Category: Contextual

Comparison – Original vs Remake

Remakes are used within the film industry to modernise a classic story, or otherwise fix the problems the original had; while I think a lot of the time remakes can be very controversial when it comes to the fanbase surrounding the original movie or series, the movie I’ve picked for this comparison is, in my opinion, a definitive remake that improves on the original in every way.

The movies I have picked for this comparison are Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan and Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Now, these movies have have their similarities but there’s a distinct difference in how they roll out the plot, there’s one simple explanation for this, Akira Toriyama; the mangaka and creator of Dragon Ball actually wrote Dragon Ball Super: Broly, where as he did not write Dragon Ball Z: Broly. Because the character of Broly himself was such an iconic and popular character within the Dragon Ball mythos, Toriyama recreated the story of the Legendary Super Saiyan, fixing them up with new designs and a newly structured story.

Let’s have a dive into just where these movies compare and differ:

As a quick background to why the original Z movie wasn’t created by Akira Toriyama, here’s an explanation:
The movies made for the Dragon Ball Z series were created by the animation studio Toei Animation to bring more content to the booming fanbase of the 1990s and to show off what the show can be like at marketing events, toy fairs, etc. Because Toriyama had no hand in these movies they’re seen as non canonical side stories, and more often than not have unfortunately turned out to be poorly written with big plot holes.

(From this point forward I’ll refer to Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan as Z Broly and Dragon Ball Super: Broly as Super Broly)

How the two films are executed have distinct differences, though I personally believe every change Super Broly makes is for the betterment of the viewing experience, refining the story, characters, music, animation/ choreography, pacing etc

Broly

Starting off with the titular character, Broly, has seen vast improvements in every department, one of the biggest problems with the original movie is Broly himself, he’s less of an antagonist and more of just a hurdle for the characters to jump over; no personality and a shoddy at best reason behind his motivation. All of that is changed in Super Broly, Broly is made out to be a much more sympathetic character, in many ways he can be seen as having traits of members of Goku’s family sent to the extreme; much like Goku he’s described as pure hearted and kind, while also like kid Gohan he has a side to him where he snaps and goes berserk, though being much more savage and purely destructive than Gohan.

His backstory follows the same general plot thread but executed much differently, and in Super is giving plenty of time to world build and really let the audience get into the feel of the Saiyan’s civilisation. Details like this really make me appreciate the remake.

The biggest difference between the backstories for Broly is the method King Vegeta uses to try and rid himself of a baby Broly, who wanted to get rid of Broly because his immense latent power as an infant could prove to be a threat to the current hierarchy, in Z, King Vegeta thrusts a dagger into the young Saiyans chest; Paragus in a fit of rage over his sons life being threatened insults the king and talks about he is scared that Broly will be stronger than his own son, Prince Vegeta, leading to the both of them being disposed off.

Broly had seemingly survived the stabbing and with his power already overflowing as an infant carries himself and his father safely to another planet, just barely avoiding the destruction of planet Vegeta.

While in Super, the movie chooses to take it’s time, it sets up a more in depth look into the Saiyan race and it’s culture, while remaining a warrior race, they establish that Saiyans have jobs outside of being killing machines that can help provide themselves with the money they need.
For instance, skinnier Saiyans or other wise non warrior Saiyans take up jobs such as being a Saiyan engineer, fixing ships, tech, etc. While the more traditional looking, muscly, buff Saiyans are usually warriors.

Anyways, the backstory differences start even with Paragus’s confrontation of King Vegeta, in Super he storms into the throne room, asking what is happening with his son, King Vegeta, rather than trying to stab Broly to death, he instead decides to send him away to a far away un-survivable world, Paragus obviously is very upset about this; which leads him to breaking through the castle window and flying to the pods, he hijacks a ship with a Saiyan engineer already on board in pursuit of Vampa, the planet Broly was sent to, despite the engineers grimaces, Paragus gets his way and crashes onto planet Vampa, the ship ending up destroyed.

Skipping some details we fast forward to them finding Broly, and from then on they try their hardest to survive, training and focus their anger on the king who stranded them on that planet.

Additions to the plot

A great and interesting addition to the plot would be the inclusion of Goku’s origin, and an abridged version of the story of his father, Bardock.

Bardock was originally made for the TV special, Bardock: The Father of Goku, where it detailed what really happened during the Saiyan home planet, Planet Vegeta’s destruction by the hand of Frieza, mostly focusing on the character Bardock, who through being attacked by a psychic alien is given the ability to see into the near future and sees that Frieza is going to destroy Planet Vegeta,
This side story was never actually canon, because it wasn’t written by series creator Akira Toriyama, so years later he made his own version of the story as a short one shot manga called Dragon Ball: Minus.

What the manga brought forth is what became a base for the Bardock story in Broly, Broly’s rendition now being the definitive and canon way to view the story, successfully cleaning up any plot holes and details from the manga story.

One thing I will say I do miss from the original TV special is Bardock’s death scene, much more focused on and gives us a nice vision Bardock has showing Goku facing off against Frieza.

Original TV special

Another change was the addition of fusion, a technique that hadn’t been created at the time of Z’s creation, adding this into the movie canonised the fusion between Goku and Vegeta, Gogeta. (Fusion is a technique which when doing the fusion dance, two people can fuse together into one. This results in an entity that is significantly more powerful, as it combines and amplifies both fighters strengths.)
You could make comparisons to the Z movie Fusion Reborn, which is where Gogeta originated.