The Return of Cooler Movie - Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball Z: The Return of Cooler is a Japanese animated fantasy and martial arts film that first premiered on March 7th, 1992. It is the sixth movie based off the Dragon Ball Z series franchise. The Return of Cooler was directed by Daisuke Nishio and produced by Chiaki Imada and Rikizo Kayano. The production team also included Takao Koyama (scriptwriter), Shunsuke Kikuchi (music), and Yukio Katayama (cinematography). It was first shown at the 1992 Toei Anime Film Fair was later distributed by Toei Company. The film was an instant success and managed to earn 2.72 billion yen in sales in Japan alone.

Summary

After the fight between Frieza and Super Saiyan Goku on Namek, the planet was left completely destroyed, leaving the Namekians without a place to call home. With the help of the Dragon Balls on Earth, New Namek was created and everyone was now living in peace. One day, however, a colossal metal planet appeared by New Namek and latched on to it. The metallic parasite then began draining the energy from the planet and started to grow. Robots started capturing many Namekians, despite them having several strong fighters. Back on Earth, Dende, the new protector of Earth, senses a call for help from his fellow people on New Namek, leading him to ask Goku and his friends for help.

Goku, Krillin, Gohan, Piccolo, Oolong, Master Roshi, and Yajirobe all arrive on the planet later on. They are met by an army of robots and it is revealed that Cooler is alive and well, despite Goku defeating him several years prior. Cooler is planning on using the Namekians as biological fuel to power the Big Gete Star. Goku decides to fight Cooler on his own while the others try to take care of the other robots. Both parties have a hard time defeating their opponents due to their hard metal bodies, so Piccolo tells Gohan and Krillin to focus their attacks on one enemy at a time. They finally begin destroying a few of the robots, but are quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Although Goku is left to fight Cooler, the others (with the exception of Piccolo) are taken into the Big Gete Star.

Goku, still in his base form, seems to be having trouble breaking through Cooler’s tough metal skin, even with Kaio-ken. He then transforms into a Super Saiyan and manages to finally cut one of his arms off. However, to his surprise, Cooler can almost instantly regenerate it back. Goku continues to fight back, but eventually ends up being strangled by Cooler, only to be saved by Vegeta at the last minute. The Saiyan prince decides that it’s his turn, goes Super Saiyan, and attacks Cooler. However, he is quickly sent flying back with a single punch. The two Saiyans now try working together to destroy the foe. They begin alternating attacks, though Cooler seems to be generally unfazed by them.

On the Big Gete Star, a small robot leads the kidnapped victims to a room that is supposedly supposed to chop them up and turn them into bio-fuel. Yajirobe is not too keen about being murdered and turned into fuel, so he whacks the robot on the head. In response, the robot decides that Yajirobe is to be the first on the chopping block. Piccolo finally breaks into the Big Gete Star and tries to free those that were captured.

Meanwhile, Goku and Vegeta are nearly at their limit, causing Goku to ask Vegeta to try a final simultaneous attack to defeat Cooler. Vegeta begrudgingly agrees and after a long battle, Cooler is finally defeated. The duo collapse from exhaustion and they take a minute to rest. Their break is short-lived, however, as they see dozens upon dozens of other Coolers begin to climb down the mountainside in the background. They are quickly captured, taken into the Big Gete Star, and hooked up to a strange energy-absorbing device. Cooler then begins describing how he was reborn as a part of the Big Gete Star.

The villain tells them that, after somehow surviving Goku’s attack from the previous movie, Cooler found himself in a graveyard for spaceships and satellites. A microchip found in that graveyard had a powerful A.I. programmed into it that allowed it to grow by absorbing other matter and energy into itself. Whatever was left of Cooler’s body and mind was integrated into the Big Gete Star and he managed to take control of some parts of the A.I., allowing him to create new bodies of himself that he calls “Meta-Coolers”.

Cooler then extracts all of the energy from the Super Saiyans. Although they were supposed to be completely drained, the two somehow unleash a surge of powerful energy that is strong enough to overload the Big Gete Star’s system, causing it to explode. Yajirobe, now strapped into the chopping machine, is saved just in time due to all of the electronics failing. Everyone that was kidnapped earlier manages to escape from the Big Gete Star before it explodes. Goku and Vegeta are seen falling from the sky shortly after. The party finds that Vegeta has already left the planet. He is then seen in a pod with a computer chip in his hand, which he crushes, completely destroying it.

Releases

Apart from the original Japanese release, North America received a VHS and DVD version of the film on August, 13th, 2002. A digitally remastered version of the film was later released as a double feature with Cooler’s Revenge on Blu-ray and DVD six years later on November 11th, 2008. A DVD box set with Dragon Ball Z movies 5 through 8 was also released on December 6th, 2011.

Links

Dragon Ball Series
Dragon Ball Z Series
Dragon Ball Kai Series
Dragon Ball Super Series
Dragon Ball GT Series
Super Dragon Ball Heros
Akira Toriyama