Is there a general consensus on what the worst movie is?

[WittyUsername]

To be clear, I’m referring specifically to the animated movies that were distributed by Toei Animation, so Dragon Ball: Evolution and the other two live action movies don’t count.

Anyway, while opinions on the movies of course vary, I’m curious if there’s any generally accepted consensus on which one is the absolute worst of the bunch. From what I can tell, the Dragon Ball movies that are most commonly considered to be the worst by fans are DBZ Movie 6, Movie 7, Movie 10, and Movie 11. Back in the day, it seemed to me like the common consensus was that Movie 11 was the worst, but I don’t know how accurate that assessment is, or if it still holds up today.

Anyone have any idea on the matter?

[Robo4900]

Honestly, I thought Z 10 and 11 were quite fun, though 10 is quite dull in its second half.

For me, the real stinkers are Z 3, 4, 5, and 7. Especially 4.

[LettuceJUMP]

HAS to be BioBroly

[MyVisionity]

What I remember always reading back in the day was that Movie 4 and Movie 11 were the worst of the movies.

To me Movie 4 (Super Saiyajin Son Goku) might just be the worst. Just really poor overall. I enjoy Movie 11 (...the One Who Will Win) quite a bit.

I don't like Movie 7 all that much.

[WittyUsername]

Honestly, I thought Z 10 and 11 were quite fun, though 10 is quite dull in its second half.

For me, the real stinkers are Z 3, 4, 5, and 7. Especially 4.

I myself used to consider Movie 11 to be the worst, but nowadays, I find myself thinking that Movie 10 is the worst, at least as far as the Broly movies are concerned. Movie 11 at least had an interesting horror element to it with the acid that dissolves people, and I do give it credit for resolving its conflict in a way that didn’t just involve hitting or blasting the bad guy really hard.

Mind you, these days I find myself thinking that Ressurection ‘F’ is the worst of animated Dragon Ball films. It has all the problems that many of the older movies have, without the mercifully short runtime. It was basically 90 minutes of boring exposition (some of which was stuff that we as fans of the series already knew about) or flashy fight scenes with dodgy CGI and no real tension behind them. Still, I know I’m in the minority on that.

[Grimlock]

Dunno. The worst movies for me are: 8, 10, 11 and 15 (maybe Movie 1 too. Don't remember much of it. Just that I slept at some point watching it).

[ABED]

Movie 1 is nowhere near the top of that list. Great animation and some of the best fights in the entire anime.

The sense I get is the worst is generally considered to be either DBZ movie 4 or 11, and I agree. Both are god awful.

[Robo4900]

Honestly, I thought Z 10 and 11 were quite fun, though 10 is quite dull in its second half.

For me, the real stinkers are Z 3, 4, 5, and 7. Especially 4.

I myself used to consider Movie 11 to be the worst, but nowadays, I find myself thinking that Movie 10 is the worst, at least as far as the Broly movies are concerned. Movie 11 at least had an interesting horror element to it with the acid that dissolves people, and I do give it credit for resolving its conflict in a way that didn’t just involve hitting or blasting the bad guy really hard.

Mind you, these days I find myself thinking that Ressurection ‘F’ is the worst of animated Dragon Ball films. It has all the problems that many of the older movies have, without the mercifully short runtime. It was basically 90 minutes of boring exposition (some of which was stuff that we as fans of the series already knew about) or flashy fight scenes with dodgy CGI and no real tension behind them. Still, I know I’m in the minority on that.

I found 11 quite entertaining as almost a farce. It's Goten and Trunks getting in over their heads with #18 and Mr. Satan on a whacky adventure that also happens to involve a big giant monster that's trying to kill everything that was made with cloning and there's all this stuff about a scientist... It's a comedy monster movie, basically. Similarly, I found the first half of 10 really fun because it was Goten, Trunks, and Videl engaging in whacky shenanigans. And then Broly happens and it becomes 20 minutes of "look how hard broly am punch. also gohan. and krillin for some reason."

As for ResF... It's pretty bad, yeah. I actually forgot about it, as I often do.

[Koitsukai]

I guess the sole idea of stretching a concept too much is already a good tip to an awful movie. That alone sets Bio Broly apart from the rest. To me that's the worst movie, far from the annoying Slug Movie or the Metal Cooler army. The design of that naked slimey-looking final form of Broly... oh my kami

[ABED]

Don't forget the part where he's defeated by sea water.

[MyVisionity]

I like Movie 11 mostly for continuing the #18/Satan plot, which I enjoy. And seeing Kuririn and 18 fighting some more. I like that they found another way to milk Broli.

[WittyUsername]

I don’t know if I should be embarrassed by this, but I didn’t even realize that Movie 4 was seen as a contender for the worst one. I don’t care for it either, but I was under the impression that people were just sort of indifferent to it. It always struck me as the least talked about of the original 13 DBZ movies.

[Soppa Saia People]

I don’t know if I should be embarrassed by this, but I didn’t even realize that Movie 4 was seen as a contender for the worst one. I don’t care for it either, but I was under the impression that people were just sort of indifferent to it. It always struck me as the least talked about of the original 13 DBZ movies.

yeah, i honestly don't see what sets it apart as being worst then Z movie's 6, 7, and 10, or even 3 because jesus that movie is so boring once tullece arrives on earth.

I like Movie 11 mostly for continuing the #18/Satan plot, which I enjoy. And seeing Kuririn and 18 fighting some more. I like that they found another way to milk Broli.

yeah i find movie 11 too be pretty good, especially coming off movie 10 which is certainly up there for the worst. i think movie 6 is the worst though, i really just can't stand that movie, lmao.

[MyVisionity]

Movie 4 is just a mess. The Slug character is such a poor Daimao ripoff. He even has his own Mazoku. Sure, most of the other movies' plots and villains are copies of the show, but this one barely tried. The whole whistling thing with Gohan and Piccolo's ears is tragic (although I like that track a lot, and I'm guessing that's Nozawa's whistle).

I think the best of the movies are the ones that attempted some originality like Two with Uiro/Kochin and Thirteen with Hildegarn.

[TheBigBoy]

The best part of Resurrection F is the fan-servicey scene where the B-team fights of Freeza's army. Everything else kinda sucks!

[supersaiyanZero]

BoG was a huge stinker.

[jjgp1112]

Movies 4 and 11 have been regarded as the biggest stinkers for at least as long as I've been in the fandom. Movies 6 and 7 have recently fell out of favor, although in all honesty I never saw a single negative remark about the former until that TFS behind the scenes video, then all of a sudden everyone was calling it one of the worst. So I'd say Movie 6 was more of a bandwagon hate.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I don't think I've seen the Broly sequels all the way through on account of their reputation! In light of that I think I'd give it to Android 13, Cooler 2 and Lord Slug are similarly by-the-numbers but have slightly more redeeming features. Lord Slug in particular is delightfully mean-spirited start to finish once the fighting starts.

[Yuli Ban]

Movie 11 is subpar for me, but not for the reasons people think.
In fact, a couple years ago, I even ran down the reasons why Bio-Broly is a lot of things that Dragon Ball fans had been asking for (and, to an extent, are still asking for). The biggest reasons why it's a let-down is because of the titular character. It's a like a movie you hate on principle but besides one or two elements didn't actually have much wrong with them, like the live-action Grinch or Cat in the Hat or, dare I say it, Dragon Ball Evolution. Before I'm crucified: DBE's biggest sin was being a generic early-mid 2000s Hollywood superhero story with a very thin veneer of Dragon Ball plastered on top, to the point it felt like those behind it skimmed the Wikipedia plot summary and made a movie based on that root. Functionally, it's just a dull kung fu superhero movie that would've fit in perfectly in 2001-2004 theatres, and fans hate it because it was offensively wrong with literally every aspect it attempted— hence why we hate it on principle even though, on an objective level, it was a functional movie (unlike The Last Airbender, which tried squeezing an entire arc into about an hour and a half and failed on some basic narrative levels).

As for the "worst" Dragon Ball movie, it's probably Lord Slug or Super Android 13. Both of those are the stereotypical "Dragon Ball Z" movie: a bad guy appears out of nowhere with a piss-poor set up and justification, the heroes fight and job to them, and then Son Goku wins the day by pulling something out of his ass. In Lord Slug, it wasn't even clear what exactly that something was. Was it Piccolo's ki, making an ironic echo for Slug's defeat? What exactly was going on there at the end? And there was the False Super Saiyan, aka Super Saiyan Omen, aka the first draft for what Super Saiyan was supposed to be. Considering that was the big draw of the movie and it lasted barely over a minute and accomplished nothing of note other than leading into learning Slug was a Namekian and wasn't even referenced anywhere later in the movie, it's somewhere between false advertising and a Big Lipped Alligator moment. The fight with Slug's men was the most enjoyable aspect but they were gone within a few minutes.

Super Android 13 had an even worse set up because a bunch of Artificial Humans show up and start fighting Goku, and that's it. That's your story for the next 50 minutes. Don't me wrong, these are all enjoyable fights (for the most part), but there was no attempt to have a plot in this one. I mean, this "movie" might very well be the textbook standard for "Plot? What Plot?"

Bojack Unbound is on that level as well, especially because there's no explanation of how Bojack got to Earth or collected his crew or why they wanted to go to Earth other than to beat up Goku's loved ones because they're dicks. The tournament at the start was enjoyable, however, but a lot of things were contrived.

In other words, it's the movies with the worst set ups that I don't like.
Considering most DB & DBZ movies were yearly Jump Fest titles without much thought put into them, it's not surprising that so few felt like actual films rather than "extended what-if episodes". The DB movies, the first three Z movies, the first Broly movie, the last two Z movies, Path to Power, and MAYBE the GT special were the only ones that felt even remotely theater worthy and even a plurality of those felt like direct-to-VHS titles.

Good thing I lurked before wasting more bandwidth!

I honestly believe that Bio-Broly would not be hated anywhere near as much if it weren't for the damn name. It's a fairly decent short DBZ movie— certainly no Fusion Reborn and not even on par with Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan, but I've always appreciated that it gave a bit more love to unusual suspects. Movie 10, for example, copped out of giving the limelight to Gohan and Goten by bullshitting Goku back at the very last minute. Movie 11, on the other hand, actually has Goten, Trunks, and even Krillin deliver the killing blow with Goku nowhere in sight. It doesn't even half-cop out by having Gohan show up (considering he did end two movie villains himself).
I mean for goodness sakes— this movie actually bothered to give character development to Mr. Satan, of all people! Not forgetting some neat bits with Krillin and 18 going on and we also get Goten and Trunks as... just Goten and Trunks, not even Gotenks! The boys themselves have to step up to the plate to save the day.

I mean, it's almost everything we've been asking for:

• Goku is nowhere to be seen until the last, and I mean the actual last minute of the movie just to justify putting him on the box
• The supporting characters steal the spotlight
• Someone other than Goku defeats the villain
• Mr. Satan gets some background development
• Goten and Trunks are useful without being fused
• Human characters help defeat a big bad (again, Krillin joins in with the parting Kamehameha IIRC)
• Big bad couldn't be defeated just through raw strength and endless ki raising

So why is it the black sheep of the movie series?

BECAUSE BROLY

That's it. That's literally it. The usual bullshit arguments about quality aside (i.e. "Can't blow up the omniverse with a casual ki blast? You suck!"), the only reason why Bio Broly has failed to garner any real love is entirely because it pissed on Broly's head. Broly is a popular character, that's not changing. This was even truer back in the day when most modern fans were still young and untainted by the hideous, unfaithful, totally foreign, and irrelevant original Japanese version of the series, when this was Biblical truth for many people and Broly decimating the Zetto Senshi was proof enough that he was the god-emperor of the entire mythos.

Broly's original appearance made him seem utterly unstoppable, as if the Hulk smashed into the Z-verse and went Super Saiyan. Due to the animation team rushing things and not being able to more clearly communicate that Broly had a weak spot, it looked like movie 8 completely bullshitted the ending because all relevant Z fighters threw absolutely everything they had at Broly and he kept bending them over and opening a multiverse-wide can of whoopass. What's more, he actually seemed to have a character in movie 8 and it didn't seem like he hated Goku just because he cried a lot as a baby. Again, this could have been communicated better, but Broly was so stupidly unstable that his godly ki was reacting to Goku's, which further made it seem like there was a titanic battle exploding.
Goku had the power of 4 Super Saiyans and a Super Namekian in him and he could still only barely eke out a win because of a lucky shot.

ADD moment: a lot of things about movie 8 are questionable. In-Universe, Gohan would have been the one who gave Goku enough energy to kill Broly because it was clearly stated in the Cell Saga that Gohan was stronger than Goku, let alone Vegeta. Yet in the movie, Toei portrayed Gohan as the weakest of the fighters. He didn't even job because that would assume that he put up a fight. What's more, power scaling changes by a horrifying amount depending on whether or not Toei's writers knew that Goku and Gohan were as powerful as they were. In-Universe, Goku and Gohan were MSSJs beyond even USSJ Trunks. In the movie, however, it seems possible that they're "just" super saiyans. This means a world of difference because if they were MSSJs, that would make LSSJ Broly at least Super Perfect Cell-tier if not higher. However, if they weren't MSSJs (which is possible due to them not being in the form), LSSJ Broly could actually be roughly around Perfect Cell post-zenkai. If Toei had a few more months to work on this movie, it would have been the best of the Z films by far instead of the most mystifying.


Anywho, Broly had a very strong start. In a series that had become "strength = quality", Broly was A1 because the show's A-listers were being ragdolled. Never mind that they were being ragdolled in every movie.
Movie 10 downgraded this a bit, but only in retrospect. This is because rather than our almighty team of Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, Piccolo, and Gohan, we only had Gohan, Goten, Trunks, "and" PiccoKrillin. Oh, and Videl. Even at this point in the series, Goten and Trunks were seen as jokes and they didn't have fusion yet, so many fans were disappointed that they carried half the film. Thus, to all the power-obsessed fans, Broly's only real challenge was Gohan. They knew Broly wasn't going to win— never go into one of these anime movies expecting the hero to lose!— so they wanted to gauge Broly's power by the strongest hero to beat him.
Gohan seemed fine! He went Super Saiyan 2, after all, and even then he was being squashed like the disappointing scholarly bug he was. Of course, he managed to put up a better fight than everyone in movie 8 solely because he managed to deal a single blow to Broly that staggered him. This would make sense for SSJ2 Gohan, especially if he's a teenager now, but that only increases the threat Broly poses because it shows that even Gohan going all out barely fazes—

Oh? What's that? Gohan sucks now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOiE0LCu6J0

Well that's disappointing. So not only is SSJ2 Teen Gohan about as strong as MSSJ Cell Games-Gohan, he's also a sloppier fighter altogether. We didn't get Vegeta either. Hell, not even Piccolo, because of an admittedly funny gag.

And Kid Trunks pissed on Broly's head.
And Kid Trunks was able to stop Broly's planet-destroying blast just by shooting a little ki blast in front of it.
And Goku saved the day somehow.
And Kid Trunks pissed on Broly's head as Broly moaned sensually as it trickled down his face and lips.

So to those who hyped up Broly as the strongest thing in Dragon Ball lore, this was a pretty disappointing second coming.
But there was one last hope, one chance for Broly to be redeemed as the most dangerous-ass Saiyan to ever live.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOiE0LCu6J0

Adding to my big post up above, I think that Bio-Broly would have been improved exponentially if there was a real arc with the character himself. As BrolyKale mentioned, there was a major of discrepancy in power between Broly and Bio-Broly. It's long been established that Earthling science is more than capable of surpassing natural alien strength, so if that angle were pursued, Bio-Broly should have been much stronger than the real thing.

If I wanted to tell a decent story that can end Broly's story arc while also making use of Bio-Broly as a real character, I'd probably build off the legend and have it so that Bio-Broly is destroyed by his own power. I recall MasakoX and Shin Budokai working with a story concept where the original Broly lands on Earth and has amnesia; in Masako's scenario, Broly befriends Goten while Shin Budokai had Broly befriend Mr. Satan.
Bio-Broly would have literally no reason to be triggered by Goku whatsoever, which ironically could return to Toei's (probably) original intention where it was Broly's ki reacting to Goku's that caused him to lose control. Coupling a lack of hatred with a much friendlier upbringing and you could have a story where Broly loses control of his ki but can actually at least try to pull off a Kale and attempt to control his power, but for whatever reason he can't accomplish this task, and as a result he destroys himself to prevent himself from bringing harm to his new friends on Earth.

You could even keep with Dragon Ball Z movie tradition and rip off what was going on in the series by setting up a parallel to Majin Vegeta, where the bio-scientists want to control Broly but he breaks free of their control. That way you could have had some heartwarming Broly scenes while still making him this unstoppable force of nature but also have some semblance of growth by showing what he could have potentially been if he wasn't raised by Paragus and wanted to control his power.

If you want a story that ends more optimistically for Broly, you could even possibly have it so that after the "original" Bio-Broly failed, the scientists tried to create a second Bio-Broly that was much more controllable but ironically proved to be completely unstable and became the Legendary Super Turd we otherwise got, and the good Bio-Broly has to control his legendary ki and succeeds in doing so, becoming Super Saiyan 2 (or Mastered LSSJ?), and in the resulting battle, winds up destroying LSTJ Boobly and has to also sacrifice himself as some sort of final atonement while also "satisfying" the legend. You could even have an epic final scene where Bio-Broly and a 'miraculously' appearing Son Bullshitku team up for one mega ki wave before Bio-Broly disintegrates, Shadow the Hedgehog-style, and his arc is finished while Goten and Trunks lament his passing. Hell, even throw Vegeta in there and have him admit that Broly was the true legendary super saiya-jin while Goku can't wait to fight Bio-Broly in the other world.

The story we got was a passable B-movie plot, but it was a real waste that only used Broly for marketing purposes, which ironically would up backfiring hard. It would have been a much more tolerated movie if Broly had nothing to do with it.

Alas, they've at least learned their lesson.

[kei17]

As other people have already stated, Bio Broly is widely considered as the worst one. It had been the same to me for a long time, but I noticed that it's not THAT bad after rewatching it at the screening event last year. There are a lot of hilarious moments by Mr. Satan, and you can see Android 18 fighting, not kept away from battles for no reason like Resurrection F. It's also nice that no one is out of character and you can naturally enjoy it as an extension of the original manga. Yeah, the very idea of the main villain is so dumb and indefensible, and the story lacks catharsis, but the overall movie is still somewhat enjoyable.

In contrast to Bio Broly, the second Broly movie was far less entertaining: Silly jokes, two overly annoying brats, mentally infantilized Videl, a retard who keeps yelling Kakarot, the unnecessary metafictional Piccolo cliche joke and having no real plot. The animation is amazing, but it's a sheer waste of talent here.

However, to me, Resurrection F is now the absolute worst among all the movies. It's got too many technical defects, which makes it almost cease to function as a motion picture. It's not even a matter of being good or bad as a Dragon Ball movie.