Dragon Ball Super’s first movie,Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is one of the most popular and well-receivedDragon Ballmovies of all time. However, the first draft of the film was substantially different from the version that fans finally saw, and the film underwent major cuts to the story.
Dragon Ball Super: Brolycame out in 2018, and was incredibly successful, earning $124 million at the global box office, thus making it the top-earningDragon Ballfilm ever. The film provided a new look at Goku’s origins, as well as setting up a new, canonical version of the fan-favorite villain, Broly, which certainly helped it to hit this level of success.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly Was Nearly Twice as Long as the Final Version
The Film’s Earliest Iteration Was Incredibly Long
According to the director of the film, Tatsuya Nagamine,in an interview translated by Kanzenshuu, the film was originally substantially longer than the final cut.
Nagamine said, “With the exception of action scenes, we’re adapting [Toriyama’s] screenplay pretty much as-is. However, though we want to be as faithful to it as possible, unfortunately the allotted run time is short.When we first made storyboards for the entire screenplay, a movie that was supposed to only be 90 minutes turned out to be double that length.”
It’s fascinating to think that theBrolymovie, which was in its final version exactly 100 minutes long, was a three-hour-long movie in its first conception. Nagamine admits that they had to cut out quite a few scenes entirely in order to make the movie watchable, as no animated movie in history has ever been three hours long.
While Nagamine unfortunately doesn’t elaborate on any of the cut material, Kanzenshuu notes that this wasextremely similar to the situation withBattle of Gods, which also was originally much longer than the final cut. That movie eventually received an expanded version with some of the cut material restored, butBrolynever had such a director’s cut.
What Could Dragon Ball Super: Broly’s Cut Content Have Looked Like?
The Movie is Very Tightly Paced, So There’s Little Room for added Material
To this day, no one involved in the production ofBrolyhas given any insight into what the cut scenes may have looked like. Since the fight scenes were not written out in Toriyama’s script, it’s likely that these cut scenes were dialog-heavy. Since the second half of the movie is almost entirely fight scenes, these scenes may have been from the earlier portion.
That means that the cut scenes could’ve been set during the Bardock/Planet Vegeta section of the film, perhaps offering more info and characterization for people like Bardock, King Vegeta, and Paragus.This material was adapted from theDragon Ball Minuscomic, a special chapter ofJaco the Galactic Patrolmanwhich revealed Goku’s origin.
WithDragon Ball Super: Super Hero, fans eventually got to see some of the cut contentin theDragon Ball Supermanga, such as Goten and Trunks' exploits as Saiyaman X-1 and X-2, and how they decided to take on that superhero role by getting inspiration from Gohan. Maybe someday,Broly’s cut content might be adapted as well.
While it’s always a shame to learn of scenes being cut from a movie, in this case it was most certainly for the best.Brolyis an incredibly well-paced, tightly written movie, and there’s simply very little room for new scenes without slowing down the plot of the film. Had these scenes been kept, the movie may not have been so well-received.
The allure of cut content will always remain, though, soDragon Ball Superfans can hardly be blamed for wondering what might have been.
