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

[The Drunkard Kid]

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

That's true, but it was in response to the (completely justifiable) acts of a full alien and a large juck of Cell's powers came from alien DNA. Also, they could have ended it all before Cell could really get bad if not for Vegeta.

[Siriel]

Gero was already working on the Android line before Goku showed up. Odds are he would have ended up at those levels sooner or later.

Cell wouldn't have happened, sure, but 17 and 18 were doing a pretty good job of killing everyone.

[Len Ikari145]

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.

DK, the fact that you're implying that DBZ is Scientologists' comic wet dream distresses me and arouses Len-like murderous intent. *Materializes Eternal Sword*

[The Drunkard Kid]

Gero was already working on the Android line before Goku showed up. Odds are he would have ended up at those levels sooner or later.

Cell wouldn't have happened, sure, but 17 and 18 were doing a pretty good job of killing everyone.

I guess, but its iffy that he'd have any desire to go that far that fast if he wasn't fixated on Goku. Of course, without aliens around there'd be no Dragonballs, so Red Ribbon would have a notably different MO so Red may have him work on converting him into a super powerful, super tall cyborg instead.

DK, the fact that you're implying that DBZ is Scientologists' comic wet dream distresses me and arouses Len-like murderous intent. *Materializes Eternal Sword*

*points to avatar*

Already have mine out. Lets do this.

Also, while Pilaf is a giant dork and as sexually dangerous as Hello Kitty, dude had no problem leaving a kid, two teens and two shapeshifting animals of apparently childlike age to bake to death, and didn't bat an eye when the Demon King (who he released) assassinated most of the world's martial arts masters. Heck, they weren't put out when he apparently killed Goku in front of them.

[Kage Kisaragi]

No it didn't kill DBZ as a whole, Gohan did that. :) GT was a attempt to resurrect it by going again back to Goku as the savior from the very beginning instead of misleading torch passing scenarios.

[Kaos]

Yeah I wouldn't go as far as to say it's as bad as the fans make it out to be myself. And like you said it was an homage off of the earlier series. Personally I find GT average at best. If I had to say what "killed" the franchise it would be the fans. Akira did wanted the series to end at the Frieza Saga but the fans wanted more, he wanted Gohan to take his father's place after the Cell Saga but the fans wanted Goku to remain as the main character. After that point he just stopped caring and left GT in the hands of someone else

oh isit? I didn't know that about wanting to bump up Gohan. That would have been much better. My main problem with GT was making Goku a kid again.....




oh yea...and Pan....hate Pan

[Captain Jibberish]

I hated everything I found out about GT way back when Toonami only had the Ocean dub of DBZ on repeat, and you had to find out about the rest of the series from online summaries. Goku turned into a kid? Piccolo sent to hell? ANOTHER Super Saiyan level, this time turning them into hairy apemen? (The Golden Oozaru was a cool idea, though), Vegeta with a moustache? And actually watching GT didn't improve my opinion of the show. As The Drunkard Kid mentions, GT violates too many of the rules of the Dragon Ball universe (Pilaf and Co. Being able to get to Kami's lookout, the Dragon Ball's effecting a powerful being against his will when that was impossible before), and also contributing to the Dragon Ball powercreep while treating the character's powers as inconsistent with DBZ and also with itself.
I wouldn't say GT was were Dragon Ball started to go downhill, though. I thought that really happened in the Buu saga.
There were certainly enjoyable things about the Buu saga (Mr. Satan's relationship with Fat Buu, revisiting the Tenkaichi Budokai, fusions were an interesting addition to the Dragon Ball mythos), but I'd point to it as a big dropoff from what came before. Going back on the passing of the torch from Goku to Gohan was pretty annoying. This was the saga that finally made the Non-Saiyan Z Fighters completely irrelevant (Every saga before gave at least Piccolo some time to shine, from killing Goku and Radditz at the beginning of the Saiyan saga to fighting evenly with Frieza for awhile to actually being the strongest Z fighter for a time in the Cell saga). It was neat seeing the future generation of Z warriors with Goten and Trunks, but seeing them trivialize the effort the characters went through before the Frieza saga and messing up the power scale by having them go Super Saiyan as little kids was pretty obnoxious.
I don't remember if this was in an anime only incident or not, by they also screwed up the powerscale by having Piccolo act impressed by the crater Vegeta made when he blew himself up fighting Buu. This shouldn't be impressive to you, Piccolo, you blew up the moon when you were hundreds or thousands of times weaker then you are at this point!
While better then GT, I'd say The Buu Saga was easily the worst of the DBZ storylines, and probably my least favorite chapter of the whole Dragon Ball manga. For me, the sweet spot is around Piccolo saga to Frieza. The Cell Saga, and Dragon Ball from the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai on is really good too. The first storyline is fun, but it doesn't reach the heights most of the other storylines will reach, I feel.

[Hardcase678]

They aren't made by the same creative team so far as i'm concerned GT is it's own separate entity from DBZ. In fact i've only seen a few episodes of GT.