Was GT supposed to end after Baby?

[Xeogran]

Been wondering about this but never decided to speak this out.
I have realized that everything points out at GT's true ending being Baby's death. For example in episode 64's credits we can only see events up to Baby's demise. The same thing applies to the Goku Jr.'s episode.

Overall, in Baby. arc we can see the true strength of SSJ4. In the Super 17 Saga & Evil Shenron Saga the form was pretty meaningless, Goku was killing almost everyone at Base. The plot also seemed to be more rushed than in the first part of GT which had a proper beginning and ending. Super 17's saga only lasted for like 5-6 episodes.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I reckon so. Would have been better if it did.
Also, in the flash back scenes in the last episode. The GT flashback they used was Goku defeating Baby.

[sangofe]

I dunno, but the Black Dragon saga of DBGT was the only creative part. Granted, many things were annoying when it comes to power etc., but it was creative.

[RocktheDragon]

I dunno, but the Black Dragon saga of DBGT was the only creative part. Granted, many things were annoying when it comes to power etc., but it was creative.

Very true! It is also my favorite arc of GT as well in terms of creativity. The execution is questionable...and it does get dull for me at various points but overall I highly enjoyed the black dragons.

[dbboxkaifan]

I agree that the Evil Dragons arc was the best out of all being the one that didn't seem to recycle content from DB/DBZ.

[baneofdemon22]

I wasn't a fan of the execution of the Black Dragon arc either. I didn't like any of the dragons accept the twins. It's a fantastic idea! I don't understand those that say, they wish it wasn't made. I've never fully watched it, because I skip over the parts I don't like. As long as there's a single episode I like, I won't complain. Complain about more Dragon Ball? No way! It's like the Simpsons. I haven't liked a lot of seasons, but every once in awhile, if I get a good Simpsons episode, it's a win for me! Plus it's free, so I'd be a jerk to complain!

I enjoyed a lot of the Baby arc and think he's one of the best villains in the series. If the surrounding stuff was better, he might have been my second favorite villain under Freeza.

[LeprikanGT]

Wasn't GT supposed to be WAY longer? I thought it ended short because something to do with Final Bout or it wasn't doing as well or something. I always assumed that it ended so soon was because of lowered production value.

[DonZ]

GT wasn't even suppose to exist in the first place.

anyway, no. cuz one of the few good things GT brought was the concept of "Black Dragon Balls" tho they didn't do it right and the whole saga was just as bad as the rest of the show.

[Marco Polo]

Wasn't GT supposed to be WAY longer? I thought it ended short because something to do with Final Bout or it wasn't doing as well or something. I always assumed that it ended so soon was because of lowered production value.

I think it's pretty clear that it was supposed to be longer since Bulma mentions SSJ5 and we didn't get to see it.

[Blade]

Wasn't GT supposed to be WAY longer? I thought it ended short because something to do with Final Bout or it wasn't doing as well or something. I always assumed that it ended so soon was because of lowered production value.

I think it's pretty clear that it was supposed to be longer since Bulma mentions SSJ5 and we didn't get to see it.

Not true at all. Bulma's comment should be taken in context, it was just her feelings about Vegeta's powers could possibly advance with her help.

As for the actual question at hand - it's unclear. Baby was planned from the start, the series was always meant to reach that point - but the rumours that the series was extended beyond its original remit due to acceptable ratings or potential promotional tie-ins with Dragonball GT Final Bout are largely unfounded and have never really been elaborated on by anyone in-the-know.

If it means anything, I think it's fairly clear that the series wasn't hurriedly wrapped up. Everything from the very end of the Baby arc essentially builds up to the finale - there's not sniff of ad-hoc plotting in site.

[Hellspawn28]

I think GT was always plan to be 64 episodes long. I do think Toei would have done another show after 1997 if the show did better in ratings and merchandise sales. I think Toei would have done a show based around Goku Jr. and a new generation of Z fighters in 1998-1999 if GT did better.

[Herms]

I'm not aware of any actual source saying GT was originally going to stop at the Baby arc, but it's only natural that the rest of the series afterwards would have a different feel. Aya Matsui was series organizer for the first 43 episodes (ie the Ultimate Dragon Balls/Baby story arcs and the first two Super 17 episodes), but after that she went on maternity leave and so they got three different people to juggle her job for the rest of the series. There were also a number of staff changeovers around episode 26 (shortly after Baby arrives on Earth), for some reason.

Episode 40 wraps up the Baby story arc and after that they took a bit of a break before going into the next big plot line, airing the standalone tournament episode and then the Goku Jr special before starting up the Super 17 arc. This does tend to make the Super 17/Evil Dragon episodes feel a bit removed from what came before, but it's a fairly typical thing when shows move from one big storyline to the next. Basically, the end of the Baby arc feels like the end because it's supposed to be the end of the Baby arc. There's no evidence that it was intended as the end of the entire series.

The first volume of the GT Perfect Files covers the start of GT up to the end of the Baby arc, but that's because it was released right after those episodes aired and that was all the material that existed at the time. The book does include a preview of the Super 17 and Evil Dragon story arcs though, so they obviously already had them in the works. What's more, the second Perfect Files volume says that at the time Super Saiyan 4 Goku was designed, there were already plans for Vegeta to become a Super Saiyan 4 as well, and for the two of them to fuse into Gogeta.

For example in episode 64's credits we can only see events up to Baby's demise. The same thing applies to the Goku Jr.'s episode.

Well, the Goku Jr special aired immediately after the end of the Baby arc, so obviously they couldn't show events from any later episodes, since that's all that existed at the time. And the episode 64 credits probably only flashback to Baby arc stuff because everything after that was so recent that there wasn't much point in flashing back to it. Even if the original plan had been for the series to end at Baby, why would this lead the people making episode 64 to try and pretend that the series really had ended back then? In effect, they'd be acting like the very episode they were working on and all the ones directly leading up to it didn't exist. The idea doesn't make much sense.

Wasn't GT supposed to be WAY longer? I thought it ended short because something to do with Final Bout or it wasn't doing as well or something. I always assumed that it ended so soon was because of lowered production value.

Those are just more rumors without any evidence behind them. GT's rating started off OK but fell very quickly (the first episode was the highest rated!), so it makes sense that this is why it ended up being so short by DB standards. If the show had gotten better ratings, it almost certainly would have gone on for longer than it did. But there's no official source saying that the staff planned for X number of episodes and had to settle for Y, or that they planned to do XYZ and had to cut it because the series stopped short. Maybe there were things like that, but if so nobody's said anything. There are these fan rumors that it was intended to run for hundreds of episodes, but this is like the new rumors these days about an upcoming DB anime that will have 200 episodes. Ideas like these show little understanding of the way TV shows are made; nobody's going to start a show with the plan that it will run for over a 100 episodes. It's completely impractical.

The rumor about Final Bout is actually on the opposite end of the spectrum: the claim is that GT was going to end with the Baby arc, but that they kept the show running longer to promote Final Bout. Again, it's just a rumor with no real source I've been able to find, and the idea doesn't seem too plausible. Would the extra sales for Final Bout really have made up the cost of animating an additional 20+ episodes of GT? Final Bout wasn't even labelled as a GT game in Japan, so the idea that they needed the show to promote it seems a little strange.

I think it's pretty clear that it was supposed to be longer since Bulma mentions SSJ5 and we didn't get to see it.

Maybe, but that seems more like a throwaway line. It's not like Bulma has any knowledge about a Super Saiyan 5 form; she's just speaking hypothetically. At any rate, that part comes so late in the series that I have to imagine the staff already knew the series would be ending soon.

[ABED]

I wasn't a fan of the execution of the Black Dragon arc either. I didn't like any of the dragons accept the twins. It's a fantastic idea! I don't understand those that say, they wish it wasn't made. I've never fully watched it, because I skip over the parts I don't like. As long as there's a single episode I like, I won't complain. Complain about more Dragon Ball? No way! It's like the Simpsons. I haven't liked a lot of seasons, but every once in awhile, if I get a good Simpsons episode, it's a win for me! Plus it's free, so I'd be a jerk to complain!

I enjoyed a lot of the Baby arc and think he's one of the best villains in the series. If the surrounding stuff was better, he might have been my second favorite villain under Freeza.

I agree by and large. If I like something, why would I want less? Yes, The Office's best seasons were 2 and 3, but we would've missed so much great stuff if they had "gone out at their peak."

[GsTvo]

No. Just because Black Dragon arc is the only thing of GT that make you say: "Well, at least a good idea". The sad part is that this idea was poorly executed and left for the end, when everyone was arguing about which was the worst saga, Baby or Super #17.

[Herms]

Discussions like this always seem to circle back to people going "well, I think it would have been better if the series ended at X", "no, I like the stuff that comes after X", etc. Which of course is all completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the people involved ever actually planned on ending it at X. There's a certain "perfect world" fallacy underlying the whole thing: the idea that if things up to X are good and things after X are bad, then the creators must have really wanted it to end at X, as if people only ever produce bad work if their hearts aren't in it or they're forced to go against their original plan. I suppose the other factor is that in order to properly investigate the question of "did the people involved plan on ending it at X?" you have to do research and other annoying things like.