Shineman wrote:Just saw the film.
The film is good in terms of animation, but on the narrative side, it is a bit confusing.
The film attempts to display Broly’s tragic story (even though Broly’s story was tragic already in his original film), but it does not do enough to highlight those tragedies. It seemingly shows Paragus’ tragedy, considering that he abandoned everything he had, without question, to save his son.
The closest thing we get is that Broly had a friend, Paragus shooed him away and that is that. Everything else is from the perspective of other characters, mainly Cheeai, who had one too many assumptions on Paragus and Broly.
Speaking of which, what are your guys opinion on Cheeai? I think her involvement in the film really brings down my enjoyment.
The film slingshot back and forth that Broly is an innocent child abused by his father, but at the same time, display that Paragus had to reason to do use the collar. Furthermore, the film shows that Paragus talks down to Broly multiple times before he used the shock collar as a last resort (which he only used once or twice… cannot recalled).
Yet, suddenly, Cheeai chastised Paragus for using it… despite the context that Broly was going to killed that person flirting with her.
So I don’t know if the film wants the audience to side with Cheeai; if it did, it sending out an confusing message, I think.
A continuation of my earlier post, I want to comment on other criticisms I had with the film. Once again, the film is a spectacular animated flick; stunning visuals, music is decent, some with highs and lows, and the choreography (first-person perspective comes into mind) was damn awesome. However, stunning visuals means nothing if the narrative is either all over the place or frail throughout and this film is a combination of both.
Dragon Ball Minus: Animated
The first section of the film (about 25 minutes) is a re-creation of Dragon Ball Minus in animated format. Another user said it best; if you like Minus, you will like this one, if you did not, well, it did not do engaging to reel you in. Bardock being the only Saiyan who figured out Freeza’s big plans was a bit hard to swallow, despite their attempt to add further reasoning onto it. There are new scenes presented here that was not shown in the Minus chapter, but it does not do anything to Minus itself, but more so towards the titular “antagonist”; as if simply only added the interaction between Paragus and King Vegeta (meaning, no Dragon Ball Minus)—and nothing would change.
There was a touching moment towards Goku’s departure, despite the emotional music trying to bait you in by giving “feels”, it felt flat. Once the actual movie starts, I finally felt something, a sense of joy—finally, the movie can start. Of course, I’m being hyperbolic here, but I digress.
There was a clear awkward transition between Freeza destroying the planet and Bardock, suddenly damaged, tries to stop it. I’d assumed there will be an extended version or a retelling, but man, does it look awkward and noticeable.
A user named Gaffer Tape said it best about the content:
Gaffer Tape wrote:“Ultimately, it's fan-service, plain and simple. There's no story here. It's just a bunch of, "Ooh, look, it's Goku's parents." "Ooh, look, it's Vegeta and Raditz as kids." "Ooh, look at all the shiny new backstory." What a waste. I'd rather it not has been written, which is a shame because what I've read of Jaco I've enjoyed immensely. But between this and the abysmal Episode of Bardock, I'd say it's clear they need to put this character on a shelf and never, ever use him again.”
The Tagline, the Characters and the Ugly
The film was advertised as hell and back as a movie about Goku, Vegeta and Broly; yet hardly any of them gets a glimpse of a character arc (even Broly barely scratches the surface here). In fact, hardly have anything to do with each other at all.
Goku hardly gets any character arc in this film and the end where he says “Kakarot” rings hollow, especially since such character arc regarding his heritage is completed in Saiyan and Freeza arc. One would think with Toriyama’s heavy involvement in the film would grant some promises, but it’s more-or-less the same we seen in Super—offsetting character moments that Goku shouldn’t be doing, like asking Freeza a word means (granted, it was a bit funny though!).
Vegeta gets to fight, then once Goku steps in, he just disappears from the film for 15 minutes until he shows up again for a few worth of scenes of fighting together before fusion. You know Piccolo always shows up in the film and saves Gohan? Is this Vegeta’s version? Shows up, fights something and then disappears when Goku gets into action? Hope it doesn’t become a habit.
One of the common criticisms of Broly is that he either have no personality, no character or a combination of both (and the often cited the zombification theory that never dies, Broly hates Goku because he cried). So, naturally, whatever new aspect presented in this film will be taken face value without examination. After watching the film, I cannot see where the idea that new Broly had “more” character than the original.
Here’s what we know about Broly:
- He has an ignorant view of new shit around him (is curiosity a personality trait…?), since he’d been on Vampa for 41 or so years.
- He used to have a gigantic space pupper as a friend before his Dad shooed him away.
- He doesn’t like the collar thing.
- Loves his Dad.
- Likes to fight, contrary what the film is trying to shove down the throat of the audiences.
And that’s it. That is literally all the information about Broly. Once we get into the second half of the film, his supposed character arc abruptly ends and turns into a hulking mess, strip of whatever “personality” he had in the first half. The film never addresses why Broly is uncontrollable nor his Legendary Super Saiyan, excuse me, Full Power is given any thought—things are happening, but at the same time, nothing is happening.
I just cannot see how these things gave any depth to Broly at all—especially since he rarely spoke in the film. Original Broly was quite talkative in his first appearance and combined with cruelty, sadism, and competitive nature; even in his second appearance, his lines (he says Kakarot 12-14 times and uttered one full sentence to Gohan) can sum up as “Get that guy out here so I can get a rematch”.
Perhaps people don’t like that kind of character, so they fetch whatever tack on as an improvement, which is fine, but I don’t see this Broly having any more personality than the original. It’s more or less the same… perhaps even less so.
And honestly, despite the glaring issues the film had with those three, those problems I can overlook due to time restraints or things getting cut for the film. Yet, there is no excuse for Cheerai and Lemo; they are easily the worst characters in the film.
I mentioned before that they seem to dip into this idea that Paragus loved his son (it was done more subtly in the original film, but it was nice to see it here). Yet, these two little shits constantly demonized Paragus back and forth, and the film does nothing to address it, as if the film is trying to leave the audience to see if Paragus and Broly’s relationship is bad or not.
But it doesn’t work in my opinion. Paragus flat out abandoned everything in order to save his son. He spent 41 years together with him—it is clear that Broly had a positive view of him. Another thing is the shock collar as I mentioned before, before Paragus starts the zapper, he talks him down multiple times and when that doesn’t work, he uses it.
What’s worse is that these two barely just met Broly and Cheerai acted like she knew him inside out. It brings down enjoyment of the film whenever she and Lemo appears on screen to talk one thing and another of how Broly truly feels… yet the film consistently shows Broly loving the shit out of this fight. Inf act, when Paragus practically was on his knees trying to get Broly to stop fighting Vegeta and come home when he realized he wasn’t strong enough—it was clear he pretty much stop giving a shit about revenge and wanted to go home, yet, we’re supposedly have to take Cheerai’s words into heart about Broly based on few interactions?
All and all, it is a good film, but the original film, as the Doctor said, did everything this film did, but better. If I were to truly rank all the Broly films, it would be like this:
- Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan (7/10)
- Dragon Ball Super: Broly (6.5-7/10)
- Dragon Ball Z: Broly – Second Coming and Bio-Broly (two films that seemingly, for some reason, decides to use the boring characters in the franchise, Trunks and Goten, as main characters.)(4/10 and 2/10)
"You, your family, everyone, will die. Over and over. Mountains of broken bodies, beneath the wheel." - Lich (Crossover, Adventure Time Season 7, episode 23)
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