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xyzzysqrlOkay well I don't know if I have it in me to write anything too long so let me hit the highlights.
Voltron: Legendary Defender. 11 episodes on Netflix right now, more coming by the end of the year. And they'll need a season 2 because it just kind of stops. Like that's not a spoiler, they run 11 episodes and then there's kind of a big climax episode and just when you're like "Oh, geez, this episode feels like a big deal" it's over and cliffhanger. Except it doesn't even cliffhanger, it just STOPS. Like there was supposed to be one more capstone scene but they didn't animate it and oops oh well just run it as it is.
Not a fan of the ending of season 1, s'what I'm saying.
Aside from that and one other complaint which I'll get to towards the end, this is great stuff though. It feels like a strange mutant made from every other previous Voltron attempt, even stretching back to scoop big chunks of raw DNA from GoLion. (Instead of doomed comic relief Sven, we get war-vet Shiro, an ex-slave who escaped in much the same way as the original Golioners did.) The action scenes are well-animated, the writing is pretty on-point although it has the usual American cartoon problem of nobody ever shutting up for five seconds, and the characters... manage to be CHARACTERS instead of interchangable cut-outs in colored armor. Yay for that.
It's a strange show, anime by way of the US by way of anime again, and blending so many previous efforts into one means I have no idea what Kids Today will make of it. From the original Voltron I remember hours, painful hours, spent with the cutesy mice when I just wanted to get back to robots beating ass. The mice here? Cute, cool, and out of the way before they become a plot strain. Weird druid space magic? Accounted for and just as mystifying to the Voltron Paladins as it was to the Golion crew. It's just a strange blend, but the writing is breezy enough that it goes down smooth.
They also didn't forget to make it a SUPER ROBOT show, which I was concerned about. Voltron picks up new powers as the plot demands them and is, like all good super robots, powered by yelling and emotional sync with its pilots. The lions themselves are kind of the stars of the various action sequences they're in...
...which is good because here comes that other complaint: For a show called "Voltron" there ain't much Voltron in it. Our heroes need time to learn to use their combiner to the fullest, and while we're not talking Dancougar-esqe "It takes 17 episodes before they figure out how to combine" levels, the uncombined lions still take up most of the runtime, with Voltron itself only clicking together a handful of times over the 11 episode run.
Still, for a Voltron show that put most of its emphasis on the pilots and robots that form Voltron instead of on Voltron itself? Pretty good stuff. I'm left eager to see Season 2, AKA "The Second Half of Season 1" AKA "What the Hell Was That Ending, Guys?"
Y'all left the previous Voltron series unfinished, after all. Don't play cocky with this one.
...also the music kept giving me Mass Effect flashbacks. What the heck was up with that?
Voltron: Legendary Defender. 11 episodes on Netflix right now, more coming by the end of the year. And they'll need a season 2 because it just kind of stops. Like that's not a spoiler, they run 11 episodes and then there's kind of a big climax episode and just when you're like "Oh, geez, this episode feels like a big deal" it's over and cliffhanger. Except it doesn't even cliffhanger, it just STOPS. Like there was supposed to be one more capstone scene but they didn't animate it and oops oh well just run it as it is.
Not a fan of the ending of season 1, s'what I'm saying.
Aside from that and one other complaint which I'll get to towards the end, this is great stuff though. It feels like a strange mutant made from every other previous Voltron attempt, even stretching back to scoop big chunks of raw DNA from GoLion. (Instead of doomed comic relief Sven, we get war-vet Shiro, an ex-slave who escaped in much the same way as the original Golioners did.) The action scenes are well-animated, the writing is pretty on-point although it has the usual American cartoon problem of nobody ever shutting up for five seconds, and the characters... manage to be CHARACTERS instead of interchangable cut-outs in colored armor. Yay for that.
It's a strange show, anime by way of the US by way of anime again, and blending so many previous efforts into one means I have no idea what Kids Today will make of it. From the original Voltron I remember hours, painful hours, spent with the cutesy mice when I just wanted to get back to robots beating ass. The mice here? Cute, cool, and out of the way before they become a plot strain. Weird druid space magic? Accounted for and just as mystifying to the Voltron Paladins as it was to the Golion crew. It's just a strange blend, but the writing is breezy enough that it goes down smooth.
They also didn't forget to make it a SUPER ROBOT show, which I was concerned about. Voltron picks up new powers as the plot demands them and is, like all good super robots, powered by yelling and emotional sync with its pilots. The lions themselves are kind of the stars of the various action sequences they're in...
...which is good because here comes that other complaint: For a show called "Voltron" there ain't much Voltron in it. Our heroes need time to learn to use their combiner to the fullest, and while we're not talking Dancougar-esqe "It takes 17 episodes before they figure out how to combine" levels, the uncombined lions still take up most of the runtime, with Voltron itself only clicking together a handful of times over the 11 episode run.
Still, for a Voltron show that put most of its emphasis on the pilots and robots that form Voltron instead of on Voltron itself? Pretty good stuff. I'm left eager to see Season 2, AKA "The Second Half of Season 1" AKA "What the Hell Was That Ending, Guys?"
Y'all left the previous Voltron series unfinished, after all. Don't play cocky with this one.
...also the music kept giving me Mass Effect flashbacks. What the heck was up with that?
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Date: 2016-07-29 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-29 11:28 pm (UTC)