Endings

[ABED]

I also hate how the journey for the six balls was completely redundant and it made Piccolo kill himself,

I actually like that part, and I think you mean 7 DB's.

it is basically the rehash of Z ending,

It's really not. In Z, Goku leaves because he's going off to train the reincarnation of the strongest being he'd ever fought. He's happy because there are more mountains to climb. In GT, he's leaving because he's dying/dead. It's the end of his journeys.

[LoganForkHands73]

As a former business student, I have a certain appreciation for profitable, franchiseable properties, stuff that can last. But the business side of me is a greedy asshole. The (I like to think-) stronger artistic side of me has a greater appreciation for good endings.

Alan Moore summarised why comic book franchises, despite how desperately they want to be, can never truly ascend to "legendary" status, besides the fact that they exist to make money for giant corporations, is that they are contrived to never end. I say "contrived", because let's face it, the DC and Marvel universes aren't "cartoon" universes, yet companies bend over backwards to keep characters young and relatable by enforcing "comic book time" despite how increasingly unnatural it feels each passing decade. There are exceptions -- of course individual characters who are lucky enough to be only semi-popular can have their stories end conclusively, but the ongoing narrative of the universe can never stop so long as it makes money. And while that can be a good thing, it's also... disheartening. Moore devised a storyline that would have provided a true "Gotterdamburg" for the whole DC Universe, "Twilight of the Superheroes", but it was rejected because it was simply too final.

Storylines like Dark Knight Returns and All-Star Superman show that with great endings, whether definitive or ambiguous, these characters and stories can become almost mythical, but the fact is that the meta-characters of Batman and Superman will always be alive and well somewhere, whether in another comic or a lunch box.

GT for all its flaws provided a great ending. Not so much to GT itself but for the brand as a whole. It felt "final" while also leaving enough ambiguity for years worth of speculation. I feel that Super could easily recapture that, but we'll have to wait and see.

[ABED]

Artistry and making money need not be at odds. Let's not forget Shakespeare wrote for money as did Dumas, as did Arthur Conan Doyle.

And in the spirit of honesty, I don't put much stock in what Moore says.

From what I've read the publishing side of comics aren't really that profitable, which makes it ironic. They seem to be loss leaders whose primary function is a test lab for future IP big movie studios can use. I'd be fine seeing them end, but comic you mentioned were great endings.

If comics are going to go on forever, I'd rather there be a bunch of endings to a number of continuities.

[WittyUsername]

Artistry and making money need not be at odds. Let's not forget Shakespeare wrote for money as did Dumas, as did Arthur Conan Doyle.

And in the spirit of honesty, I don't put much stock in what Moore says.

From what I've read the publishing side of comics aren't really that profitable, which makes it ironic. They seem to be loss leaders whose primary function is a test lab for future IP big movie studios can use. I'd be fine seeing them end, but comic you mentioned were great endings.

If comics are going to go on forever, I'd rather there be a bunch of endings to a number of continuities.

What’s wrong with Alan Moore’s statement?

[ABED]

Artistry and making money need not be at odds. Let's not forget Shakespeare wrote for money as did Dumas, as did Arthur Conan Doyle.

And in the spirit of honesty, I don't put much stock in what Moore says.

From what I've read the publishing side of comics aren't really that profitable, which makes it ironic. They seem to be loss leaders whose primary function is a test lab for future IP big movie studios can use. I'd be fine seeing them end, but comic you mentioned were great endings.

If comics are going to go on forever, I'd rather there be a bunch of endings to a number of continuities.

What’s wrong with Alan Moore’s statement?

Because it's the same art vs. commerce bullshit line we constantly hear and his frustrations with not owning his own stuff feel utterly ridiculous given he knew that going in. Both artists and money men don't seem to see what either brings to the table.

[Planetnamek]

Artistry and making money need not be at odds. Let's not forget Shakespeare wrote for money as did Dumas, as did Arthur Conan Doyle.

And in the spirit of honesty, I don't put much stock in what Moore says.

From what I've read the publishing side of comics aren't really that profitable, which makes it ironic. They seem to be loss leaders whose primary function is a test lab for future IP big movie studios can use. I'd be fine seeing them end, but comic you mentioned were great endings.

If comics are going to go on forever, I'd rather there be a bunch of endings to a number of continuities.

What’s wrong with Alan Moore’s statement?

Because it's the same art vs. commerce bullshit line we constantly hear and his frustrations with not owning his own stuff feel utterly ridiculous given he knew that going in. Both artists and money men don't seem to see what either brings to the table.

Yeah Moore may be a good writer, but good lord does he come off as an arrogant dickhead at times(and I imagine a lot of that is from him not getting the rights to his Watchmen characters due to the agreement he struck with D.C., see his original contract said he would get them back when the book became out of print and that was a pretty standard agreement at the time since there had never been a comic that hadn't gone out of print, but Watchmen became more popular then either Moore or D.C. predicted so that led to Moore losing the rights to the characters he created) so I too would take a lot of what he's said in interviews with a massive dose of salt.

[Matches Malone]

GT for all its flaws provided a great ending. Not so much to GT itself but for the brand as a whole. It felt "final" while also leaving enough ambiguity for years worth of speculation. I feel that Super could easily recapture that, but we'll have to wait and see.

That depends on Super going past EOZ. So far the idea seems to have Super lead into EOZ and finish there. I assume there'll be changes made, such as Beerus and Whis possibly being at the Tournament, but the basics such as Goku leaving with Uub will be the same.

[LoganForkHands73]

Listen, I don't agree with everything Moore says. I can sympathise with it but I find his possessiveness towards the characters he created to be a little hypocritical, mainly since many of his most acclaimed works build off pre-existing properties (e.g. pretty much everything he worked on at DC pre-Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc). It does feel arrogant that he alone feels capable of reimagining other people's ideas but his are strictly off-limits. While I feel that Watchmen had a perfect ending, without DC's corporate strangehold over it, we wouldn't have gotten the HBO TV sequel. As much as some people hate to admit, good things can come out of corporate initiative.

And that's the thing, there is a nuance when it comes to the art vs. commerce debate. The entire television industry is based on commerce first, yet great artistic products have spawned out of the medium. You can't really make pure "auteur" TV in the same way as independent film without help from networks and producers to actually get your shows seen. From my perspective and I think it's fair to say, commerce overpowering the art and extending it well beyond its natural lifespan is a problem. We see it with dead-end properties like The Simpsons or most soap operas that are kept alive as national institutions even though they should've died years ago. I don't think Dragon Ball is anywhere near that point yet, however. I think there is much more potential with it, but the important thing is that when the time comes it should know when to bow out gracefully. And personally, yeah, I hope that the "Super" era extends beyond EOZ. I don't mind EOZ but I think it was a bit of a whimpery ending.

[MCDaveG]

GT for all its flaws provided a great ending. Not so much to GT itself but for the brand as a whole. It felt "final" while also leaving enough ambiguity for years worth of speculation. I feel that Super could easily recapture that, but we'll have to wait and see.

That depends on Super going past EOZ. So far the idea seems to have Super lead into EOZ and finish there. I assume there'll be changes made, such as Beerus and Whis possibly being at the Tournament, but the basics such as Goku leaving with Uub will be the same.

I don't think that IF Super gets there, they will redo the ending of Z and make two versions of same event in anime continuity...
The possibility is there, but introducing Broly into canon with discarding The Bardock TV special is different, but is it?
I always thought that the TV specials were part of anime continuity as they also aired on TV to complement the series.
Therefore, why not, they can probably rewrite Ending of Z and go forward, but I still doubt that, because that will mean that the characters will have designs that except for Goku, Vegeta and maybe Trunks, are not that popular among the wide audience.

[Matches Malone]

I don't think that IF Super gets there, they will redo the ending of Z and make two versions of same event in anime continuity...

The manga has 2 versions (I guess more like an extended version) so the possibility is there. Super has already mentioned Uub twice so we're going there, it's just a matter of when and how.

[Planetnamek]

Listen, I don't agree with everything Moore says. I can sympathise with it but I find his possessiveness towards the characters he created to be a little hypocritical, mainly since many of his most acclaimed works build off pre-existing properties (e.g. pretty much everything he worked on at DC pre-Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc). It does feel arrogant that he alone feels capable of reimagining other people's ideas but his are strictly off-limits. While I feel that Watchmen had a perfect ending, without DC's corporate strangehold over it, we wouldn't have gotten the HBO TV sequel. As much as some people hate to admit, good things can come out of corporate initiative.

And that's the thing, there is a nuance when it comes to the art vs. commerce debate. The entire television industry is based on commerce first, yet great artistic products have spawned out of the medium. You can't really make pure "auteur" TV in the same way as independent film without help from networks and producers to actually get your shows seen. From my perspective and I think it's fair to say, commerce overpowering the art and extending it well beyond its natural lifespan is a problem. We see it with dead-end properties like The Simpsons or most soap operas that are kept alive as national institutions even though they should've died years ago. I don't think Dragon Ball is anywhere near that point yet, however. I think there is much more potential with it, but the important thing is that when the time comes it should know when to bow out gracefully. And personally, yeah, I hope that the "Super" era extends beyond EOZ. I don't mind EOZ but I think it was a bit of a whimpery ending.

Especially considering all of the Watchmen characters were originally planned to be re-imagined versions of other D.C. characters(forgot which ones exactly) and you can still see the influence. Yes sometimes corporate execs do actually have good ideas and sometimes are needed to keep a story from going off the rails, take Rocky V for example, as flawed as that movie is, it could've been a whole lot worse as Stallone originally wanted to end it with Rocky dying in the climatic street fight against Tommy Gunn, the execs rightfully recognized how atrocious that idea was and sent Stallone a note which basically said "no fucking way in hell does Rocky die in this movie", had execs not nipped that terrible idea in the bud, we never would've gotten Rocky Balboa and the Creed movies which ended up being pretty great.

I'm fine with Simpsons still going on as I still find it funny even if it's not as good as it once was.

Dragon Ball certainly hasn't run out of ideas yet.

[kemuri07]

I'd say that Dragonball has absolutely ran out of ideas. Again, it comes back to the whole "more doesn't always equal better" and while DB will find a way to pack in more characters, more fighting, more transformations, they're just all derive of things DB has already done and done much better. Even though I'm currently enjoying the new arc, it's hard not to see the similarities of other arcs.

What DB should do, instead of getting rid of EOZ: do the thing Toei should have done and come out and officially make GT non-canon. You can still have EOZ with Goku flying off with Uub, but everything else after that can be entirely new. And it might give the franchise enough space to actually restructure and shake up the status quo.

[Matches Malone]

While DB will find a way to pack in more characters, more fighting, more transformations, they're just all derive of things DB has already done and done much better.

The problem isn't the fights and transformations as much as a lack of an engaging story to go with them. When we got a major fight in the original, it had weight behind it due to the story being built around it, and the characters involved. Goku and Tien's fight for example was exciting because of the rivalry between their schools and teachers. Goku and Vegeta's fight was engaging because of the huge difference in their backgrounds and ideologies. Same thing with the transformations, what made Goku's Ssj transformation so iconic wasn't just the form itself, it was the build up leading up to it. The same goes for Gohan and Vegeta's first transformations.

Now however, the story has taken a backseat to the fights and transformations, making both feel empty and meaningless. Both Goku and Vegeta's Blue forms had no weight behind them when they debuted, because they came out of nowhere, there was no build up or reason for them to happen. A lot of the fights are also this way, the stories are either too short to build anything up or they just waste time on other things. This results in the fights being nothing more than 2 strong guys punching each other, a far cry from the fights mentioned above, and others in the original.

BOG however, despite being less than 2 hours long, managed to pull everything off pretty well, so I don't know why other parts of Modern DB have trouble with this. Everything from the fights to the characters were built up pretty well, resulting in great payoff at the end.[/quote]

[ABED]

While I'm usually the first one to say story is most important, it's important to remember that DB is a story about fighting so the qualities of the battles do matter quite a bit. The stories build to the big battles at the end and if the fights are lackluster, then the payoff feels limp.

[LoganForkHands73]

Especially considering all of the Watchmen characters were originally planned to be re-imagined versions of other D.C. characters(forgot which ones exactly) and you can still see the influence. Yes sometimes corporate execs do actually have good ideas and sometimes are needed to keep a story from going off the rails, take Rocky V for example, as flawed as that movie is, it could've been a whole lot worse as Stallone originally wanted to end it with Rocky dying in the climatic street fight against Tommy Gunn, the execs rightfully recognized how atrocious that idea was and sent Stallone a note which basically said "no fucking way in hell does Rocky die in this movie", had execs not nipped that terrible idea in the bud, we never would've gotten Rocky Balboa and the Creed movies which ended up being pretty great.

Yeah, it was the Charlton Comics staple that DC had recently bought out at the time. I'd at least give him credit in this case that the Watchmen characters are different enough from their inspirations - The Comedian has very little in common with the Peacemaker, for example. I'd recommend checking some of the original Charlton heroes out, they're pretty cool.

That's a good point about Rocky V, I guess it's a shame that the executives didn't intervene more to improve it in that case, lol. Although I have a soft spot for the later Rocky films' episodic qualities, and they do feel more like pure passion projects than your average Hollywood franchises, what with Stallone taking over directing duties on top of acting and writing. But yeah, would've been a damn shame if we hadn't got the Creed movies.

[Matches Malone]

While I'm usually the first one to say story is most important, it's important to remember that DB is a story about fighting so the qualities of the battles do matter quite a bit.

I know the fights are important, what makes them important however, are the stories connecting them together.

[kemuri07]

While I'm usually the first one to say story is most important, it's important to remember that DB is a story about fighting so the qualities of the battles do matter quite a bit.

I know the fights are important, what makes them important however, are the stories connecting them together.

And you know, as cliched as it sounds--even fights tell their own story.


I think the theatrical version of BOG worked--at least for me--is that structurally, it's a bit different than the series proper. Basically, Beerus isn't the villain that Super attempted to make him be: He destroys planets because he's petty and kind of a prick, and the movie never really makes that threat anything more than that. So the comedy comes to the foreground and allows the characters to have a little bit more fun, than try to drag things like the Super series ended up doing.

[ABED]

While I'm usually the first one to say story is most important, it's important to remember that DB is a story about fighting so the qualities of the battles do matter quite a bit.

I know the fights are important, what makes them important however, are the stories connecting them together.

And you know, as cliched as it sounds--even fights tell their own story.

Thank you. The fights and the story aren't separate, and the fights should tell a story. And while I think it's noteworthy that Vegeta and Goku have different points of view, the fight alone works even if Vegeta were merely another big bad. It wasn't the hard work vs. birthright argument that made that fight great. It's the pacing, the reversals, the brutality, and usage of the characters that makes that fight one of DB's best.

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, the movie version of the Beers arc is much better. I would like to keep in mind that a certain executive interfered with the TV version, though. This is why I believe it was not only written generically but also had such poor animation.

[MCDaveG]

What pisses me most about the Battle Of Gods Super version is the total lack of explaining why are Pilaf and co. kids and stuff like making whole episode from Oolongs rock, scissors, paper gag... that was bad, real bad as the extended movie has more juice and plot in it than 14 episodes of a show... And that Goku and Beerus going JoJo and fighting with Dragon Stands?
It is pointless to discuss the artstyle of Super as it got good and watchable only since Tournament of Power.

Funny thing is that I actually prefer Ressurection F Super version as it has return of Ginyu and Gotenks in it, heavily promoted Tagoma doesn't get killed right away... Sure, the art and choreography lacks a lot in comparison to the movie, but here they actually expanded upon film after the lackluster Battle Of Gods...
Still they missed foreshadowing Champa, so we had to watch him in opening for over half a year, it was pain to go trough the first two Super Arcs and except for Tournament Of Power, I ended up liking the manga version more.