Would Broly be as unpopular if he wasn't brought back?

[StarRot]

He'd still be the worst thing about the entire franchise.

I disagree. I think the worst thing about DB is the filler.
When you hear non-fans complain about DBZ it’s rarely about Broly, it’s usually always about filler and stupidly slow pacing. Even people who barely know anything about Dragonball will complain about these things.
Just my opinion from what I've seen and heard, though.

[Herms]

I hate Broly because of his overexposure and lack of clarification on his power. I mean his endings are so ridiculous that we find Broly > Kid buu and crap like that because of all the haxing and shit. They shouldn't have even implied the rising power thing because that fuelled the fire of "Lulz if he had more time he'd surpass SSj4 Gogeta! BELIEVE IT!". I mean seriously writers. Think about what you're writing and clarify power levels.

Eh, I'd place the blame for that entirely on the fans. None of the movie villains really have their power "clarified" but somehow you typically don't see people getting into long, tedious debates over exactly how strong Garlic Jr. or Janenba were (certainly not with a frequency comparable to Broli, anyway).

And if they intended him to be the strongest ever, why have him appear in the Cell time area instead of being a final boss?

Well, it's not like they knew in advance when the series was going to end.

[Ussj Future Trunks]

I meant why have him appear when the writers knew someone else (Cell) was still around in the main story? They even seemed to disregard the MSSJ form which means they didn't assumedly intend on this guy being stronger than Cell. And by then, I think Toei knew Toriyama wasn't ending the manga yet. And Janemba is pretty easy to figure out in terms of power. Below Super Gogeta, above Super Buu. No overrating needed. With Broly, people have been saying anywhere between Kid Buu and Perfect Cell. Which is gigantic, and add onto that all the fanboys claiming he never stops getting stronger etc. Broly never really gets curbstomped like Gogeta did to Janemba which is why the fanboys are like "he can't be beaten 1 on 1" etc. The writers should have made it clear about Broly's defeat or at least use spirit bomb or something. But then again he'd be even more of a copy of Super 13 than he already is.

[Fox666]

And if they intended him to be the strongest ever, why have him appear in the Cell time area instead of being a final boss?

Well, it's not like they knew in advance when the series was going to end.

I would say it's quite irrelevant. It's not like they plan a villain to play his hole during a specific saga. They just make the movie fit in the saga which japanese anime series was at the moment.

If Bojack was under development during the Boo saga, them he would been defeated by Goku, not Gohan. They wouldn't say "no, we can't use these villains because they don't fit as a villain for Goku, and they aren't that strong"

But then again he'd be even more of a copy of Super 13 than he already is.

You think he looks like Super 13, really? I always felt Broly design was too much like Trunks in Grade III. It always gave me a deja vu feeling.

[Kingdom Heartless]

Broly never really gets curbstomped like Gogeta did to Janemba which is why the fanboys are like "he can't be beaten 1 on 1" etc.

Broly was defeated by the fighters combining their powers to one, just like Janemba was. He got a freaking hole punched in him. Basically, it proves he's weaker than a powered down SSj+Super Namekian+Three base Saiyans. That would likely be less than the level of a SSj2.

[Nippolyte]

Super Android 13 reminds me of Broly. They're both steroid induced menaces who tank everyone's attacks, beat the crap out of everyone and get beaten by Goku induced plot device, leaving us know real way to gauge their power. Speaking of which, I wonder where Super 13 is in terms of power. He was even more untouchable than Broly.

[Fox666]

The movies seems to ignore the differences in power beetween the characters at the time the movies supposedly happened (i.e. before the Cell Games, Vegeta should have less than 50% of Goku's power, which seems to be ignored in Broly's movie).

So it's unlikely that you can measure a villain power.

[Piccolo Daimao]

He wouldn't be as unpopular if he wasn't brought back for his movie sequels, but the overexposure of him from not just fans, but video game companies, is also the reason he's hated so much by many fans too. I never had a problem with him before the overexposure. I liked the fact that Broli actually matched the legend of the Super Saiyan (even if I didn't like the idea that he was THE Legendary Super Saiyan), but I was always apathetic towards him. Sure, he was a muscle-bound moron who had no motivation for attacking Goku and his friends other than "he cried a lot when I was a baby", but most of the movie villains are bland and generic, and Garlic Jr.'s super form, Coola's final form, Super #13 are buff too.

But Broli's just like Super #13, and you don't see Super #13 get nearly as much hate as Broli does.

[Nineteen]

Sorry for the mini-necro, but I watched Movie 8 for the first time in a while yesterday and actually thought this over when it was finished:

I don't know how familiar you guys are with Western comics, but in the early 1990's DC introduced two major overpowered villains to hurt their flagship icons, Batman and Superman: those characters were Bane and Doomsday, respectively. The storylines both characters were used in were very similar, and both were of a kind with Broly's first appearance - Bane/Doomsday appeared out of nowhere, having not ever being so much as hinted to exist, then effortlessly crippled/killed Batman/Superman before being relegated to jobber status for the rest of their existence. Like Broly, these characters had the gimmick of getting more powerful the longer they fought: Bane could constantly jack himself up on steroids, and Doomsday couldn't be killed the same way twice. And like Broly, their existence bitterly divides the fandom, with some deriding them as one-note powerhouses, and others liking them for that very same reason. And again like Broly, these two characters were easily at the top in terms of power during their first introduction, while successive appearances watered down their basic concepts to the point where they were severely depowered and virtually unrecognizable later on.

The reason I bring this up is because there are parallels with the reactions of both the DBZ fandom and the comics fandom to this type of character which TVTropes calls the Generic Doomsday Villain. This type of character is more a plot device than a fully-recognized character in its own right, being created when the producers need a way to demonstrate a benchmark beyond which the main characters in their current form cannot go, and then re-introduced when the main characters have exceeded that benchmark and the producers need to show that, too, either by having the main characters now effortlessly defeat him (Broly in Movie 10, Bane when facing off against the "new" Batman) or by jobbing him out to a new villain to hype them up (Doomsday getting reduced to a skeleton by Imperiex).

This type of character tends to drive sales and introduce a lot of new people to a given fanbase, especially because major arcs can be built around them with very little effort. And old-school fans tend to react negatively to the types of new fans these characters bring in. Broly was the only DBZ movie villain I knew about in middle school because of word-of-mouth, and this was before any of the movies he featured in were translated into English. And a lot of the rumors surrounding him was that he was basically a walking God incarnate who made everyone else look like, frankly, giant pussies.

I think a lot of the backlash against Broly stems from a combination of the above factors. Had he been a one-shot villain who decimated everyone and was only killed by what amounts to a deux ex machina, he would have been a fine inclusion, just as a Bane who disappeared after destroying Batman or a Doomsday who stayed dead after his double-KO with Superman would have been. But subsequent appearances have been unkind to him, and because he was depowered, he makes the characters he dominated in Movie 8 seem depowered as well, and that doesn't set well with fans of those characters. And I have to admit that a lot of the core Broly fanbase seems unintelligent, to say the least.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

He'd still be the worst thing about the entire franchise.

I disagree. I think the worst thing about DB is the filler.
When you hear non-fans complain about DBZ it’s rarely about Broly, it’s usually always about filler and stupidly slow pacing. Even people who barely know anything about Dragonball will complain about these things.
Just my opinion from what I've seen and heard, though.

Thanks for beating me to it. Broly as a movie villain can be easily avoided, as once you get into most other media (Namely the video games), even GT characters are valuable additions. Filler in the main TV series, not so much, particularly with (Wait for it) Kai's ending incomplete.

Sorry for the mini-necro, but I watched Movie 8 for the first time in a while yesterday and actually thought this over when it was finished:

I don't know how familiar you guys are with Western comics, but in the early 1990's DC introduced two major overpowered villains to hurt their flagship icons, Batman and Superman: those characters were Bane and Doomsday, respectively. The storylines both characters were used in were very similar, and both were of a kind with Broly's first appearance - Bane/Doomsday appeared out of nowhere, having not ever being so much as hinted to exist, then effortlessly crippled/killed Batman/Superman before being relegated to jobber status for the rest of their existence. Like Broly, these characters had the gimmick of getting more powerful the longer they fought: Bane could constantly jack himself up on steroids, and Doomsday couldn't be killed the same way twice. And like Broly, their existence bitterly divides the fandom, with some deriding them as one-note powerhouses, and others liking them for that very same reason. And again like Broly, these two characters were easily at the top in terms of power during their first introduction, while successive appearances watered down their basic concepts to the point where they were severely depowered and virtually unrecognizable later on.

The reason I bring this up is because there are parallels with the reactions of both the DBZ fandom and the comics fandom to this type of character which TVTropes calls the Generic Doomsday Villain. This type of character is more a plot device than a fully-recognized character in its own right, being created when the producers need a way to demonstrate a benchmark beyond which the main characters in their current form cannot go, and then re-introduced when the main characters have exceeded that benchmark and the producers need to show that, too, either by having the main characters now effortlessly defeat him (Broly in Movie 10, Bane when facing off against the "new" Batman) or by jobbing him out to a new villain to hype them up (Doomsday getting reduced to a skeleton by Imperiex).

This type of character tends to drive sales and introduce a lot of new people to a given fanbase, especially because major arcs can be built around them with very little effort. And old-school fans tend to react negatively to the types of new fans these characters bring in. Broly was the only DBZ movie villain I knew about in middle school because of word-of-mouth, and this was before any of the movies he featured in were translated into English. And a lot of the rumors surrounding him was that he was basically a walking God incarnate who made everyone else look like, frankly, giant pussies.

I think a lot of the backlash against Broly stems from a combination of the above factors. Had he been a one-shot villain who decimated everyone and was only killed by what amounts to a deux ex machina, he would have been a fine inclusion, just as a Bane who disappeared after destroying Batman or a Doomsday who stayed dead after his double-KO with Superman would have been. But subsequent appearances have been unkind to him, and because he was depowered, he makes the characters he dominated in Movie 8 seem depowered as well, and that doesn't set well with fans of those characters. And I have to admit that a lot of the core Broly fanbase seems unintelligent, to say the least.

The problem is that Broly's being a benchmark character (Congratulations on taking all the exposition over Broly's sort of character I could give and doing even more!) in what was already a crew of planet-busters is his whole reason for being; take away that power (Movie 11) or given him almost no one to throw it against (Movie 10) and he's not interesting anymore. How Toei ever thought otherwise as to make two more movies is beyond me. Movie 8 is probably in my upper half simply because I love the idea of an overkill villain in Dragon Ball, a series that whose heroes are gods compared to the good majority of fiction out there already. The other two have moments that don't justify actually watching their entire movies.

[Nineteen]

The problem is that Broly's being a benchmark character (Congratulations on taking all the exposition over Broly's sort of character I could give and doing even more!) in what was already a crew of planet-busters is his whole reason for being; take away that power (Movie 11) or given him almost no one to throw it against (Movie 10) and he's not interesting anymore. How Toei ever thought otherwise as to make two more movies is beyond me. Movie 8 is probably in my upper half simply because I love the idea of an overkill villain in Dragon Ball, a series that whose heroes are gods compared to the good majority of fiction out there already. The other two have moments that don't justify actually watching their entire movies.

I certainly agree with you. Theoretically, the idea of a villain who is just not more powerful than everyone when introduced (as was Frieza or Perfect Cell), but who is so far beyond the rest of the cast that no amount of training or transformations will bring them up to speed sits well with me, but its execution in Movie 8 was pretty poor. To be honest, I think Broly would have worked better if an entire mini filler-arc had been built around him in the anime like Garlic Jr. sometime between the end of the Cell Games and Majin Buu, possibly in place of the Otherworld Tournament. If the "Legendary Super Saiyan" is as big a deal as Vegeta makes him out to be, then he ought to be able to stick around for at least a while, which can't be done by confining him to an hour long movie.

[Kingdom Heartless]

I certainly agree with you. Theoretically, the idea of a villain who is just not more powerful than everyone when introduced (as was Freeza or Perfect Cell), but who is so far beyond the rest of the cast that no amount of training or transformations will bring them up to speed sits well with me, but its execution in Movie 8 was pretty poor. To be honest, I think Broly would have worked better if an entire mini filler-arc had been built around him in the anime like Garlic Jr. sometime between the end of the Cell Games and Majin Buu, possibly in place of the Otherworld Tournament. If the "Legendary Super Saiyan" is as big a deal as Vegeta makes him out to be, then he ought to be able to stick around for at least a while, which can't be done by confining him to an hour long movie.

I actually agree that would work much better.