Dragonball Z - Movie 04: Super-Saiyajin Son-Goku

Well, this is the fourth of the DragonBall Z movies, and its a stinker. The fight scenes are great, and the new music used in the US release adds an edge, but overall, the plot is childish. I mean, look at it: The indestructible Namekian is brought down by one boys ability to whistle. What the heck?! I'd give it a 3 out of 10, at most. You want something good, go see Coolers Revenge.

I enjoyed this Dragonball Z film, it did not have quite the story or length as the first film featuring Broly, but it makes up for this fact by being fast paced. It is especially fast paced when compared to "The World's Strongest" and "Tree of Might". The English version I got of this one also did a pretty good job of syncing a rather good rock soundtrack to this one. The film has a mysterious alien force has descended upon Earth. Its goal, to turn the Earth into a spaceship, the villain a being known as Lord Slug. Enough with the introductions let the fighting begin. There are your typical fights with characters such as Krillin and Gohan. Piccolo also shows up to lend a hand. Still, most of the others do not do so well and then Goku shows and proceeds to wipe the floor with all the baddies. That is until he faces Lord Slug who gives him one heck of a nice fight. I am guessing this took place right before Goku turned Super Saiyan for the first time in the series as they sort of have a brief transformation of Goku to a state that is not quite Super Saiyan. All in all it is a rather good movie, the action is fast and the rock music soundtrack in the English version is just so perfect for this one. They would try again to do that in the Cooler movie, but it doesn't quite work in that one.

This is the fourth Dragon Ball Z movie released during the series Japanese TV run. A planetoid is averted by Goku and Krillin and later explodes and descending upon it is a band of sun-sensitive alien nomads led by an aging Super Namek named Slug, who uses the Dragon Balls to regain his youth and plans to terrafreeze Earth into a starship. Defending the planet are Goku, Krillin, Piccolo, and Gohan. This movie suffers from an extremely shallow and ill-conceived plot. It seems that this movie's screenwriter did this movie's story in a very hurried and half-hearted effort (which made a lot of sense, considering that by this point, Toei Animation called for 2 Dragon Ball Z movies to be released annually in March and July to be screened at Toei's annual anime fairs and in theaters). Nearly ever aspect of this movie looked like it was put together without much thought, including the villains, the plot, the animation (from time to time), and in many of the scenes such as how Slug is stopped. The plot often repeats elements found in the previous DBZ movie, Earth's Ultimate Deciding Battle a.k.a. The Tree Of Might. This DBZ movie, purely seen as a regular movie, is one of the worst. If you are a hardcore Dragon Ball Z fan, I'm sure you will find it at least watchable.

GRADE: 1 out of 5 stars

I have watched the kiddy American version of Dbz and I have to say that the original Japanese versions are much better (of course the Japanese created Dbz).

Not only that, the one American writer should have pointed out that the dubbed version of Dbz and their movies cut out several scenes, and insert their own corny and kiddy dialouge instead of the original Japanese language.

Goku, Kuririn , Mr. Piccolo are at the super best when you watch them subtitled.

The movie rocks.

Oh yeah, I have all dbz from 1-13 all uncut. Eat your heart out all English dbz fans, because Cartoon Network has still showed the same mediocre English for 5 years now.

"Lord Slug" is a very middle of the road DBZ movie. This one doesn't hold the same nostalgia for me that the first three movies do. Those were all aired on Toonami and that is where I watched and recorded them. This one I didn't get around to watching until much later.

On the plus side, where most DBZ movies are just rehashes of DBZ storylines, this one is a rehash of an original DB storyline. Lord Slug makes the same wish as King Piccolo did back in the original Dragon Ball.

On the positive side, the villain is able to transform and give us a new varied fight set up. The villain has a unique weakness to be exploited.

Other than that, all the other positives are mainly just beats that happen in a lot of DBZ movies. Piccolo and Goku teaming up, a spirit bomb, Gohan and other Z fighters helping at first but then being useless towards the end. All stuff that we have seen in the other DBZ movies.

On its own, the movie is pretty good. But because it falls in the middle of a film/anime franchise that does so much of the same thing, this one comes across as just that, middling.