I agree, but I\'m not going to blame Team Four Star for it, since the movie itself is pretty much a Excuse Plot, even by the standards of the movies. I like how Tarble was mentioned as possibly being killed off due to how irrelevant the character is in the franchise but was mildly disappointed in that the Tuffles are not mentioned at all. Guess there are no plans to adapt GT. :(
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
Yeah, the problem is that it\'s a pretty unremarkable movie. This reminds me of something the Game Grumps once said, the games that they don\'t upload are the ones that aren\'t good enough to have fun, but also not bad enough to make fun off. This movie doesn\'t do anything new but also doesn\'t have anything terrible or stupid.
I guess I was just hoping that the humor at least could do more than just churn out lame Christmas puns, is all. The Ghost Warriors sequence was the highlight of the show, and it did manage to elevate lame source material through good writing and voice acting.
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Plan to Eradicate Christmas: ...I feel like a jerk saying this, but meh.
Look, from a technical perspective, Team Four Star's 2017 Christmas episode is clearly one of the most ambitious things they've ever done. It features hefty editing, brings together a bunch of the old voice talent from previous stories and movies, includes a bunch of brand new animation made just for this episode, and even has pretty good music and sound mixing. I'm not here to call them lazy or anything like that. And while I'm a bit sad that it's not the fleshing-out of a good idea badly served by the narrative I really wanted out of it, I'm man enough to admit that the plot they came up with to replace it has loads of promise.
But... well, bluntly, the storytelling and writing just aren't up to snuff. A few bits, like Bulma showing up to disperse the miasma partway through the battle, are just part of the source material, but even most of the jokes are misses rather than hits. The vast majority of them are just lame Christmas puns, mis-fired off like machine-gun cartridges in a jammed weapon, and the viewer fatigue they cause ends up dragging down the few really good ones. It just doesn't come across as ultimately satisfying.
I won't say it's all bad. The writing for the Warriors of Christmas Past segment was inspired, even if the way Bulma cuts into it is kind of lame. Again, I do like many of the core ideas, even if certain elements of them are ultimately handled badly. And, as per usual, Team Four Star and their guests all turn in strong performances that manage to elevate the very weak material a bit. But, at the end of the day, I guess the gag dub can only go so far from the source material: it too ends up being a strong central premise poorly executed, sans a few bright spots.