Z Movie patterns (Things I type when bored.)

[KiddoCabbusses]

(NOTE: This is probably not the best-written piece of thing on here. I mostly just wrote this to entertain myself/distract myself. Feel free to contribute, I guess?)

I got really bored one day and decided to write this. I have no idea if this has really been thought well-into before or whatever, but, hey, I wanted to pass some time.
Currently, I've seen every Z movie except for 11, so if anyone here wants to fill in some details on that, that'd be good.

I'll start this off with the each movie's recurring characters.

1) Goku
Goku is the primary protagonist in the first 8 Z movies as well as 12 and 13; he is one of the few characters to appear in all of the film (Movie 11 unchecked).
Some things that tend to happen with Goku;
a) Usually, he has the most screen-time,
b) fights the most battles, and
c) offs the big bad for at the climax, usually in a "comeback" manner.
d) Of course, before he has this "comeback", he has to be brutally beaten down first.
Goku is important to the defeat of each movie's "Villain-of-the-flick", even in the movies where he is dead.
Goku uses the Genki Dama in movies 2, 3, and 4, and a modified variant of sorts in 7, making it his most often-used movie-antagonist-disposal-method.
Movies 3, (forgot if 4 applies), 5, 6, 7, and 12 each have prolonged "Goku Torture" scenes, where Goku is being pummeled by the film's antagonist in a way that evokes hopelessness.
In movies 4, 5, 6, and 7, Goku waits an arbituary, right-when-the-plot-needs-it amount of time to turn into a [false in 4's case] Super Saiyan rather than just going all-out from the start.

2) Gohan
Like Goku, Gohan appears in some form in every Z movie. When Gohan was a child, the movies really enjoyed playing up the "cute" factor for Gohan (the first two movies with their insert songs, the fourth with the whistling, and fffing Haiya Dragon).
Other things that tend to happen with Gohan;
a) A "LET THAT CHILD ALONE" moment - Piccolo will rescue Kid Gohan at least once in every movie. If Gohan needs rescuing twice, Goku will have dibs, and then Kuririn, usually in that order, and very rarely ever getting to Kuririn. This stops happening when Gohan grows into a teen and appears as "The Great Saiyaman" in movies 12 and 13.
b) Gohan will be put in grave danger even if he's not an active combat participant. Any pain done on to him is played for drama.
c) Chichi is always a school-mom to him.
Movies 1, 9, and 10 (to a lesser extent) are notable for Gohan being the one to ultimately defeat the villain-of-the-flick.
Movie 2 is also notable as a case where Gohan deals a heavy blow to the villain using his own strength, and movies 3 and 6 have Gohan fight fairly well against the movie's lesser enemies. In the other movies, Gohan's power is played down, seemingly to make him appear "cuter" and more vulnerable.
Movie 4 gives Gohan one of the most wack deus ex machinas DBZ has, in the form of whistling that can heavily damage Namekians.

3) Kuririn
Theatrical butt-monkey. Kuririn appears in every movie up through 10 (off the top of my head), and his role tends to be mostly unchanged each time. His catchphrase is "Why only me?", and for good reason!
Things that tend to happen to Kuririn;
a) He's the butt of a joke
b) He's paired with Kid Gohan in a way that implies their powers are similar, which combined with Gohan's powers appearing toned-down in the movies, makes him look like a wuss. This one gets broken in movie 9 because at that point Gohan's the main character and is significantly stronger than Kuririn.
c) He'll have significant pain dealt onto him that is portrayed in a comedic nature.
One of the ways the movies like to make Kuririn the butt of a joke more often than anywhere else, is by abruptly breaking the flow of a "heroes attack bad guys" sequence by having Kuririn get whacked in the face. This happens in movie 2, 4, and 6, counting times where Kuririn actually tries to fight.
In movie 7, Kuririn gets beat up by Chichi, of all people!
In movie 8, he seems to be reduced to being mostly on the side, with Roshi and Oolong.
In movie 9, he goes gaga over a girl who beats the snot outta him. Did Toei think Android 18 was gonna be a one-off-girl or something?
Movie 10 gives Kuririn one of his few "cool" moments, where he rescues Teen Gohan disguised as Piccolo, referencing the "LET THAT CHILD ALONE" moments while at the same time subverting them. Of course, then he gets beat up by Broli, so that sure didn't last.

4) Piccolo
Piccolo is notable for being the very first shot of -anything- you see in a Z movie, the first voice heard, and for having a scream that probably made a lot of kids crap their pants. Piccolo appears in every Z movie up until the point where Teen Gohan appears, and then seems to vanish from presence...
Notable things about Piccolo that weren't already mentioned;
a) He'll always be strong and intimidating.
b) He'll always be able to take down/fend off lesser mooks even if other characters besides Goku have difficulty with them.
c) Regardless of points a and b, he'll probably be beaten up pretty badly at some point.
Movie 6 is one of the few cases that subvert "c", seemingly purposely; by playing a scene where it looks like Piccolo's gonna be beaten badly (machine gun fire! Machine gun fire that CLOUDS UP EVERYTHING!), only to come back to it showing Piccolo with very little harm.
The person who most often does a heavy blow to Piccolo is usually the villain-of-the-flick himself, curbstomping Piccolo as an example of his power. One of the few examples where this is the not the case is movie 1, where he is ambushed by Garlic Jr's three mooks (this case is also one of the few where Piccolo's usual "patterns" are not in the same order.)
Movie 1 also doesn't have a direct "LET THAT CHILD ALONE" moment, although the moment he pulls Sancho away from the Gohan-rescuing Kuririn could be seen as an indirect example.

[blah blah blah, more later. Coming soon; minor characters... what else can I think of? EDs?)

[Rory]

This is fun! Do Vegeta!

[SylentEcho]

I thought this would be boring at first, but it was actually a fun read. Do the others as well.

[KiddoCabbusses]

This is fun! Do Vegeta!

Before I start that, let me backtrack a bit since I think I forgot a detail about Goku's personality portrayal in the movies;
Does anyone else think that the movies tend to pull a lot more "archetypical hero" moments for Goku, compared to the TV series? While it's not as radical as, say, FUNimation's writing of the dub version of the character, moments like the "reviving a bird from the dead" in movie 5 paint a more Superman-esque picture of Goku than how he is portrayed in the TV series and manga.

Now, for Vegeta, this one'll probably be a bit shorter for obvious reasons.

5) Vegeta
In spite of being a very early Z character, Vegeta doesn't appear in a Z theatrical movie until the 6th one. Did Toei think he wasn't gonna catch on or something? Due to his late appearance, he never gets the chance to play his "villain" role to any true extent. He also has significantly less time to really establish "patterns" of any sort, although there are still a few regardless.
1) Vegeta takes the shortest time in all his film appearances between switching from "base" form to Super Saiyan. By association, he also turns Super Saiyan in all of his film appearances.
2) Vegeta will probably save Goku from a death trap, then spout out something along the lines of "I'M NOT HERE TO SAVE YOU, KAKAROT". In some movies (Where Goku is not a focus character), he saves (Future or Child) Trunks instead, showing him growing a family bond.
3) Vegeta's initial attack pattern on the main villain tends to be "rush really fast to an enemy, then get sent back flying just as soon as Goku cries his name". This is his typical way of being curbstomped, or to hit his pride hard enough to cooperate with the heroes better.
in Movies 6, 7, 8, and 12, Vegeta has a significant importance to the defeat of the movie's villain. All of these examples involve directly lending Goku help in some form. 8 and 12 particularly highlight this, since 8 makes a plot point of Vegeta's reluctance to do this in the face of hopelessness, and 12 is about Goku and Vegeta fusing.

7( Trunks
Future Trunks initially appears in movie 7, and a point is made about him being the third Super Saiyan to appear in the films - almost like a marketing ploy of some sort.
Like Vegeta, he appears as a Super Saiyan in all of his film appearances, although of course since he was Super Saiyan early on in his appearance in the TV series, this isn't a big surprise.
In movie 10, Future Trunks is swapped out for the Teen Gohan era, "Kid Trunks and Goten" pair. Although it isn't necessarily proper to treat Future Trunks and Kid Trunks as the same character, Toei seemed to -attempt- to do this in movie 13 with the focus on Kid Trunks and that sword. It's the one aspect of that movie that makes the least sense, too!
I mean, how can Super Saiyan Three Gotenks not lay a dent on that villain, yet BASE Trunks chops off his tail with the sword (and then gets scolded by Goku, because "he's my opponent!"? ... What a real jerkass moment for Goku, there!). Going on Toei's original idea that it was meant to be the same sword Future Trunks has, that amount of power flies in the face of how powerful it actually is... nevermind the time travel holes that causes...
speaking of that sword, one of the few patterns Future Trunks has is that of one of the bad guys pulling a Bare-handed/fingered blade block when he tries using it.
[For future reference, I may need more notes on Kid Trunks and Goten because I have not seen movie 11, where IIRC they were focus characters.]
(Apologies if this one sounds more ranty than the usual resourceful one.)

Bulma
To make this easier, I'll note Bulma's role in every movie appearance I can recall.
Movie 1: She hands Goku the Dragon Radar in one scene.
Movie 2: She spends most of the movie being a damsel-in-distress.
Movie 3: She... goes camping.
Movie 4: She.. .appears, but I forget if she does anything of note...
Movies 5-7: Don't remember her appearing.
Movie 8: Has settled into being "Trunks' Mom" at that point, and seems to mostly follow that.
Movie 9: Watches the Tournament with Chichi, being tense with her to the point of a possible catfight ready to break out.
Movie 10: Don't recall her appearing.
Movie 11: ???
Movie 12: She appears to just be there when Shenlong is summoned.
Movie 13: She attempts (and fails) to build a containment unit for the villain that is sealed inside Taipon.

9) Chichi
Same deal as Bulma, I'll try this movie-by-movie.
Movie 1: She gets curbstomped by Garlic Jr's mooks when they come to kidnap Gohan. Before that, there are hints of her school-moming with Gyumaoh's selection of "presents" being a bunch of books. IIRC, BTW, this is the only movie Gyumaoh appears in.
Movie 2: She goes all "School-mom" on Gohan, and doesn't like him going off to fight or associate with the fighters.
Movie 3: She goes all "School-mom" on Gohan, again. She doesn't like Haiya Dragon.
Movie 4: I kinda forget, but I wouldn't be surprised if it matches the pattern...
Movie 5: She goes all "School-mom" on Gohan, but also has one of few more sympathetic scenes where she seems to genuinely worry about Goku for a brief moment.
Movie 6: She is only mentioned in passing.
Movie 7: She takes on a shopping trip the likes of which would have me in debt forever. She's still school-momming Gohan the way through - this actually becomes bad enough that Gohan has to tell her off here, which is his main "awesome" moment in this movie since he otherwise comes off as a weakling. Unfortunately, When she can't control Gohan, she takes it out on Kuririn.
Movie 8: Trying to get Gohan in one of those elite schools or somesuch, she gets Goku in a suit and prepares for an interview.
Movie 9: Watches Gohan in the tournament, the school-mom-ness toned down a bit. She has a small "mom-feud" with Bulma, like mentioned above.
Movie 10: Don't recall her appearing.
Movie 11: ???
Movie 12: Appears a lot more like a friendly mom in this movie, making dinner for the family. She seems quite eager to have Videl marry Gohan when Videl is shown cleaning her dishes (Which probably isn't really too notable, since Gohan and Videl seem to be one of the few DBZ Canon pairings that aren't initially screwed up or weird.).
Movie 13: [Can't remember].

[Next time: I'll probably go with Muten Roshi and Oolong, since they have a lot more movie appearances than they deserve]

[caejones]

In movie4, ChiChi actually got to thwack a henchman or two... That's about all she did there, but ... really I think that's one of the best moments of the movie.

[DB_Fan]

Also in Movie 4, Bulma got her memory read by Slug.

Krillin is only missing from Movie 12.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I forgot that Kuririn appeared in 13, huh. o.o I don't recall him playing any notable role, anyhow.

Thanks for the corrections, either way.I can tell I had a few moments of jammed/brainfarting memory.

[jjgp1112]

I definitely see how Goku is oftentimes made to look more superhero-like in the movies. He makes a lot more speeches about "harming innocent people blah blah blah I don't want to resort to violence" in the Japanese version than usual.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I definitely see how Goku is oftentimes made to look more superhero-like in the movies. He makes a lot more speeches about "harming innocent people blah blah blah I don't want to resort to violence" in the Japanese version than usual.

Ah, yes, let me recall any of the moments where Goku makes one of these types of speeches. They usually happen when Goku first encounters any of the villains in a movie. If he says a typical "This is unforgivable!" while babbling about something besides any of his immediate family/friends being in danger, then we have a giveaway for that.
First one I can recall is when the Z Senshi meet Turles's mooks in movie 3 (His reaction to King Kai's description of the Tree of Might also evoked the archtypeical hero).
I can also interpret him telling Cooler's mooks to release Gohan from their clutches as this, in comparison to how he reacted to Nappa even charging after Gohan or what he did to Recoome for beating him to near-death.
Movie 7 has a pretty good example as well, since he calls those bad guys out for ignoring the damage they were doing to property/people.
The amount of times he uses the Genki Dama, invokes a tag-team with Vegeta, and does "miraculous" (READ: Asspull) moments (Revivng a dead bird, absorbing the Genki Dama into himself, taking everyone's energy into a punch at Broli, the "Dragon Ball Miracle" in movie 10, spawning the Ryu-Ken out of nowhere....) also invokes a lot of the "Archtype" feel.

On a random note, off the top of my head, movies 3 and 5 are the only ones where Kuririn getting "owned" wasn't played for laughs at least one time.

[JBoogie]

In spite of being a very early Z character, Vegeta doesn't appear in a Z theatrical movie until the 6th one. Did Toei think he wasn't gonna catch on or something?

This is probably due to him being a villian Even though he worked with the good guys, it was temporary. They probably put him in when it was established that he was there to help for good.

[jjgp1112]

I definitely see how Goku is oftentimes made to look more superhero-like in the movies. He makes a lot more speeches about "harming innocent people blah blah blah I don't want to resort to violence" in the Japanese version than usual.

Ah, yes, let me recall any of the moments where Goku makes one of these types of speeches. They usually happen when Goku first encounters any of the villains in a movie. If he says a typical "This is unforgivable!" while babbling about something besides any of his immediate family/friends being in danger, then we have a giveaway for that.
First one I can recall is when the Z Senshi meet Tullece's mooks in movie 3 (His reaction to King Kai's description of the Tree of Might also evoked the archtypeical hero).
I can also interpret him telling Cooler's mooks to release Gohan from their clutches as this, in comparison to how he reacted to Nappa even charging after Gohan or what he did to Recoome for beating him to near-death.
Movie 7 has a pretty good example as well, since he calls those bad guys out for ignoring the damage they were doing to property/people.
The amount of times he uses the Genki Dama, invokes a tag-team with Vegeta, and does "miraculous" (READ: Asspull) moments (Revivng a dead bird, absorbing the Genki Dama into himself, taking everyone's energy into a punch at Broli, the "Dragon Ball Miracle" in movie 10, spawning the Ryu-Ken out of nowhere....) also invokes a lot of the "Archtype" feel.

On a random note, off the top of my head, movies 3 and 5 are the only ones where Kuririn getting "owned" wasn't played for laughs at least one time.

And then in Movies 4 and 6 when he's about to fight the henchmen, he gives a speech about how he doesn't want to resort to fighting, and specifically in Movie 4, about how he won't say anything about them if they run away.

[KiddoCabbusses]

10) Muten Roshi
Muten Roshi has a habit of having an amount of screentime in the Z movies inversely proportionate to have important he is in Z by this point. Here is a list of all his movie appearances I can recall;
Movie 1: In the same scene with Bulma when Goku gets the Dragon Radar from her at Kame House.
Movie 2: Rather bizarrely, an important plot character! He is the original target of Dr. Kochin's attempt to get the body of "The strongest fighter in the world" for Dr. Willow/Wheelo/Uriro/Whatever. He even gets to go as far as having an "awesome moment" where he chops off Kochin's robot-machine-gun-arm to rescue Bulma.
Movie 3: Hanging out at the camp with the Bulma, Oolong, and Gohan, IIRC.
Movie 4: [Don't remember]
Movie 5: Not present.
Movie 6: For some reason, he goes to New Namek with the rest of the guys. Becomes the butt of a few jokes when the movie highlights how washed up of a fighter he is against Metal Kooler's robot army.
Movie 7: Mostly just around for the opening scenes where he's waiting in line for the beauty contest, totally perving out.
Movie 8: Attempts to defeat Broli with... ... ... masks and silly faces? Uhhhhhhh..... you could kinda tell they were really out of ideas for him at this point, because in the next two...
Movie 9 & 10: I don't recall him appearing.
Movie 11: ??
Movie 12: Don't recall him appearing.
Movie 13: Doesn't really do anything, but he hangs out with the cast at the dinner party when Trunks takes some food for Taipon, IIRC.

11) Oolong:
Oolong first appears in movie 2, then starts tagging along with Muten-Roshi in the "Having way more appearances than I deserve" game.
Movie 2: Somewhat responsible for Piccolo's capture in the first half of the movie, since he drags Gohan to the mountains with him. Also, the panties. Just the panties.
Movie 3: Out camping with the rest of the cast. He panics at the forest fire for some laughs.
Movie 4: [can't remember].
Movie 5: Camping again, huh? I guess he really likes that, even if it tends to get him in the crossfires of a villain-of-the-flick...
Movie 6: ... why is he going to New Namek, anyhow? Seemingly just there to facepalm at Roshi.
Movie 7: Waiting with Roshi at the start, and of course, perving out with him. He also waves farewell to Kuririn after Chichi boots him into following Gohan.
Movie 8: Seemingly taking an identical role to Movie 6, he seems to be Roshi's "straight man" when Roshi does something dumb.
Movie 9, 10: Don't recall him appearing.
Movie 11: ??
Movie 12, 13: Don't recall him appearing.

12) Other characters - for the ones who don't appear in many movies.
Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Chiaotsu appear in movie 3 in a manner that's rather continuity-confusing, where they take on the bad guy mooks and mostly just get beat up. Yamcha and Tenshinhan also have similar roles in movie 9.
Kami has a pretty important, action-packed role in movie 1 where it's almost hard to believe he's a "minor" character, where he takes on Garlic Jr. and such, but quickly fades from importance after that one. Dende is shown having taken his place in movie 6.
Yajirobe appears in movies 4, 5, and 6, where in every one he's basically "the guy who gives everyone Senzu beans". Karin appears in movie 5 as "The guy who doesn't like it when Yajirobe gives everyone Senzu beans".
Kaiou appears in movies 3, 4, 8 and 9 as a sort of "Mr. Exposition" to explain the origins of certain characters/plot devices and explain exactly how certain scenes played out. He also appears in movie 12 with the other Kais, but in that one he just mostly makes goofy faces and cheers Goku on.

[hopefully more later]

[KiddoCabbusses]

(EDIT: Pardon the double post)

[Ussj Future Trunks]

I mean, how can Super Saiyan Three Gotenks not lay a dent on that villain, yet BASE Trunks chops off his tail with the sword

Hirudegarn was off guard and the sword is meant to be "made by the gods".

Going on Toei's original idea that it was meant to be the same sword Future Trunks has, that amount of power flies in the face of how powerful it actually is

Where was this confirmed? I saw no actual obvious hints they meant this to be the case.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I mean, how can Super Saiyan Three Gotenks not lay a dent on that villain, yet BASE Trunks chops off his tail with the sword

Hirudegarn was off guard and the sword is meant to be "made by the gods".

I'll comment on the idea of the sword making that much of a difference after this following one...

Going on Toei's original idea that it was meant to be the same sword Future Trunks has, that amount of power flies in the face of how powerful it actually is

Where was this confirmed? I saw no actual obvious hints they meant this to be the case.

There were enough heavy-handed implications in movie 13 where it didn't need to be outright stated (This disregarding for the moment any "Word of God" statements, since I kinda just made this for fun and am lazy, so I won't go back and look them up at the moment. If anyone wants to post those, feel free.).
a) The plotline centers around the character Taipon, with a sword as his main weapon. Near the end of the movie, he lets kid Trunks have his sword without any real explanation for why -him- in particular (besides maybe their friendship bond).
b) Kid Trunks is established as being a natural at using the sword in the Hildegarn-tail-cutting scene, even though he never used a sword in all of Z prior to that point. On that note, he also doesn't have nearly as much Goten interaction in this movie than in the others.
c) The ending credits - from the last shot of kid Trunks, with Taipon's Sword on his back - flashback to Future Trunks' fight with Cyborg Freeza, swordplay included. Obviously, Toei would not have done this if they didn't think there was a connection intended here. This one, in particular, is probably the most heavy-handed implication of the whole movie.

Now, here's the thing; the acceptance of the idea that this sword is meant to be the same sword Future Trunks has totally wrecks any idea of it being "special" in terms of it's power. This is, after all, the same sword that has a habit of being Bare-handed-blade-blocked in the -previous movies-, including the very first one Future Trunks appears in! In the TV series, Goku himself did such a sword block inthe TV series when he returned to earth.
The only other explanation would be that Hildegarn is a Glass Cannon-type character. Which I guess actually is the easiest solution to all the power-confusion in 13, so... yeah, I'll just go with that for now.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Bored again, so I'm bumping the thread. I've been trying to think of what else I could write about here.. for now, I'll pad it with some general notes on villains, music and whatnot. Between this time and the last, I got all the movie (And TV Special) singles, so I'll check out movie 11 sometime soon.

15) Villain-of-the-flick
The new antagonists each DBZ movie has are usually what makes the movies interesting. Much of the fun of a movie comes from seeing the antagonist do misdeeds, taunt the heroes and wondering how long they'll keep pummeling them right up until the finale.
A few patterns about the baddies;
a) They are usually a "darker and edgier", "stronger and more evil" take on a previously established Dragonball character or concept. To attempt to name them;
Garlic Jr: Pilaf, but less comical and actually succeeding in getting a wish.
Dr. Wheelo: ??? (although events that happen in the flick take cues from the Saiyan invasion, including his Beam-of-War with Goku and subverting Goku's first attempt at using the Genki Dama, but being hit on the 2nd.)
Turles: The idea of Goku being evil... or rather, having never turned to good as a baby. A highlighted movie point.
Lord Slug: Piccolo Daimao mixed with a mangled up "Super Saiyan" concept in the form of the "Super Namekian".
Cooler: Freeza....'s bro. Tends to like going straight for the kill rather than messing with the opponents' heads.
Metal Cooler: Cyborg Freeza, except there's a ton of him and they aren't curb-stomped by Trunks.
Super Android 13: The androids in the current arc at this point. 13 also has a bit of Cell in him in how he absorbs the chips of the fallen androids to change into his most powerful form.
Broly: The concept of the "Legendary Super Saiyan" in a much more true sense than what happened with "Super Saiyans" in the canon. Kinda hard to say if this is altered much in his reappearances.
Bojack: ??? (although the events that happen tend to be pretty similar to the Cell games arc)
Janemba: Buu (in particular, him being a demon, Goku noting how he's the 2nd being he's used Super Saiyan 3 against, a giant "fat" form that's a lot less intimidating than his final form, and a Fusion being able to curbstomp him....)
Hildegarn: ??? (although the fact that he seems strong more or less entirely due to magic and otherwise gets beaten badly seemingly at random gels in with much of the "Magic" based DB characters.)
b) Most of them start out with a group of henchmen at their command. The henchmen tend to be used to make longer, padded out fight scenes. Broli inverts this by starting out as Paragas's henchman who becomes uncontrollable and basically steals the movie from him. Janemba doesn't have any henchmen himself, but instead brings back a lot of old baddies (and Hitler!) to pad the film. Hildgegarn subverts this when he ends up killing the squishy wizard who struggled to bring him back to life for so long.
c) Um... obviously, they all fail in the end. Hurhur.
d) Garlic Jr., Lord Slug, Cooler, 13, Broly, Bojack, Janemba and Hildegarn all have transformations, usually making them stronger, faster, bigger and bulkier. (One could say Dr. Wheelo revealing his "jar" was actualy a giant mecha was also a bit of a transformation.) This makes Turles seem like quite the odd one out, huh?
and for a few other notes;
Garlic Jr. and Dr. Wheelo are notable for having characters who don't fight much at all in Z (Kami-sama and Muten Roshi) face them.
Turtles, Cooler, 13, Broly and Bojack are notable for having an origin story where Goku is somehow responsible for their antagonist role (Turles, uh... noticed that earth wasn't destroyed, Cooler's avenging Freeza, 13 is carrying out Dr. Gero's revenge-on-Goku plan, Broly is pissed at him for crying as a baby, and Bojack became free from imprisonment because of Goku.) These probably contributed to the idea of Goku being a baddie-magnet. Garlic Jr.'s origin story has Kami-sama being a major part of his motive.
Garlic Jr. is the only movie villain who is never explicitly killed (because he explicitly wished to be immortal, obviously.), he's also the only one to have migrated into a major TV series character (Or as "major" as a filler arc allows you to be.)

(Edit 1: Added some more exceptions to the "henchmen" example and a few other things)

[At this point I'm pretty much needing to consiously think here.]

[Cipher]

I think there's a general trend with almost all of the villains that they take a rather anti-Toriyama approach.

Toriyama's formula throughout the series once the super villains get rolling (excluding, possibly, Piccolo Daimao) is to comically have the biggest threats be the least threatening-looking characters.

Let's break it down:

The musclebound Nappa is absolutely surpassed in power by the short, scrawny Vegeta. Vegeta freaks out over the impending arrival of the tremendously powerful, tremendously evil Ginyu Force, who turn out to be a wacky sentai parody. Freeza is the most powerful being in the universe, yet he's a tiny little shrimp in a pod. Once he gets rolling with his increasingly terrifying transformations, his most powerful form ends up being tiny and streamlined once again, shocking even the main characters. Trunks plays up the all-powerful androids, who turn out to be an old man and a clown, and later two unassuming teenagers. Cell begins life as a disgusting sci-fi monster, then becomes a muscular brute, but his most powerful form ends up being his smallest and most humanoid. And do we even need to talk about Boo? The most powerful demon in the universe, who even the gods are afraid of, hatches into a childish fat blob. And even after several more threatening transformations, his final form is also his smallest. Even in GT, Baby and Luud are built up as enormous threats, but each end up having decidedly, well, baby-ish designs.

Compare this to the movies:

Garlic Jr. starts out small, but in order to really get the fight going, he turns into a musclebound giant. Dr. Wheelo is an enormous B-movie monster. Tullece kind of does his own thing, but it's still a much darker take on a concept Toriyama barely touches on. Slug is huge. Coola is a total 180 from Freeza, starting out streamlined but revealing a stereotypically "bad-ass" final form for the climax. Android 13 goes from being humanoid to being demonic and musclebound. Broly obviously follows suit. All of Bojack's crew are either musclebound or stereotypically bad-ass and villainous looking in some other way. Janemba is a parallel to Boo, but with a decidedly more villainous and frightening design for the climax. Hirudegarn is a straight-up horrific kaiju.

So the movie villains essentially reverse the classic Toriyama trope of having the most threatening villains being the least threatening looking. In the movies, if a villain is supposed to be threatening, he looks classically threatening.

One off-hand note about Hirudegarn as well. He's definitely a kaiju character, which I think is pretty nifty. The scene where he crashes into the tower and goes into his pupal state is almost certainly an homage to the first Mothra movie, in which the larval Mothra webs itself to Tokyo Tower before undergoing metamorphosis. It's pretty ingrained into Japanese culture, so I have no doubt the parallel was intentional.

I definitely see how Goku is oftentimes made to look more superhero-like in the movies. He makes a lot more speeches about "harming innocent people blah blah blah I don't want to resort to violence" in the Japanese version than usual.

The worst offender for this is without a doubt Movie 5, where Goku is downright out of character.

When he's hiding out in the cave after Coola's goons start firing on the landscape, he says, "Nevermind me. What about the animals?" It's pretty easy to overlook, but try to imagine Goku in the main series ever giving that much of a shit about the wildlife. Go on, try. "Nevermind me," he says as he's on the verge of death and there's a super villain running around. "Tend to the animals."

And of course, he later goes Super Saiyan while shouting about how everyone being hurt is his fault. This is (presumably) the same Goku who let Piccolo live, who let Vegeta live, who took risks to fight Freeza at full power and almost let him live, and who refused to stop the androids in advance because he wanted a good fight. And here he is absolutely disgusted with himself for being the cause of Coola's attack. Oh, and then he brings a bird back to life.

Basically, whoever wrote this movie forgot that Goku is a dick. He's in perfect form in Movie 12 though.

[kaialone]

try to imagine Goku in the main series ever giving that much of a shit about the wildlife.

Well he did care about a certain mouse.

[KiddoCabbusses]

He also rescued Muten Roshi's turtle from a generic baddy early on in DB. And, uh... yeah. That's all I can think of. Goku usually treats wildlife like dinner.
The wildlife-protection theme also comes around in movie 3, although mostly pulled more by Gohan and Kuririn's actions rather than Goku himself.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Oh, yeah, so, I finally got around to seeing movie 11!
That one seems to throw the most monkey wrenches into finding patterns, for a few reasons;
1) This is the only movie where neither Goku or Gohan are major characters - in fact, Gohan's only in a flashback, and Goku is only in a cameo in the end that seems to have been put in there to fill some sort of mandate.
2) Kuririn is not beat up for laughs. Ok, so he's still beat up a lot, and there's a few jokes at his expense about 18 wearing the pants in their relationship, but... he's basically not played for a complete butt monkey in this one.
3) Kid Trunks saves the day with... brain over brawn? Am I actually watching a Z Movie? lol!
4) This is the first movie where Piccolo is neither seen or referenced to.
That being said, movie 11 continues some trends from the previous films, such as an increased focus on Goten/Trunks, Mr. Satan getting in trouble because of his "messiah" charade, and... yeah.
Also, movie 11 has an unusually high "Implied body count". And the amount of times "Bio-Broly Face" just popped up for a quick scare felt like an old slasher-flick cliche.

I'll probably get back to pattern-finding in a bit.