Anime movies have a special place for anime fans. For most shonen series, the tie-in movies are considered as non-canon as most filler. They're a fun little side adventure at most, something that will not be brought up again in the series proper, and a great way to increase marketability for the franchise as a whole. A lot of those movie events have become major social gatherings as well, bringing people who love a franchise together to terrorize the local AMC and have the best time laughing and crying with fellow fans. Some of their status as a stand-alone story, however, has begun to shift. Franchises like My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer have gone the route of making their movies canon, and that trend has begun to spread to even older franchises.
The Dragon Ball franchise has a ton of movies associated with it. Many of these movies tend to be re-tellings of arcs or ways to dress up past villains in new, higher-budget colors to enjoy a bigger spectacle than what was possible on the small screen. With the creation of Dragon Ball Super, there has been a major shift in the content and creation of the movies in the franchise. Not only have the movies come to a point that they're canon, but the first two movies, Battle of Gods and Resurrection F, directly informed the manga and the anime from their earliest points. Of course, the anime and the movies do have their differences. Each arc comes across differently, depending on how they're watched.
Battle Of Gods Kicked Off All Of Dragon Ball Super
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods is the eighteenth Dragon Ball movie to be created, and it was the one that really changed the game. It featured a lot of heavy influence from Akira Toriyama during its production, making it pretty different from the majority of the other movies in the franchise. The plot of the film introduces Beerus, a God of Destruction rising from his slumber having had a dream that revealed a prophecy to him. This sparks an obsession with finding and fighting the Super Saiyan God. This leads him to Earth and right into the middle of Bulma's birthday party. This, of course, brings him into conflict with Goku and his comrades, causing the prophecy to be fulfilled as the Saiyans and Videl, currently pregnant with Pan, impart the godlike power onto Goku. Goku's new godlike abilities grant him the power to go toe to toe with Beerus and protect the planet from his destructive designs. As is normal with Goku, he ends up making friends with the guy who had previously been trying to kill him.
This is really a Dragon Ball Z movie at heart, but it does directly become the opening arc of Dragon Ball Super. The interesting thing about it is that there are some major departures from the movie. A few of the small ones include:
There are more than a few major differences between the film and the arc as well. One of the major events is what triggers Beerus into going a little kill-crazy. In the film, a conflict breaks out over a missing Dragon Ball and Beerus ends up getting annoyed at being hit by a stray bullet. In the anime, Trunks and Goten get Beerus and his food wet during a water fight. Vegeta does attempt to calm him down similarly in both, but the circumstances change the whole feeling of the conflict. It's rather understandable why a god would detest being shot at, but the getting wet bit feels more petty and cat-like. It's actually pretty funny in comparison and has a little bit of an OG Dragon Ball feel as a result of that.
The other major difference between the film and the anime is the big, set-piece fight between Beerus and Goku. In the film, Goku and Beerus do not destroy planets around them while fighting in space. In the anime, however, a lot of planets were destroyed because of the amount of power Goku and Beerus were using in their conflict. At the end of their battle, in the anime as opposed to the film, Beerus does not mention that his ever-present assistant, Whis, is far stronger than either one of them is. He also doesn't mention anything about the twelve universes, nor does he mention that Goku is the second-strongest opponent he has ever faced. The movie acts as a way to expand the universe and the anime seems to make the assumption that the audience has seen it already. It focuses on expanding in places where the film did not and manages to set the goofier tone of Dragon Ball Super, setting it apart from Dragon Ball Z.
Resurrection F Leans A Lot More Dragon Ball Z
Frieza is the best villain in Dragon Ball Z and one of the most beloved villains in the franchise as a whole. His design is excellent, his stage presence is amazing, and there is just something about his malicious, sadistic nature mixed with his smarmy grin and charming speech patterns that make him the peak of the series. Frieza was aped for the Cooler movies, so it makes sense that he would make a comeback once more for the new series. The plot of Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F has the remaining Frieza Force resurrecting their beloved dictator to a state before Trunks turned him into tartare. Frieza makes the decision to start training and ends up unlocking his Golden form. He then goes to invade Earth as revenge against the Saiyans and, of course, comes into conflict with his old enemies.
As with its predecessor, there are a lot of minor changes between the anime and the film itself, most of them relatively minor but worth mentioning overall. A few examples include:
The major differences between the movie and the anime are actually rather minimal, though the anime really stretches out the story a lot. This is the movie that did get Frieza's character back on track though, taking him from the comedy of Dragon Ball GT and returning him to his roots. The anime and film both have the moment of the kill being stolen from Vegeta, a decision that many fans have been leery of for years. There were a lot of up-and-down moments between the anime and the film by a wide margin.
The Dragon Ball fanbase has a lot of love for the films, often hotly debating them, and the quality of those films has grown exponentially. Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero are considered some of the best in the franchise and all of those improvements really started with Resurrection F and Battle of Gods. While there is a lot of debate over whether the changes were really needed, there is still a lot to enjoy in both interpretations.
