Are BoG and RoF dragging the series downhill?

[Zanza]

Personally, I don't think they are.

Yes, they both have their fair share of issues, but then again, so did the original series. What I like about BoG and RoF is that, while objectively bad, they're still a fun ride, which pretty much describes all of DB/Z. The movies beforehand were just dull, and rarely captured Toriyama's charm.

What do you think?

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

I don't think they're dragging the series downhill at all, if anything it's all going uphill. I love the new movies and so do a lot of other people. They brought back a lot of attention to the series and we got a new show happening. Also, I'm really intrigued with this whole new different universes plot and I can't wait to see where it will go in Dragon Ball Super.

The new movies are really benefiting the series.

[ThatGuyNamedChancey]

What I like about BoG and RoF is that, while objectively bad...

Real talk? How the hell can anything in any form of media be 'objectively bad'? Because I need an explanation for this phenomenon!

[Zephyr]

while objectively bad

"Good" and "bad" are inherently subjective qualifiers.

That aside, nah I don't think they're dragging the series downhill. We're in the midst of a revival thanks to Battle of Gods, after all.

[SaintEvolution]

Actually, they CAPT Toriyama's charm.

The newer movies were much better than GT or the old movies, and they are doing good things with the franchise.

[NitroEX]

I think the new material is actually benefiting the franchise but the problem is it's doing it for all the wrong reasons. The goal is no longer to tell great stories within the DB world, that mentality has been replaced with simply providing fan service that's superficial and hollow.

Very little of what they're doing now is actually going to benefit the series in the long run or develop new characters to enable them to tell new stories in the future. They've instead taken the easy road and regurgitated old rehashed ideas to make money in the short term which, in my opinion, is doing both fans and the franchise a disservice.

I can't help but feel like I'm being treated like an idiot when I watch the new films or even Super. I don't want to see or pay for for old ideas repackaged, Instead I'd prefer if they tried to give us a halfway intelligent or meaningful story with new and old characters, unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll get that anytime soon.

Because the series is so popular and close to people's hearts they're quick to defend it's many flaws but there's clearly a double standard here. Any other less popular series would get chewed out for being as lazy as they're being with DB.

Basically a revival for the series is great but a revival for the wrong reasons isn't. If they had important stories to tell then sure, revive the franchise, but what I see from them aren't stories worth reviving a franchise for.

[ekrolo2]

I think the new material is actually benefiting the franchise but the problem is it's doing it for all the wrong reasons. The goal is no longer to tell great stories within the DB world, that mentality has been replaced with simply providing fan service that's superficial and hollow.

Very little of what they're doing now is actually going to benefit the series in the long run or develop new characters to enable them to tell new stories in the future. They've instead taken the easy road and regurgitated old rehashed ideas to make money in the short term which, in my opinion, is doing both fans and the franchise a disservice.

I can't help but feel like I'm being treated like an idiot when I watch the new films or even Super. I don't want to see or pay for for old ideas repackaged, Instead I'd prefer if they tried to give us a halfway intelligent or meaningful story with new and old characters, unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll get that anytime soon.

Because the series is so popular and close to people's hearts they're quick to defend it's many flaws but there's clearly a double standard here. Any other less popular series would get chewed out for being as lazy as they're being with DB.

Basically a revival for the series is great but a revival for the wrong reasons isn't. If they had important stories to tell then sure, revive the franchise, but what I see from them aren't stories worth reviving a franchise for.

100% agree with all of this although I wouldn't lump BoG with Super and RoF. Sure the original version that was going to question what it means to be a hero would've been far more daring than what we got, but I'd say the finished product is still leaps and bounds superior to Super & RoF. Beerus is easily one of the best new characters to the franchise since Baby & Nuova Shenron.

[Sayo-chan]

It's bad storytelling. Really bad storytelling. Dragon Ball's never had a great story to begin with, Toriyama's simply not that great at creating a cohesive narrative; his strength is in characterization. There's so many different directions to build from, but the laziest, cheapest approaches are taken. It's nice to see the new shitty Freeza movie doing well, really it is, but I'd rather it never happened.

When you continually build and build in a story, there comes a point where the structural integrity fails. Let's go back to when Goku met God. That was huge. We already had a rich world full of colorful characters, but now our hero's meeting fucking God. He ends up fighting who's essentially Satan. There's so much mystery and intrigue, our sense of mysticism has gracefully expanded. Fast forward to Raditz. The entire tone shifts, Goku's dead. Our sense of mysticism contracts and expands. It's cause and effect. We lose some of the mystery, but there's a payoff. The world expands into rich new territory. It's a bit silly that there's someone above God, who was built up as... well, God. That's fine though, the narrative still works in the manga. In the anime however, it takes a huge hit in consistency. North Kaio has a similar build up to God, but is it anywhere near as promising as the God/Piccolo Daimao dynamic? No. Judgement, Serpentine Road, it's all executed fairly well, but the end result is fairly tame. Kaio isn't a bad character, he's got decent characterization, but it's just not the same, "wow Goku's training with God!" atmosphere we got. There's still something there though, something potent; Goku's dead, training in the afterlife to beat a fearsome foe. That in itself is really cool; it's iconic.

So Dragon Ball is a space opera by the time they take aim at Planet Namek. Could the series just end there? No. Too many loose ends. Half the main cast is dead. So the Freeza saga is necessary. That's good storytelling. But what's shifty is what happened earlier with Raditz. The plot twist that Goku's an alien isn't too far out of left field, so it doesn't necessarily detract from the narrative. The only issue is, the story wasn't planned out very well. There was no foreshadowing, the reveal comes from nowhere. That's sloppy, and it's a reoccurring trope throughout the entire series. Anyway, everything heads to space. This creates a new realm of possibilities, similar to when we first started exploring the world with Goku when he was a kid. So we hear about this Refrigerator guy that used to store Vegeta. Kaio, the god above God, is fucking scared shitless. Freeza has such a huge build up. He's basically the king of fucking space. The highest god trembles at the sound of his name. Through some really lame and sloppy plot devices, Goku surpasses him. Okay, wait. Goku trained with fucking God and other mystical creatures to beat Satan and his spawn. Pretty much something you'd expect to read in an epic, it's dramatic and carries a significance with the tone of its ambiance. How is that topped? Goku's killed and has to train in the afterlife. Not bad, not as good as before, but it's still decently articulated. So what's next? Goku trains on a spaceship, abusing a biological mechanic. Yeah, that's pretty tame by comparison, mundane even. It definitely doesn't add anything to the narrative beyond: Goku's stronger now.

By this point it's just an X >Y therefore X thing. It's boring. Fortunately, the Freeza saga is more than that, for the most part. The conflict here has depth. We have three parties on the planet that all want the same thing. We learn more about Vegeta and how he's gone rogue. By the time the Ginyu Force rolls in, we see the guy that curb stomped Goku get his ass beat. These guys work for Freeza, they're obviously weaker, making Freeza all the more fearsome. Of course we already knew Vegeta was weaker than Freeza, seeing that he had to remain under the radar and be sneaky, otherwise he'd've confronted him. But we didn't know to what extent. With his A team making a game out of the previous saga's antagonist, Freeza becomes just as terrifying as Kaio warned he was, without ever actually seeing him do much of anything. Now, all of the Ginyu's have a history with Vegeta, so it's not just random bad guys with a conflict of interest. That's what makes it interesting, there are relationships between the characters. But wait, there's more. Their special powers, while completely nullified by everyone's battle power increasing so much later, which is part of the above formula, build them up in a way that makes them fearsome. With Raditz, it was the unknown terror of aliens. With the Ginyu's it's an entirely new threat, it's more than X >Y therefore X. Yeah they're stronger, but that's not what makes them dangerous. Gurd is fairly weak, but his ability to control time allows him to beat stronger foes. Butta has incredible speed, Ginyu can swap bodies, effectively having the ability to beat people thousands of times stronger than himself. Jheese has... Crasher Ball and teamwork with Butta. So Vegeta and co. fail. Goku arrives the exact same way he did in the Saiyan saga and does exactly what he did to Nappa to Reacoom. This can be seen as lazy or clever. Clever if we choose to believe that the Ginyus are being treated as the next Vegeta as opposed to Freeza, making him all the more terrible. Lazy because it's reusing a dull trope.

So despite being stronger, Goku like the idiot he is, loses to Ginyu. The whole ordeal with Ginyu deviates from the formula above, which is nice. In fact, our beloved Captain doesn't die, he's preserved a frog. As we lose sight of perhaps the greatest character of the Freeza saga, we get... well, Freeza. Vegeta, exhausted, gets betrayed. We get some of our dead friends back. Now, there's a bit of an issue here. Everyone's weaker and starting to become irrelevant. That's what happens when you focus too much on a couple of characters and give the rest of your cast a big fuck you. To compensate for this, they all train with the guy above God. Okay, so Goku isn't nearly as special as he was before, because everyone else is doing it, just like before. First Goku trains with God, then everyone else does. Consistently the significance of prior events is crumbling. Piccolo comes back. He's still a weakling because he didn't have the screen time to abuse anything. Out of fucking nowhere, some guy he's never met before wants to go inside his body. No foreshadowing this thing, nothing. It just happens. Sloppy, but okay. Piccolo's relevant now, yay. After the Dragon Balls become useless, Vegeta and Freeza arrive. We finally get to see what Vegeta's made of. He sounds like a lunatic crying about how he's a Super Saiyan. The legend of the Super Saiyan, as stupid as it sounds, is at least foreshadowing something. Anyway, back to Freeza. He's terrifying, but not really. When will he live up to the build up? When he transforms. This is huge, he is. Battle power: one million. He's lived up to his nightmarish expectations. He's making quick work of everyone. This is the pay off. Piccolo tangles with him a bit, hell even Krillin gets a nice shot in (his tail). Even with four on one, Freeza still isn't worried. Why? Oh, another form. Okay. It's more intimidating, it's based off the Xenomorph. But wait... there's more. Another form. Again, excessive use of the same plot device. So now we see a Japanese classic, the terrifying monster becomes sleek and human like. Blah blah blah irony about his size:power.

Dende dies. Vegeta finally gets axed. Characters are dying. Maybe for once death will actually mean something. Before, the Dragon Balls made death less threatening, but still something to be heavily weary of. When we met God, we didn't get any information about a heaven or hell. With the introduction to the chase for Kaio though, things change. Death really starts to lose its meaning. But, without Piccolo, it's over. Death can't be cheated. That's another thing that's great about this particular arc. Death just might be permanent, and we don't know much about it. Goku got to keep his body because of God, and really should've been the only one bar Piccolo. Everyone being able to have a party with God's god just doesn't seem consequential. It hurts the narrative a bit.

Anyway, back to Vegeta dying. Goku arrives to save the day... or not. Another reason one might consider the Goku appearing at just the right time twice to be good storytelling is because he's completely shutdown the third time. It builds Freeza up even more. It worked with Nappa, it worked with Reacoom, but not Freeza? He's living up to his reputation. As it turns out, he's holding back. Goku's no match, and he really shouldn't be. Now, I find it redundant to have so many transformations and then have him hold back so much. Not too big a deal, but it's unnecessary. Freeza beats Goku because X > Y therefore X, but at least he's built up to it. Goku asks for the help of an entire solar system or so (I don't remember just how big the area was). Fitting, Goku can't beat him, so he creates an attack bigger than himself (figuratively here). It fails. Freeza still upholds his reputation. Piccolo nearly dies, really adding a sense of urgency. Krillin's dead. Everyone's dying. It's like Dutch and his crew are up against the Predator. They're being picked off one by one and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. It was imperative for this to happen if Goku wanted his friends back alive. Now we get the first Super Saiyan on screen. It's fitting. It wasn't just something that happened like with Nail and Piccolo, it was foreshadowed. There's a dynamic between Freeza and the Saiyans. After a long and exhausting battle, Goku orchestrates a plan to bring everyone back to life. How convenient. Though I will admit, it's well executed and articulated. The only thing it really marginalizes in the narrative is all the damage done for the past two arcs, which one might argue isn't a bad thing due to having a preference for happy endings. There's one last thing though, Goku seemingly dies with Freeza on Namek. This would be a great ending. The two strongest beings die in a planetary explosion. Like the ending to Lord of the Rings, not all is truly happy in the end. Could the series end here? Yes. Yes it could. Many people would be dissatisfied with having the protagonist dead though. Unfortunately, this series is by genre, shonen.

Freeza's still alive. Certainly living up to his reputation, but it's a bit ridiculous at this point. We get a decent world expansion on his empire with his father, but overall it's pretty bland. We get some hotshot with a sword that comes out of nowhere tearing shit up. He effortlessly kills Freeza. Obviously this is done to show the new enemies are bigger and badder. While the link to this arc from the last is significantly weaker, Trunks creates a shitload of mystique. Perhaps the most since we first met God. Now Goku returns and Kyle Reese Trunks confronts him. We learn that the next big threat is... robots. Well Artificial Humans. We've seen aliens, the king of space (which resulted similar to Beast Boy confronting the deer king of the forest) and now we have robots. It's not too farfetched to think robots could be take over the world. Stupidly Goku doesn't want to destroy them with aid from the Dragon Balls, but at least it's accounted for.

So Trunks is fairly angsty, but his backstory is intriguing. Everyone dies. The world's a dark, grim place without much hope left. This parallel of worlds, while poorly executed in the application of creating them, furthers the narrative in the right direction. The world building is rich, but let's not forget it's still adding more and more. It's only going up with the X > Y therefore X formula. The fact Trunks killed Freeza so easily, while a great build up for the robots, really takes away from the significance of everything that just happened. Hell, even Goku's back, for now. Turns out he gets sick in the future and dies of a virus. That'd be normal if not for this series having people blow up planets and teleport, but no, they're still susceptible to viruses. How mundane it is for Goku to die of a virus as opposed to an exploding planet. I didn't realize this was an episode of General Hospital. Anyway, Trunks comes back. The robots make easy work of Yamcha, go figure, despite how he trained, it didn't make a difference. The narrative's been screwed too far in the formula's favor. They beat Goku due to his virus, because I guess the medicine only works when you have symptoms. But here's Vegeta. A Super Saiyan. Okay, so something that was once, y'know, a big deal, carried a huge significance, etc. is now lazily being used to fill in the gaps. So the robots are weak, their build up was unwarranted. That is, until Trunks is all like, "Those aren't the robits, this'll be the end of all of us, nooooo." So him time traveling caused discrepancies in this universe. That creates uncertainty. It was a good move to do so. The unknown is gradually seeping in. The circus robots are killed and it turns out that the real bad robots are two 90s "you don't understand me mom" type teenagers and the chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Turns out Super Saiyan isn't enough. This adds a sense of urgency that what was useful before no longer is. Imagine someone doing some landscaping. They're building a volcano fountain, a big one. The foundation isn't right for what they want to do, but they don't care, so they keep adding layers. It looks really good at some points, but you can see the foundation trembling a bit.

So God's been freaked out, but kept it to himself for some reason. You know when God's scared, shit's bad... well, maybe if he wasn't irrelevant beyond his link to the Dragon Balls. So, at least what happens next isn't completely random like before. In fact, it's far more fitting than before. God and Satan's sexless kid merge. Turns out, there's a creature of nightmare on the loose. Devil-God tricks it into spilling everything. Turns out Trunks isn't responsible for the time travel discrepancies, Cell is. This opens another can of worms. It's a bit similar to the Freeza saga, but with a lot less happening. We have three parties all with a conflict of interest. We have some robots driving another type of robot around, looking for Sleeping Beauty, a monster lurking the countryside killing people and the good guys. Imperfect Cell, especially with the anime, gives us a great sense of horror. Everyone's disappearing, there's a real mystery here. It slowly unravels on top of what's already going on with Trunks. So we have layers of mystery, this is good. Eventually, after some entertainment concerning Cell and Devil-God, we finally get a confrontation. Devil-God has a rematch with the Robots. Goku's away and Devil-God may not even be able to handle one of them. Let me guess, Goku wakes up and saves the day? No, Cell takes advantage of the situation and harvests one of the robots and their batteries. The battery powers him up into his second stage of evolution. We get some usefulness out of a character oppressed by the direction of the narrative, which is nice. Goku wakes up, confronts Vegeta, and some of God's lore becomes the primary catalyst to serve the formula. Cell outsmarted Piccolo because he knew everything about him, sans the one time he was outsmarted by him. Now here comes Vegeta. Cell knows Vegeta, it's just as personal as it was with Piccolo. He lets Cell become complete. Perfection comes to fruition. Now despite the formula, we haven't had anything break the narrative. There's still some mysticism.

Trunks hates robots. You'd think he'd just hide in a bathtub full of water, but I guess that wouldn't work against Cell. As it turns out, Trunks is a greenhorn. He's still a kid, so he fucks up. Both he and Vegeta had to alter their transformations, which is a clever way of avoiding some deus ex machina. Cell killed him once, he killed Cell once. The score's even, but about to be broken. Freeza and Vegeta held the same desire. What about Cell? He reached his goal. What's left? Kill Goku? No. He spares him. Cell has depth to his character, he's the amalgam of everyone else. He preferred the Dragon Balls gone so people would stay dead. Those aren't around anymore. He doesn't care, he doesn't want immortality like the villains before. He's biologically perfect. He wants to test his limits, but he also enjoys fear. That's how he's hardwired, perhaps because of Vegeta, Freeza, and to a lesser extent, Piccolo. So the situation becomes less dire. Cell gives everyone time to breathe and have fucking picnics. Oh and Dende becomes God and he makes new Dragon Balls. This is why shonen plots make me wanna puke. It's too positive, we already know everything's going to be undone. Anyhow, presumably he just stands there in his ring, the entire time. We get some comic relief with Mr. Satan, who somehow survives. Maybe Cell liked him, wanted him to be his apprentice and mentor him, so he didn't hit him hard enough to injure him. Similar to how he spared that human girl on the train. He really has a heart of gold, maybe I was wrong about the fear thing. So, our kindhearted organic robot slaps Goku around a bit, beats him, tortures Gohan, nearly kills 16, then gives birth to his kids. Stupidly instead of killing everyone and training Mr. Satan, he pushes Gohan to his absolutes. Gohan reaches a new level of Super Saiyan. Bam. A new layer of clay is added to the volcano. Cell gets his ass beat, Gohan stupidly doesn't kill him. Krillin's girlfriend, who only kissed him on the cheek, so he didn't kill her earlier, effectively stopping Cell, is puked out of his mouth. Backed into a corner, Cell self-destructs... but he warns Gohan not to hit him or he'll explode. Now this could be a bluff so he actually explodes, otherwise it's incredibly stupid. Let's end it there. The whole things a draw. The stronger character cost everyone their lives, that'd be pretty good. No. Goku sacrifices himself to stop himself, essentially better Goku. Didn't work; Cell comes back at Gohan's level. Goku's death was in vain, not that it matters, death isn't a consequence anymore. Oh yeah, Cell killed Trunks again. Cell - 2, Trunks - 1. Vegeta fucks up and costs Gohan an arm, so we get an okay beam struggle. Cell wins. He overpowers Gohan. Oh, but Vegeta comes from fucking nowhere and distracts him. Goku points this out and Gohan wins, because shonen plot.

What next? Boo. This arc comes from nowhere. It doesn't need to happen. Basically Boo is the logical followup to Cell. He takes Cell's attributes and does them better. The structural integrity is about to fall inward. We have two brats at the robots' levels. Things are ridiculous at this point. Taking it seriously is pointless. Just roll with it. So what happens? Gohan gets a girlfriend that gets a hideous fucking haircut, because she took an offhand comment seriously. We get a painfully boring kids tournament and Gohan gets frozen by some weird looking guy Piccolo's terrified off. Who? Turns out it's... God's god's... god. While presented and articulated very well, this shattered the mysticism. The expansion isn't large enough for the contraction. It's just getting ridiculous. Super God is afraid of a magician that claims to be a wizard. He has some weak ass henchmen, with one around Freeza's level. Oh yeah, and the Demon king. This guy's filled with mystique. Satan's back and better than ever. Despite the nonchalant behavior of the Z-senshi that makes Super God's build up seem bland, Super Satan makes up for this. If this mutated magician can control Super Satan, then maybe this Majin Boo guy is really terrifying. Gohan gets stomped, Vegeta goes to the dark side and does the exact same he did with Cell by fighting Goku. Boo comes out, kills Super Satan, beats everyone up and goes on a killing spree. He's also got the mind of a five year old. Goku goes Super Saiyan 3, which is a self-parody, but still doesn't change the fact it's even more unnecessary than the previous level. Oh yeah, the little shits can go Super Saiyan too. All that hard work, all that significance from the Freeza arc, gone. It may as well have never happened. Boo kills just about everyone, hope seems lost. There's a real sense of despair at this point. One thing this arc is doing well is creating a feeling that life as everyone knows it is over. Boo has some sort of inner conflict with himself after Vegeta comes to his senses and kills himself. He kills the magical roach larva because of Goku's words. But he still kills people. The conflict persists when something happens to something he loves. He expels the evil and it beats and eats him. So now we have an even more psychotic version of Boo. Things get worse and worse as Boo gets more complex. Sometime earlier Goku taught the brats about fusion. Boo kills just about everyone. This builds some more mysticism and ultimately compliments Boo as a destroyer. Gohan and Super God do some deus ex machina bullshit. So, Gohan is the gods' messenger sent to destroy that which existed since time immemorial. Gohan makes the same mistake he did against Cell and allows Boo an opportunity to manipulate the brats and then becomes stronger than him. So he takes Gohan. Goku and Vegeta fuse. They squander their opportunity and actually make things worse. Boo reverts to how he was before absorbing anyone.

Freeza only affected a small lot of the universe. Cell only affected the Earth, but potentially far more than Freeza, starting with the solar system. Boo now, Boo is threatening everything. This is the finale. Boo is the god of death. If Pure Boo goes on a rampage, the physical universe, the gods' planets, the afterlife, it's all gone. This is for everything, and there's a huge sense of urgency because there's not much hope left. The strongest are there battling it out, with the exception of Gohan. Ultimately Mr. Satan, Cell's prodigy convinced the people of Earth to give their energy to Goku's Spirit Bomb. They all ironically chant Satan and it adds a little bit to the bomb. Most of it's Gohan's energy, so whatever. The destroyer is defeated by the good of everyone else, yada yada yada. Part of Boo becomes good and the other part reincarnates. It ends with Goku finally becoming the master that passes the torch down. It was a shonen ending that showed the value of teamwork in a solid way that didn't make me want to vomit or cringe, ultimately leading to an ending with closure. The foundation of the narrative already collapsed sometime in the Boo saga, but it's fine so long as that's the end. It fell apart when everything else did. How do you followup from something like that? You don't. That's why Toriyama wrote it to be so insane. It was his last great story in the Dragon Ball world.

That said, let's look at Battle of the Gods. The mysticism is completely broken now. We have Super God's gods. So Ra and his butler god that's stronger than him take an interest in some really lame rehash of the Super Saiyan legend. They go to Earth searching for the Super Saiyan God. Beerus beats SSJ3 Goku easily. Because he's a god. Why bother at this point. He goes to Earth, where there's a really crinegworthy birthday party, namely because of Vegeta's dancing/singing. Beerus proves he's a stupid manchild because he argues with being that has the mentality of a five year old, over pudding. He wants to fight the God, so they summon Shenlong. Shenlong's afraid of him. Why? Piccolo Daimao beat his ass, so anyone with a battle power of 300+ could. Oh it's Dende's dragon you say? Big deal. Freeza, Cell or Boo would easily kill him. Maybe it's because Beerus is known throughout the universe as a fucking spaz that acts on impulse. Turns out they need to do this extremely cringey shonen ritual to make Goku a god. They do. What do we get? A horrible design, that's what. Kaio-ken reject Goku at your service. It still isn't enough, but Whis saves the day. Whis has a mystique around him, but it's overblown. It's not as intriguing due to how sloppy the whole setup is. What's more is how horrible all the art in the movie looks. Yamamuro's a hack, plain and simple. The animation is good in some parts, but bad in others, so it's just okay.

The next movie is a joke. Aside from a super convenient excuse for Freeza to be on par with everyone else, because the storytelling at this point is awful, we get a design worse than Kaio-ken reject Goku. Taco Bell Freeza. Other than that, there's blue god form, which takes the cake for stupidest fucking name ever. SSGSS or whatever. The blue hair looks decent though. It added a few things about Beerus and Whis, but like most movies, it hardly did anything for the narrative. Yeah okay. Vegeta becomes a blue god, but beyond that, it's a travesty.

Super is awful so far. The idea to retell the movies off their original storyboards was one of the laziest things they could've done. I feel the same way I do about Jem. I'd rather watch the series be taken out back than have shitty new content. I'll leave a quote I made about the Alien franchise to close this:

I think the obvious answer here is no. In fact, not only does he deserve to die, he deserves to not exist in the universe at all; he's a bad idea. There comes a point where you break the mysticism of something so much that it loses meaning. Take Alien for example. It's a near perfect horror movie. There's so much left in the dark (literally). It's terrifying because of how unknown it is. Aliens was great, perhaps better than the first, but somewhere down the road the franchise lost what made it so well constructed. So much that the creature lost its position as a creature of nightmare, to the point that little kids were trick or treating as Xenomorphs. When you expose too much you lessen your audience's suspension of disbelief, you put too much weight on the story's foundation and create inconsistencies. It's the exact same deal with Dragon Ball. I'd argue that even the Kaios were too much, but at least it still left a lot to the imagination, and it didn't feel like a convoluted mess that made the previous segments seem insignificant. I'd strictly draw the line at the Kaioshins, purely because I like their presentation in the Boo arc (my bias).

[FoolsGil]

I think the story has been over for 20+ years so it's impossible to run it 'downhill.' Whatever this revival is, has no impact on what the series used to be and you can ignore it.

[Kamiccolo9]

Battle of Gods is the best thing to happen to this franchise in years. No clue about Resurrection F, as I haven't seen it yet.

If it was bigger, I'd say that Minus had the potential to drag down the overall quality of the series, but it's small enough to be more or less ignored. And, by all accounts, Jaco is actually pretty good.

[Lord Beerus]

No way are BOG and ROF dragging the series down. BOG is the best thing to happen to the franchise in nearly 20 years. Don't really know what to say about ROF as I have only read the summary and seen brief snippets of the film, but I will see the film in UK to make a final judgement on it. From what I know though, the vast majority of people that have seen the movie love it a lot. Some even more so than BOG.

[jjgp1112]

Battle of Gods was very refreshing and introduced a couple of great concepts and one of my favorite characters in the series, and has given us a new show. RoF was decent, but it's no different from any of the movies from the 90s. It's just there, but that doesn't mean it's some abomination that will ruin the franchise FOREVERRRRRR. It's another movie that you can either choose to watch or avoid. A lot of fans today are overreactionary and it causes them to lose all perspective on things, completely missing the bigger picture in the franchise.

[Doctor.]

The series has been going downhill since the Freeza arc ended. Battle of Gods, if anything, is a step-up from anything that came after Namek, introducing the two best characters in the universe since Future Trunks. F is bad, but that just means the quality of the series is as inconsistent as ever. Back then it could go from a great arc like the RRA to a bad one like the 22nd TB in an instant.

[Mewzard]

Nah, if anything, I'd say they're taking the series up hill. I enjoyed them more than GT by far, and moreso than the Buu Saga as well (though not as drastically as GT).

Honestly don't get half the hate these movies get.

[ekrolo2]

I really feel like DB needs some fresh blood to give it a good kick in the ass. Toriyama isn't going to be around forever and the whole notion that only he can do worthwhile DB stories never sat right with me. So when he permanently gives the series the finger or dies, does that mean we should just let it lie dormant forever? Even a young writer with a lot of passion for the series goes to Toei, gives them a killer pitch for how to make the series evolve instead of Toriyama's return to the Buu Saga stagnation, should he just be told to piss off cause he's not Toriyama?


Sure not all pitches come out right nor do all new writers do a good job, as someone who reads comic I know this better than most, but this whole mentality that only the original creator can do his own work well seems preposterous. Bill Finger created Batman yet the likes of Dennis O'Neil, Scott Snyder, Grant Morrison, Frank Miller completely kick the ass of anything Finger & Kane did. Same thing with Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, the Inhumans, Daredevil....

Star Wars is another glaring example where a new perspective works out better than before. The Bane & Thrawn Trillogy's along with the KOTOR games along with numerous comics set in that universe completely murder the six movies in terms of quality in-story telling, characterization and character development.

I feel DB has the potential to reach a level of greatness it hasn't had for a long, long time but it won't if we keep drawing from the same well known as Toriyama forever. Hell, even GT for all its faults FINALLY broke the monotony that was setting in ever since Freeza by taking a good long while just doing more DB style adventurous affair. And when it went to the Z action, it actually had the characters piss poor decision making have a big consequence at the end (No more Goku and no more DBs for a very, very long time).

The latter mentality is what should've been applied to RoF and with someone else in-charge, we might've gotten that superior movie, but with Toriyama on board? Not a chance in or out of hell will we get that. Hell, he even axed the fascinating good vs evil and "what is a hero" aspects of the original BoG script where everyone gets infected by evil and the tone is far more dire than most DB stories.

[Doctor.]

I really feel like DB needs some fresh blood to give it a good kick in the ass. Toriyama isn't going to be around forever and the whole notion that only he can do worthwhile DB stories never sat right with me. So when he permanently gives the series the finger or dies, does that mean we should just let it lie dormant forever? Even a young writer with a lot of passion for the series goes to Toei, gives them a killer pitch for how to make the series evolve instead of Toriyama's return to the Buu Saga stagnation, should he just be told to piss off cause he's not Toriyama?


Sure not all pitches come out right nor do all new writers do a good job, as someone who reads comic I know this better than most, but this whole mentality that only the original creator can do his own work well seems preposterous. Bill Finger created Batman yet the likes of Dennis O'Neil, Scott Snyder, Grant Morrison, Frank Miller completely kick the ass of anything Finger & Kane did. Same thing with Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, the Inhumans, Daredevil....

Star Wars is another glaring example where a new perspective works out better than before. The Bane & Thrawn Trillogy's along with the KOTOR games along with numerous comics set in that universe completely murder the six movies in terms of quality in-story telling, characterization and character development.

I feel DB has the potential to reach a level of greatness it hasn't had for a long, long time but it won't if we keep drawing from the same well known as Toriyama forever. Hell, even GT for all its faults FINALLY broke the monotony that was setting in ever since Freeza by taking a good long while just doing more DB style adventurous affair. And when it went to the Z action, it actually had the characters piss poor decision making have a big consequence at the end (No more Goku and no more DBs for a very, very long time).

The latter mentality is what should've been applied to RoF and with someone else in-charge, we might've gotten that superior movie, but with Toriyama on board? Not a chance in or out of hell will we get that. Hell, he even axed the fascinating good vs evil and "what is a hero" aspects of the original BoG script where everyone gets infected by evil and the tone is far more dire than most DB stories.

You already have an example of that in the series. The two DBZ specials produced by Toei are better written than most of the arcs Toriyama wrote for the manga, and I'm sure most of the fanbase agrees with this opinion.

[Basaku]

They're playing it safer than ever, and for DB that's a huge problem. Beerus/Whis are so far the only interesting and fresh thing about the entire new story era. Everything else is recycled from Buu era. New transformations are simply 5 minute recolors that can't even translate well on manga-pages.

We can only hope Universe 6 part of the story shakes things up but to be honest, while I expect interesting developements for Beerus/Whis/Champa, I'm losing my hope anything will change with the Z fighters. Goku & Vegeta will remain living mems of themselves, Goten & Trunks will remain stuck in potato bodies forever 'cause clueless adults working at Toei think real kids actually care about kid characters, Krillin/Yamcha/Tien/Piccolo will fight unimportant fodder enemies, there won't be any interesting character developement, surprise turn of events (Krillin falling for 18) or anything. The lore of the universe God mythos is expanding nicely, but that's the only good aspect of the DB revival

[Zanza]

Instead I'd prefer if they tried to give us a halfway intelligent or meaningful story with new and old characters.

I can't see that happening, at least not with Toriyama at the helm. The man just isn't capable of writing stories like that, and he knows it.

[Doctor.]

Instead I'd prefer if they tried to give us a halfway intelligent or meaningful story with new and old characters.

I can't see that happening, at least not with Toriyama at the helm. The man just isn't capable of writing stories like that, and he knows it.

Of course he is. The Saiyan and Freeza arcs are perfect examples of cohesive, meaningful and great writing. He just doesn't want to, or can't anymore.

[theoriginalbilis]

I enjoy both works, but at the end of the day, it's just media. If you don't like them, don't watch them. More for the rest of us.

If GT didn't "kill" the franchise (it did cause it to be shelved for like eight years though), these new movies and Super certainly won't.

I really do feel Super will pick up drastically once we're done with the "BoG" arc. I feel there's a lot the creative team can do with the "RoF" material and the "Universe 6" arc.