"You... can all... go to hell... WITHOUT ME!!!!!!"
If there are four words that can sum up just how much pain the Z-Fighters will have to go though in their second outing in movie theaters since 1995, it is basically this: the revival of Frieza. So much has changed since the final defeat of Buu, but evil, in spite of all the odds stacked against it, manages to stay the same...- A month before the movie was released in America, Funimation released a video titled "EXCLUSIVE REVELATION from the VOICE OF GOKU"
. Merely nine seconds in, it is suddenly hijacked and turned into an indoctrination video from the Frieza Force to the people of Earth. While darkly humorous, due to the sheer amount of Blatant Lies, it also features things such as sudden, flashing images of a roaring Oozaru (often over Goku's face), a creepy robotic voice encouraging children to rebel against authority, and Goku's laughing and battle cries being looped in an unsettling fashion.- At some point in the video, a phone number appears: (205) SAI-YAN1note . Calling it will take you to this prerecorded message:
"If you're a self-starting go-getter with the kind-of can-do obedience it takes to seek vengeance on behalf of an evil overlord, you won't want to miss this golden opportunity-oppor-opportunity-L-L-L-LEAVE A MESSAGE." [beep, silence] - After Sorbet commands Shenron to wish back Frieza's body despite the time limit, we get the unsettlingly gruesome image of Frieza's "resurrection" (if one can even call his state that). Whereas we originally only had to look at his chopped-up body momentarily in the Androids saga, we here get an extensive look at the whole shebang. Seeing Frieza's squirming slabs of flesh trying to reconnect themselves as well as his wide, bloodshot eye glaring about really helps the nightmare fuel.
- A bit of Fridge Horror here as well. If you think this is bad for us as the audience, just imagine how it has to be for Frieza himself. Granted, it is kind of hard to feel sorry for him, but just imagine seeing your body, pulped and chunked, squirming and writhing all around you in a grotesque heap while your conscious control is confined to a single eye. Unable to speak, move or do anything of substance, just forced to watch on from wherever said eye landed. And he was trapped this way for over fourteen years before his resurrection.
- Frieza's sheer amount of constant, practically foaming-at-the-mouth rage in this movie is disturbing. While he's on top, he's the usual cruel and classy Frieza you've come to accept, but during battle, his expression is like a rabid dog. His sheer unrelenting hatred for Goku makes it seem like murder is the one and only constant in his mind the entire time, no matter the cost or risk. Clearly, Frieza's time in hell (first figuratively, then literally) and the fact that Goku is the one who kick-started this hell had a detrimental effect on his sanity, even if he tries to hide it at first.
- This moment during their fight deserves special mention. Once Goku gains the upper hand due to Frieza's diminishing stamina, Goku offers Frieza the chance to leave Earth peacefully, even promising a rematch. Frieza's response is to scream the following line at the top of his lungs, so loud that it shakes the very earth. Chris Ayres gives a truly terrifying performance as it sounds like Frieza is really losing his mind at the prospect of defeat.
Frieza: DAMN YOOOOOOOUUUU!!!!! WHYYYYYY?! WHYYYYY?! THIS SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING!!! I AM LORD FRIEZAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! - Just the sheer concept of Golden Frieza. Determined not to be caught off-guard again when he has his fated re-match with Goku, Frieza determines that he will train for the first time ever in his life rather than just relying on his natural talents and raw power to coast by. The nightmare fuel here is twofold:
- Firstly, this retcons that Frieza during the Namek Saga was a case of Unskilled, but Strong. That monster who curb-stomped everyone until Goku managed to unlock the mythical Golden Super Mode by pure luck? That's a guy who has never had to lift a finger in training. Cell was a genetically engineered abomination, Majin Buu is a magical monster, Beerus is a god, but Frieza is just. That. Strong. No wonder Akira Toriyama himself calls Frieza a mutant freak!
- Just to drive this concept home. Remember Goku at the beginning of Dragon Ball? When comparing these two, think of the fact that Goku had already been training for ten years at that point, and Frieza in this movie has only trained for four months. By the time that Bulma first met Goku, he had been training for 30 times as long as Frieza and had only made it that far. Frieza's potential is…horrifying.
- Furthermore, imagine what would have happened if Frieza had actually trained before the Namek Saga. Even Super Saiyan Goku wouldn't have stood a chance at defeating him!
- Secondly, Goku spent years of life-and-death struggle, routinely training to his limits, battling all manner of unnatural horrors, to finally attain his Super Saiyan God/Blue form. It took Frieza just four months of solo training to reach a form that can actually go toe-to-toe with Goku in that form. Four freaking months! Just how much stronger could Frieza get?!
- To say nothing of the fact that if Frieza had just been a little more patient, if he had bothered to spend time learning to control his Golden Frieza form better and improve his stamina, he probably would have won in his fight…
- It gets worse: He returns later on in Super, and now he HAS mastered his Golden Frieza form.
- What's more terrifying is that King Cold and (assuming he's canon) Cooler are stronger than Frieza before his training, and likely also have never lifted a finger since their whole entire family are mutants. If they had trained as well the galaxy would have had three super-powered alien tyrants running around. Three super-powered alien tyrants that could possibly defeat Beerus if they took him on together.
- This is probably subverted with them because Cooler probably did train and managed to control his final form and unlock that masked form and it was stated by the author that Frieza's power was always a step above his family. However, this just shows how much of a prodigy and monster Frieza is. His older brother probably trained for a long time maybe even his entire life, but only got that masked form out of it that was defeated by a Super Saiyan. But when Frieza trained for just four months he gets a Golden Form that is as strong as Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan! However, this doesn't mean that Frieza's family is unable to gain that Golden Form. They only need to work and train even harder.
- There's a related WMG on the main Dragon Ball page that, given the somewhat odd placement of his bio armor, Cooler might actually be in his version of the Golden form at the start of his movie. That takes a little of the sting out of Cooler maybe being as strong as Frieza if he trained hard enough…until you realize that that means Cooler's masked form is a form beyond the Golden form which Frieza still hasn't reached yet. Which brings the terror of the Frieza family to a whole new level.
- Firstly, this retcons that Frieza during the Namek Saga was a case of Unskilled, but Strong. That monster who curb-stomped everyone until Goku managed to unlock the mythical Golden Super Mode by pure luck? That's a guy who has never had to lift a finger in training. Cell was a genetically engineered abomination, Majin Buu is a magical monster, Beerus is a god, but Frieza is just. That. Strong. No wonder Akira Toriyama himself calls Frieza a mutant freak!
- The climax of the third trailer includes such pleasant images as Gohan seemingly looking dead, and Goku being strangled under Frieza's foot. It ends with an image of what looks like Earth blowing up with Goku screaming in the background.
- Frieza's way of saying 'hello' is to destroy cities. To be exact, the North City.
- Before Vegeta stepped in, Frieza was torturing Goku in a savage frenzy. Seeing Goku getting beaten down is never a pretty sight. Sean Schemmel's voice work in the dub makes Goku's screams so much worse to hear.
- Angered by his defeat, Frieza blows up Earth before Vegeta finishes him, killing everyone sans Goku, the other Z-Fighters, Bulma, and Jaco. All of whom were near Beerus and Whis at the time. Luckily, Whis rewound time by 3 minutes and Goku went on to finish Frieza before he could destroy Earth again. Good thing Whis' Time Travel actually literally turns back time instead of merely traveling through it, or else we would still have had a timeline where the Earth stays destroyed, too.Frieza: You can all GO TO HELL WITHOUT ME!
- Frieza's Bad Boss tendencies get taken to new and disturbing levels. His own men only resurrect him as a desperate, last resort because they can't face the continuous revolts in the empire, and Frieza's mere presence will be enough to scare them all into submission. The one telling us that is Frieza. He's perfectly aware of this and doesn't care, worse, seems to enjoy it. His first actions after his resurrection show us exactly why it's like that. The first thing he does, he kills one of his men, just to check how strong he is. Then Tagoma, one of the soldiers that helped his resurrection, lampshades the Revenge Before Reason and...remember how he killed Krillin? He does the same but throws the unlucky soldier into space to boot. That leaves a hole on the ship that starts sucking everyone but Frieza (who could just survive into space anyway). Luckily, they have shields that prevent them, and ultimately the order to raise them is given, by Sorbet. Frieza would have just let everyone die. When his men fail to defeat the Z Fighters, he kills them all out of sheer disgust. Not even loyal Sorbet is spared as he ends up killed by a stray energy blast from Frieza that gets deflected by Vegeta. To sum it up: a wrong move, and you risk a horrific death. Be too close to who made the wrong move, and you risk dying all the same. Do nothing at all, and you might die anyway because he needed a target. Not bad enough? A casual line in the movie implies that his soldiers are forced to join his army. Punch-Clock Villain doesn't even start to describe it
- One thinks that by this point (and considering Frieza's mindset) he has less use for soldiers and is more like a bunch of unfortunate people whose sole purpose is to satisfy his murderous tendencies until he gets to Earth. Them being used as foot soldiers seem to be a byproduct pretty much.
- When he advances on his fallen men after the Z Warriors beat them, one of them begs for mercy, saying that they couldn't possibly have won. Frieza agrees that his soldiers' failure wasn't their fault... and proceeds to kill them all anyway. Why? He doesn't like the "aesthetics" of defeated soldiers wearing his uniform.
- Bulma has seen her fair share of destruction and planets being blown up, but this is one of the first and only times, if not the first time, that she sees it all beforehand, up close and personal. Vegeta, Trunks, her family, everything she's known? Gone in a flash. No one noticed her there, or forgot about her, in Whis's bubble, until it was too late. One can only imagine the mental trauma and scars that the sudden, immediate genocide of a planet can cause. Her emotional breakdown rivals that of Android 18's in GT when Krillin dies. Bulma has only witnessed such carnage once- but she barely made it out alive and avoided the worst. Even Piccolo thinks it was an absolutely callous thing for Frieza to do.Bulma: Vegeta. Trunks. Mom and dad. They're all gone.
- The first time (chronologically) Frieza is shown destroying a planet, it takes an energy ball the size of a small moon. The second time, it's about the size of a beach ball, takes some time to charge and at least gave some warning to get the hell off the planet before it blew. This time, it's little more than a shockwave channeled through his hands, so sudden it's nearly instantaneous. Frieza was in his normal fourth form, and in a fatigued, weakened state at that. This in itself shows how much more absurdly powerful Frieza has become even sans the new transformation. After four months of training. No wonder Goku wipes him off the map the instant he gets a second crack at it.
