty pleasure sparked by nostalgia, I suppose. I still ultimately prefer the Japanese score for those movies, and I'd even go as far as to say that Movie 8 with the Japanese score is actually a pretty solid pre-Kai DB dub thanks to the above average script. However, that obnoxious REAL AMERICAN ROCK BANDS score for those two movies will always hold a special place in my heart.

[ABED]

I still ultimately prefer the Japanese score for those movies, and I'd even go as far as to say that Movie 8 with the Japanese score is actually a pretty solid pre-Kai DB dub thanks to the above average script.

This is one of the reasons it's a shame that for years the original score wasn't even an option on the DVD's. The movie 8 dub was really good. Not good for its time, but as good as any dub script. It's very close to the original and written by Sabat, if I recall.

[WittyUsername]

As much as I love bands like Disturbed, the songs were pretty out of place for Dragon Ball. A replacement score is one thing, but using licensed band music just comes off as desperate.

I will say this though, for what it's worth, the placement of the rock music in Movie 8 at least sort of fit the kind of character that Broly is.

[Crinchy]

It all boils down to money and culture, at that time most wouldn't have appreciated why quirky music was there since they were introduced to Z, not the original DB series, and mainly enjoyed the fighting, and rock music really emphasized the grungy fighting aspect and made it more "bad ass," as one might say, to Americans.

It obviously worked in the American culture at the time as the DVDs at one point were obviously doing very well.

[Kaboom]

For me it's not even close to being about which music is "better" or "worse." It's about which music is correct or incorrect.

Those rock songs in the movies' dub-music audio tracks aren't what was put in those movies by Toei Animation, which means they qualify as "incorrect" and simply don't belong there. Not then, not now, not ever. Fact. Done. Period. So as a matter of principle I want nothing to do with them. Thank Dende that the "remastered" era from FUNi finally made the correct music a universal option for the small handful of the Z movies with acceptably watchable dubs.

[Kakacarrottop]

For me it's not even close to being about which music is "better" or "worse." It's about which music is correct or incorrect.

Those rock songs in the movies' dub-music audio tracks aren't what was put in those movies by Toei Animation, which means they qualify as "incorrect" and simply don't belong there. Not then, not now, not ever. Fact. Done. Period.

By the same token, you're also watching something that wasn't originally intended to be when you choose dub + Japanese soundtrack on the movies or season sets. Everything DBZ-related from FUNimation prior to Kai was recorded with replacement music in mind.

[Kaboom]

By the same token, you're also watching something that wasn't originally intended to be when you choose dub + Japanese soundtrack on the movies or season sets. Everything DBZ-related from FUNimation prior to Kai was recorded with replacement music in mind.

Yeah, that's true, but it's still better than nothing. For the few Z movies that have halfway decent dubs, the presence of the correct music still really helps shift the tone back in the right direction, and brings the overall quality from like a 5 up to a 6.

[Super Sonic]

While I say they aren't like the rock music of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie or the insert songs of Sailor Moon that were better than the Japanese version at times, I thought they were ok. Grant I haven't watched them in years, I thought they were ok then but kinda apathetic now.

[Bansho64]

While I say they aren't like the rock music of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie or the insert songs of Sailor Moon that were better than the Japanese version at times, I thought they were ok. Grant I haven't watched them in years, I thought they were ok then but kinda apathetic now.

Don't you dare trash on Street Fighter 2's soundtrack

[Super Sonic]

I'm not. It's just I was disappointed when I saw a clip of the final battle in Japanese and saw it was to a happy pop song rather than the instrumental rock that played in English.

[Bansho64]

I'm not. It's just I was disappointed when I saw a clip of the final battle in Japanese and saw it was to a happy pop song rather than the instrumental rock that played in English.

It was more melancholy and sad to me rather than happy. I thought it fit rather well. It focused more on the atmospheric tone of the connection between Ken and Ryu bonding together and righteously overcoming Bison rather than just the action itself. Atleast, that's what I got from it. And to drag this back to Dragon Ball, I feel that focusing on the atmosphere and the bigger picture is something the original soundtracks do that the replacements fail to. The rock tracks focus mainly on the action and try to set the tone as very "badass" and I feel that they failed at that. It can be done but they didn't give me that feeling. The original soundtracks, I feel, broaden themselves up to different interpretations and set the mood to different ones that individuals can decide how to interpret it. The music sounds beautifully composed and never extends itself too far.

[SaiyanGod117]

It was an improvement over the orginal audio.

Everyone has an opinion but... wow. I sure would love an explanation as to why you think this.

My bad for this late reply, why I feel this way is because the Rock music blends well with the keynote of DBZ, which is over the top nonstop action. Especially for movies 5, 8, 10, and 12 Kikcuchi's score just doesn't seem all that good to me and it seems a little outdated as well, Yamamoto's score from DBZ kai is good though.

[Metalwario64]

I've said it before, but I like both Street Fighter soundtracks. The US/UK soundtrack is very much 90s time-capsule, and it's very nostalgic, and the Japanese score is extremely memorable and is also very beautiful. I guess "Itoshisa To Setsunasa To Kokoro Tsuyosa To" is kind of like a 90s J-Pop capsule, but the rest of the soundtrack is much less dated than the US/UK one, but again, I like both (but the Japanese one more. It's one of my favorite scores of all time).

Oh, and this discussion and my recent GIF making made me want to make this:

I made a huge, 16MB GIF, and took advantage of Imgur's automated MP4 conversion to have a decent WebM of this scene.



Anyhow, on the discussion of Dragon Ball, I much prefer Kikuchi's movie tracks over the replacement ones, but I have some nostalgia for the "real band" tracks. I also have a soft spot for Menza's movie 6 score, particularly the track that plays when Goku turns Super Saiyan. Thing is, in the movies, Kikuchi usually put out some of his best work. I love Vegeta's new theme that he created in movie 7.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

I liked it.

At the very least, there were some scenes that I thought went well with the music. Some examples I can think of are Goku transforming against Cooler with Deftones's "Change" in the background, Broly transforming to Pantera's "10's", and the Family Kamehameha being done with I.O.N.'s "Ignored" in the background. I also liked the original broadcast English audio of Goku fighting Cooler with Disturbed's "The Game". It was in-sync a lot better that the re-releases that followed. The muffled music when they were underwater was cool.

Deftones & Pantera are wonderful, wonderful artists that I would love to hear in DBZ if the directors wished for it to be so.

That is not what happened.