Debate: Did Dragon Ball GT kill Dragon Ball Z as a whole?

[Iron_twister]

To be fair, it wasn't really his fault.

In Cell Saga he was incredibly angry. Angry enough to awaken a Rage Power Up while already in a Rage Power Up Mode, and was fully intent on sadistically beating up Cell, make him regenerate, then beat him again.

In Buu Saga, it was Gotenks' fault.

Many things in that Saga were Gotenks' fault.

...Huh, can now recall that out of any DB character I loathe...It was pretty much Gotenks and by certain extension, the boys themselves.

For Gotenks, it was obvious, and for the boys...I honestly ask myself is there any real reason to have them in the fighting roster in the beginning before the useful fusion technique...That then led to the problems with Gotenks.

But for my opinion, nah, GT didn't kill off the franchise, as weak as it is.

[ChrisIII]

I don't see how it could have really. The original series and Z were based on the Dragonball manga (Although with a lot of filler) and had a definite beginning and end, whereas GT kind of did it's own thing without any manga, and I believe Toriyama did not care for it either. Just really a cash grab by Toei, like the DBZ animated movies.

[Mormel]

I only ever saw Baby Saga, and didn't think it was bad at all. Did it take a nosedive in the Super 17 and Evil Shenron sagas?

Still, during the time Baby Saga was airing here in Holland, I was on the phone with some old buddies of mine from school, who had been just as crazy about DBZ as me, and they both expressed they thought GT was boring. I kind of felt like Kyle in that episode of South Park where he finally tries to get hip on the latest trend, only to find that all the others had already gotten tired of it. At the time, I didn't think Baby saga was nearly as boring as the more tedious stretches of the Buu Sagas (waiting for Gohan to unlock his hidden power... seeing Gotenks fail... etc.)

[Vidocq]

I only ever saw Baby Saga, and didn't think it was bad at all. Did it take a nosedive in the Super 17 and Evil Shenron sagas?

Still, during the time Baby Saga was airing here in Holland, I was on the phone with some old buddies of mine from school, who had been just as crazy about DBZ as me, and they both expressed they thought GT was boring. I kind of felt like Kyle in that episode of South Park where he finally tries to get hip on the latest trend, only to find that all the others had already gotten tired of it. At the time, I didn't think Baby saga was nearly as boring as the more tedious stretches of the Buu Sagas (waiting for Gohan to unlock his hidden power... seeing Gotenks fail... etc.)

I remember the Dark Shengron saga being really good. I think that GT had all the same problems DBZ had with pasing and characters, but by the time of DBGT the audience was old enough to notice this.

[Hazard]

I remember the Dark Shengron saga being really good. I think that GT had all the same problems DBZ had with pasing and characters, but by the time of DBGT the audience was old enough to notice this.

Pacing wasn't really an issue. It's only 64 episodes. That's barely 3 seasons. Given the content it had, the pacing was alright. Certainly way shorter than Z's almost 300 episodes.

As for what was wrong with GT... honestly, lots of people have written long rants on this subject. Long, long rants. And videos. And stuff.

I could go through it, but I might as well just wait for someone to post something already written. Because I'm lazy.

So Lazy.

[Vidocq]

Pacing wasn't really an issue. It's only 64 episodes. That's barely 3 seasons. Given the content it had, the pacing was alright. Certainly way shorter than Z's almost 300 episodes.

As for what was wrong with GT... honestly, lots of people have written long rants on this subject. Long, long rants. And videos. And stuff.

I could go through it, but I might as well just wait for someone to post something already written. Because I'm lazy.

So Lazy.

It really doesn't seem like something to get so worked out about, isn't? Even for a geek Nostalgic thing.

[The Drunkard Kid]

To me, Gotenks seemed to be a homage to all the stereotypes that DBZ was famous for, most of which was created by anime filler. Long, unnecessary prattling, delaying powering up for drama, inexplicable massive power ups that they really don't seem to have earned yet, massive charge times. Most of these are not really present in the manga except in a few justifiable areas (the Genki Dama, for instance), but Gotenks brought it with him and was actually pretty funny if you didn't factor in that he was fighting someone that had just murdered pretty much everyone he ever loved and Gotenks was still acting like a doofus.

Without the fusion, the kids weren't really a combat asset. The only things of note that they ever did separately (at least in the manga) were to provide some sparring partners for an extremely out of practice Gohan and a Vegeta that was mostly holding back to test his son's strength, manage to get DQ'd by #18 the moment she got serious (though they surprised her with how much power they put out) and sucker punch Fat Buu before he learned to sense ki and was not even looking in their direction (and do absolutely no damage to him).

[The Drunkard Kid]

It really doesn't seem like something to get so worked out about, isn't? Even for a geek Nostalgic thing.

The main problems with DBGT, from this DB fan's perspective:

1) Major plot holes, to the point that the series' premise is essentially impossible. Pilaf shouldn't have been able to wish Goku into a kid because the Dragonballs can't effect someone stronger than their creator (Piccolo, in this case) against their will, its unlikely that the elderly Pilaf and company could climb up to to Kami's lookout past Korin, Yajirobe, Mr. Popo and Dende without being discovered, and Pilaf and company probably shouldn't have been resurrected after Buu blew up the planet since they're unlikely to be considered "good people." Then there's also stuff like Gohan going SSJ despite the fact he seemed to have traded that for his mystic power up at the end of Z.

2) Inconsistent power levels. Characters are said to be stronger than Majin Buu but never deliver, Goku and company have trouble with things that, going by their actual feats, would have been bitch slapped early on in DBZ (several of the Dragons come to mind, especially the girl one, and the general depiction of power is a lot less epic in scope compared to its predecessor, though occasionally you get awesome scenes like Kid Goku punching Super 17 across a good chunk of the globe. Pan's general ranking is also weird to place and Goku yoyos back and forth, at points being more effective as a SSJ1 kid than as a SSJ4 adult (like during parts of the Super 17 battle).

As its been said, they had a lot of neat ideas that fell flat, and I personally loved their completely inappropriate sound track, but I'm actually glad that DBOnline seems to have erased it from canon even further than they already did.

[Mormel]

The main problems with DBGT, from this DB fan's perspective:

1) Major plot holes, to the point that the series' premise is essentially impossible. Pilaf shouldn't have been able to wish Goku into a kid because the Dragonballs can't effect someone stronger than their creator (Piccolo, in this case) against their will, its unlikely that the elderly Pilaf and company could climb up to to Kami's lookout past Korin, Yajirobe, Mr. Popo and Dende without being discovered, and Pilaf and company probably shouldn't have been resurrected after Buu blew up the planet since they're unlikely to be considered "good people." Then there's also stuff like Gohan going SSJ despite the fact he seemed to have traded that for his mystic power up at the end of Z.

2) Inconsistent power levels. Characters are said to be stronger than Majin Buu but never deliver, Goku and company have trouble with things that, going by their actual feats, would have been bitch slapped early on in DBZ (several of the Dragons come to mind, especially the girl one, and the general depiction of power is a lot less epic in scope compared to its predecessor, though occasionally you get awesome scenes like Kid Goku punching Super 17 across a good chunk of the globe. Pan's general ranking is also weird to place and Goku yoyos back and forth, at points being more effective as a SSJ1 kid than as a SSJ4 adult (like during parts of the Super 17 battle).

As its been said, they had a lot of neat ideas that fell flat, and I personally loved their completely inappropriate sound track, but I'm actually glad that DBOnline seems to have erased it from canon even further than they already did.

I can get behind most of what you're saying, here, but where it concerns the wishes to Shenron/Porunga, I thought it was like this: 1) Vegeta and Dende wished for all the people who died since the last World Tournament to be resurrected, except the most evil ones. I'm sure this includes complete monsters like Babidi, Yakon, and Pui Pui, but what is Pilaf other than a minor league crook. Yes, I know he's tried to kill Goku & the gang in the past, and he'd be dictator and a tyrant if he managed to conquer the world (he's already an asshole to his underlings), but truth be told he never strikes me as Frieza-level horrible. I also kind of doubt that either of the Eternal Dragons -mystical beings though they may be- are capable of placing that kind of judgment upon the people of Earth or anywhere at all whether one is 'good' or 'evil', especially with all the moral greys + DBZ's tendency to have characters who start out as villains, repent and change their ways.
2) I always interpreted the Dragon not being able to, say, wish for Frieza to die or disappear from existence, (because that's beyond Kami's or Guru's power) to not mean that the Dragon can't affect someone who's stronger. Just that he can't kill or wound or maim them through a wish. I think body-altering wishes are within the Dragon's scope of power, as characters have appeared who could do similar things, 'passive' powers that aren't necessarily used offensively: Majin Buu's candy ray, Guldo's time-freeze, Ginyu's body swap. In that vein, I have no problem believing that Red Shenron could reduce Goku to childhood, even though Goku had surpassed Kami in strength.

[Siriel]

The problem is that, as far as regular Shenron goes, he's been flat-out unable to teleport Goku because Goku went "No thanks.". So esoteric effects didn't work either.

[Hazard]

On Pilaf... let's face it this is the guy that went 'What sort of psychos do you think we are? Think of the rating!' when Bulma asked if they were going to torture/take advantage of them.

So yeah, he is a jerk that wants to take over the world. But he is too stupid to be evil.

[Mormel]

I want to correct my own post a bit, because now it looks like I said that deciding who is a 'greater evil' and who's a 'lesser evil' is less of a judgment than deciding who is 'good' or 'evil' outright. Obviously, Porunga must be able to make the former judgment since that is exactly what he was summoned to do and he managed to carry it out.

What I meant is, that if the wish means that all evil people were left off the face of the Earth, leaving only the good people, I feel as though it would disrupt a balance somehow? It feels a bit arbitrary: "Huh. Leave all the bad people off Earth." And then a dragon with the power of an alien tribal elder vested within him decides who of Earth's population is good and who's evil. I mean, I know it's Dragon Ball, and you're not supposed to think too much about these things, but damn. If it really were that easy to 'cleanse' Earth of all evil, I still don't know if it would be a good idea.

EDIT: I do accept that the Dragon carries within himself a wisdom that was cultivated over ages of Namek history, and that the Nameks, especially elders like Guru, Mori, Kami, and Dende, would be able to take such a decision in their position as elder/guardian. I think determining who is good or evil is a difficult consideration, but one that the Dragon can handle. But this is also why culling the MOST evil from the herd is only slightly more easy than dividing the people along a line between good/evil: it's NOT quantifiable.

[Melbourne Mew Mew]

Toriyama had been trying to kill DBZ for years before GT. He had wanted to end the manga, but the publishers wouldn't let him, and by the Buu saga he was deliberately doing bad stories in the hope that the series would lose popularity and they'd let him quit.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Wait, wait, wait. Are you surprised that aliens are the only ones whose opinions matter in DBZ? Seriously, the final battle had Vegeta basically decide that humans had to finally stick up for themselves and power a Genki Dama to defeat Buu, despite the fact that Buu was a semi-divine alien that predated human civilization and whose release was entirely because of Vegeta, another alien, deciding to use the power of an alien wizard to have an even fight with Goku, ANOTHER full blooded alien. And of the last six times the Earth was endangered before that, it involved either full or half aliens being the direct cause of it... with at least three of them being directly caused or worsened by Vegeta himself.

Besides, Dende is definitely the God of Earth as was Kami-sama before him. While its never officially stated, I'm pretty sure the Namekian Grand Elder is also considered a god in the same sense since the Dragonballs work through a Dragon God and it seems likely you have to be divine yourself to create another god. Besides, when the Daikaioushin himself comes down to chat with your race about their cosmic cheat codes, I'd guess that they have some divine aspect to them as well.

I just hope that there weren't any pedophiles flying planes at the time.

[Siriel]

Hey, Cell and the Androids were created by a human. So that part was at least partially humanity's fault.