A true hero is only as good as their origin, and as Goku is just an obvious rip-off of Superman, more information was needed to distance the two, so Bardock The Father of Goku was birthed from the minds of the series writers for Dragon Ball Z. So Bardock, as an expanded character with his own mythos that crosses film and video games, is pretty unnecessary, not really adding anything to the broader franchise, but that doesn't make Bardock The Father of Goku much less entertaining. The narrative needs to do some major calisthenics to get anything happening, I mean, Bardock gets the gift of prophecy just so that he can see clips of Dragon Ball and DBZ and react to them, that's some convenient writing right there. This happens, of course, because the only real story to tell is in the contrast between father and son, with the brutal Sayian warrior who kills without a thought eventually becoming proud of the hero his son will grow up to be.
Interestingly, much of the narrative of Bardock The Father of Goku takes place over a few hours, perhaps a couple of days, whilst this fits with other DBZ films, which mostly cover a single fight, it doesn't give us much time to get to know Bardock as a person. True, he's even less deep that Goku, who has all the personality of a Golden Age video game character (essentially none), but Bardock does go on a journey of sorts, coming around to a different point of view, even if it does take major spoilers for DBZ to do it. Although it's always good to see Sayain Great Apes again, most of the fights in Bardock The Father of Goku aren't all that interesting, as the power level needs to be carefully managed; the one peak is when Bardock takes out several Freiza Elites by fighting smart, but it's over all too quick. Of course Bardock can't fight the actual antagonist of the film, Freiza, because we already know how powerful he is and the anticlimax would be disappointing.
As much as I find Bardock Father of Goku middling at best, I kind of wish there were more DBZ films like it, in that they could explore more of the setting outside of the Z Fighters and Earth. Yes, the series has, and continues to visit new worlds and places, but they are only seen through the eyes of Goku and friends. Stories of the Great Drought on Namek or the rise of the Frost dynasty are waiting to be told and may allow aspiring writers to try out new things without impinging upon the existing setting all that much. There's a whole universe out there to explore, and sometimes the less known corners can hide the best narrative gems. The games and Anime have introduced a multiverse of possibilities, and I'd like to see it filled out more in the future.
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