Cooler's back as a cyborg and this time Vegeta actually matters, watching him and Goku move from rivals to a functional team transforms what could've been another rehash into something that earns its place in the DBZ movie lineup. The action doesn't waste time on setup; it finds New Namek and immediately starts breaking things, which is exactly what a DBZ film should do. Vegeta's arc from survival instinct to reluctant partnership is the real draw here, not the villain's mechanics.

Cooler's ambitions refuse to die. A strange mechanical mass called the Big Gete Star latches onto New Namek and begins draining the planet's energy, putting every Namekian at risk. Dende, now Earth's guardian, learns what is happening to his homeland and asks Goku and his friends for help. On arrival they find the Namekians captured by powerful robots, and the one commanding them is Cooler, returned as a machine. He reveals that the Big Gete Star's advanced technology rescued him from certain death. With his mechanical army behind him, Cooler sets out to wipe out Goku and his allies for good. The result is an action-packed science fiction film built around a clash with an enemy who escaped death itself.