That's the way the series went, yes, but that isn't the way it could have gone if he'd been allowed to bring it to an ending as he'd intended. In fact, the whole revival of the Nameks comes off to me as an attempt to bring himself back to a point from which he can continue the story. In which case, they were originally never meant to survive.Uh..I think the plan was to have everyone but Goku and Freeza live. o_o Dende was brought back to life and made the wish with the Namekian Dragon Balls to have everyone on Namek but Goku and Freeza sent to Earth. He then healed Piccolo right before Namek blew up.
Not quite. He'd planned the ending 3 times before he stopped. First time was post Pilaf, it was just going to be a short series at first. Second time was with Freeza. Third was Cell.We do know that he planned on ending it several times, though the specifics of how it would play out in the story are known only by Toriyama himself (And, uh, he probably forgot anyways).
He first wanted to end it after year 3 in the manga. He was forced to continue. Later on, after the 23rd Budokai, he began running out of ideas. So when TOEI wanted a new name for the series, he came up with the 'Z', signifying that the story would be ending soon.
Finally, we know that the Freeza saga was his last planned arc. Upon completion, he was once again forced to continue.
That's all that we know. (Without speculation)
I don't doubt it. With the advent of Goku's Super Saiya-jin transformation it was pretty much given (had he not been forced to continue) that he would have died. The Legend of the Super Saiya-jin said that the last SSJ couldn't control his power and that the planet he was on was destroyed taking him with it. You'll notice a LOT of things leading up to that exact same occurance with Goku, prior to the 'recovery' point where he had to try and bring everything back to a point he could keep the story going from.I honestly don't think Toriyama ever planned Goku to blow up along with Namek, and then just end the story. Gohan wasn't ready to take over as defender of the earth, Vegeta was still evil, and it makes no sense to me to make Goku go through all that just to get blown up. No, that would've been a HORRIBLE way to end the story, and I can't imagine how any of you can even consider that to be a good ending. Honorable? Yeah, sure, whatever. But does it work as a Dragonball story? Hell no.
Had he been able to end it as planned it is my thought that the Earth DBs would be used to get Gohan, Piccolo, and Bulma to Earth while Goku finished the fight with Freeza. Then Namek would have exploded taking both with it. In the end, only Gohan, Piccolo, and Bulma would have been left.
Vegeta being evil still wouldn't matter, he, like most of the others, would have stayed dead. You have to realize, the entire end of the fight with Freeza would have been completely different had Toriyama-sama not been forced to change it.^ Well said & I agree with you. When Goku sacraficed himself in the Cell Games, Gohan was the strongest on earth at the time. Goku was gonna hand down the title of protector. If Goku were to blow up with Freeza, that means Vegeta wins & kills everyone & rules the universe.
Passing down the role of protector was the theme of the Cell saga as Toriayama-sama's way of saying "It's over. Goku's gone and thus, his story ends here." and that's what DB/Z was, Goku's story. The only difference with ending it at Freeza is that it would have been the full wrap-up of Goku's life. Just escaping before Planet Vegeta is destroyed and then coming back and attaining the legendary power of Super Saiya-jin in order to kill Freeza and finish what his father started.
With that ending there would have been no need to pass on the role of protector to Gohan. Freeza was it. He was the ultimate evil, the greatest threat to the universe. With him gone there would have been only peace. And, while I love the Androids/Cell/Buu sagas and Trunks and 18 are two of my favorite characters, I think the Namek ending would have been an amazing one.
