Just HOW was Hell Fighter 17 even created ???

[SorikaiWolf89]

After just recently rewatching the Super 17 mini arc in GT I realized that HF17’s creation makes absolutely no sense at all
He was created in Hell of all places by unknown means offscreen by Dr Myuu and Dr Gero

Given there’s no laboratory or anything at all down there but caverns just HOW was he created with literally NO materials to work with ???
They even perfectly replicated 17’s clothes down to the exact details like the tear in the left jean’s leg plus the holster with what I’m assuming is the exact gun model 17 had

Dr Gero even somehow had wine and wine glasses to celebrate HF17’s creation

Do the 2 of them just know alchemy ???
Am I missing something here or should I just roll with it being “cartoon logic” ?

Also while we’re on the subject why did Dr Gero re-create the exact android that betrayed and killed him in the first place ?
Was it just because 17’s blueprints were the freshest in his memory or something like that?

[Zebra]

It's one of my least liked arcs for this reason. GT just flew off the rails here.

I would've much preferred Oob turning evil/corrupt and Gokuu being forced to kill him.

[jjgp1112]

Whole arc was just vibes, complete nonsense. Don't even get me started on the whole Piccolo situation

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I don't think it was thought through. The Super 17 arc was just a quick, short fan servicey arc used to launch the Evil Dragons arc. We never got an explanation for villains having no halos either.

[Kid Buu]

Kind of just felt like they wanted an excuse to repeat Fusion Reborn and just ignored logic.

That Goku Vs. Freeza & Cell fight was fire though.

[Tian]

One of the biggest mysteries of GT along with some of Goku's clothes changing in the SSJ4 form.

My guess is that Hell in the DB universe also works as some form of junkyard for the Other World and Yemma had a lot of useless and outdated technology thrown there that both Gero and Myuu might have used and enhanced to build Hell's 17 off-screen. Of course, this is just my guess to explain Toei's ilogical development of Super 17.

[Koitsukai]

It's just nuts, they've created a better Android 17 with less resources and less time.

The original one was built over the span of many years, Gero had to kidnap a teenager and encounter a millions issues along the way. This one was built with Enma knows what materials in a little over a year.

Even Dr Myuu makes no sense, he is a machine-mutant... Dr. Gero, too. He is just a brain inside a robot, he doesn't even have real hands. But we see Android 19 and even Metallitron coming back.
I'm assuming by now that hell welcomes robots, too. Although it poses a question, these robots were built and programmed by someone else, should they even be held accountable?

Shit, even Sargent Black with his machine is seen coming back. Hell is a scrapeyard.
Damn, coming back from hell carrying that kind of weaponry is like Truman coming back with both atomic bombs in his back pocket. What was Enma thinking?

[Michelle91]

The whole Super 17 arc felt like bad fan fiction. It's filled with bad writing, and lazy fan service. Nothing in the saga made any sense.

[Grimlock]

One of the biggest mysteries of GT along with some of Goku's clothes changing in the SSJ4 form.

That would be of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super too, with Goku's boots changing upon transforming into Super Saiyan God and Piccolo's belt changing colors after transforming into Ultimate.

[Zephyr]

I think the problems with this arc in general are greatly exaggerated, the creation of Hell Fighter #17 being no exception.

Gero and Mu are both brilliant scientists, one of whom had already built fighters more powerful than the emperor of the universe using just what was lying around on Earth. Hell is a gigantic place, filled with who knows what sorts of substances and materials that can't be found on Earth. Two heads are better than one, so the fact that this new #17 was built more quickly than whatever Gero made on Earth isn't all that questionable. Also, in episode 64 Shenlong says that the worlds becoming one and the dead returning to life was the result of what happened with the Dragon Balls. I think most additional weirdness is trivially easy to attribute to that as well.

To me, the real question is just HOW did the writers not meaningfully capitalize on something like a reunion between Nappa and Vegeta? Having a bunch of random past antagonists coming back, looking exactly as we remember and recognize them, and having them all dispatched with little meaningful interaction or pathos, was a very lazy way to go about all of this.

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, I really like the base idea of The Super 17 arc. The problem is that the production crew didn't take the opportunity to really dig in and let the characters face internal and external conflict for them to overcome. Where's Nappa and Vegeta's confrontation? Why not give us more insight into how Gohan and the others feel returning to battle just after the fight with Baby saw them possessed?

Then there's the animation and directing itself. There production looks really wonky, so I had to wonder if the reason why the scripts are so weak is right up there with why the animation and directing are: production was in chaos and scripts were coming in too late.

It's a really interesting idea for a story and it's shame that it got undercooked twice: once because of the limited runtime of Movie #15 and the other because of whatever was going on with the production of Dragon Ball GT. Obviously, when dealing with Hell and the return of characters from the past, what makes these stories so interesting is the opportunity to reflect on the past and move the characters forward, while having cool little fights to show the way these characters have changed.

Let's do this arc again, but better!

[SorikaiWolf89]

One of the biggest mysteries of GT along with some of Goku's clothes changing in the SSJ4 form.

My guess is that Hell in the DB universe also works as some form of junkyard for the Other World and Yemma had a lot of useless and outdated technology thrown there that both Gero and Myuu might have used and enhanced to build Hell's 17 off-screen. Of course, this is just my guess to explain Toei's ilogical development of Super 17.

Yeah Goku’s pants changing to yellow in SS4 also makes no sense plus the teal wrist bands appearing outta nowhere
Also whoever does the Fusion Dance magically gets a genie like outfit with a black cropped vest , blue or teal sash , white pants , and black shoes
That just seems to be the default outfit that comes with the dance

Anyway that probably makes the most sense what you mentioned with the mad scientists just using King Yemma’s discarded old technology and stuff with Hell basically being a junkyard meaning that HF17 is pretty much made of old TVs , radios, cars , and other random technology that was just chucked down there

As for 17’s clothes the ONLY thing I can think of that makes sense is that they found Future 17 , knocked him out or temporarily killed him , then just stole all his clothes leaving him completely naked on the ground

If that’s the case why not just use Future 17 to fuse with HF17 instead of the ranger 17 in the living world ?
They could’ve made Super 17 right there in Hell THEN used ranger 17 to open a portal from Hell to release Super 17 and all the other villains outta there

Also why not just make another Perfect Cell to fuse with the other Perfect Cell in Hell to make “Super Perfect Cell”???

[Michelle91]

With Super 17, it felt like they came up with the idea out of a hat. As if they wrote down a bunch of names and pick someone randomly as their next big bad.

[JulieYBM]

With Super 17, it felt like they came up with the idea out of a hat. As if they wrote down a bunch of names and pick someone randomly as their next big bad.

That's not really an issue so long as a good story is being told.

[SorikaiWolf89]

With Super 17, it felt like they came up with the idea out of a hat. As if they wrote down a bunch of names and pick someone randomly as their next big bad.

I think the character choice and creation of Super 17 was actually much more calculated and was deliberately chosen by Toriyama and Toei

Although they DID probably make a list of antagonists based on popularity and the amount of potential ideas they had for them they ultimately went with Android 17 probably because of his popularity, his dynamic with 18, and because it’s been years since he was relevant to the story

By rehashing a popular character like Android 17 who was gone from the story too soon in their eyes and the eyes of 17’s fans they probably thought it was a safe bet to bring him back as a true antagonist in the form of Super 17
Also there’s the dynamic between him and Android 18 putting them in the spotlight again except as enemies to each other this time and showing that 18 has truly become fully human

Not to mention Android 17/Super17 is immensely easier to draw /animate compared to Cell who I’m sure they wanted to rehash instead in some way but chose not to simply because of all those darn spots on him being a serious pain to draw/ animate for every single frame

[Zebra]

Dr. Mew coming back felt so off. His death at the hands of Beby should've been the end of his story. His role doesn't add to anything; you could just have Gero make Hell Fighter No.17 by himself.

[angeldreamZ004]

I only watched the Super 17 arc once, but based on what I know and remember about it, I honestly think what GT did can be works kinda well with the expansion on the concepts of hell that Toei worked with. It's a area of the cosmos that Toriyama never decided to explore back then (and to this day still nothing outside of Freeza - Personal Hell on Earth thing)
So Toei could play with the location as much as they wanted since early Z filler. The way it was explored led us to Z Movie 12, where we do see technology down there, we just don't know if it's supposed to be spiritual or conventional technology.
Still, if we take that, and mix with the fact that in the Other World Tournament filler arc we see that the villains have some kind of "free will", managing to attack onis, then I think it's very much possible that Doctors Gero and Myuu somehow found their ways of construct and resources in unexlored parts of that world just like Zephyr said.

Dr. Gero, too. He is just a brain inside a robot, he doesn't even have real hands.

That idea comes from the filler hell at the end of Z. And goes well with the concept Toriyama later came up with in Fukkatsu no F. Freeza dies and materializes in hell the way he looked as a cyborg.
The problem with GT being what you mentioned that fully artificial entities such as Sergeant Metallic and Android 19 show up in hell. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall seeing any androids in Movie 12, with Cell being the only one who shows up prior to GT, but he's a biological one. So either some crazy retcon happened there or Toei went in contradiction with what they previously established. Which can likely be very well a result of different creative directions from many people who worked in the animated projects at the time, leading to divergences.

Also why not just make another Perfect Cell to fuse with the other Perfect Cell in Hell to make “Super Perfect Cell”???

Not to mention Android 17/Super17 is immensely easier to draw /animate compared to Cell who I’m sure they wanted to rehash instead in some way but chose not to simply because of all those darn spots on him being a serious pain to draw/ animate for every single frame

I like to imagine that in order to create a biological android like Cell, Gero needed natural resources from places like Earth, Cell is literally made from cells of mortal beings. Maybe the fact that in hell he was surrounded only by dead people made that impossible for him, or Onis being too weak for anything made from their cells being effective. But that's just my in-universe hypothesis. The out-universe explanation being very likeky what you wrote about being annoying to animate him.

That would be of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super too, with Goku's boots changing upon transforming into Super Saiyan God and Piccolo's belt changing colors after transforming into Ultimate.

With SSJG, Goku's clothes also change colors. Though, it's very much likely the Toei staff interpreting Toriyama's art in a quite awkward way. It's the colors he used for his artwork of SSJG, but he also used those colors in his other artwork for Battle of Gods, meaning that Goku should also have his clothes with those colors in his base form in both the movie and TV arc.
It leads me to speculate something, it may be redundant, but what if Toriyama designed the boots for SSJG incorrectly? and Toei just decided to adopt the design without bothering about it?
After that arc Toei abandons the design they went it and adopted the one from the manga, with no different colors for the clothes and correct design for the boots.
Of course, if it was a mistake, Toriyama also repeated it in his design for Ultra Instinct, which was made over his SSJG artwork. Something Toei decided to not repeat, as the UI's clothing' colors and boot design continue the same as the base form in the anime.

Toriyama did very few illustrations of Goku's base form in the revival era, so makes me wonder about what was really intended, also from Toei and Yamamuro's side.

[Zebra]

By rehashing a popular character like Android 17 who was gone from the story too soon in their eyes and the eyes of 17’s fans they probably thought it was a safe bet to bring him back as a true antagonist in the form of Super 17

No.17's popularity is overrated. He never ranked high in any popularity polls. Why create a new No.17 instead of just having Freeza and Cell fuse (I doubt Cell's spots were an issue, since he did get to return in the arc)? Or bring back Broly? Or give Oob an evil "Pure Boo"-like transformation? Everything about Super No.17 is contrived.

[SorikaiWolf89]

By rehashing a popular character like Android 17 who was gone from the story too soon in their eyes and the eyes of 17’s fans they probably thought it was a safe bet to bring him back as a true antagonist in the form of Super 17

No.17's popularity is overrated. He never ranked high in any popularity polls. Why create a new No.17 instead of just having Freeza and Cell fuse (I doubt Cell's spots were an issue, since he did get to return in the arc)? Or bring back Broly? Or give Oob an evil "Pure Boo"-like transformation? Everything about Super No.17 is contrived.

True 17 wasn’t exactly the MOST popular character in the series but Toriyama and Toei obviously felt he was popular enough to give him a mini arc and more screen time in general in GT as the last time we saw of him was a very brief cameo at the end of Z

I think what really made 17’s popularity grow was his final fight with Piccolo as many fans agree that it’s one of the most underrated and even one of the best fights in all of Z which I agree with despite the fact that part of the fight is just a blow or blow slug fest
But then again it’s DBZ what do you expect ?
A super technical JoJo like fight with OP abilities and Stands? Absolutely not.


Anyway about Cell I remember reading an official interview or article saying the reason they avoided bringing Cell back is because of the spots being an absolute pain to hand draw that being the main reason why we didn’t get a Cell movie until CG became a thing hence them finally putting Cell in the Super Hero movie as the CG could just do all the work for them with the spots


As for Broly he already had 2 movies (technically 3 but Bio Broly barely counts) and at the time of GT was probably only seen as a movie only character

With Uub I like the idea but he was reincarnated to be a purely good guy completely separate from Buu plus him becoming possessed by Buu would just be the Kid Buu Saga all over again I feel like

At least with Super 17 they brought back a character (17) that hasn’t been relevant to the story since the middle of the Cell Saga

Maybe I’m biased because 17 is my current favorite character right now but I’m honestly glad they brought him back for GT and for Super as I personally think he deserved more screen time as the 17 in Goku’s timeline was not evil like his future counterpart

Plus given the chance in Z he could’ve been fully redeemed and humanized like 18 was which we eventually finally see him living as a normal human in Super which I really appreciate

[JulieYBM]

No. 17 is popular enough to keep being used in merchandise and new projects. The girlies and the gays love their femboys, what can we say!