Movie 15 (RoF): What were your Expectations?

[jamiljamtheman]

Spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen the film!
For those who have, I'm just curious of your expectations for it and how you reacted after seeing the movie.
Personally, having experienced Frieza first/most through GT and movie 12, I wasn't very warm to the idea that Frieza was going to be the main villain. I had only ever seen him as a joke who was only a threat in his own saga, and didn't see how they could write him as a new threat well. I guess I just expected a movie where there would be some contrivance to make Frieza relevant again, and it would be tough to buy but enjoyable because Dragon Ball.

However, one of my favorite aspects of the movie when I saw it was that Frieza really didn't pose a massive threat. He was pretty even with SSGSS Goku for a while, and was a threat to the rest of Earth (moreso than in Movie 12), but they made it clear that try as he might, Frieza was either past his prime or just not able to catch up to OP Goku and Vegeta. As for the rest of the film, I appreciated the cameos and the fun character interactions and enjoyed myself quite a bit.

On an aside, I guess by the training logic it might have been possible for Frieza to train hard enough to be unstoppable...but it's fitting that his arrogance was his own undoing and he thought 4 months was enough.

[Chuquita]

I was disappointed they were bringing back Freeza because I wanted a new villain, and then misdirected by some of the earlier trailers leading me to theorize that Vegeta was going to go undercover/pretend to side with Freeza (but nobody else would realize it was an act and so Gokû would think he was all betrayed) that Freeza would successfully blow up Earth (which, admittedly he does, but this was also before I knew about Whis' macguffin) and that the third act would be Gokû and the survivors either storming Freeza's homebase planet, meeting up with Vegeta, learning Vegeta's "betrayal" was part of Vegeta's plan to kill Freeza, and then they'd have one big final battle to defeat/kill Freeza before epilogue with going to New Namek to use the DB's there to wish Earth and everyone back. OR have that third arc be its own movie and have this one end with Freeza leaving the vaporized Earth with Vegeta in tow and cliffhangering there.


I blame BOG for giving me high expectations and making me think we'd have another plot-heavy movie. I was so wrong.

Also I was super-disappointed in blueper saiyan because it replaced the cuter and unusual ssjg with a boring ssj1 palette-swap.

I was also hoping we'd get a Rocky-type parody training montage of Freeza training "for the first time ever" and that never happened.

[SSJ God Gogeta]

When I found out that BoG was gonna have a sequel I was really excited, the teaser we got for it pumped me up even more. However, when I found out Freeza was coming back all the hype just came crashing down... So much for a new cool villain, just bring back the guy that has already been brought back time and time again... I was hoping I would be wrong, I wanted it to be a good film. As the months went by and we got more details on the film, any hope I had of this movie being good was gone. I just sulked until the day the movie came to my local theater. I sat down with a pepsi in one hand and popcorn in the other just wanting to get it over with. After the film ended I felt no different, I still thought it was a really, really, really bad film. The good things about the film (Jaco etc.) made me hate the film even more as they could have done something better with them (Jaco standalone film). Now we have the F arc of Super to get through before we get to some new material and I hope the U6 arc doesn't disappoint me like F did. I just hope F was a mere bump in the road and from here on it will be smooth sailing.

F has taught me not to have my expectations too high with new DB material because it might just lead me to huge disappointment and I don't like that.

[nickzambuto]

I expected it to be one of the best Dragon Ball movies and it turned out to be one of my favorite animated films period.

[dae428]

I expected to see some Freeza training, some expansion of universe lore, and and a SSG Vegeta fighting alongside a SSG Goku against some sort of genetically modified Freeza army.

While I was wrong on on pretty much all parts, I still enjoyed the movie greatly and it exceeded my expectations based my summary reading prior to actually watching the film. I'm not going to call it one of my favorite movies by any means, but then again neither was Battle of Gods or any of the previous Dragon Ball Z movies. Still out of all the Dragon Ball related movies, I will say that I had the most fun with this one. The characters were fun and the fighting was grand. While there wasn't a proper epic showdown like Battle of Gods, the smaller fights more than made up for them.

[fadeddreams5]

Unlike most, I was excited when it was announced that Frieza would return because I like the thought of a recurring villain, especially one that created so much impact in the series. Coincidentally, for months after BoG, I had these story ideas flowing through my head related to the return of Frieza, so I was ecstatic when I heard they might come into fruition.

As for what I expected from the film itself, well, obviously Frieza returns, so the question was, how does he become stronger? It was fun thinking about this. So many discussions were had. Any crazy method could have been used since this is Dragon Ball, but unfortunately, they went with the laziest explanation.

Secondly, I expected more meaningful dialogue between Frieza and Vegeta. That's not to say I wanted a plethora of flashbacks or reflections, but it was a perfect opportunity to further develop Vegeta's character or confirm what many people believe about him now. And yes, third, I personally wanted Vegeta to get the kill/win. I find it so ridiculous that not only did Vegeta seem completely indifferent to Frieza's return, but they even created scenes in which Frieza is mislead into believing Vegeta is still loyal to him. Was the audience supposed to fall for this? Was this melodrama necessary? Furthermore, they made a gag scene out of Beerus' intentions of destroying Planet Vegeta before Frieza. All of this is what is wrong with this series nowadays. It takes no risk. None. Completely avoids delving into anything that might be even a little bit emotionally complicated for 5 year olds...

Fourth, Frieza should have had much, much more impact. Not only was he not a threat, which I definitely didn't expect, but he expressed genuine fear at the sight of Beerus, which seems to be a theme nowadays: Beerus is too stronk; I iz scared. This completely removed any sense of tension. In my version of F, Frieza would have attained the power of a god somehow, and killed Beerus. Yes, killed the god of destruction. Why? Story-wise, because they may have known each other in the past, and Frieza wanted to mark his superiority in the universe before exacting his revenge. Decision-wise? Because nothing would create a bigger sense of tension than knowing the unbeatable antagonist from the previous film just got his ass handed to him by the most iconic and evil villain in the series. Shit just got real.

Fifth, the scope should have been larger. The army of bad guys should have been used as a method to distract the z-warriors and lure Goku/Vegeta away while Frieza obtained his power-up or attacked Beerus. One of his army guys (Sorbet?) should have been a shapeshifter that leads everyone to believe he is the real Frieza. Something like that. These details aren't fleshed out, but the point is, the movie should have been a bit more plot driven, rather than the usual "bad guy attacks Earth, let's fight, the end." I expected it to be since BoG was, to some extent.

Sixth, the movie should have ended with Frieza destroying the planet or doing something significant to the universe, leading to the uni 6 arc. This may include him surviving. And yeah, Super should have started from here. I truly expected this movie to lead to something, but the entire experience was a pointless (plot-wise) bore (well, the first half was decent).

And finally, I expected a funny interaction between Trunks and Frieza, and Goten and Frieza. I did not expect Gohan to be nerfed either. Both even more examples of terrible decisions.

Overall, the movie was a huge disappointment for me, filled with missed opportunities. I personally wasn't too fond of BoG's lightheartedness because the series was already becoming filled with specials that possessed that sort of tone during recent years, as well as the Buu saga, which diverted from what came directly before it. When I heard of F, I had high expectations it would have more emotion, a more serious tone (technically, it did, compared to the modern content), and impact the main plot of the series, but it was no different than most of the original Toei movies.

[irreality]

Everything I read at that time seemed negative and knowing it was Freeza just seemed unlikely and boring to me. Then I saw the movie and I loved it! Not the most involved plot, but it was fun, and everyone had a moment, and other than putting aside #18's lack of fighting, I don't really have any complaints.

I think it helped that my expectations were so low -- but I ended up loving it. I loved the character designs for the ancillary characters, and I loved the humor, and the fact that despite being a "formulaic" movie everyone was written on character.

[Gaffer Tape]

I remember when we were speculating in the thread just after the movie was announced, I was an ardent proponent of the alternate reality theory. Kuririn was bald again. Gohan looked different. Goku and Vegeta were wearing different clothes. Only the characters who originally fought Freeza were on the poster. Torishima was said to have been really impressed by the story. And the tantalizing story tidbit they'd given out was that there was going to be "the worst wish in history." It all fit. Someone was going to use the Dragon Balls to change history so that Freeza had not been defeated, and we were going to see what a different kind of world that would be. And presumably, our heroes, becoming aware of this at some point, would have to set right what once went wrong. That idea really, REALLY interested me. It also, to me, negated any fatigue of the "Freeza's coming back AGAIN?" variety or of having to figure out why Freeza would even be a threat at this point in the series.

So when the end result ended up being nothing more than "wish Freeza back to life... fight, fight, fight... THE END"... I mean... geez... I can barely even begin to express my disappointment. It's not that they didn't use the story I wanted them to use (as perfectly logical and wonderful as that would have been). It's that they used NO STORY at all! Same tired Dragon Ball wish. What little plot elements were there were nonsensical. The transformations were annoying, pointless, stupidly named, and lacked any of the gravitas and necessity of Super Saiyan God. The poor attempts at progressing Goku and Vegeta through character flaws boiled down, for both of them, to, "You should have punched him faster!" And speaking of character flaws, Vegeta's seemed absolutely out of character. I mean, come on, Vegeta's more often than not the guy who throws temper tantrums and screws everything up for everyone. Overthinking has never been anywhere near one of his problems. And that reminds me of something. As sick as I am of Vegeta betraying the group for his own selfish desires and probably would have hated it if they'd done it again... for the first time in the franchise they actually gave Vegeta a compelling reason to betray the heroes... and didn't even give it enough lip service to wring any drama out of it. This was so insanely true to formula. The only problem is, we've done the formula 13 times, and it was already tired after the third one.

So to sum up, my expectations were dashed in every conceivable way. Jaco was pretty much the only enjoyable thing, and even his presence felt rather random and forced. My God, I HATE this movie!

[Bullza]

I was expecting a little more to it than it just being another revenge story. In hi dsight maybe we over thought it, it was only a 90 minute movie and we probably shouldn't have expected anything too complex especially after BoG had such little plot as well.

I was also hoping for a new villain but I was soon fine with them bringing Frieza back, I'm glad they did now.

I wasn't expecting anything amazing, I expected it would likely be about as good as the previous movie and it was. I liked it, I gave it a 7, it was never really gonna get any higher from me.

[precita]

I went in with absolutely no expectations aside form knowing Freeza returned and was gold, and Goku and Vegeta got blue hair. I thought it was a fun and entertaining movie.

[Chuquita]

Re: the alternate reality wish

I'd forgotten all about that! Now you've reminded me and I'm saddened that that scenario never happened all over again.
I really did like that theory.

[dbgtFO]

I too was expecting "worst wish in history" to have a bit more ramifications than just resurrecting Freeza.
After that theory was shot down, I expected Toriyama to take inspiration from Justice League Unlimited's ending, where the main character's archenemy(Darkseid) was resurrected, but was only "defeated" by being offered another world/order of being(anti-life equation in Darkseid's case) by the anti-hero(Luthor).
I was expecting Vegeta or Whis or Beerus to defeat Freeza in a similar way by offering him to travel to another universe after he had beaten Goku. Alternatively I had a theory about Goku's "absorption" of Beerus' planet destroyer attack, actually being an universal displacement ability instead of being a ki blast dispelling ability and so I thought Goku or Vegeta would unintentionally send Freeza to another universe instead of killing him.
My joke theory also involved Freeza staying alive, so he could eventually employ Vegeta in the future and father Kuriza in line with Neko Majin Z.
Instead we just got Freeza is resurrected, trains, then invades Earth, defeats Goku, is defeated by Vegeta, unsuccesfully blows up the Earth and is then killed and sent back to Hell.

[Cetra]

A decent movie, though disappointing when it comes to the villain. Now I got a movie that was not made bad but written disappointing and with battles that heavily remind of of the video game openings (imo).

A fourth Broly movie would have worked. Broly is hyped so much by Toei he would not have been messed up.

At least I have the German version to look forward to. The German Battle of Gods also changed much for me. Just as I don't like the German voice of Broly, Beerus in the German version was genius. And German Freeza is also great with the same voice actor Hugh Jackman has. Tommy Morgenstern vs Thomas Nero-Wolff will make the movie better in this version. Tommy does exactly the dorky, yet cool Goku that I love so much and that is just who he is and Thomas just has a great voice for Freeza.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Like others have already mentioned, I was initially disappointed by the fact that Freeza was being revived since I wanted NEW content, but I was at least willing to give it a chance. Once the film released, my expectations were both met and unmet. That is to say, I was expecting more of an actual plot with some world building (which wasn't met), but I also expected everything actually in the movie itself to be there as well...except Jaco. That was a welcomed surprise. If they had just added another 10-15 minutes to the movie showing Freeza training, explaining what was going on with Freeza's body/soukl in the afterlife, dropping a race name, a little bit more about his empire and its actual role in the universe...just something to add a little more meat to the plot, I probably wouldn't be complaining (except that Freeza should have been healed in his true form, which is minor if they handled everything else).

[Doctor.]

I was expecting a great follow-up to a great movie once I heard Battle of Gods was going to get a serious sequel. Something that would build upon the plot points that were introduced in Battle of Gods but never really touched upon much, like Beerus and Whis' relationship, the Super Saiyan God backstory and, of course, the other twelve universes. It's revealed that someone is going to be wished back and I'm more hyped than ever. "Maybe it's the previous God of Destruction?", "Maybe someone comes from a different universe to resurrect someone?", all these theories and possibilities that were flying around, it could have been the perfect opportunity to set-up a training arc, like the movie ended up being, by introducing someone from another universe that Goku and Vegeta can barely defeat: meaning they have a long way to go.

Nope, instead it's revealed the villain is Freeza. My expectations plummeted at this point. All I could think about is how cheap it is. But after reading a lot of theories in the behemoth that is the F thread, I started to warm up to the idea. Maybe something interesting could come out of this, more Freeza moments, excellent character interaction and development, some interesting storylines that may directly lead to the 12 universe stuff. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Freeza is revived, gains a humongous power-up in the laziest way possible, fight, fight, fight, fight and the movie ends with a predictable (no, really, predictable, people were calling it out when chapter 2 of the manga came out) and anti-climactic Deus Ex Machina. No tension, no risks taken, no memorable moments. It was easily, without a doubt, one of the worst Dragon Ball movies in existence.

I read the summary and my expectations hit rock bottom, but there was still one thing to keep my excited. Something every Dragon Ball movie so far excelled at: the fight scenes. Everyone who had seen the movie was raving on and on about how the animation is good and the fight scenes are great. And then the movie finally leaked and I watched them for myself. I've never seen choreography so terribly uninspired and CGI so jarring and terrible (that takes up a huge part of the major fight, no less). My reaction at the time was "This, this, is what people thought was good?".

I wanted to like the movie, I really did. With each new information revealed I got more and more disappointed. I'd partake in the discussions in the F thread not only complaining about the film because I was disappointed, but defending it too because I still had hope it would turn out to be something great by the end of it all. But I can't. It's a shameless cash-grab to appeal to nostalgia. Nostalgia is what the movie relies on the most and as someone who holds no nostalgic value towards the series, it's hard to feel any kind of emotion besides anger and frustration when I watch the film, it insults my intelligence as a Dragon Ball fan and this isn't something even GT did.

[ekrolo2]

I expected to at least see a version of Freeza's return on an official capacity to do him some justice post resurrection. Have him learn from his mistakes, improve himself both physically and emotionally and then use the good guys lack of evolving against them. What I got was an hour and a half long version of the Fusion Reborn Gohan vs Freeza fight. He comes back, gets cocky again and dies like a little bitch. Again. Fadeddreams5 said it best, this is proof positive that the series has no fangs or balls left.

As KaiserNeko once said: "F**ck this movie, f**ck this movie and f**ck this movie!"

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

The Movie became nothing once Freeza showed up on the poster; Goku and Vegeta had moved on, and barring Freeza's surviving, which would have been quite a twist but was not likely in the least, there is nothing more for the icy tyrant to do. That is exactly what played out. I think Toei just needed a follow-up to Battle of Gods, any follow-up, and given the series usual theatrical track record I think we were all the fools for expecting Battle of Gods to be anything more than a one hit wonder.

[Absolute Ice]

Spoiler:

I was expecting a great follow-up to a great movie once I heard Battle of Gods was going to get a serious. Something that would build upon the plot points that were introduced in Battle of Gods but never really touched upon much, like Beerus and Whis' relationship, the Super Saiyan God backstory and, of course, the other twelve universes. It's revealed that someone is going to be wished back and I'm more hyped than ever. "Maybe it's the previous God of Destruction?", "Maybe someone comes from a different universe to resurrect someone?", all these theories and possibilities that were flying around, it could have been the perfect opportunity to set-up a training arc, like the movie ended up being, by introducing someone from another universe that Goku and Vegeta can barely defeat: meaning they have a long way to go.

Nope, instead it's revealed the villain is Freeza. My expectations plummeted at this point. All I could think about is how cheap it is. But after reading a lot of theories in the behemoth that is the F thread, I started to warm up to the idea. Maybe something interesting could come out of this, more Freeza moments, excellent character interaction and development, some interesting storylines that may directly lead to the 12 universe stuff. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Freeza is revived, gains a humongous power-up in the laziest way possible, fight, fight, fight, fight and the movie ends with a predictable (no, really, predictable, people were calling it out when chapter 2 of the manga came out) and anti-climactic Deus Ex Machina. No tension, no risks taken, no memorable moments. It was easily, without a doubt, one of the worst Dragon Ball movies in existence.

I read the summary and my expectations hit rock bottom, but there was still one thing to keep my excited. Something every Dragon Ball movie so far excelled at: the fight scenes. Everyone who had seen the movie was raving on and on about how the animation is good and the fight scenes are great. And then the movie finally leaked and I watched them for myself. I've never seen choreography so terribly uninspired and CGI so jarring and terrible (that takes up a huge part of the major fight, no less). My reaction at the time was "This, this, is what people thought was good?".

I wanted to like the movie, I really did. With each new information revealed I got more and more disappointed. I'd partake in the discussions in the F thread not only complaining about the film because I was disappointed, but defending it too because I still had hope it would turn out to be something great by the end of it all. But I can't. It's a shameless cash-grab to appeal to nostalgia. Nostalgia is what the movie relies on the most and as someone who holds no nostalgic value towards the series, it's hard to feel any kind of emotion besides anger and frustration when I watch the film, it insults my intelligence as a Dragon Ball fan and this isn't something even GT did.

What a perfect text, I don't even have more words left to describe Movie 15, you said it all.

[LuckyCat]

Honestly I was a bit unhappy they'd return a villain long irrelevant in the time BoGs, and even more unhappy that they'd pick someone obvious like Freeza (I mean with Cooler who practically is Freeza, it felt like there were already 2 Freeza movies in addition to a huge saga). The gold form from the CVs looked lame, and the negativity about the movie from the internet was extremely high.

When I saw it, I was delightfully surprised. It turns out the Freeza's return was not much more than a chance for Goku and Vegeta to show off their amazing growth since BoG. Whis was fleshed out as a character, and Jaco was finally introduced in a mainstream Dragon Ball story introducing the rich Galactic Patrol story.

[Bullza]

the negativity about the movie from the internet was extremely high.

Erm no it wasn't.