Most anime movies are side stories that don't clearly fit into any of the manga or series continuity. This is because the majority of them have different writers. The writer wants to either tell his alternate version of the story, or basically animate a fanfic that for the most part matches the feel and overal ambiance of the series, but doesn't necessarily fit anywhere in the timeline. I think *all* of the DBZ movies are like that. There's only two I can think of that actually fit into the timeline of a series: the first is End of Evangelion, which retells the last two episodes of the series from a different perspective... even that may have an alternate ending (depending on your perspective). The second is the Cowboy Bebop movie, which happens between episodes 22 and 23, I believe. Or maybe 23 and 24. But the episodic nature of that show is extremely easy to fit a movie into.
02-Mar-2005