Dragon Ball Z Special 1: Tatta Hitori no Saishuu Kessen

The Bardock Special is a good view of some of the more underlooked aspects of Z, and provides a satisfying expansion.
The Saiyan race, a mercenary group which are essentially hired space vikings, are growing in numbers and strength- and Frieza is scared of this! Bardock, described as a 'low-tier warrior' sees the future destruction of Planet Vegeta, and the prophecy of his son.

One aspect I really liked about this movie was the sci-fi feel. I always thought that Z missed an opportunity to have some awesome space adventures, so seeing Bardock and his comrades clearing some planets was cool. Essentially, the same thing happens to ... Planet Vegeta that the Saiyans have been acting out on the rest of the galaxy. Bardock realizes this in his last moments, (I imagine he would be pretty proud to know that his son would be able to defeat Frieza, after the villains display of absolute power)- and I like the contrast between the two.

Prince Vegeta got some cool moments, and I guess Frieza let him go because he saw the Saiyans as a threat whilst COMBINED- and Vegeta was a proud, solitary kid. What Frieza saw in Bardock scared him alot more than Vegeta.

Overall though I think this movie could've benefitted from more fight scenes. It serves as a cool prelude to the Namek Arc. Reccomended!

This is too long, yet too simple to be anything more than a novelty, but I think this is definitely in the upper level of the Dragon Ball Z movies, and by FAR the best of all the TV specials/OVAs. We get to see the story of a villain falling into a seeming curse and then failing just at the last moment to prevent disaster.

Basically, this is a kind of Greek Tragedy-lite, Revenge of the Sith-style story where Bardock sees visions of a future he doesn't understand, visions of his son's accomplishments, and in his quest to figure them out and prevent tragedy, ends up ... causing everything to transpire exactly as he foresaw it. Now, probably the biggest thing holding it back is that, yeah, the Sayians probably did deserve everything they had coming to them; they had been genociding planet after planet for countless generations, and our own protagonist is so complicit that our introduction to him is his squad massacring civilians on some alien world. Yeah, he kinda realizes his mistakes, but he definitely doesn't go anywhere near atoning for them. I don't feel any sadness at what happens to him or any of the others.

But the story isn't expecting us to do so; it's not quite a condemnation of the Sayians like the show is, but it's certainly not sympathetic to them. And for something as dumb as Dragon Ball, I kind of appreciate that tiny bit of nuance. So, as far as Dragon Ball goes, this one's pretty good.

Sadly, this is nothing more than a poor fanfiction of Dragonball. A normal review would merely discuss the work itself, but to do that over looks a fair bit of provenance that is what really decided the audience view of this work. Many people enjoy this due to the portrayal and inclusion of Bardock. While it is incredibly interesting to hear the backstory of Goku's father, none of it is true in the slightest. It is a pure fanfiction. Bardock, while being Goku's father, has none of the qualities present in this portrayal of him. Bardock is not like Vegeta, a heartless warrior Saiyan, but ... closer to a Leonidas Spartan warrior, who actually did care for Goku, and cared for his wife. Yes, they are a warrior society, but none of that precludes the existence of love for a child. It makes no sense that Bardock wouldn't care about Goku if your child is what decides the success of your dynasty. Vegeta cares about his honor because he is the son of a King, and wants to do his race proud. In this special, Bardock cares about fighting cause, uh, he just likes to fight? That makes no sense. I understand the writers viewed Saiyans that way, but we've come to see that original view of Saiyan's as bloodthirsty warriors is nothing but confirmation bias based on the few Saiyan's we have seen in the series. It's clear the majority of saiyans, while a warrior cult, function similar to the limbic reactions any "monkey" or ape would have. This was always the basis of the confrontation between Freiza and Goku, and removing those differences by retconning Goku's father as some Vegeta like cruel warrior defeats the archetypal confrontation between Reptile and Ape. The very core of Dragonball was the battle between these two evolutionary paths in the universe, and Freiza's view of saiyans was always based on their inferiority as warm blooded chimps. To remove mamalian care based raising from an ape race totally ruins the entire race. This series is not just bad, but arguably destroys the entire DBZ canon and defeats the purpose of Freiza as a character. It's no wonder the fanfiction direction DBZ has taken since, given the fans acceptance of such a terrible movie in the canon.

Toriyama's comments do nothing but prove this point, as westerners once again fail to read between the lines of Japanese speech. By saying he "enjoyed this movie" Toriyama was ACTIVELY SAYING THIS WAS A BAD MOVIE. He enjoyed it, as a movie, not as a piece of Dragonball lore. The idea of Bardock was good, but nothing beyond "Goku has a father". Toriyama rejected the entire portrayal of Bardock, so to even enjoy this version of Bardock betrays the existence of Goku's personality.

Anyone who thinks "YOU CAN NOW SEE THE FUTURE BARDOCK" is a good plot line is high and doesn't know anything about Dragonball. It's just bad, and I do not understand how anyone actually thinks that's a good plot. It's the worst, cringiest plot line i've ever seen in Dragonball. It's Naruto filler level of garbage that has become accepted by the fandom just because of the cultural perception behind a Dragonball special about Goku's father.