Noitsnothim wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 4:11 pm
Now the post movie hype has died, what is everyone's opinions on Broly:BR?
Watched the movie not long ago. First time I've ever watched anything Super. It was OK.
Broly is a wholly sympathetic character now. The question is, does that actually make him a
deeper character? I think that this new version of Broly is a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. For starters, his origin is functionally identical to the original but, in my opinion, is far less interesting and dramatic. While the present-day story in the movie is less convoluted, the backstory is more convoluted. The flashback sequences of the original movie were so effective. They were moody and ugly. The image of Broly and Paragus dying on a trash heap has always stuck with me. They said so much with very little.
With both characters having the same basic backstory of "Born super powerful, cast aside along with their father, enslaved by technology," the only real difference is that the original Broly is evil while the new Broly is just mindless. In a sense, the Super version almost plays into the
fan perception of Broly rather than what the character actually was.
The big issue I have with both versions of the character is lack of agency. In both cases Broly is a slave to Paragus. The difference is we see the original Broly for who he is (a sadistic psychopath) by the end of the movie, but in the beginning his real personality is masked by the mind control. The new Broly we get to know him early on, but the nature of his power means that his personality has no bearing on the movie once he starts fighting.
What disappoints me the most about the original version is his tragic origin plays no part in his character. He's murdered and enslaved, but once he actually gets free of Paragus' control all he has is the stock Saiyan motivation of wanting to fight and kill. Paragus says that Broly hated King Vegeta, but we never see it and he doesn't take any special revenge against Vegeta. The only hint that Broly cares about the past at all is in his dying moments when he flashes back to when he and Kakarot were babies, which on reflection I believe
only serves as a "power versus spirit" symbol. You can easily draw the line that all of the trauma Broly experienced is what made him insane, so there is a tragic element to the character, but I would have liked to actually see revenge come into it. Of course, in his second appearance he
is out for revenge but we know how that goes.
And despite the hype, the new version is pretty flat too. His trauma is played for sympathy, but being sympathetic is basically his entire character. He's just a nice guy who goes insane from time to time. He gets points for actually having scenes where he's a person and talks to people, but that just disappears once the actual fighting starts.
I also think the redesign completely pales in comparison to the old one. I think it was a missed opportunity to change him so drastically, because seeing the old Broly in this new role would have driven home the differences more.
So I guess overall it's a wash. The new Broly doesn't replace the old one in my mind, and I think they could have taken the original character and just presented him sympathetically rather than make up something that's new but also kind of the same thing.