Unpopular DB opinions

[Zephyr]

See I actually had a ton of fun with Batman & Robin, so I gotta disagree.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

As a stand alone movie with no connection to a franchise it would have been not great but watchable but when you change the story, forget characters and change major plot points and change how characters would be, it's a terrible design.

No yamcha or krillin
Bulma and Roshi poorly done
Mai is serving Piccolo when she serves emperor pilaf
Goku is a teenager and going to highschool and fights bullies

Dragon Ball evolution sucked on the basis that it was supposed to be an adaption of Dragon Ball, all they had to do was somewhat stick to the characters and script but they went rogue

[JulieYBM]

As a stand alone movie with no connection to a franchise it would have been not great but watchable but when you change the story, forget characters and change major plot points and change how characters would be, it's a terrible design.

No yamcha or krillin
Bulma and Roshi poorly done
Mai is serving Piccolo when she serves emperor pilaf
Goku is a teenager and going to highschool and fights bullies

Dragon Ball evolution sucked on the basis that it was supposed to be an adaption of Dragon Ball, all they had to do was somewhat stick to the characters and script but they went rogue

Being an inaccurate adaption does not inherently make a film bad. Dragon Ball Evolution is bad on the basis of all the core tenants of filmmaking. Those could have all been far, far better than they were and the lack of accuracy to prior official Dragon Ball projects would not have been an issue.

Also: Yamcha (Joon Park) was in Dragon Ball Evolution.

[MasenkoHA]

No yamcha or krillin

Yamcha’s in the movie. Apparently, Krillin was supposed to have a cameo but it got cut.

Bulma and Roshi poorly done

I don’t recall Roshi being that bad other than looking too young to be Grandpa Gohan’s mentor.

Mai is serving Piccolo when she serves emperor pilaf

Apparently the whole Pilaf gang was suppose to be there in an earlier draft in reference to their freeing and brief alliance with Piccolo Daimao in the original story. I guess the other two got cut to cut back on characters and save on the special effects budget? The earlier script seemed a bit more familiar with the story before rewrites further divorced it.

Goku is a teenager and going to highschool and fights bullies

Goku was 15 during the Piccolo Daimao arc that the movie is adapting alongside the first arc. So that’s not bad. And even Goku going to school had possibilities . The problem is they went the whiny white kid wants to be popular and ignores advice from his elders route and not “wild child has to assimilate into society and doesn’t get social norms expected in high school” and that could have worked. Like imagine Bulma discovering Goku in Mount Paozu and bringing him back to West Metro to be her body guard at school and help her find the rest of the dragon balls and he gets enrolled into West Metro High and Goku’s up the place. He doesn’t understand when bullies are trying to make fun of him, he ends up beating up some unwanted suitor of Bulma, he frustrates a few teacher with his ignorance, meets Chi Chi and doesn’t get she keeps hitting on him. You can even have Krillin be part of a gang of bullies, trying to avoid being bullied himself, who ends up befriending Goku and telling him about Muten Roshi and the Tenkaichi Budokai. There are ways to do Goku goes to school and make it feel like …what if Goku went to school?

[WittyUsername]

If we’re still talking about DBE, I’ve seen fans on places like Reddit brainstorm on how Fox would’ve tackled the Saiyans and Freeza if DBE miraculously got got a trilogy, and there were some interesting theories, like Vegeta filling Raditz’s role as Goku’s brother and Freeza being some kind of white skinned Namekian (an albino Namekian, if you will).

I also saw someone suggest that they would’ve brought in Kuririn/Krillin by having him teach Goku the Kaioken, which, keeping with what DBE established about ki techniques being tied to the elements (hello Avatar), would’ve been a fire based technique.

To be clear, this was all just fans engaging in hypothetical scenarios. I seriously doubt Fox had any actual plans for how they would’ve handled the later arcs of Dragon Ball. DBE was, by all accounts, a movie they had little to no faith in, hence why it had such a low budget.

[Noah]

I'm going to say what may end up being the most unpopular opinion in these 780 pages: Toriyama's return to the franchise, from a creative point of view, was far more harmful than beneficial. I'll go a step further and say that GT greatly benefited from him stepping aside and leaving it to Toei.

That's not really an unpopular opinion, it's probably been brought up a few times in this thread already. Maybe even by me? lol

The thing is, I agree, and I'd go a step further: I think one of the things that benefited Toriyama during the serialization of the original manga was having editors who would keep him in check whenever they felt certain concepts weren't working or could be changed.

At the same time, though, I don't think GT benefited from Toriyama's absence. A lot of stuff in there lacks the consistency that Toriyama at least tried to maintain in his stories.

Toei has made some good standalone stories, like Bardock: The Father of Goku, The History of Trunks (which was vastly improved compared to the manga special chapter), Bojack Unbound, and Fusion Reborn. So yes, they clearly know how to handle things without Toriyama, but that's not something they've been consistently good at.

We should also remember that the plot of the Garlic Jr. filler arc was basically recycled for the Baby arc in GT, and apparently something along those lines was even considered for Battle of Gods before Toriyama (thankfully) decided to change everything.

To me, the formula for Dragon Ball's success has always been a mix of both: Toriyama's genius when it comes to worldbuilding, story, comedy and character moments, while also having other, more competent writers than Toyotaro around to give him suggestions on things that could be improved.

Unfortunately, it's too late for us to get something like that in the franchise, and I do regret that so much of Super's production seems to have been made up of yes-men. I still remember that interview where Toriyama suggested the name for the 2022 DBS movie and came up with "Super Hero", and they praised him for it even though he himself thought "Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero" might sound a little stupid lol

[ABED]

Some fans place way too much importance on Goku's Saiyan heritage when it comes to explaining his actions.

[DanielSSJ]

Some fans place way too much importance on Goku's Saiyan heritage when it comes to explaining his actions.

It's kinda hard not to when the text does that, too.

[PowerPhantom245]

Some fans place way too much importance on Goku's Saiyan heritage when it comes to explaining his actions.

What do you mean by that?

[WittyUsername]

Goku’s Saiyan heritage is used to explain his actions. It’s repeatedly stated to be the reason he loves fighting so much and why he often throws away pragmatism for the sake of a good fight. It’s also the reason he has such a big appetite.

[JulieYBM]

I long for the days of early Saiyan arc Goku where he was kind of just a normal guy and not a caricature of a fictional alien face. He was so much sexier, then. Like how Phantom Blood is the best part of Jojo because it's the least Jojo-esque.

[DanielSSJ]

Guys I think Tenshinhan might be a Saiyan

[JulieYBM]

Guys I think Tenshinhan might be a Saiyan

That would explain why he could defeat Yamcha, who is also a Saiyan and Goten's dad.

[ABED]

Some fans place way too much importance on Goku's Saiyan heritage when it comes to explaining his actions.

It's kinda hard not to when the text does that, too.

Because of love of fighting or athletics and the like to an absurd degree isn't unique to Saiyans. Many humans fall into that category as well. As for the text in the show, that's the characters but not the story itself. Also, as an explanation, it's lame. His genetics make him do it? Stories are about people, and some people place way too much importance on their passions at the exclusion of nearly anything else including common sense. Goku being an alien was a nice plot twist but nothing more.

Goku’s Saiyan heritage is used to explain his actions. It’s repeatedly stated to be the reason he loves fighting so much and why he often throws away pragmatism for the sake of a good fight. It’s also the reason he has such a big appetite.

It's also said over and over that Goku is fundamentally different from the Saiyans. It's actually all too human for someone to throw away pragmatism for their passions. Even in the world of the show, often no one puts up a fight and outright agree with him like how all of the fighters agree to train to fight the cyborgs in 3 years. His appetite never needed an explanation. It's just a quirk of the protagonist.

[super michael]

Even if we ignore Saiyans huge appetite and love for battling, we can't ignore that Saiyans has transformation that humans doesn't have. They suspected Goku wasn't a ordinary kid when they heard how Grandpa Gohan died.

Lets not forget that Saiyans are born with a tail. In the Cell Saga we are told about how Saiyan hair doesn't change.

[Kid Buu]

Guys I think Tenshinhan might be a Saiyan

That would explain why he could defeat Yamcha, who is also a Saiyan and Goten's dad.

That would explain who influenced Goten to get those purple jeans in GT.

[JulieYBM]

Guys I think Tenshinhan might be a Saiyan

That would explain why he could defeat Yamcha, who is also a Saiyan and Goten's dad.

That would explain who influenced Goten to get those purple jeans in GT.

To say nothing of why Goten was so smooth with the ladies, too!!

[Kid Buu]

That would explain why he could defeat Yamcha, who is also a Saiyan and Goten's dad.

That would explain who influenced Goten to get those purple jeans in GT.

To say nothing of why Goten was so smooth with the ladies, too!!

It's even funnier that Chi-Chi would have gotten pregnant around the Android/Cell arc, which is when Yamcha took Goku home and he and Chi-Chi helped nurse Goku back to life. Guess that wasn't the only thing they were doing together.

[JulieYBM]

That would explain who influenced Goten to get those purple jeans in GT.

To say nothing of why Goten was so smooth with the ladies, too!!

It's even funnier that Chi-Chi would have gotten pregnant around the Android/Cell arc, which is when Yamcha took Goku home and he and Chi-Chi helped nurse Goku back to life. Guess that wasn't the only thing they were doing together.

See? It's all coming together! It only makes more and more sense!

[DanielSSJ]

Because of love of fighting or athletics and the like to an absurd degree isn't unique to Saiyans. Many humans fall into that category as well. As for the text in the show, that's the characters but not the story itself. Also, as an explanation, it's lame. His genetics make him do it? Stories are about people, and some people place way too much importance on their passions at the exclusion of nearly anything else including common sense. Goku being an alien was a nice plot twist but nothing more.

I mean, you can feel however you want to about it, but I think it's a bit silly to argue that all the characters who repeatedly attribute Goku's character traits to his Saiyan heritage were meant by Toriyama to be wrong or mistaken. Like yeah, it's stupid and reductive, and there are plenty of examples of non-Saiyans who are like that, too, but when the author keeps having characters say "Goku must be like that because he's a Saiyan", it gets a bit hard to not take that as the message he's trying to get across.