Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might

Turles, the movie's main villain.

Turles (ターレス, Tāresu, known as "Tullece") is the film's main antagonist, a dark-skinned Saiyan who resembles Goku. While the dubs alluded his similar appearance to Goku, JUMP magazine identifies Turles as Goku's older brother though let ambiguous if he is older than Raditz.[1] In the film's storyline, Turles roamed the universe under the planet trade organization before going rogue after discovering the Tree of Might seeds, which can leech off a planet's life energy and store it in fruit. He quickly assembled the Turles Crusher Corps, a band of rebels who had terrorized several planets before, and conquered various worlds before reaching Earth where they resistance from the Z-Fighters. While fighting Goku, Turles eats one of the fruits and he greatly overpowers him, gaining the upper hand, even able to destroy a Spirit Bomb. With the planet's energy slowly deteriorating, Goku creates another Spirit Bomb from the immense energy of the Tree of Might and uses this to kill Turles and destroy the tree. In Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and 3 he is given an exclusive "Great Ape" form for the game. Turles also appears in the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVA alongside Frieza, Cooler, and Lord Slug. He also appears as a major villain in Xenoverse 2. Another version of Turles appears alongside Bojack in Super Dragon Ball Heroes.

• OP (Opening Theme):
  • "Rock the Dragon"
    • Performed by Ron Wasserman[3] and Jeremy Sweet[3]
• ED (Ending Theme):
  • "End Title"
    • Performed by Ron Wasserman[3] and Jeremy Sweet[3]

The score for the 1997 Saban TV version was composed by Ron Wasserman (although credited to Kussa Mahehi and Shuki Levy for contractual reasons).[4] The background music and opening theme "Rock the Dragon" were recycled from his Saiyan / Namek Saga dub soundtrack.

• OP (Opening Theme):
  • "Dragon Ball Z Movie Theme"
    • Performed by Mark Menza
• ED (Ending Theme):
  • "Dragon Ball Z Movie Theme"
    • Performed by Mark Menza

Funimation's 2006 in-house dub featured a new score by Nathan M. Johnson. However, remastered releases contain both English audio tracks with the Johnson soundtrack and original Japanese score by Shunsuke Kikuchi.

The 1998 Pioneer release, 2003 AB Groupe dub and Speedy Video dub all kept the original Japanese songs and background music.

At the Japanese box office, the film sold 2.2 million tickets and earned a net distribution rental income of ¥800 million,[5][6] equivalent to estimated gross receipts of approximately ¥2 billion[7] ($15 million).[8]

The title card used for Saban's three "The Tree of Might" TV episodes from 1997.

It was first dubbed in English by Funimation Entertainment in association with Saban Entertainment and Ocean Productions.[9] This dub edited the film into a three-part television episode, which first aired in North American countries during November 1997[9] as part of the show's second season. Funimation later sub-licensed the home video rights for the movie to Pioneer Home Entertainment who, also in association with Ocean Productions, re-dubbed the movie, and released it uncut on VHS and DVD on March 17, 1998, featuring the then-current English voice cast from the TV series, dialogue more accurately translated from the original Japanese script, and the original Japanese background music.[9]

Funimation also released the movie to DVD on November 14, 2006 as part of a movie box set subtitled "First Strike", also containing Dead Zone and The World's Strongest with "Ultimate Uncut Edition", with a completely new dub done by Funimation's voice cast. It was later digitally remastered and released in a Double Feature set with Lord Slug on Blu-ray and DVD on September 16, 2008. The film was re-released to DVD on November 1, 2011 in a remastered box set containing the first five Dragon Ball Z movies.[10] Also, Funimation was released the edited movie dub finally made it in Rock the Dragon Edition box set on August 13, 2013, the 1997 Saban/Ocean film dub was not presented in the episodic format in which it originally aired, but rather as a stand-alone movie on the final disc of the set, the Ocean dub has 53 edited episodes of the series, plus two movies of uncut dubs of Dead Zone and The World's Strongest.

Other English dubs were also made by French company AB Groupe and Malaysian company Speedy Video. These dubs, which are notorious for poor voice acting, were never released in North America. While the Malaysian dub's cast remains unknown, it has recently been discovered that English-speaking actors living in France were involved in the AB Groupe dub (see above). Some of these voice actors were also speculated to have dubbed animated shows produced in France, such as Code Lyoko and Chris Colorado.[11]

Funimation's first dub of The Tree of Might done in association with Saban Entertainment and Ocean was heavily edited for content and length, just like their dub of Dragon Ball Z.[9][12]

• In order to spread time for the movie to be a three-part episode, several scenes from the series were added, such as when Shenlong is summoned, when Turles, his henchmen, and Piccolo make their first appearances in the film, and most of Kaio-sama's scenes.[12]
• Blood was completely edited out in the movie and the violence was toned down as well. For example, scenes where a character was punched or kicked hard were blocked by flashes of light.[12]
• The scene where Turles forces Gohan to transform into a Great Ape by holding his face and forcing him to keep his eyes open at the power ball was edited, but Turles held him by his shoulders instead. At the same time when Gohan looks at the power ball, absorbing its Blutz Waves through his eyes and beginning to transform into a Great Ape, no heartbeat sound effect were heard in the Japanese and English uncut versions, but were digitally edited in background in the English edited version. During that same scene, when Gohan's tail grows out of his pants after he was pinned to the ground by Turles, the sound effect of it ripping through his pants were also edited.[12]
• The scene where Turles has his foot on top of Goku was edited, but Goku's face under Turles's foot wasn't shown.[12]
• The scenes where Gohan is nude, after he reverts from his Great Ape form, were edited, but he was covered up by some means, such as adding extended lighting to the scene where Goku catches Gohan after cutting off his tail or adding a digital bush in front of him during the scene where he is awakened by Hire Dragon. They did, however, forget to remove or censor a shot when Gohan is lying naked in Goku's arms, but it is barely noticeable.[12]