How Could 'Dragon Ball Super' Retcon 'Dragon Ball Z's Ending?

As popular as Dragon Ball Super has become, many fans have been wondering how Super has an effect on the ending of the original Dragon Ball Z ending. Since Dragon Ball Super picks up after Goku defeated Kid Buu, but before the official ending of Dragon Ball Z, fans have been thinking whether or not Super could even retcon the ending.

The end of Dragon Ball Z featured a Goku, that hasn't been seen in five years, appearing at the latest World Tournament. He ends up fighting the reincarnation of Majin Buu, Uub, and leaves to train him. But in that span of time, fans were introduced to new characters like Gohan and Videl's daughter Pan.

But if Super takes place in the time in-between Buu's defeat and the ending, there's still a weird five year period where Goku will disappear. This already makes the events of Super make a little less sense in the long run as Goku seems heavily involved with events like the Tournament of Power. There's an argument that can be made that Dragon Ball has a weird sense of time, too. The 48 minutes of the Tournament of Power have yet to pass even after 24 or so episodes, and the original series didn't really do well with time limits either as Freeza's "five minutes to Namek's explosion" was a gross understatement.

So how does Super fix this? Much like Toriyama has fixed things in the past, just keep pushing forward. If Dragon Ball Super ends in a satisfying enough way, then fans are sure to forget the events of Dragon Ball Z. In fact, Toriyama and Toyotaro could still wrap the events of Dragon Ball Z's finale into Super's and just rewrite a bit of the time line. It's a common practice in comics to rewrite plot elements in order to accommodate new stories, and it would be accepted here just as well as long as certain core elements remain in place.

New elements introduced in Super seem to go against Z's ending too, as Trunks and Goten still seem interested in battle here, Pan, as an infant, has shown to have inherited a great amount of strength, and Uub has been referenced to already have enough strength to even be considered for the Tournament of Power (albeit for a short time).

If Toriyama is comfortable adding ideas like the Saiyan S-Cells into the canon long after they were first hinted at, then it stands to reason he has been working toward a new finale for Dragon Ball.

Dragon Ball Super airs on Crunchyroll Saturday evenings at 7:15 p.m. CST. Adult Swim airs the English dub during its Toonami block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m, and is now available to stream on FunimationNOW and Amazon Video

There is also currently a new Dragon Ball film in the works for 2018. Not only does it aim to be the best film in the series, original creator Akira Toriyama will be contributing to the film's script and new character designs. There have also been details shared over its possible story. The film will focus on the Saiyans, the "origins of Goku's power," and potentially the story of the very first Super Saiyan God.