Post
by Suupaa Gohan 2 » Wed May 06, 2015 3:49 pm
Whoa. So it looks like my account got hacked...I can't really say I understand the motivation of someone to break into my account and just post as me since...apparently January? But it seems that this imposter ruffled quite a few feathers. I can assure you I haven't posted in this topic whatsoever - in fact, I made 4 legitimate posts since 2012 and they were all in the Xenoverse thread. So I'm not entirely sure what went down here, but reading over some of 'my' posts came as quite a surprise to me when I decided to pop on today.
So...yeah. If it were only a few posts I wouldn't have felt the need to say anything, but I don't feel too good about having my reputation (not that I have much of one, I'm here so infrequently) tarnished by this so I thought I'd speak up. Feels weird saying I'd like to 'apologize' for someone else's actions, but I can say that the opinions that have been expressed here over the past few months were not my own. I even saw one post saying something to the effect of 'I'm not a Goten and Trunks fan' which...I think anyone who knows me can attest to being completely wrong XD
At any rate!! In the interest of staying on-topic, I suppose I ought to voice my actual feelings of this movie from what I know about it (having not seen it myself).
I had a feeling this was going to be a lousy movie from the first announcements I'd heard. That Toriyama was inspired by a (fairly old) song raised a red flag immediately...that's not the stuff of great plots. Saying "what if we brought Freeza back" just seems seriously uncreative to me...I've always hated the movie plots that revolved around bringing back old villains 'powered up'. We had Garlic Junior return for filler, and for movies we had Koola, Broli, Broli again, and GT even did the 'let's bring the villains back from Hell' bit even if it was on a much smaller scale. I found Battle of Gods to be refreshing in that the antagonists weren't outright evil VILLAINS - Beerus and Whis proved to be interesting characters in their own right. So to follow that up with 'oh look it's Freeza again' just...really feels lackluster to me. And I felt that way well before his new transformation was announced. He just...turns gold? Really? We can't even take a rehashed character plot and make his inevitable new form at least more interesting? I would have much rather seen a design more akin to Koola's final form, or another weirdly grotesque design like his Alien-inspired 3rd form. But no, he just turns gold, basically. :/
And that's just regarding Freeza. From the minute I saw the poster I was prepared for the worst regarding Gohan, my favorite character. The series proper already shat on him enough, but it feels like now Toriyama is doing everything he can to make him the loseriest loser possible. From what I've heard about the movie, he does NOT get a very respectful treatment. Is this Toriyama's way of saying 'if you can't beat 'em join 'em', finally accepting that Japan only cares about Gokou (and to a lesser extent, Vegeta)? That his old goal of making Gohan the new MC is a thing of the past, so we should just downplay his significance as much as possible and forget that he saved the world on more than one occasion as well? It really makes me sad to see what he's become, not just from an in-character perspective but in general the way his creator is treating him. He's quickly going the way of all the other once-significant characters and taking a backseat to more Gokou and Vegeta action. I remember a time when Gokou and Vegeta weren't the only Dragonball characters, but it feels like that time is long gone, honestly. I mean, Goten and Trunks didn't even get to be featured in the BACKGROUND this time. They may well not even exist in the current mindset that all that Dragonball is boils down to Gokou and Vegeta, the eternal rivals, and their flashy new forms.
Which brings me to 'Super Saiyajin God Super Saiyajin'. Really? I thought the entire point of SSJG (which I already thought was stupid) was that Gokou would never need to transform again. Like an ascended version of Ultimate Gohan, except that Gokou basically absorbed the transformation into his base form. He had the power without needing to expend the energy of transforming. Wasn't that the whole point? But now lol nope, you can transform into yet ANOTHER new form because that's the only way we can sell new action figures and other merchandise...worse that it looks exactly the same as regular SSJ but with blue hair. I never liked the look of SSJ3, and I know SSJ4 isn't canon, but at least they look distinct. SSJ4 was always one of my favorite designs because it was such a star contrast to regular SSJ forms. Like a sort of branch from the golden forms to a more primal version resembling the Oozaru form. I liked that. But SSJGSSJ just feels like another attempt to make characters who can already shatter planets with a sneeze go 'even higher'. SSJ God wasn't enough, so now they can go SSJ while in SSJ. It's like a damn Xzibit meme.
Basically all of my thoughts on this movie boil down to one word - laziness. I get that, in a way, it's pretty cool that Dragonball is making a comeback, and after being away from it for several years Toriyama is taking an interest in it again. But this is a man who has a track record for forgetting his own characters. Being away from the series this long and coming back to try and create new content for it is just...I dunno. I'm really disappointed in the direction these things have been going. BoG was enjoyable enough but at the same time I thought the core idea of SSJ God and the execution of it all felt off. Especially since it was like the movie couldn't decide between DB-style humor and DBZ-style action. Now we've reversed the situation to go more action-focused...and that means more transformations and bringing back an iconic character people can easily associate their childhood memories with. And now we have a new series on the horizon which I also have pretty low expectations for (though obviously it's too soon to tell much of anything about it). Just...I feel like if Dragonball is going to continue, Toriyama needs to stay as a creative consultant or advisor or somesuch. He shouldn't have full control over these things because clearly he's running out of good ideas. And I realize a lot of it is nostalgiagoggles, because Dragonball, for all its worldwide notoriety, is hardly the greatest written masterpiece of our time...but I'd like to think it had more creativity back then than it does now.
What I'd REALLY like to see is more along the lines of Dragonball Online and Xenoverse. Build new content in the Dragon World!! There's so much worldbuilding we can work with!! Focus on THAT instead of how we can somehow make Gokou and Vegeta even stronger!! Instead of filling the gaps between the end of Buu and end of Z (which I feel like we've done enough of already, with a TV special and two movies), the new series and future movies should move POST-Z. A similar situation to Movie #9 as far as how the gang handles things without Gokou. Gokou training Uubu and otherwise leaving the future to the new generation (though he'd obviously have a hard time resisting continuing to fight strong guys, End of Z Gokou definitely had a more 'mentor' quality to him). Instead I just know we're only going to get more ridiculous things like SSJGSSJ...this situation is no better than all the Dragonball AF rumors we've had for years.
I'm not going to crap on people for not sharing my opinion like my impostor seemed to be doing, though. I think it's great that people are still enjoying Dragonball all these years later, and a part of me really DOES want to see us get more before the rest of the cast gets too old or, God forbid, passes on. But this isn't the direction I want to see things go in, either. I don't want Dragonball to boil down to nothing more than Gokou and Vegeta getting new transformations. But because Toriyama is at the helm now, we can't simply write off these sorts of storylines the way we can write off GT, even if it's not honestly any better. And if people LIKE what we get, that's cool!! If they don't, that's cool too!! But people shouldn't automatically hold these new movies/series on a pedestal JUST because it has Toriyama's name slapped on it - we should always look at these things objectively.
These are just my thoughts. Sorry if they're a bit disjointed.
Steam Name: SG2
Discord Tag: Esjitu#4064
"I came to save you thanks to a magic bean. And if you think it was easy to find that bean, you're wrong."
--'Big Green' Yajirobe