Netflix's Voltron: Legendary Defender

It's not fair! They ganged up on me!

I loved the cheesiness of Fleet of Doom! I admit though, they can't really have it like that.

I don't really consider "Netflix seasons" to be actual seasons, since they usually make 26-episode orders and just split them in half when they put them out. So, I'd expect episode 13 to be the mid-season finale and would likely expect something to happen to Shiro by then.

So I guess this means that we won't be getting another season of Voltron Force?

That's too bad, I loved Voltron Force. It was a nice continuation of the original story that made up for its cheap animation with some very strong writing that developed Voltron's lore and backstory, and introduced new characters that were interesting in their own right without overshadowing the originals.

...

Really? Cause you're the first person I've heard that out of. I got the impression everyone hated Voltron Force. Are you saying the reasons were less legitimate than I'd been led to believe?

I'm sure the folks who dislike it have legitimate reasons for disliking it, just as I'm sure the folks who like it have legitimate reasons for liking it. One opinion does not cancel out the other.

I have not seen the series myself, so I can't chime in on whether it's good or not, but the aforementioned "crippling Voltron with a shotgun" sounds like seriously bad writing.

I have to say that I liked Vehicle Voltron at the time it was released (haven't seen it since, or the Fleet of Doom). The show actually did a fairly good job sharing the focus among the large cast, witth most of it going to the three captains (the vehicles were divided into land, air, and sea types, and each unit had it's own captain). An interesting thing, I thought, was how this show humanized it's antagonists. There was actually an episode that did a take on the Christmas Truce of WWI, and the series ended not with a stirring defeat of enemy forces, but with a coup in the enemies' leadership, that had been built up to all season.

I do remember that the enemy race resembled Lotor somewhat (blue skin and white hair...I dimly remember them saying that Lotor's mother was supposed to have been from this race).and that one of the Voltron pilots, a youngish teenager with glasses, was supposed to be Pidge's twin brother.

edited 3rd Apr '16 9:39:40 AM by Robbery

Yeah. That stuff was added in for Fleet of Doom (even though said brother was taller than Pidge).

I'm pretty sure Pidge's twin mentioned their relationship well before the Fleet of Doom (unless I'm wrong about when Fleet of Doom happened). There was an episode that centered around his panicking in combat, and one of the other pilots complained that he'd "never be half the man his brother Pidge is" (he, of course, goes on to behave rather valiantly before the end of the episode). As to the stuff about Lotor, I don't know. I remember for much of the series there was no explanation as to why he looked so different from the rest of his people.

I loved the opening for Voltron Force & I actually liked it back when it was airing when I was younger back then.

That was actually addressed in Voltron Force - we got to meet Pidge's brother, and their home planet.

That was two things I liked about Force — it was written by guys who knew their backstory to Voltron, and it visited other planets.

Also, the "crippling with a shotgun" thing is a classic example of deliberately exaggerating what really happened to make it sound as stupid as possible.

What actually happened is the secondary villain used a high powered assault rifle that fired a drill composed of cordite - established previously as an extremely rare metal and one of the hardest substances in the universe - directly into Voltron's core, forcing it into shut down and allowing him to hack it's systems and take control.

Here's the scene in question.

edited 3rd Apr '16 5:00:46 PM by drac0blade

It was a shotgun. It had a wood grain grip. One shot, from a machine that was shown to withstand atmopsheric re-entry.

Considering the sheer amount of talent and pedigree behind Legendary Defender, this is a clear case of Win Back the Crowd. No cadets, no awful third tier animation, no shotguns disabling giant robots, etc.

edited 3rd Apr '16 4:57:34 PM by Beatman1

...from a drill made from what was established as the hardest substance in existence. That only did anything because of where it hit Voltron. And the cadets were interesting characters in their own right, given clear personalities and significant development, while not taking away from the original cast.

It looks like the new Voltron series will be good — although I'm a bit miffed by the total lack of the theme in the trailer — but as far as I'm concerned, there is no need to win the crowd back.

edited 3rd Apr '16 5:14:20 PM by drac0blade

A drill about the size of your average buckshot shell. Fired from a shotgun. Then again, the series had established that Lotor could beat Voltron up on foot, and that the machine was useless without the cadet commandos. And when they anticipated the complaints, they went full Teen Titans Go with an episode about how much the cadets rock and the haters suck. And that's when a show is out of ideas.

The cadets were kinda bland. I mean 2 were just plucked from the academy without much reason with both being the typical leader/protagonist type, a nerdy guy & the other is kinda the token go-girl try-hard.

Also I don't think the shotgun shouldn't have pushed it back. I mean if it was that strong Wade should have received some major recoil.

All of which was especially made to penetrate Voltron's armor and hack his systems, and therefore wasn't ordinary at all. And Lothar was only able to beat Voltron because he was superpowered at the time. And with one notable exception, Voltron won all the time - sometimes with the cadet's help, sometimes without it - so it was not useless.

And I liked that "Voltron's Biggest Fan" episode.

Edit: I figured it had a self-propulsion system that kicked in when it hit Voltron.

edited 3rd Apr '16 6:45:00 PM by drac0blade

Voltron in Force never won without Vince or the other cadets. There's a particularly hilarious example in one episode where they complain "Voltron was never designed for close range combat!" despite its big weapon being a sword. It skirted full on God-Mode Sue at numerous points, for one note characters that detracted more than anything.

I don't know how this series will end up, but I want to be optimistic.

Except, of course, for all the times when it did. There were plenty of times when the cadets either weren't involved, or didn't do anything special. The finale comes to mind, when the old guard uses a move that the cadets didn't even know existed. Voltron's wasn't made specifically for close combat, and his long sword only comes out for finishing moves. If I recall correctly, the episode in question was against an enemy that was meant for hand-to-hand melee, and was running circles around Voltron.

And like I said, I liked the cadets - mostly because they easily could have been one note characters, but weren't. And they didn't "detract" anything - to me, anyway.

And I, too would like to be optimistic. I'd like them to keep the lore that was introduced in Force, as well as the ability to change heads. In fact, I'd like them to do more with the different forms - one issue I had with the show is they didn't do enough to differentiate them, other then a different finishing weapon.

edited 3rd Apr '16 7:21:52 PM by drac0blade

Well we'll see. The idea of changing heads isn't a bad one, but if Force is that reviled, people might take anything from it the wrong way, even something that could be argued to be good.

I'd say it's better to just establish his regular abilities before bringing in something like that.

Also, been watching eps of the older series too. Just finished ep five, where after transforming the old castle into the newer Castle of Lions, Allura climbs onto a laser turret and starts shooting anything shootable.

Never knew she did that. Girl's got spunk.

Why would you keep lore from a show that by all metrics, was considered a flop?

Look, I'm not a hardcore fan of Voltron per se. Let's face it, the show was cheesy, the plots ridiculously simple, the animation could be really wonky at times, and in general, the super robot genre had advanced quite a bit since the days of Voltron. In a world where Shin Getter Robo, Gao Gai Gar, and Gurren Lagann exist, it's hard for me to view Voltron as the be-all, end-all of super robots. But Force not only didn't realize that, it actually took away from stuff that made Voltron cool in the first place, added three characters no one particularly cared for, and ended on a whimper of a cliffhanger.

Now they're given the chance to start over. Nothing to follow up on, just a clean slate, with a very, very credentialed staff behind them, and Netflix as opposed to Nicktoons, which means they should have a lot more leeway. So, in a case like that, at least to me, doesn't it make more sense to just take that core concept (five guys find mechanical lions that combine into a super robot) and develop it without all the prior baggage? You don't go so far away from that core premise as to make it unrecognizable, but at the same time, you don't need to follow up on the cadets, on the core center gimmick (which to me came off as a much lamer version of Getter Robo's form changes) or anything like that. Maybe I'm thinking about this too hard, I dunno.

edited 3rd Apr '16 9:25:19 PM by Beatman1

You got a point there.

Though you have to remember there's an audience that might not know Getter Robo, so to them, the idea of head changing could still be cool, even if Force dropped the ball so hard it left a crater that reached the centre of the earth.

But like I said (and like you seem to be saying) that's a concept that doesn't need to be broached right now. Stick with the basic idea first. I mean, since they are gonna build up to the actual transforming to Voltron (fighting with the lions) and not even bust out the Blazing sword on the get go, they don't need to worry about getting creative with the battles for a while as I see it, as they got quite a bit to work with.

Except no, it didn't. It added to the lore and mythos, introduced new concepts, such as different forms, turned the old cast into three-dimensional characters, and introduced new characters that stood up well on their own. And the cliffhanger was awsome, and a big reason why I'm bummed there's no second season.

Edit: Also, it got a seven on IMDB - not great, but certainly not "reviled."

edited 3rd Apr '16 10:07:29 PM by drac0blade

Well, Voltron is one of the relatively few giant-robot shows to succeed on American TV. If I'm not mistaken, it was the first combining robot show to get imported. We'd had Gigantor back in the 50's, and Tranzor Z was on at approximately the same time as Voltron (that's when I saw it, anyhow). Robotech didn't come along until a bit later. It has a pretty good sized American fanbase, even outside Anime fan circles. Hell, Voltron got referenced on Lost, and in Deadpool, if you remember.

Still, I think a lot of the mistake in attempts to revive Voltron have been that the makers are ignoring the fact that this show, while translated into English, is Anime. It has a different flavor than an entirely western show.

Ya know the new Voltron transformation is pretty detailed. Compared to Force which simply has them change & just attaches them dramatically slowly, the new transformation has you see it the technology combing & shifting & using a lot of inter-shots. Makes it more dramatic.

The 80's nostalgia made it iconic the same way Mazinger was in Mexico, Grendizer/Goldrake in France and Arab speaking countries, etc. It became that definitive example of what mecha was. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself. It's just that, in the case of the sequels, they never really took advantage of more complex storytelling or more interesting ideas with the robot. Granted, Mazinger's update in Mazinkaiser was massively over the top, and that might not necessarily work for Voltron. But while all these shows moved forward, Voltron Force gave us the cadets. The one-note characters that the show had to spend an entire episode shilling to get them over (which they weren't).

The hope is that with a clean slate, that core concept can be renovated and updated, rather than need to stay stringent to pre-established lore, no matter how vague.

Hell, get new music. I wonder how many Voltron fans would call sacrilege if the combining was set to something besides a variation of the classic theme. (My mecha fanboy is imagining Jam Project making something for it. Gasshin! Voltron!)

I think part of the problem with introducing new characters to Voltron, at least if they're new characters who are pilots (and if they weren't pilots, they'd just be supporting characters) is that they're essentially superfluous unless something's happened to the original five. You've got five Lions, and five pilots. You don't need more pilots then that. And okay, realistically speaking, it'd be smart to keep trained alternates around just in case something happened to the primary pilots, but this is a giant robot show, for crying out loud. They rarely have that kind of verisimilitude.

There was always more than a little bit of a magical aura about Voltron, too. Not just Hagar, but about Voltron itself. The Lions were supposed to be ancient and legendary before the team ever got to them (makes you wonder who their first pilots were...).

Yes, and one of the nice things about Force was it expanded on the mystical side of Voltron. Some of the best episodes were spend learning about Voltron's backstory, like were he was forged thousands of years ago and how the process was as much mystical as it was technological.

Even without the cadets Force considerably expanded on Voltron's lore.

And for a while, the cadets were supporting characters - they were used for new audiences to get used to the setting, and grew and developed with main cast. They don't become pilots until the end of the season, and when it did it felt earned. Plus, the two who stepped down had good reasons to do so - Allura so she could focus on being Queen, Pidge so he could focus on the tech side - and remained essential parts of the cast.

edited 4th Apr '16 10:41:21 AM by drac0blade