#dragon ball super: super hero spoilers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

duhragonball · 2 years

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Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (some more)

I meant to watch Super Hero a third time while it was in theaters, but one thing led to another, and I just never got around to it. No big deal, I rarely see a move in theaters twice, so I’m satisfied. Still, I meant to keep discussing different aspects of the film, and I kind of lost track of that, so let’s talk about the scenes on Beerus’ planet.

The real purpose of this whole section of the movie was to explain why Goku and Vegeta aren’t around for the main plot. As with Resurrection F, they’re off-world, training on Beerus’ planet, and even though Bulma can contact them through Whis, it doesn’t work because Whis doesn’t keep a close eye on his magic staff.

This is something I really love about this movie, because it acknowledges something I’ve understood for many years: You can easily split up the cast and make anyone you want into the main character, simply by writing the stronger characters out of the story. The option has always been there and Toei and Shueisha have teased it more than once, but this is the first time they’ve committed to it whole-heartedly. Goku, Vegeta, Whis, Beerus, and Broly could easily take out the new Red Ribbon faction, but they’re not coming, so it’s up to Piccolo and the rest.

But that doesn’t mean we have to jettison those characters entirely. There’s a whole section of the movie dedicated to showing what those guys are up to. Mostly, it’s the same routine we saw in Res F, but this time Broly, Cheelai, and Leemo are on the planet too. When Beerus finds out, Goku explains that they brought them here to hide them from Frieza, but there seems to be some indication that Broly is there to train as well. When Whis proposes a sparring contest between all three Saiyans, Vegeta objects, because Broly might lose control of himself again and jeopardize the planet. So Broly ends up riding the pine, but it seems pretty clear that he’s there to learn, even if he didn’t do much in this movie.

On that note, I really enjoyed how Broly seemed to get into Goku and Vegeta’s match. In the last movie, Cheelai says that he probably doesn’t even like fighting, but I think the truth is that Broly doesn’t enjoy being forced to fight, the way his father and Frieza had been manipulating him to do. At the end of the last movie, he seemed interested in Goku’s offer to show him some things, and this movie builds on that idea. When he sees Goku and Vegeta duking it out, he smiles, because this is the kind of pure, honorable combat he can get into. The action he saw on Vampa was just survival. Frieza’s revenge scheme was just murder-for-hire. But Goku fighting Vegeta in a no-transformation, no-hand-energy, last-man-standing contest, that’s something much more noble, and I think that’s what appeals to him. Even though he wiped the floor with both of them in the previous film, he still admires their superior technique and disciplined control over their powers. It’s a nice touch.

There’s a few details with the Beerus’ Planet leg of the movie that have caused some debate, so let me weigh in on these now.

1) Beerus has the hots for Cheelai. At first, Beerus was irked to see freeloaders squatting on his planet like it was a hotel, but Leemo won him over with his cooking, and Cheelai won him over with her looks, I guess. I’ll give Beerus credit, he didn’t go gaga over Cheelai until she turned to face him. Before that, she had her back to him, so he could have been like “Wow, she’s got a great ass! She can stay!” Beerus is a class-act, is what I’m trying to say.

Anyway, the concern is that this might endanger the Brolai ship, which seemed pretty firmly established in the last movie. Not that Broly and Cheelai were kissing at the end of it or anything, but you know what I mean. Broly hasn’t expressed any clear attraction to Cheelai, so the fact that Beerus has implies that the franchise has taken a new direction.

For my part, I don’t see it that way. I think the scene was mostly included to give Beerus a reason to accept Cheelai, even in spite of her trying to steal a bunch of his stuff. He thinks she’s cute, but I don’t think Beerus is the marrying type, you know? Besides, there’s no indication that Cheelai feels anything at all towards him, other than fear, I guess.

To put it another way, there was one guy she said “Lookin’ good” to, and it sure wasn’t Beerus. I think Brolai’s pretty safe, at least until the next movie.

2) Vegeta explains meditation to Goku. At one point, Goku chides Vegeta for just sitting around with his eyes shut, and Vegeta (im)patiently explains that he’s trying to condition his mind in order to fight more effectively. Vegeta’s logic is that Jiren was never actually much stronger than himself or Goku, but he seemed invincible because of how he used his strength. According to Vegeta, Jiren would only bring his fighting power to bear at the very moment of action, and this precision enabled him to move more efficiently and decisively, putting all of his power to its most devastating effect. And Vegeta thinks he can duplicate this skill, but he has to do it in his head before he can train his body.

So what bugged a lot of fans about this is that it makes Goku look kind of dumb for not understanding this himself. I’ve even seen fans suggest that the writers must hate Goku in favor of Vegeta. I don’t think it’s that black-and-white, but it doesn’t surprise me that the Dragon Ball fandom would turn something into a zero-sum game between Goku and Vegeta.

First of all, there’s a legitimate critique to all of this. The observations Vegeta makes about Jiren are things we’ve seen in the franchise before. Goku himself used similar movements to defeat Recoome, Jeice, and Burter. The Kai-o-ken operates on the same concept, with Goku amplifying his power for short bursts. Both Mr. Popo and Korin spent a lot of time training Goku to get the most out of his movements. “Be as quiet as the sky, and move quicker than lightning.”

For that matter, Goku’s Ultra Instinct is all about this sort of thing, and that’s how Goku overwhelmed Jiren in the closing minutes of the Tournament of Power. So Goku shouldn’t need to have anyone explain all of this to him, or that meditation would help him achieve that ideal. Hell, we’ve seen him do this before. There’s panels in the manga of him meditating.

So this is just an example of the writers making Goku look stupid to make Vegeta look better, right? No, I don’t think it is. Yes, Goku’s meditated before, and yes, Goku knows how to control his movements for maximum effect, but he’s been learning to do that for decades, and I don’t think there’s ever really a finish line for any of this stuff. I think part of Goku’s weakness when it comes to training is that he tends to focus on the stuff he enjoys doing. The workouts on King Kai’s planet, sparring matches with Vegeta, and so on. He seems to feel like he already did the hard parts, and now all he has to do is strengthen his body to build on the techniques he’s already mastered.

And he really struggled with the hard parts. That whole training arc on Kami’s Lookout was full of moments where Goku just stone cold didn’t understand what Mr. Popo was trying to teach him, to the point where Kami was worried that he might not make it. Goku was also frustrated with Korin’s training, and he probably only stuck with it because he had no other choice. So Goku’s always had a blind spot for this kind of thing. He knows it’s important and he knows it works, and to a point he can pull it off, but it’s never his preference.

And really, who can blame him? This is a character who’s just stumbled into big power windfalls, either because of fate or genetics or natural talent. Korin used Sacred Water as bait to teach Goku something more valuable, but later Goku got to drink the actual Sacred Water and it made him way, way stronger than Korin’s training. Kami worried that Goku wasn’t mastering his training, which was why Kami entered the tournament to take out Piccolo himself, but Goku ended up defeating Piccolo anyway. And then Goku just snapped in the middle of a battle and became a Super Saiyan. Then he did it all over again with Ultra Instinct. I think the thing about Goku is that he’s so scary good at martial arts that he often doesn’t even understand how he can do the things he does.

On the flip side, Vegeta had to train his way to becoming a Super Saiyan, and he learned Super Saiyan God without any outside help, and he presumably picked up Ultra Ego the same way. He lacks Goku’s intuition for this kind of thing, but he’s a prodigy in his own right. The difference is that he can analyze a situation and articulate a course of action, where Goku just sort of figures things out on the fly.

Which is how you get scenes like Vegeta explaining to Goku how to do something that he ought to already understand.

3) Beerus seems afraid of Broly. Okay, so when Beerus first sees Broly on his planet, he worries that Broly will flip out again and destroy the whole place. Some fans have found this questionable, because Beerus is generally presented as being stronger than every mortal character by default. It’s not really a rule, but Golden Frieza was still suitably worried about Beerus, and Goku and Vegeta seem to recognize that they’re still not strong enough to defeat him.

But each new level they introduce in this franchise kind of strains Beerus’ credibility. Arguably, Goku and Vegeta have already surpassed Beerus, because Vegeta beat a nascent God of Destruction (Toppo) during the Tournament of Power, and Goku used Ultra Instinct to overpower Jiren, who was said to have defeated a God of Destruction himself. I mean, it doesn’t prove anything until they fight Beerus again, but they seem to be gaining on him and all he ever does is sleep and eat. Then you’ve got Broly, who clobbered Goku and Vegeta, and you really have to wonder how he’d do against Beerus. Oh, and Gogeta dominated Broly as a Super Saiyan Blue, so I wonder how Beerus would handle the likes of him,

So there’s a growing number of characters who seem to be in Beerus’ league, or maybe even beyond it. I don’t keep up with the manga, but I’m pretty sure Moro, Granolah, and Black Frieza belong on that list as well. And yet, there are fans who remain confident that Beerus would just tap each of them on the shoulder and knock them unconscious, the way he took out everyone in Battle of Gods. And maybe he still could, but when I think about Beerus vs. Jiren, I can’t see it ending that way. Jiren beat a God of Destruction, and even if we don’t know for sure which one it was, are we saying Beerus is way, way stronger than that guy?

On the other hand, it does seem kind of weird that Beerus might have already been surpassed by some of these characters and it hasn’t come up yet. If Broly’s already at that level, then that should be big moment. It begs for a scene where one of these characters gives Beerus a gut-punch and humbles him physically. That’s how this franchise works. But maybe they’re still building up to that.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Beerus’ concern about Broly is that he might lose his shit and destroy Beerus’ planet, which is his home, where he lives. He didn’t care about the Earth, but it’s different when the unstable powerhouse is camping out in your own backyard. Beerus might be able to defeat or destroy Broly, but the point is that he doesn’t want to have to get into that kind of situation in his own home.

Or, maybe Beerus really is worried that Broly could defeat him in a one-on-one fight. It’s not inconceivable.

#dragon ball super super hero #dragon ball #goku #vegeta #broly #beerus #spoilers

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