Broly Second Coming ending explained: how does Goku appear?

The second Dragon Ball Z Broly movie is not one of my favorites at all, and its ending, the Family Kamehameha, doesn't make much sense. Goku teaming up with Gohan and his younger son Goten to fire a triple Kamehameha at Broly is an awesome visual without question. But taken in the context of what Dragon Ball has explained to us, and of what happens in the body of the film, the finale doesn't hold together.

The film is Dragon Ball Z: Broly Second Coming (1994), the tenth Dragon Ball Z movie. Here I'm trying to unravel the puzzle of its ending.

How the Family Kamehameha scene in Broly Second Coming plays out

Gohan and Broly fight a war of attrition throughout the film, and both eventually decide it's time to finish it once and for all. Gohan prepares a huge Kamehameha, while Broly jumps on top of a giant plateau and prepares his finishing move. Broly's gigantic green ball of death is too much for Gohan, and it starts pushing Gohan's Kamehameha back toward him.

Goten, realizing his older brother may be at the brink of death, dashes in and fires his own Kamehameha to even the score. The brothers quickly realize it isn't enough and that they need more power. Then something very strange happens. While he's firing, Goten wishes, in his own mind and not out loud, for Shenron the Eternal Dragon to help.

The Dragon Balls, which were not that close by, light up, and the skies turn dark as if the dragon is about to appear and grant a wish. The dragon never comes out. Instead we hear Goku speaking to Gohan and Goten from the afterlife. This film was released after the Cell Games, in a period when Goku was dead. Both sons hear his voice as he gives them a pep talk, and an ethereal image of Goku, seemingly a spirit you can see through, descends from the heavens and joins them in a triple Family Kamehameha.

Why Goten's wish breaks the Dragon Ball rules

Goten remarks that he believes Shenron brought Goku there. Yet we never saw the dragon come out of the Dragon Balls, Goten never properly asked the dragon for a wish, and Goku didn't come back to life. He only appeared as a spirit of sorts.

Every piece of information prior to this film, in the movies, the anime and the manga, tells us how a wish works. You gather the Dragon Balls, you summon the dragon, and then you ask the dragon to grant your wish. You don't wish directly to the Dragon Balls. So already, much of this makes no sense.

My old theory: a tribute to the Father and Son Kamehameha against Cell

When I was younger, I always assumed the writers were giving an homage, a tribute, a throwback to the end of the Cell Games. During the final battle between Gohan and Super Perfect Cell, an image of Goku appears behind Gohan after Goku was already dead. That image in the Father and Son Kamehameha isn't Goku himself, because Goku's physical body was destroyed and his spiritual body was in the afterlife with King Kai.

Instead, it was Goku symbolically passing his spirit down to Gohan, granting him the will to succeed and the will for victory without being there. Goku was still talking to Gohan telepathically from the afterlife, encouraging him, telling him to believe in himself and realize he was stronger than even he knew. I thought the Broly ending was the same idea: Goku passing his spirit down to Gohan and Goten so they could find the willpower to defeat Broly.

Broly says Kakarot, which undercuts the spirit theory

As much as I would love that explanation to be right, because then it would make sense, it simply cannot be the case. A monkey wrench gets thrown into the mix when Broly witnesses Goku appearing and says the word Kakarot. That means Broly sees Goku, even if it may be a spirit and even if it may be symbolic.

There is a possibility that Broly was only seeing Goten. Earlier in the film he thought Goten was Kakarot, as though Goku had become a kid again, which was about three years early, since this isn't GT. So I guess that's a possibility, and I think it's left up to the imagination on purpose. But the way Broly reacts almost seems more like he's reacting to Goku appearing than to Goten.

Goku's own words and the one day back from Baba don't fit

As they struggle against Broly, Goku keeps encouraging Gohan and Goten, telling them to use more of their power because it's not enough. One comment raises a big eyebrow for me: he says they need to be there to protect the Earth when he's not around. Why would Goku say that if he were actually there? He obviously wasn't going to stick around, but it again suggests that it isn't really Goku, but a spirit body. Maybe Broly can see that spirit body, and it isn't only in Gohan and Goten's heads.

Some would say Goku might be using the one day back he got from Baba, since this movie was produced before the episodes aired where Goku uses that day during the World Tournament in the Buu saga. But there's no sign of Baba anywhere, and why would Goku leave right away? These things don't match up.

Meanwhile Trunks tries to pull a John Stockton with the assist and fails, just like his father did against Cell. Goku urges his sons to go full power, and the Family Kamehameha hits, destroying Broly's ki blast and his barrier in the process. It sends Broly into a star or the sun itself, where he meets a very violent end. It looks like his heart is ripped out of his chest, with green blood everywhere. That's the end of Broly, at least until he's cloned in the next movie.

The narrator's ending leaves the Family Kamehameha deliberately ambiguous

When the scene returns to Earth, the Dragon Balls dissipate and scatter around the planet again, almost as if a wish was granted, but there was no dragon. Even Gohan is flabbergasted, wondering whether his father really came down and how it happened.

The narrator then closes the film by asking what that image of Goku was, whether it was a miracle of the Dragon Balls or a momentary apparition, and says nobody can tell. If I'm being blunt, what that really tells us is that the writers wanted a cool ending and wanted it to be purposely ambiguous, even though it makes no sense. There are many logic holes, because rules established in the Dragon Ball universe are broken for this finale.

The best way to describe it is that we're supposed to believe a miracle happened and that the dragon was somehow able to grant a wish from inside the Dragon Balls. None of it makes sense, and in many ways it's lazy writing, though it's meant to be mysterious on purpose. I've thought about this for about 20 years, and it makes no sense at all unless you bend the rules of how everything works in the Dragon Ball universe. And calling it non canon is a non answer: "just because something is non-canonical does not mean it's supposed to not make any sense." The other Dragon Ball movies make sense within the confines of the universe. This one breaks the rules.