#Film shoot loctation

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 026

Nappa was wrecking everyone’s shit last time, but Vegeta told him to take a break for three hours, because the good guys keep saying that Goku will show up and save the day.   Now that Vegeta knows that Goku is Raditz’s brother Kakarot, he wants to actually wait and see if Goku shows up, so he can beat the crap out of him for turning against his fellow Saiyans.   Nappa doesn’t care much for waiting around, but once Vegeta explains his plans to kill Goku’s friends in front of him and then kill Goku slowly, he’s on board with the plan.

Meanwhile, the surviving Z-Fighters, Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan, have nothing else to do but discuss their dim prospects.   Any delay in the fighting works to their advantage, but Piccolo’s no so sure that Goku will do any good, even if he does make it in time to help.   Nappa’s been unstoppable so far, and Vegeta must be even stronger.   Krillin suggests retreating, but that’s not an option either, since the Saiyans plan to eradicate all the Earthlings anyway.   It doesn’t matter if Krillin faces them now or later.

As for Gohan, he’s still feeling guilty for hesitating on the battlefield earlier.   He realizes that if he had just acted, maybe Tien wouldn’t have gotten killed trying to attack Nappa. 

There’s a great line in the dub where Piccolo points out to Gohan that facing his fears in that moment would have been far easier than dealing with the remorse he’s feeling right now.    It’s a teachable moment, but in the Japanese he just calls him a coward.    I do like that tack, though, because Piccolo’s insults show just how deeply hurt he feels over Gohan letting him down.   Yeah, it’s his own fault for putting so much on the shoulders of a child, but you can tell that he truly, genuinely believed that Gohan would be able to handle this kind of thing, and now he’s been badly disappointed.    Calling Gohan names is the only thing he can do about it.

Piccolo tells Gohan to leave, and when he walks away, Nappa shoots an energy blast in his direction, and mocks him for trying to flee.  

Gohan defiantly insists that he was just going to pee, and quietly adds that the Saiyans are the ones who ought to be running away.

Nappa’s like “What?” and Gohan’s like “Your mother’s belly-button sticks out!”  And Nappa’s like “How did he know?”    And Gohan’s like “I fucked your mom, shitlips.”

Nappa finally gets bored and excuses himself to go kill people for the next three hours.   Vegeta’s like “Whatever, it’s all filler scenes anyway,” so he leaves.

First, he takes out the camera crew who’s been filming all of this up to now, so the gang over at Master Roshi’s place can’t see what’s going on anymore.

Then he flies around and spots a fleet of battleships and aircraft carriers headed towards him, so he kills a few minutes destroying those guys.

Nappa ripping through the wings of a fighter jet like wet paper towels is one of my favorite sequences in this series.   They used it a lot on Toonami back in ‘99, and it’s just really fun to watch him go to town.    Speaking of going to town...

Nappa starts attacking a city.   I feel like Vegeta specifically warned him not to do this sort of thing, since there’s always a chance that he might destroy a Dragon Ball without realizing it.

Wait a minute, he already destroyed that building when he landed in East City!   They’re just recycling footage from East City’s destruction!   Well, I guess Vegeta can’t get mad at him for destroying the same place twice.

As he watches the city explode, he remarks that they were all going to die later tonight anyway.   This is something I’ve always noticed about Nappa.   He sort of has this almost cordial attitude about his villainy.   Like, I don’t think he’s quite being a smartass or anything with this line.    It’s not like he’s trying to justify his behavior either, although it does sort of feel that way.   He’s basically saying “You were all going to die either way, so there’s no harm in me getting some enjoyment out of it, right?”   That’s been his attitude while fighting Piccolo and the others, too.     It’s nothing personal, but he’s got a job to do, and he might as well have fun with it.  

We could also make some hay over the fact that Nappa is only talking to himself when he says this line here.    Is he just talking to break the silence, or does he say things like this to ease his own mind?

When he gets back, he’s dismayed to see Goku still hasn’t shown up.  

“All right, well if Kakarot’s not showing up, I’m gonna strip down for this.”

As Nappa approaches, Piccolo whispers a last, desperate plan to the others.    He wants Krillin to distract Nappa long enough for him to grab Nappa’s tail.   Then, when Nappa’s incapacitated, Gohan will hit him with everything he’s got.    Krillin is impressed with Piccolo’s leadership.   In spite of Goku’s absence, he’s still trying to find a way to win this thing.

He even spares a moment to encourage Gohan.   Now he’s finally starting to sound more like a parent, or an uncle, or an older brother, or what have you.    I’ll always give Piccolo his due for being an important part of Gohan’s childhood, but Goku was saying this sort of stuff to Gohan from Day One, and he never abandoned him in the woods or threatened to slit his throat.   If we’re going to compare Piccolo to Goku on this level, then we have to take everything into account, including the parts where Piccolo wasn’t so nice.

Meanwhile, Goku finally reaches the start of Snake Way and returns to King Yemma’s office.   Kami sense him from the Lookout, an teleports (?) to Yemma.   Goku grabs ahold of him and they teleport back to the Lookout.    This is presumably how Kami got here back in Episode 6, but this ability is never explained.   Can Kami just teleport anywhere he wants, or is the ability limited to just this one loctation?

From the Lookout, Goku just jumps right over the side and plummets down to Korin’s Tower.   Korin tosses him two Senzu beans as he passes by, and then Goku summons Kinto Un.    

I never quite understood this scene before, but now it all adds up.   Why doesn’t Goku just fly to the battlefield under his own power?   Well, at this point in the show, most of the characters can’t fly very far or very fast.    Piccolo could probably do it, but not the others.   Even coming back from King Kai’s, Goku didn’t fly the whole way, he sort of hopped from one part of the road to another.  

So why didn’t he summon Kinto Un from the Lookout?   Because Kinto Un can’t fly any higher in the sky than the top of Korin’s Tower.   This was established around Episode 126-127 of the original Dragon Ball anime. 

The only question I have left is: Why does Korin only have two senzu beans left?   He had a whole pot full in Dragon Ball, and this is the first time they’ve been used in DBZ, so what happened?   Anyway, Goku eats one right away, to recover from the strenuous run  along Snake Way.

I am somewhat surprised that Kinto Un is still faster than Goku’s top speed.   He crossed the one million kilometers of Snake Way in under 48 hours, so even if the battle is on the opposite side of the planet, he should be able to reach it in minutes, even if he ran the whole way.   But apparently Kinto Un is the better option, despite all the training Goku did.

And now he’s on his way.    Now, it’s just a matter of seeing if he can actually live up to everyone’s hopes.