Netflix's Voltron: Legendary Defender

You can vent to me about the fan pairings all day if you want, but I understand if others don't want to see it,

Hence why I put it in spoilers.

I'm not sure the issue with Lotor is. The man is actually thinking. Zarkon's issues are his unbridled arrogance & his obsession with the Black Lion prevented him from winning. Had he listened to Haggar he would have not ended up in a coma. Lotor in comparison is just a rational guy, he's willing to think things through & well plan accordingly. Dudes pretty kickass.

Why Lance though, why ship Lotor with him specifically?

Lotor is also extremely competent, isn't taking pointless risks for the sake of an obsession, faked loyalty and honor to gather supporters.

He's "totally" the same.

Honestly, he's a pretty unique change-up. It's just too bad we have very few episodes to see him develop compared to Zarkon. But regardless, he's been very clearly different with his tactical style.

He's also kicking around a Voltron that is being led by Keith with three novice pilots in their lions, so it makes sense he's able to beat them with greater success.

He's still using the same tools Zarkon did. That's where the disconnect is coming from IMO.

He's just using them better & even then its an immense amount of tools provided by the empire to him the prince, why wouldn't he use them?

Though that ship he's flying is the first time we ever saw a Galra ship like that.

I'd assume were gonna get more of his backstory soon. I mean he's going up against his father so wouldn't that mean we have to learn more about him?

@slimcoder I dunno. People typically ship Lance with Keith, like me. But for some reason, people put Lance together woth Lotor and it's always Lotor pursuing him.

It's probably because in the original show Lotor had an obsession with trying to capture the Blue Lion, and people extrapolated that to be him stalking Lance.

Yeah. His backstory sounds like it's going to get interesting. We already learned more of Zarkon's, and it was a doozy.

Should be rather neat, much like the other backstories.

Huh alright, that makes sense.

I am very curious as to how & when he was born.

I can't imagine Zarkon ever mated with another woman & Haggar is in no condition for pregnancy alogn with the interactions the latter had with Lotor shows the two are unfamiliar with each other. I'd imagine Lotor is a test-tube baby made by Zarkon who never told his son about his mother much.

Unless she was pregnant with him before they became zombies.

Or evil purple Quintessence did some weird shit inside her using both their dna. They were holding hands even as they died.

Is adoption not a thing with the Galra?

x5

Not to sound like I'm accusing anyone in this thread of being guilty of the same, but it's actually because a lot of fandom has collectively decided on Lance as THE Audience Surrogate out of the main cast in fanworks, largely due to his self-confidence issues which they find easier to relate to than the rest of the cast's issues, and Hunk is a bit too happy for them to indulge in teen angst with. Lancetor is just the intersection of this with people who find appeal in Bastard Boyfriend and other dark-type relationships a la Twilight, as much as they might claim to hate the actual book. Given that shipping fandom tends to be primarily women and trans men, and quite a few of them are still attracted to these kinds of relationships (just take a peek at Reylo fandom) it's not surprising Lancetor took off.

It also explains why Lance fandom has such a noisy Fan Dumb, especially within the Lance For Black Paladin movement and Klance shipper segments, as well as the huge popularity of Altean Lance and other such AUs filled with Chuunibyou tropes that change Lance from an everyman to secret super special person, or shove him into the plot position of another character wholesale. It's the classic Mary Sue principle except applied to an existing character. These people have come to not just relate to Lance but project themselves a bit too much onto him as a vehicle for vicarious fantasizing, therefore the existence of people who aren't as into Lance as they or prefer other things from the show takes on a level of personal affront that's harder for them to ignore.

The Blue Lion thing is definitely an interesting parallel, but from my experience most of the Lancetor shippers I've come across are not all that familiar with the old Voltron, especially not that particular aspect, or they only found out about it after they got into the Lancetor ship. The ones who have tend to prefer the actual Allura for that dynamic due to nostalgia, even if Lotor hasn't made any such moves yet.

Apologies for the wall of text, but to be more on-topic:
According to this recent interview, a lot of the series' problems with rushed pacing and emotional beats come from Dreamworks executives hamstringing the writers. Of note, the episode 7 flashback was supposed to be two episodes' worth of content. It seems like the showrunners are actually under pretty tight control and that a lot of the show's problems aren't necessarily their faults.

edited 26th Aug '17 6:34:38 PM by AlleyOop

Wow, Dreamworks is now officially more awful than I thought. And these guys thought a fucking Trolls movie was a good idea.

Something tells me this is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Reading that interview, I also can't shake the feeling that they rather just be making a big space opera setting about their space ninja. Like, Voltron already has very little screen time, all told.

Honestly the idea of an expanded universe like Star Trek or Star Wars has the problem that Star Trek had other ships, Star Wars has plenty of Jedi and smugglers. But they've been kinda adamant there can be only one Voltron, to the point building another took a comet from an alternate reality to build.

Between this and the Galra having only spaceships to fight with, I still can't shake the impression they just really don't know what to do with a giant robot. It feels more like an elephant in the room than a star attraction. Especially now the Paladins have gained some competence and can hold their own in the better-choreographed ground fights.

Also, aren't the Robeasts basically retired?

And yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah that is like my main complaint with this show.

The utter lack of Robeast fights.

Hell Voltron only got into one fight with a comparable foe in season 3 & that was only in the season finale in a flashback.

edited 27th Aug '17 1:44:45 PM by slimcoder

Honestly, even cannon-fodder mass production versions of Zarkon's robot to spice up the fleet battles would be nice. Just something for Voltron to actually Sword Fight against would be nice.

Oh well, at least the Shoulder Cannon's Wave-Motion Gun setting finally did something. I think that's a first for the whole series.

Season 3 was also only half of a full season. When the second half comes out, I'm sure Voltron vs Lotor's comet spaceship combiner will be the big finale.

x4 There are some metas online that focus on that, they claim to be fans of anime, but they don't know WHAT anime. Certainly not super robot anime, because they have no idea how to use the robot. And I don't even mean stereotypically, because again, Giant Robo, a work of utter genius, didn't use them all the time, but when they did, it mattered.

Here, Voltron doesn't matter. It gets in the way of their story. And the interviews seem to cast the writers as fighting Dreamworks to keep Voltron out as much as possible. I almost kinda wonder if Lauren and Dos Santos would have been better off making an armored hero show, instead of a giant robot one. The Centurions license is gathering dust after all. The Paladins in hand to hand combat bores me admittedly.

edited 27th Aug '17 2:08:02 PM by Beatman1

I'd prefer better robot fights, but this season at least the time spent with them on-foot isn't them just getting bumbling around until an escape route opens or a convenient airlock can be found. It is kinda telling what direction they want, though, seeing that Lotor's team are introduced retaking a planet in full ninja-mode instead of having any fancy combat vehicles of their own.

Which is fine, if that's what they wanted to do, but in that case, couldn't you have remade Saint Seiya (I guess Netflix is already doing that) or Centurions instead of Voltron? You clearly put a lot of time and effort into these hand to hand fight scenes, doing your best to replicate the style of choreography from the Avatar series (no clue if the guy who choreographed the animated fight scenes for that is involved here) which I personally find boring, but you're clearly very proud of, given the time and care put into them.

I dunno, it just seems like they either don't know how to use the robot, or just don't like it. It's an obstacle, not the star of the show whose name is in the credits.

edited 27th Aug '17 2:16:42 PM by Beatman1

It was really awkward during the Season 2 finale how much the Blades and Allura fighting the Druids and Haggar outclassed the big setpiece of Voltron having an actual battle, and this unfortunately seems to be a continuing trend in Season 3 where it's like, none of that translates to the robot battle choreography.

Also, given the fact the only cannon fodder in the series are battleships, it's a shame they really nerfed the arsenal down to like, three weapons, two of which use basically the same visual effect. Having the full arsenal would have at least given it some visual variety.