Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero – Cheap Thoughts

Irrelevancy is the number one concern for any Dragon Ball character not named Goku or Vegeta. A long running series with a multitude of characters means some get left to the wayside, particularly in a series obsessed with power scaling, if you can’t keep up, you get left behind. It has taken 4 movies and 131 episodes of modern Dragon Ball to figure out how to rectify this problem.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (Yes, that naming is awkward) is not only a film for fans – of course that statement is true, no modern Dragon Ball movie has been made for anyone but the fans – but specifically for the fans of the supporting characters, the underdogs, the unrepresented pillars of this universe. With Goku and Vegeta off-world training with Broly (a great continuation from the previous film), it is down to Piccolo to act as Earth’s mighty defender, very much begrudgingly as he would rather anyone else deal with the problem so he can be left alone in peace. The return of the classic Red Ribbon army now building up their own forces to take on Capsule Corp and the Z Warriors, recruiting new hero-themed androids who have been fed propaganda representing our protagonists as threats to the Earth (to be honest, they’re not far off) and now seek to prove themselves as heroes by defeating these alien threats.

It's always a delight to be reminded of how far Piccolo has come as a character, from enslaving demon king to protector of Earth by night, and uncle babysitting the adorable Pan by day. However, he would certainly wish Gohan would take more of an active duty in raising his child instead of obsessing over his hobbies and improving himself in those fields (Like father like Son-Gohan). Gohan on the other hand is a more difficult character to say where his character arc should go. From early Z he was hinted to one day be the greatest fighter on Earth and become its main protector, by the end of the Cell Saga, this goal was achieved. However his story didn’t end there, as his mother also dreamed for him to thrive academically and live a happy normal life. Come the Buu saga this character arc seemed to have come to fruition, and Gohan would live out his life as a scholar, loving father and retired fighter. All well and good, except the story kept on going, a story all about fighters, and if Gohan doesn’t fight, then what does he do here? Not much really. Super Hero brings him to the foreground and challenges this identity, though to questionable success when it is no longer a choice of Gohan’s to make whether he will become a fighter or a scholar, but instead others trying to force him into one specific side. It ends in questionable success, though to be honest, just seeing Gohan actually be given any kind of character development is a blessing at this point, let’s be thankfully for what we get.

The fanservice does not end there, as this may also be the funniest Dragon Ball film released so far, filled with plenty of references both obvious and subtle, character-based humour, meta-commentary and even basic things as characters modernise themselves for current audiences (Piccolo struggling to hold a smartphone will be funny every time).

There is some hesitancy amongst the fans over the animation style, being the first fully 3D animated Dragon Ball film and considering the franchise’s history with CGI people were…sceptical. Thankfully those fans can take a sigh of relief, the film looks great, the character designs mostly translate well into the new style (Saiyan hair can look somewhat wonky in 3D) and it’s great to see the series experiment in new ways, both with its writing and the style of animations.

That sums up this film perfectly. Dragon Ball is a very old franchise in terms of anime and yet is still going strong to this day, and is even making new fans with the younger generations, this is despite no easy entry point besides going back to the original anime from 30 years ago, and yet people go through it, and they stick around because of these newer films that offer them something they still haven’t seen before. Broly offered the best fight scenes the series has ever seen, Battle of Gods expanded the universe into scopes yet undiscovered, Resurrection F…well you can’t win ‘em all. Super Hero continues that trend by not only experimenting with the animation, but offering the supporting cast a chance to shine and even bring in new characters to the ensemble. This film is a welcome edition into the canon and a breath of fresh air into a very old franchise.

-Danny

Lightyear - Cheap Thoughts

No one should be surprised when a spin-off film based on a literal toy franchise feels like nothing more than a big advert for toys, yet that doesn't make the feeling any less hollow. The Toy Story trilogy are 3 of the greatest films in modern animation, they literally birthed the format that every animated feature partakes in, meanwhile they took traditional animation down to the river and shot it in the back of the head. They were certainly profitable through supplementary products, no one's denying that and no one's judging either, they are literally toys, of course they took that and ran. Yet there is only so much you can do before milking this franchise dry, they learnt this with Toy Story 4, a film that has much of a right to exist as a malignant tumour. Rather than continue to whore out their beloved entourage of Andy's former toys, they decided on a spin-off, featuring the "real" Buzz Lightyear, a premise so confusing they have to open the film with it just to explain how this film can possibly exist.

Lightyear like its predecessor has no reason to exist and is just here to make money, but that’s not upsetting, because this is not the Buzz Lightyear we all know and love, this is just…some guy. Some guy who looks similar to him, just enough that they can sell him again as a new toy, but familiar enough people will want him, he also travels around with a toy cat pretending to be a robot, but looks very much like a toy cat for very obvious reasons.

Again, this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, wanting to make a profit through merchandise is not the sinful anti-art message some would deem it so; but when there was clearly no other motivation behind it. Nobody ran into the Pixar office one day begging to make a Lightyear film because they had the passion and the story the world needed to hear. They were told to make another Toy Story film so they could sell more toys and they worked backwards from there, and what we have is a sloppy narrative held together by tape and gum.

Lightyear sees Buzz (Again, not the one we already know, a different guy in the same suit) go on an adventure to save the day and hopefully along the way learn the value of teamwork and relying on others, except this theme shared throughout the narrative is as clumsy as one can expect in a film that was forced into the world. The film opens with Buzz (Chris Evans) and his Commander (Uzo Aduba) exploring a new world with a Rookie Space Ranger-something Buzz actively dislikes-and disaster strikes while Buzz tries to save the day with the help of his Commander, while actively refusing the help of the Rookie and eventually failing.

Later and in a large chunk of the narrative we see Buzz team up with a ragtag group of untrained misfits to save the day and earn Buzz his redemption and learn the value of teamwork. Except no, Buzz very clearly does understand the value of teamwork, he trusts and respects those who are competent in their positions, such as the Commander or his robot partner Sox (Peter Sohn) and works well with them. The people he doesn’t work well with are the Rookies, the people unprepared for the mission and any responsible officer would make the correct decision in leaving them behind as taking them aboard would make them a danger to themselves and everyone else.

The film naturally is a beauty to watch, Pixar continue to improve on their detailing and lighting engines far beyond what anyone could expect, once you think they’ve reached their peak they somehow top themselves. In fact while many complain (rightfully) that Turning Red should have gotten a theatrical release being the better of the two films, to be perfectly honest Lightyear earns that honour as well as it’s visuals are stunning on a cinematic scale.

This isn’t anything new, no matter what the plot of a Pixar movie is, they are never going to disappoint on the technical aspect. Where this film is a disappointment begins and ends with the narrative…which is sadly rather important to most films.

-Danny