With Trunks as the narrator of this special, the scene begins with Gohan finding out that Goku is dead for good from a heart attack brought on by his high cholesterol diet, with every single Z-fighter including Vegeta himself mourning for him...for 6 months before the cyborgs kill off all of the Z-fighters. Piccolo, Vegeta, Tien, and even Krillin die, leaving the fate of the earth with only Gohan and Trunks as the survivors.
Fast forward 13 years into the story, and humanity (and country music) continues to become slowly wiped out by the androids with every single of the citizens not seeming to care about their approaching annihilation (with the radio even making a joke about his own fiancé being killed there). Trunks arrives against Bulma's instructions only for him to stumble upon a deserted city, however fortunately, he managed to meet up with the hero of his timeline; Future Gohan.
Returning home with Gohan in company, Trunks desperately wishes to be Gohan's pupil. Gohan accepts on the condition that Trunks addresses him as Mr. Gohan. Happy to be Gohan's student, Trunks invites Gohan to dinner where Bulma makes them food. When Bulma pointed out at how Gohan looks a lot like his father, he is visibly upset at it, with the Gi being the only remainder of him.
Over the next few weeks, Gohan would begin training Trunks in the art of dodging his attacks, only for Trunks to stumble into the whirlpool, with a frustrated Gohan reminding Trunks that he can fly. After getting out of the ocean, they converse about their own parents including how Gohan looks up to Piccolo as his true father and what Trunk's father looks like (When recounting it, it is a scene of Vegeta beating up a young Gohan, who tries to defend his father's honor). However, concerning Gohan's real parents, he virtually abandoned both of them to the point that we see that Chi-Chi is depressed and suffers from a Madness Mantra on how she wished that her own son either talks to her or let her become a grandmother.
Trunk's attempt to turn Super Saiyan out of anger fails to the point that at "Piccolo's" suggestion, Trunks accompanies Gohan to the battlefield the next day, with what the cyborgs having destroyed an amusement park (And once again, the citizens being apathetic about them). At first, Gohan managed to overwhelm 17 only for 18 to join the battle and quickly overwhelm Gohan, with Trunks doing little to no help in turning the tables. As a result, Gohan loses his left arm and the cyborgs win unscathed.
Once Gohan managed to heal from his injuries, they immediately resumed their training on making Trunks a Super Saiyan only to fail once again. When Trunks ask Gohan how, he mentioned the deaths of Krillin and Piccolo (Not his father) that influenced him to become Super Saiyan. Moments later, the cyborgs attack another city and Gohan decides to confront it alone, knocking out Trunks so that he won't interfere.
Just as 17 is about to have a Heel Realization regarding all his atrocities and considers becoming a park ranger, Gohan kicks him through a building which makes the cyborg decides to kill everyone on the planet. Gohan eventually decides to make his Last Stand against the androids, resulting in his death. Moments later, Trunks attempts to scour the city for his master only to find him dead...Enraged, Trunks makes a Skyward Scream and turns into Super Saiyan for the first time.
3 years later, Trunks and Bulma are just about to make a time machine that allows Trunks to travel into the past and prevent the Bad Future from happening. Upon hearing the news that the cyborgs are attacking another city, Trunks recklessly decides to fight them, against Bulma's warnings. Predictably, he gets stomped to the ground by them, only surviving because 18 unintentionally took the blast from 17 in order to finish him off.
Thankfully, Bulma somehow managed to find Trunks and heals him back to full health for a few months before he is ready to return back to the past and meet history's greatest heroes (In which the heroes are either an Idiot Hero and a terrible father, or a Jerkass and an Abusive Parent). With the cholesterol medication in hand, Trunks leaves the current timeline to head to the past and turn the world into a cyborg free world...
Unfortunately, Bulma believes that Multiverse Theory could be in play, as she sees no change in the scenery after Trunks leaves for the past.
And these are its tropes:
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Trunks finding Gohan's corpse and turning into a Super Saiyan, which is played depressingly straight and entirely devoid of humor.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Future Gohan outright doesn't care for his parents, a far cry from the original version where he thinks highly of them everytime he is fighting with the androids.
- Adapted Out: Yamcha neither appears nor is even mentioned in this film. Must have been something to do with him hanging himself after realizing that Bulma is pregnant with Vegeta's child.
- Ambiguous Ending: A bit on the downer side, really; With Gohan dead, the Cyborgs are still on the loose, planning to eradicate every last human on the planet. Trunks stood no chance and finally decides to use Bulma's time machine to go to the past, warning Goku and giving him the medicine needed to relieve him of his excess cholesterol. Unfortunately, as soon as he leaves, Bulma doesn't see and improvements to this timeline, meaning that time travel may play into Multiverse Theory (creating alternate timelines instead of fixing this one), making this whole ordeal meaningless.
- An Arm and a Leg: Gohan ends up losing his arm during his second to last fight with the Cyborgs.
- Apathetic Citizens: Even after thirteen long years of the Androids/Cyborgs killing cities and towns across the world, no one is trying to develop technology to stop them in any form. People continue with their everyday lives like nothing is wrong and only panic when they attack the city they are currently in. One guy who runs a roller coaster at an amusement park doesn't even recognize them when they jump in line to the front car. In fact, the radio personalities even casually joke about how a city is not only destroyed but also state that one of them is now single, following the death of his fiance in the same city, with no mourning whatsoever. Averted 3 years later when a radio station calls out in panic about another Cyborg attack.
- Bad Future: Most of the Z-Fighters are dead, leaving next-to-no opposition to the destructive Cyborgs. Not that anyone cares. However, Gohan disagrees that this trope applies — for him, it's just more of the same.
- Brick Joke: Before Trunks leaves for to take on the Cyborgs, you can hear Vegeta's Rage-fueled scream from Namek finally reaching future Earth.
- Owing to Multiverse Theory, he doesn't say "Daddy?" in response in this version of the timeline, as it came during an argument with Bulma over whether to continue fighting the Cyborgs, or laying low until the time machine is done.
- Call-Back:
- This is a future where the very genre of Country music is all but eradicated. 18 had previously promised to do just that in the past after Goku dies.
- Bulma has been using the clones of her mother as a source of protein.
- Trunks' training with Gohan is practically word for word Gohan's training with Piccolo.
- Also, the Androids are consistently referred to as "Cyborgs".
- An example that, due to Time-Travel Tense Trouble, blurs the line between this and Call-Forward. When Trunks goes off to battle against the cyborgs and arms himself with a sword, he mentions that it was given to him "by Tapion, which is a whole other story."
- Call-Forward: Bulma starts suspecting that their future would have no effect from Trunks changing the past due to "Multiverse Theory", but by the time she comes to this conclusion, Trunks already takes off. Bulma seemingly confirms this after witnessing no immediate change in the timeline. Starting with Episode 37 of the main Abridged Series, this is frequently lampshaded and discussed.
- Compliment Backfire: When Bulma mentions Gohan is like his dad, he responds "In what regard?" This is a callback to Episode 42, when Prime Gohan responds similarly to Future Trunks saying the same thing to him.
- Disposable Fiancé: Parodied. Not only is Wombat's fiancé killed off less than 30 second after being mentioned, he jokes about it.Wombat: Silver lining: I'm single again!
- Doomed Defeatist: Puar in The Stinger is convinced the crew of USS M'dick are going to die there.
- Handicapped Badass: Gohan is still a Super Saiyan in the future, despite missing an arm.
- Hearing Voices: Gohan has the voice of Piccolo in his head, and some of his more reckless decisions come from listening to its advice. As he's about to die, the voice admits it's not actually his dead master and just a hallucination.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Future Gohan, at least to Trunks. Adaptational Jerkass attitude not withstanding, he gladly takes Trunks under his wing, and doesn't seem to hold his failures against him. Trunks speaks highly of him in the series when he's brought up, and its easy to see why.
- Killed Off for Real: In this future, Goku dies ["FOR GOOD!"] from a cholesterol-based heart attack. As this is implied to be a "natural death", it means that Earth's Dragon Balls cannot bring him back to life. Not that it matters, as Piccolo is among the other heroes later killed by the Cyborgs, thereby killing Kami and rendering the Dragon Balls inert. Even then, Goku was killed before, in a Heroic Sacrifice against Raditz, so he couldn't be revived a second time. Unless Dr. Briefs finds New Nemek and its Dragon Balls, there no other way to undo all of this.
- Lighter and Softer: At least compared to the original TV special where hopelessness was the main theme, the abridged version at least lighten things up a bit whereas everything goes From Bad to Worse in the television special and continues to go to hell afterwards.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Gohan's fate.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: 17 says he's going to stop all the pointless killing because he is getting bored, and is going to become a park ranger. When Gohan kicks him in the face, a pissed-off 17 decides he will wipe out the human race completely. Though he still plans on becoming a park ranger once he's all finished.
- Noodle Incident: Trunks once offhandedly mentions obtaining his sword from Tapion, saying that it's a long story.
- Oh, Crap!: As Trunks prepares to travel to the past during the ending, he is excited to meet both the hero known as Goku and his father Vegeta. While Bulma warns Trunks that Goku may not be as legendary as he appears, she realizes in shock that her son will soon see how much of a Jerkass Vegeta was.
- Our Slogan Is Terrible: "Hello and welcome to Super World. Slogan pending."
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for Laughs and a bit of Foreshadowing that TeamFourStar pointed out in the Creator Commentary of the special, Piccolo in Gohan's head correctly pronounces the Makankōsappō—something the real Piccolo in the series proper never could do, which gives the implication before outright saying it that Gohan's Hearing Voices is all from his damaged psyche rather than the ghost of Piccolo actually talking to him.
- Played for Drama: Even with a handful of jokes, the special is probably the darkest episode that TFS did. The death of Gohan and Trunks finding his body in particular remain a somber moment.
- Plucky Boy: Trunks is very eager, at first, to fight the Cyborgs.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: After Gohan insists that he will face the Cyborgs alone, Trunks asks him what he can do with his remaining arm. Gohan see that as a good question... Then judo chop's Trunks unconscious.
- Sanity Slippage: Played with frighteningly in the case of Chi-Chi, whom Gohan has completely abandoned (she admits he is most likely dead, though the scene is before his actual death). All she does is mutter about losing her husband and son, and how she should be a grandmother by now. She spends her time knitting clothing for a grandchild she will never have. Ox King lives with her.
- Future Gohan has this, also, he hears voices, specifically Piccolo's, talking to him.
- Shout-Out:
- Quite a few music pieces are from Doctor Who and the end credits sequence combines the Doctor Who theme and "Cha-La Head-Cha-La". The Doomsday theme plays when Trunks finds Gohan's body.
- The music that plays as the Cyborgs arrive at Super World is the Millenial Fair theme.
- The song with them having fun while attacking Super World is We Like to Party from the Vengaboys, which was once the commercial theme song for Six Flags.
- After remarking that Wombat’s Disposable Fiancé is almost certainly a casualty of the cyborgs’ attack, they find the same silver lining that Austin Powers did in The Spy Who Shagged Me and play Soul Bossa Nova.
- The anxious piano piece that plays when Gohan confronts 17 and 18 for the final time is lifted from Neon Genesis Evangelion, appropriately titled, "Marking Time, Waiting For Death".
- Shut Up, Kirk!: In his final battle with the Cyborgs, Trunks tries to introduce himself and say he seeks revenge for their murder of Gohan, but 18 interrupts him with an, "I don't care." and punches him.
- Skyward Scream: Trunks doesn't take the death of his mentor well.
- Spared by the Adaptation: A minor example. In the original story, it's mentioned that Dr. Brief is dead by the time the time machine is finished (and whether or not he was killed by the androids or died of natural causes is unclear). In this version, Dr. Brief is shown to still be alive, and he's traversing the cosmos in search of Planet New Namek for their Dragon Balls.
- The Stinger: After the credits end, we see Oolong, Puar, and Roshi survive thanks to the turtle hermit's submarine, USS M'dick. Unfortunately, it isn't a comfortable one no thanks to Roshi's innuendo such as how he is holding on to "it" for 17 years. Puar remarks that they're going to die in the sub.
- Tempting Fate: Unfortunately for Future Gohan.Gohan: No! This isn't where my story ends!Trunks: (Narrating) This is where Gohan's story ends.(Cut to Future Gohan being beaten down and almost immediately killed by the Androids)
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Trunks' Super Saiyan power is awakened when Gohan dies, the only person he got to know during his time as a child. The original special even provides the page image.
