Official On-Going DBZ 2013 Movie Thread: "Battle of Gods"

[Saiga]

The 40-minute films were all back in the days of the Toei Cartoon Festival / Toei Anime Fair, when three or four works from different series were shown together. They couldn't have anything longer than that without testing the patience (and the bladders) of their audience.

The Toei Anime Fair was laid to rest after the dismal showing of Summer 2002, and standalone One Piece films released since then (with the exception of the 3-D film) have been at least 90 minutes long. (To contrast, the first three films, released for the Spring 2000, 2001, and 2002 Toei Anime Fairs, each clocked in at an hour or less.) There's no reason to expect that the new Dragon Ball film won't be longer, even though we can't say for sure just how long it will be.

Interesting, I never knew this. What was played in Summer 2002 that was so bad?

[Herms]

What I don't understand is why Freeza keeps coming up. There's always so much emphasis lately on the character's legacy. Chilled, Aba/Kado, and now for some reason he is the reason why Bils is interested in Goku. No, not because of an epic battle of galactic proportions that took place a few years previous, but because of... Freeza.

Well, Freeza is probably the most popular villain in the series. In Japan at least, the manga reached its height of popularity during the Freeza arc (as mentioned in Shenlong Times #2), and in the poll conducted for DB Landmark most fans voted Goku vs Freeza as their favorite battle. So probably this is all just cashing in on that.

But at the risk of overthinking the hell out of this, I can't help but wonder if Bils tracking Goku down after hearing rumors that Goku beat Freeza is meant to hint at some connection between the two villains. For instance, perhaps Freeza's clan were originally Bils' agents in the mortal realm, sort of like how the various enemies in Sailor Moon are supposed to ultimately be incarnations of Chaos (or whatever the deal was there). Or maybe it ties into the legend of the Super Saiyan, and "Freeza gets beat by a Saiyan" is a prophesied event, so when Bils hears it's happened he knows the time has come for...something.

[SaiyaJedi]

Interesting, I never knew this. What was played in Summer 2002 that was so bad?

Digimon Frontier, Ultimate Muscle, and Crush Gear Turbo. It took in a measly 400 million yen (less than US $3.5 million at the time), compared to the 3 billion yen (~$25 million) raked in for Spring 2001, which included One Piece: Adventure on Clockwork Island, One Piece: Django's Dance Carnival, and Digimon Adventure.

[MCDaveG]

Well, I also am kinda curious with that Freeza thing, as dammit Buu was being, that could destroy the universe including the gods we know.
But I also incline to that sleeping theory with Cell and Buu being these local trouble not on the interstellar scale.

Well, looks like TOEI is going trough some huge revival. After the Kai flop in Japan, they have strong flagship with One Piece, I also heard Toriko isn't that bad and three big movies next year.
First two are this DBZ and One Piece Z movie and the third is for anniversary of Saint Seiya in full CGI.
The discovered that Saint Seiya Omega isn't actually a flop and is more popular than anyone thought, so they are going in with anniversary movie and after that Omega spin-off, with some brand new series next year. I won't be surprised if they will revive Dragon Ball in some incarnation. Logically, they will go with more movies, but I won't be surprised if they'll do some TV show.
Well, just thinking in the light of the new things, 2013 is going to be huge for TOEI.

For instance, perhaps Freeza's clan were originally Bils' agents in the mortal realm, sort of like how the various enemies in Sailor Moon are supposed to ultimately be incarnations of Chaos (or whatever the deal was there). Or maybe it ties into the legend of the Super Saiyan, and "Freeza gets beat by a Saiyan" is a prophesied event, so when Bils hears it's happened he knows the time has come for...something.

Maybe he makes this ballance in universe by destroying the strongest opponents. Ballance of good vs evil. Freeza was mighty and ruled part of the universe but there existed some opposition by gods, but after Goku destroyed him and other villains that happen to confront him, he is now the strongest force in the universe outmatching even the gods..... Just thought

[MasterVampire]

Woah woah woah.
Wait a second.


They expect us to believe that this new bad guy, the God of Desturction, is stronger than SSJ3 Goku?
(Thats if Goku even fights him as a SSJ3 seeing as how in the poster he is only a SSJ1? But then surely he would go higher if needed?)

[CaBrPi]

He doesn't necessarily need to be stronger, he just needs to be able to outlast Super Saiyan 3 Goku...

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

Woah woah woah.
Wait a second.


They expect us to believe that this new bad guy, the God of Desturction, is stronger than SSJ3 Goku?
(Thats if Goku even fights him as a SSJ3 seeing as how in the poster he is only a SSJ1? But then surely he would go higher if needed?)

They expect us to believe that some Artificial Humans made by a mad scientist are stronger than a Super Saiyan?

[penguintruth]

Characters are getting too powerful to even exist in a physical universe.

Like, just their very existence warps reality itself. They could fart out a galaxy.

[InfernalVegito]

Characters are getting too powerful to even exist in a physical universe.

Like, just their very existence warps reality itself. They could fart out a galaxy.

That's the problem. How far can they go and still make it believable? For instance, I would cringe hearing about a stronger guy than Super Yi Xing Long at first.

[rereboy]

I don't see a problem. They are still much weaker than many beings and characters in comics and fiction. As long as the explanation is at least somewhat satisfying, I'm good.

[CaBrPi]

Characters are getting too powerful to even exist in a physical universe.

Like, just their very existence warps reality itself. They could fart out a galaxy.

That's the problem. How far can they go and still make it believable? For instance, I would cringe hearing about a stronger guy than Super Yi Xing Long at first.

I really don't care. Don't forget a guy stuck some metal parts into two teenagers and made them much stronger than they guy who conquered much of the known universe through brute force. And then he made a bug who became even stronger than that.

The entire theme of Dragon Ball is getting stronger. I really don't have a problem with the continuing escalation of power levels. As long as it's not, say, "This guy was mad at Goku so he trained in the mountains for a couple of years and got strong."

[Attitudefan]

Freeza is a better villain and character than Buu and Cell. So, I can understand why they would center a story around Freeza. Buu is bland and boring, Cell is a carbon-copy of Freeza.

I am biased though, seeing as Freeza's arc is one of my favourites along with the Saiyan and the Early Dragon Ball Tournaments.

[InfernalVegito]

I also don't have a problem with new villains who for some reason are stronger than the ones before. But it has to be believable in-universally so to speak.
At some point there needs to be a final guy, though for me. It's ridiculous to always say "Wow I have never sensed such a high ki and power before...that guy must be the strongest in the universe" and then forget about him and move on to the next one who does the same but only stronger.

[Cipher]

Personally, I'm all for continued ramifications from Freeza's death. If anything, I find it an aspect that was implausibly ignored in the original series.

Freeza was the supposedly unbeatable executive of a massive space empire. I don't buy that he and King Cold show up on Earth, and after that no one, inside his organization or otherwise, bothers to look into it further.

I guess you could say the same for Boo, but only with really cosmically powerful or highly informed people. And come to think of it, no one except millenia-old gods even remembered he was a threat for the -- what? -- two days he was active, and even then only on Earth.

Freeza, on the other hand, was a major player for a long portion of recent history. Some extended follow-up isn't out of left field.

[Saiga]

There isn't a lot of follow up one can do on that, since everybody else in his organization was small potatoes compared to him.

[Cipher]

There isn't a lot of follow up one can do on that, since everybody else in his organization was small potatoes compared to him.

Except that there should be

1) Huge amounts of instability following the collapse of his empire and

2) A number of parties, even outside his organization, who are interested in Goku (or whoever defeated him) for a number of reasons

It looks like this movie will at least give us one story in the latter category.

[Hellspawn28]

If they do a anniversary movie in 2014 then they should release it in December. It would be closer to the original release date of the manga and they won't have to worry about other films over shadowing it.

[Saiga]

There isn't a lot of follow up one can do on that, since everybody else in his organization was small potatoes compared to him.

Except that there should be

1) Huge amounts of instability following the collapse of his empire and

2) A number of parties, even outside his organization, who are interested in Goku (or whoever defeated him) for a number of reasons

It looks like this movie will at least give us one story in the latter category.

Yeah, but no-one in-story has a reason to care about either of those things. Goku could easily kill anyone in Freeza's organization who shows up to take him on, since Freeza wouldn't be the strongest in the Universe if there were those in his own territories stronger than him. I can buy people in other quadrants of the Galaxy being stronger, but they wouldn't have much reason to be interested in Freeza.

[JulieYBM]

If they do a anniversary movie in 2014 then they should release it in December. It would be closer to the original release date of the manga and they won't have to worry about other films over shadowing it.

December has been the big push for One Piece's movies. The cartoon turns fifteen in 2014 so I don't think that would be a good idea.

[Attitudefan]

Freeza was Rome and Goku was a Germanic hero. Even though Rome fell ~500 AD; The east still continued for another 1000 years, albeit, it was very unstable. Plus, the Germanic empires were based off of old Rome. My point is, when Freeza died, his empire might still be around in some form or another. And yes, Goku's name would probably make it around the world. Freeza's empire was around for many moons as we saw with the Bardock special. And yes, Buu was around for like 2 days and was forgotten by most of the universe due to a certain wish. Plus, Buu is not very interesting. Freeza is an amazing character, and we see that through the fans (ie Chris Aryes discussions on this forum)