An In-Depth Analysis of Voltron: Legendary Defender

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Wait a second...

That's not TFA Part 3!

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/x2spooky4me 📅︎︎ Jun 08 2020 🗫︎ replies

Is this on YouTube? Wouldn’t mind listening to this while working

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Jun 08 2020 🗫︎ replies
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Yikes well this took way longer than expected anyway Voltron Legendary defender is a Netflix original animated television show produced by DreamWorks about a group of space explorers who are forced to face the numerous Challenges thrown at them by the likes of the Gullah a race of aliens intent on conquering the universe Along with the struggles of working as a team and returning hope to the universe this series first landed on Netflix on June 10th 2016 and released its final season bringing Voltron story to an end on December 14th 2018 during that time the show garnered a huge and dedicated fanbase young and old thanks to its family-friendly comedy Alluring premise and strong ratings in this video I am going to thoroughly deconstruct and analyze each element of this show in an attempt to make an unbiased judgment of its overall quality of Course being unbiased is impossible as when you get down to the real essence of any piece of art Personal taste will always exist. And that is why before I make any judgments about this show I feel it's necessary to make it as clear as possible that you yes You are allowed to like or dislike Whatever it is that you like or dislike and you should never feel ashamed for doing so that said if you feel differently about something In Voltron than what was depicted in this video Please explain why in the comments and I will do my best to respond this channel is still small enough that I can easily read and reply to every comment I get so don't think Oh, Even if I comment something, it's not like you'll see it as an excuse Also, if you are going to make an argument, you'd better have already watched Voltron and this entire video first I know that's a tall order But I'm not going to repeat myself Part of why I make these videos is so I don't have to explain my stance on something every time it comes up in Conversation that said there are a few more things. I'd like to mention before we begin number one This video will obviously contain spoilers for the entirety of Voltron legendary defender You have been warned number two, although I will be making visual edits This video can still be enjoyed largely with the audio alone So feel free to switch over to another tab or just play this during a long car ride or something Number three the absolutely massive script for this video was made with help from a wonderful human being by the name of kiddicraft Please check her out she's awesome link to her channel will be in the description number for this analysis will be in no way a Comparison between Voltron legendary defender and the original Voltron cartoon that aired in the 1980s I will be judging legendary defender based solely on its own merit and not that of the originals So when I refer to this show as just Voltron Please keep in mind that I'm not talking about the original or its many other renditions number five Because I'm trying to leave no stone unturned in this video I have done research on elements of Voltron legendary defender outside of the information provided by the show I personally believe that no one should have to seek out information about a show that isn't provided by the show And I think it's merit should be judged without that extra information but since that information can help explain certain things about the show or give more Context to analyze I decided that my best course of action would be to simply do the research This is not to suggest that external information is bad though in fact One of the most critically acclaimed and popular cartoons of this decade gravity falls had so much content outside of the original work from comic books to video shorts to an actual book that I bought that Theories and unanswered questions about the show are still being discussed several years after the show's end But regardless of all that outside information gravity falls the animated television show that aired weekly on Disney Channel was one of the most beloved cartoons of the decade all on its own and that is what I will be judging Voltron on it's content not the creator's Twitter posts or Pre-production art books if I felt like I didn't understand any part of the content I did that research to clear up my confusion But I still took note of the fact that I was confused in the first place number six I will be linking all of the sources used in the creation of this video in the description So I encourage you to take a look if you're curious number seven for the purposes of making this video I have watched Voltron legendary defender in its entirety two times through plus whatever I watch from gathering footage from this video and doing research which will probably equate to about three times over I felt this was an important piece of information to include not only to reassure myself and all of You that I was not making any mistakes or being overly biased with Voltron in the creation of this video but also because Rewatching Voltron has made me reconsider what taking a second look at a show has to offer the way it looked at it before was you should only ever Rewatch shows that you truly love and know be worth rewashing Sticking to this mindset caused me to almost exclusively rewatch shows that I would consider to be worth a 10 out of 10 rating Rewatching Voltron changed this for me. And yeah spoilers. I wouldn't give it a 10 out of 10 It made me realize that rewatching a show can be enjoyed in a completely different manner than the first time through the simple fact that you know, What's coming changes the experience? immensely and although you may find yourself noticing more flaws than you originally like to believe the show had you may also notice just as many Great things about the show that you missed the first time through of course I wouldn't go in for round 2 of a show that I didn't originally enjoy. But thanks to Voltron in the future I plan to take a look at some shows that I only have vague memories Of and see how they hold up. Although I would say that had I not planned to make this video I would not have rewashed Voltron I'm very glad I did anyway because going through this show a second time helped me truly appreciate the concept I only had a vague understanding of up until now that there is more than one way or Reason to enjoy a show and upon rewatch of something You may find yourself loving it exponentially more than you did the first time possibly for completely different reasons The first time I watched Avatar The Last Airbender was when I was around 10 years old and I enjoyed it because of the funny Expressions the characters make and the cool superpowers and the exciting fight scenes But after rewatching this show countless times I can say that although those elements still hold up amazingly I'm captivated on a far greater scale by the individual character development and hauntingly Realistic portrayal of a world at war and the effects it has on individuals Similarly. I had a very different experience on my rewatch of Voltron than I did the first time around and although I can't say that The show is perfect after double-dipping I can say that I noticed a lot of details and understood parts of the story better Because I knew how it would ultimately pan out lastly I wanted to make this video because I feel that Voltron legendary defender is a special show regardless of its flaws I believe that this will be a show that many of us will look back on one day and be able to say it had a noticeable influence on the Western animation industry I also think that more cartoons like Voltron deserve to be discussed and analyzed within the animation community just as much as we do for classics like Avatar The Last Airbender or Neon Genesis Evangelion furthermore I'm making this analysis in such depth because other content creators have already made videos discussing the ups and downs of Voltron and I Wanted to document my thoughts on the show as well But I also wanted to make my take on it as original and high quality as possible So I decided to make the video that no one else would not an unscripted ramble about my personal opinions not a closer look into the show creators intentions or how the show could have panned out and certainly not another podcast because Well, those hurt my voice. No instead I decided to go big and thoroughly dissect the entire show in as much detail as I possibly can And so now that we have made it more than 1500 words into the intro to this video alone I invite you all to embark on this journey with me Ladies and gentlemen, this is my in-depth analysis of Voltron legendary defender Although I won't be going through in analyzing this show Chronologically the beginning felt like the most natural part to start talking about and I already have enough to say about the first episode alone That it deserves its own section. The first episode of Voltron is quite unique in that It's an hour long instead of the standard 23 minute length I think this is actually kind of a genius move, especially considering this as a Netflix original series I say this because in the modern age wherein anyone can stream just about any TV show movie Etc with the click of a button the average audience member will be much harder to turn into a dedicated fan than in the past Simply because there are so many more easily available options This has caused most currently airing shows to rely heavily on their premise to engage the audience members as quickly as possible Just take a look at some of the most popular TV shows of the past few years All of them have such extremely striking premises that the average viewer could probably get a good grasp of them from the cover art alone and usually within the first couple episodes these shows reinforce that theme as quickly as they can to be absolutely sure that you know, What the show will be about? Immediately this strategy in making TV shows seems to be at least in my opinion the result of in part the 3 Episode test if you haven't heard of the 3 episode test or can't figure it out based on the name alone It is the rule that a viewer should watch three episodes of a show to get an idea of whether or not they will like it for the record you can figure out whether or not you'll like a show way sooner than three episodes in but it may be In some part due to the 3 episode test that big networks seeing that large chunks of their audience were dropping their shows three episodes in decided that the best course of action would be to fill those three episodes with as much exposition and action as they possibly can in an attempt to get the viewers invested in the story note that this isn't Necessarily a worse form of storytelling but it can mess up pacing along with other aspects of a show if not utilized correctly Voltron however stands out from other Current TV shows in that it has a pretty unmemorable premise I understand that that sentence seems a bit self contradictory But what I mean, is that in an era where I could get somebody to know? What show I'm talking about in just about one sentence. I could not do so with Voltron If I were to tell somebody who had never seen Voltron that it's about this group of friends who pilot these big robots that can Fuse together into one bigger robot that they use to fight evil aliens They would have no reason to assume based on the quick description I just gave them that this show is any different from 90% of other mecha sews and even that description was probably more Information than somebody could gather from looking at the cover art while scrolling through Netflix So how does Voltron try to prevent people from dropping it within the first few episodes? Well, as I mentioned earlier, it makes the first episode three times longer than a normal one this gives the show much more time to naturally introduce the audience to the characters and get them more invested in those characters simply by having them be on-screen and Interacting with one another they can also remain confident that the viewers won't click away and not come back Because the draw of finishing one episode is much stronger than that of Finishing three with that said the episode itself actually has quite a few issues one of which being that despite having all the time in the world it still falls into the trap of trying to cram as much story set up down the viewers throat as possible and Ultimately watering down the experience in this episode All seven of the main characters are introduced all five lions are awakened and bond with a member of their group Sendak attacks Eris and Voltron is formed for the first time on screen The problem with all of these major events happening in just one episode is that it downplays the significance of each event individually This is most egregious when looking at the Lions the Lions are far away the most Valuable asset anyone in the universe could have the importance they hold to the story is insurmountable the problem Is that outside of the blue lion? You would not get this impression from the first episode for starters the first description of each lion comes in the form of Alura just telling the other characters and Subsequently the audience what special trait each one has and what kind of personality is needed to bond with them? this comes off as an extremely lazy way of setting up the element that the Lions can only form bonds with Individuals and only those individuals can pilot them The reason it comes off as lazy is because of a little rule called show don't tell in this scene We are told that the Lions must be piloted by a certain type of person but not shown what makes this moment even worse However is how great the introduction to the blue lion was in comparison The blue lion is first referred to by Shiro saying the Gaul raah are coming to get a weapon It's important to note here that he is not referring to Voltron as a whole here as the other Lions are not on earth and later he and the rest of the group believe that the Blue lion is Voltron But more importantly the viewer doesn't know that the other Lions even exist until far after the blue lion is introduced so even if Shira was talking about Voltron the impact that Discovering the blue lion would have on the audience would be the same The state of panic Shiro is clearly in his prosthetic arm the UFO Pidge spots along with the radio signals that repeat the word Voltron all collectively create tension and Anticipation for what this weapon could be or what purposes these aliens might have for it But the show holds out on informing the viewer by allowing them and the characters to figure out for themselves Throughout the next act to the episode all while giving each of the characters time to bounce off one another with very natural dialogue giving them a real sense of personality and what their role will be like in the team the anticipation continues to rise as they enter the cave with the lion carvings on the wall as it's made clear that even Keith the only one who knew about these beforehand doesn't know what they mean or why they were created and the visuals do a Fantastic job at conveying the mystical atmosphere of this scene by this point the audience understands that whatever the team is about to discover is going to be important and likely will be the same weapon Shiro was talking about Earlier as this is all unfolding We get several hints that lances somehow Connected to whatever they're looking for or at the very least that he will be important later which turns out to be absolutely true So not only has the introduction to the blue lion been set up far better than the other Lions But it also naturally helps the viewer understand that these lines form bonds with specific people Although that message will soon be contradicted This can be inferred when Lance touches the cave carvings causing them to glow When he is able to open the force field around the blue lion Directly after Keith is unable to do so and when the lion speaks to Lance and none of the others This is what showing not telling Looks like and by establishing that the blue lion can bond with an individual once the other lines are confirmed to exist the audio We'll probably have already figured out that each of the other group members is going to pilot a lion and based on their color design alone It would be almost Impossible to not know who's going to pilot which lion and all of this leads to the next sequence in the episode involving Everyone else awakening their lions to feel incredibly rushed This is because we as the audience already understand the significance of these robots So when each one is awakened so quickly on screen and in the case of the green and yellow Lions off screen It gives off the impression that they weren't as important as we were led to believe And thus that they didn't truly need any screen time to begin with Especially when that time isn't even spent hyping up other lions the same way the blue lion was Keith's awakening of the red line was slightly better in this regard as he had to sneak on to a Gaul recruiter and initially struggles to Connect with the red lion But ultimately you could just skip this entire middle section of the episode because it doesn't provide any meaningful information Despite it being about collecting literally the most valuable pieces of machinery in the entire universe They could have cut to black and just put text on screen that said then they all went and got their lions then just cut back to when Sendak is about to attack the castle of lions and you would have gotten almost the exact same amount of information as If you watch the entire second act of the episode it basically makes it feel like the Lions weren't that big of a deal which is not the impression you want to give off and It's made even more disappointing due to the fact that the bond between a lion and its paladin makes for a very natural and clear method of conveying character development later on in the series when a paladin grows as a character their Development is noticed by their line which allows them to unlock a new weapon feature or upgrade of some sort and in some cases Paladin's end up switching lions because they've evolved so much from how they were before that They would be better suited for a different role in the team Some of the lion switches are done better than others, but I'll get into that later This is a very tangible representation of a character arc and this is important to the first episode of the show because it does not effectively communicate the importance of the Relationship between a paladin and a lion I'm going to expand on this in a bit, but the gist of it Is that by the first episode we don't know enough about the characters for their connection with the Lions to feel meaningful But before I describe why this is the case in more detail my explanation will be much Clearer if I dissect the introduction to our main seven first so hold on to that last point the main cast also suffers from the primary issue of not being given enough build up time to Make them feel truly important, but what's interesting about their case? However, is that up until Allura and quran are introduced this problem seems non-existent This is because when we are this early on into a show We don't need to know all the ins and outs of a character just their base personality and hopefully some information on their situations Motivations are why we should care about them and the first episode of Voltron does a pretty good job at this Shira was established as an important character by having his name be the first we hear in the show along with getting to see his Perspective of the inside of a collar ship as he comes in and out of consciousness His hairstyle is also just a bit too unique for him to not be an important character now This isn't necessarily Anything to write home about but this first scene Accomplishes what it sets out to do where things get really good is in the introduction to Lance hunk and Pidge We open on the three undergoing a training simulation and not doing so well Now I won't say that this kind of introductory scene has never been done before but it does a nice job at clearly Communicating what each character's strengths and weaknesses are as well as the extent of their ability to work together Immediately following this the group gets a lecture on the mistakes they made and the show uses this moment to pepper in some Exposition about the galaxy garrison ever since the egregious first episode of sword art online season 2 I've had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for exposition and I tend to get pretty cynical about a show as soon as it starts discussing the state of the world or not to Subtly setting up major plot points, but I can actually say that this is done very well in Voltron They keep it short and only tell the viewer what they need to know in order for the next few scenes to make sense that These characters are training to become pilots That they don't work well together and the setting of the show best of all the dialogue in this sequence And for most of the show at that is very natural I can't express how much it takes me out of the Experience of watching a show and the characters are speaking in a way that no human being would ever speak in this scene There's also some foreshadowing included about pidge's family and the character We will soon know as Keith which I found enjoyable as added details on the rewatch and the early parts of the show have lots Of moments like the personalities of the characters We just met are re-established in the next scene, but based on their first moments on screen You could probably get a good idea for what each of these characters will be like from knowledge of general TV tropes and archetypes Still there's nothing wrong with making sure that your audience understands your characters as quickly and thoroughly as possible Especially when you know kids are watching kids are simply not as observant as adults so when your show has a y7 rating you better make sure it's understandable to children the only bit of new Information we get in this scene before we launch into the introduction sequence for Keith in the blue Lion is pidge's extreme Aptitude with tech and more hinting about her relationship with the Kerberos mission from this you might be thinking these characters seem fine So, why does the introduction of allah and quran make them so much worse? Well allah and quran don't necessarily make the caste worse They're just the ones who turn the characters that we know very little about into the pilots of the most powerful weapon in the universe Quran even points this out Princess are you sure about this? They aren't exactly the best and brightest the universe has to offer you see a learn Quran our aliens they don't need to be introduced in some special and clever way so that their existence will leave an immediate impact on the viewer their extraterrestrials that's all we need to know the fact that they exist at all leaves an impact on the viewer because aliens don't exist on Earth and this automatically makes them important characters Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the human characters the existence of a human character comes as no surprise to anyone So for them to feel like a meaningful addition to the cast of characters They need something to set them apart from the crowd something to make it clear why they're important and why the audience should care about them most of the time this just amounts to the Main character being the only person in the world with candy colored hair and nothing else which results in viewers asking why should I give? a shit about this person for a couple episodes Before just accepting that the answer to that question is because they're the main character the point Is that although each of the human characters in Voltron are introduced? Well there simply isn't enough time to give to those characters before they fly off to Arras to get us endeared to all of them Most first episodes spend their entire runtime building up the main character and one or two supporting characters They just don't have time to spend elsewhere Voltron in the same amount of time as a standard episode of TV introduces five Characters like I said, there are no massive problems with any of the individual characters introductions The problem is that the show doesn't give itself enough time to expand upon the introductions It's given us to characterize these people any further than walking archetypes In fact, they acknowledge these archetypes in a later season. We all have our thing Keith's the loner I'm the brain punks. The nice one allure is the decision-maker quran's the wise old guy? As a result of this rush to get the plot moving when Elora assigns each of them a lion you kind of get this feeling Of really them What makes them so special and it would seem that the show wants us to think this - because Allura only describes the incredibly broad Personality traits that each lion fits in with this on top of the fact that we don't know enough about the main five Heavily implies that basically anybody who fits these descriptions could be a paladin of Voltron the idea that you have to be this chosen one To become a paladin which the blue lines Introduction heavily implied right away holds no water and it later becomes apparent that you don't even need to fit into a broad Personality archetype when more than half of the lions change paladin's in one episode seriously you're telling me that Lance and Keith are similar enough that the red line is just okay with either of them even when they Constantly butt heads before and after the switch. What about a lure and blue? In fact in that episode Elora mentioned that she recognized special qualities in each of the paladins, which told her that they could pilot Specific lions, but she never specifies what those qualities are The only hard evidence we have to go off of is what allure tells us in episode 1 and if that really is all there Is to it then I know plenty of people who could pilot all five lions This would not have been a difficult problem to overcome either as the Lions have had Experiences that could shape the way they form bonds with people shiro is a natural leader like the black lion But we later find out that both shiro and the black lion were abused by Zarkon This is meaningful trauma that they share and it makes sure's connection with the black lion Feel real but for everyone else it's like, what's that? You're smart and daring Well, why don't you take this two-ton robot with a laser cannon kay full of wiping out an entire city block Oh, you say you're not selfish here the spaceship with the power to hold up. Another spaceship ten times its sizes all yours No, I don't care that you haven't even told me your name yet It's not like these machines are ten thousand year old relics piloted by my dead father and the guy who killed him and my entire Race and efforts to capture them because they fuse together to form the most powerful thing in the entire universe This is made even worse by the interactions Alaura has with the main five Naturally her first reaction to the others is confusion and hostility but all it takes is shiro telling her that Zarkon kept him prisoner a story which laura has no way to confirm and Seemingly her first reaction is to assign these people the most powerful machines in the universe the issue. I'm getting at here is that because This part of the episode is rushed beyond belief and the creators are more concerned with getting the plot moving than they are Developing these characters the actual narrative of the show suffers greatly and its most noticeable in scenes like this one also I know the main cast does a bit of banter to re-establish their character traits in front of Elora And I'm sure that many viewers are thinking that this tones down the problem but in a way it makes it more apparent all it does is Reestablish that these very broad character archetypes are all allure knows about these people which makes it harder to believe that she may have just known what everyone's Personality was like because of magic that goes unexplained and dear Lord Am I going to go to town in this show for its? Unexplained magic later on if Elora was able to just see what everyone's personality was Like which I refuse to believe is the case since she never does anything like this again Even when it would be helpful, you would think she would be a little more descriptive What makes somebody eligible to be a paladin? In fact, I don't even know how she knows what personalities go with each lion There was only one other set of paladin's so it's not like they could have figured out some sort of pattern and Ellora wasn't even one of those paladin's Okay at this point you're probably thinking that I'm just gonna complain about the entire show So before I move on to talking about the latter half of this episode I'd like to take this opportunity To mention one of the things about this show that I really liked and that I felt was apparent from episode The comedy animation and comedy go hand-in-hand because of the natural exaggeration the medium lends to its story Both In live-action comedy is often situational or dialogue driven which isn't to say it has less comedic value and in fact There are certain styles of comedy that work much better in live-action than in animation but there's only so much a human face can emot-- Animation has no limits on how unique or stylized every frame on screen can be and legendary defender Not only has several wonderfully hilarious meme faces, but also delights in the previously mentioned situational and dialogue based comedy The first episode does a great job at finding every place it can fit in a joke Even if it's just a subtle one Which not only increases enjoyment value but sets up the tone of the series nicely This aspect of the show makes me glad that it was geared towards kids while keeping older audiences in mind it likely forced the creator's to constantly find new ways to keep the kids engaged to be a slapstick and Exaggerated comedy while also not annoying older fans by just doing fart jokes the whole time They certainly could have gone too far in either direction or half way in both and came out with a by-and-large worst product But thankfully they really hit it out of the park in this department and I found myself chuckling at least once per episode Okay, then where was I so Sendak comes to eros for the Lions and a big fight scene ensues with all the characters we've met And it has some minor issues but those don't go beyond the fight being predictable and pretty cheesy I already talked a whole lot about how we don't know enough about our main characters to really care about them but one of the implications of this problem I have yet to mention is that the viewer has no idea why these Characters are even fighting what is each of their personal motivations for putting their lives at stake in this scene and in later episodes The exception to this fault however is pitch because during the gull worship infiltration we learned that pidge's father and brother were the crew members of the Kerberos mission and right about now, I'm sure you're thinking Oh Surely that would be a strong motivation that would make us care about one of the main characters how Hypocritical well, the difference in pidge's case is that her motivation is a lot more relatable thankfully not many viewers know or could even imagine what it's like to be held prisoner in a foreign location by a fascist dictator on the other hand plenty of people know what it's like to lose a family member or just Someone close to you the means of that separation whether it's death divorce abandonment, etc Don't really matter because all the accomplish is the same thing removing a loved one from your life you don't need to spend extra time on this concept when your audience is likely going to Understand it from the start. You do need to spend extra time on a concept that your audience won't likely understand from the start Yes, we know Cheryl was held prisoner by Zarkon but we've only seen about one minute of him actually being inside the ship on screen and he was just kind of dragged around not even really a prisoner at That point just being held captive if you want us to understand what kind of effect being held on zarkon's ship for a year had on Shiro You can't just give him a cool robot arm and say look at all the suffering he went through when we can't realistically imagine what that suffering was like so combine the lack of Dramatic stakes with the fact that the entire second act felt rushed and this fight scene really starts to lose its tension and it's obvious From the moment it begins that Voltron will win I mean Of course, they will but like going into this fight if you don't immediately know how it's going to play out You are 12 years old despite this it is the first time all the lions fight together And the first time we see Voltron in action So most of the audience was probably just enamored with the flashing lights and not horrible CGI Regardless this fight scene accomplished what it needed to establishing that the main group can form Voltron but that they have some teamwork issues which will have to be addressed later on and That we're gonna hear the castle can't take much more of this during every fight scene as far as first episodes go I'd say that Voltron was mediocre It's quite obvious that the creator's wanted the viewer to get what the show would be about by the credits and they succeeded in that Really you could go from episode 1 to just about any other episode and at the very least have a sense of what's going on But I wish the creator's use the extra time they gave themselves to get us invested in the mists and the threats they'll be facing Speaking of threats. I didn't even touch on the scenes with Zarkon in them at all. And that's because they're just Bland I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. But Zarkon is characterized as the most generic dictator ever He has zero unique qualities He's on the same level of simplicity as fire lord ozai from Avatar The Last Airbender The difference with him is that he was pushed so far into the background that we didn't even see his face Until the final season and by that point it already had been firmly established how powerful of foe he would be to Aang Voltron cuts through all that fat real quick and this could have worked really well in setting up an immediate threat for our main characters Had they not made one critical mistake. They didn't show us the atrocities that Zarkon committed until after episode 1 Yeah, he kidnaps Shiro in pidge's family but like I said It has no dramatic weight since we have no idea that the other Astronauts are pidge's dad and brother and sure his entire time spent as a prisoner for Zarkon is skipped and he gets a Totally Rad Robo arm signed me up for as Archon imprisonment and okay He did kill all the alt hands But I don't think it needs explaining why Zarkon showing up on a monitor in a flashback After we have already met him and saying that the Alton's fleet have been destroyed is not very hard-hitting emotionally I said this earlier but it bears repeating because it applies to just about every issue I have with this first episode Show don't tell dispite characters. Not literally telling us all the evil things Archon is done This episode really does not show us why we should want to see Zarkon defeated more than any other generic evil autocrat I might describe it as if the creators had this episode planned out but realize that they only ever had Zarkon described in conversation and in the first scene But they still wanted him to be a character because like I said, this episode wants you to know everything about the show immediately So they threw in some dialogue and short scenes to depict him as being this evil guy who you should Totally take seriously as a villain But they didn't want to change it to script all that much and just ended up with a really boring Dictator who? I only kind of like being on screen because he's purple I like purple. This episode just shows all its cards way too fast. They were good cards I liked the idea of a sole survivor of the apocalypse character and of a prisoner-of-war character But those ideas don't have any merit when they don't go deeper than ideas It's like how audience members think that redemption arcs are good because they're redemption arcs Disregarding how well it was actually executed in the case of Zarkon I feel like he would have been more effective as a threat if we got to see his Actions and what effect they had on the universe before we see his face It's honestly baffling just how much information they tried to cram into this one episode Editor's note I get that. I've been coming across very negatively about this show but keep in mind. I'm still just talking about episode 1 These aspects of the story do get a lot more detail later on. My point is just that from the start they're a lot less interesting because the first episode doesn't go any further than Introducing the characters despite having plenty of time to do more I said earlier that the hour-long runtime of episode 1 was genius But I feel like they did that genius move for very not genius reasons It felt like their intention was to originally get all this Information out there on the first episode but realized that they didn't have enough time in 23 minutes So they extended it to an hour and even then didn't have enough time because there's just so much stuff to cover Imagine if episode 1 stayed the same length, but it ended here. I don't recognize any of these constellations We must be a long long way from Earth the lion seems to want to go to this planet, I think Had the creator's done this it would have given them plenty of time to use the screen time up until this moment to flesh out The personalities of the main five and Allura to give an example of this strategy being done, right? I point to Avatar The Last Airbender. Yeah, you knew it would happen sooner or later It takes two full episodes to address the main three's personalities skills and most importantly to this discussion Motivations that all make immediate sense for a one-to-one comparison ask yourself Why do Sokka and Katara's their tribe to save Aang and get tangled up in a worldwide adventure? well Aang promised Katara to take her to the North Pole to meet a waterbending master and Sacco wants to protect his little sister makes perfect sense now ask yourself Why do the main five of Voltron let the blue lion suck them into a portal and then get in a big battle with Sendak? well Pidge has some connection to the Kerberos crew Shiro presumably wants to get back at the guy who held him prisoner Lance wants to impress Allura. If this first episode did what I suggested and took the time to answer these questions Then the audience wouldn't be asking them after this hypothetical first episode each couple episodes Afterwards could be devoted to awakening a lion or two and with the same care and thought that was put into the blue lions awakening allowing the mane 5 to Form a real bond with Alaura and develop a clear and powerful Reason for fighting Zarkon despite me mostly complaining about the first episode it had some genuinely funny moments The presentation was great and the characters already had some delightful interactions specifically between lance and keith They have a total naruto sasuke vibe which is immediately funny and brings a huge amount of personality to the group this episode intended to give the audience a strong idea of what to expect from Voltron legendary defender and it succeeded stupendously in that regard and despite my gripes I can very much Appreciate that about this episode and would even consider it a breath of fresh air in a sense Now that we have touched on most of the aspects of Voltron through its first episode I'd like to use the rest of the story to discuss each individual element of this show with one section of this video for each Starting with the characters more specifically Pidge. Both of us had our fathers taken away by SOCOM. Yeah, but I'm going to get mine back Pidge is far and away my favorite character in this show because she has compelling motivations goes through legitimate Character growth based on those motivations and is actually entertaining whenever she shows up on screen. Yeah pidge's to Voltron what peridot is the Steven universe and not just because they're both short and green but what a Coincidence right in Episode one we find out that pidge's father and brother were the crew members We see getting kidnapped by the gall row along with Shiro and it's made very clear that pidge's only working with everyone else So she can find and rescue them This is a very personal Motivation which lots of viewers will be able to connect with like I described earlier and this makes Pidge feel very three-dimensional Right off the bat, especially next to her contemporaries these biased Motivations are quickly brought to the forefront in Episode five tears of the bull Mara as Pidge decides to leave team Voltron to seek out Her family this leads to her getting chastised for her selfishness by Keith and by the end of the episode she decides to stay after Realizing how much the rest of the team means to her My only wish here is that they had spent more time on why pidge's initial outlook on her situation was selfish I feel that it could have been a great lesson to teach to kids that being the importance your actions have on others and why? Should not let your own Personal desires impede the needs of the many I'm going to expand on this point soon with a better example So bear with me instead the situation is painted somewhat Like pidge's staying with team Voltron not because she had this revelation that could have been passed down to the audience But because she had grown attached to the team and now values their safety like family reading between the lines here It's very likely that Pidge is supposed to be staying Partially because of what I described earlier, and I have no problem with the power of friendship message I just think this was a bit of a missed opportunity aside from this Pidge spends a lot of her time on screen as comic relief and Reinforcing to the viewer how great she is with tech But I feel like an underappreciated aspect of her character is her ability to function as fantastic vessel for the audience if you want to write a story about Regular humans getting caught up in a space war with aliens You can't just slingshot your viewers into the action or they'll start getting confused and asking questions This problem can be solved by creating an in-universe character to get confused and ask these questions in place of the audience Not only does this allow the viewer to connect themselves to said vessel by being in the same position as them but it answers those questions the audience has and can be done in an easy to write and natural manner and this is what makes pidge's naturally curious personality perfect for this role take her learning alt and for example I'm willing to bet that most audience members would have been very curious as to how the altai in language worked because of course they Would so how do you satisfy this curiosity make the audience vessel curious as well? Not only do you get to demonstrate that you know what your audience wants by giving it to them? But you can easily do it in a way that makes perfect sense and that further fleshes out an already beloved character it's a win-win and on top of all that I've just praised pitch for the most impressive aspect of her character is how Consistent she is with all this it doesn't matter how great your initial idea is when setting up a character if you don't execute it properly We never see paige act out of character without good reason or be suddenly treated differently by the rest of the team her character arc Is about rescuing her family and she stays focused on that goal at all times You want to know why Pidge discovering the grave of her brother was so hard-hitting This is why it's because it's consistently assured to the viewer that Pidge is constantly looking for Information about her brother and father and is willing to do anything to get them back Seeing all the effort Pidge put into bringing her family back seeing all the hope She had that they were still out there somewhere Seeing how much she looked up to these people and how much she has grown in her journey to save them all capitalized perfectly in season 4 episode 2 Reunion all to come to the realization that she was too late that she had failed it. Hit me hard This was the only moment in the entire series that made me cry and it deserved it. Of course We do find out that pidge's brother is actually alive and that's great but the sheer emotion that just one frame from the graveyard scene can create with the context of pidge's arc up until this point is Powerful to say the least and it wouldn't have been nearly Effective if we didn't take the time to enforce how much this matters to pitch you see Audience members don't get emotional because of sad things happening on screen They get emotional because of how those sad things affect the characters that they're already attached to in short it's not the action that matters, but the Reaction. The graveyard scene isn't sad because it's about finding out a good person has died It's sad because it crushes pidge and the implications that this discovery might have on her mental and emotional health in the future are Damning to say the least Imagine if you will that Matt did actually die Pidge is obviously devastated for the brief period of time that she thinks he's dead So what if she never found out he is indeed still alive? I can only imagine that she would fall into a pretty deep Depression for feeling like she had failed to save him and this guilt would have likely manifested into self-hatred and loathing Considering that it seems like every cartoon character nowadays is going for the learning to love yourself character arc. I was legitimately Expecting Voltron to use this moment to dive into that kind of story with Pidge and it could have been done very well here because if Pidge did fall into a depression like state the writers could have used it as a Believable vector to tell that kind of story while also using previously established Elements of the show to naturally move this character arc forward and be able to teach the audience a meaningful Lesson pages the Paladin of the green lion which comes with the huge responsibility Of protecting the lives of everyone inhabited the universe if she becomes unable to perform her role in that mission Because she failed to protect just one life She would be forced to learn the lesson that the writers backed out of when they had pitch consider leaving team Voltron responsibility the responsibility That you have to put your personal feelings aside and do what's best for the big picture It could have shown how people who are in a similar place to this hypothetical Pidge can get past the days where you can't get out of bed where the voices are telling you that you don't deserve to be Happy and how to improve yourself and grow as a person and how doing that will improve the lives of everyone around you the fact that self-improvement or the growth pidge's undergone So far in this story isn't what lifts her out of this incredibly brief moment of misery But instead is something that was completely out of her control Sends the message that the best thing somebody in her Position at this moment can do to get out of said position is hoped for deus ex machina This is actually a common theme among many of the characters in Voltron They show signs of personal issues, but their problems either never get resolved or get resolved by forces out of their control I also feel it's important to mention that I don't think Paige didn't do any work herself to rescue Matt I'm just pointing out a missed opportunity here I still obviously believe that this is a very powerful scene because of the reasons I already discussed but since I have Absolutely, no personal experience with depression I reached out to somebody whom I won't name who does so that I could make sure I wasn't missing How somebody like this might react to the graveyard scene I did this because I firmly believe that the most important thing that can be Analyzed about any work of media is how it can influence its audience There are people out there who will defend this show by saying well, it's just a kids show There's no reason to get so worked up about it Except that what people don't seem to realize when they say that is that people are hugely influenced by the media? They consume especially as children media has the ability to show you what it's like to be a member of an oppressed group in society Make you ponder whether it's moral to create self-aware machines relate to a personal problem You have and demonstrate how you might go about fixing it? I know I've made life-changing decisions due to lessons that I've learned from the media I've consumed and I would be a completely different person had I not seen said media people who say it's just a kids show seemed to fail to Comprehend the concept of a metaphor not all the themes or characters in a story have to be one-to-one versions of their real-life counterparts For the audience to connect the two this is why I spend so much time on elements of a show like pidge's character arc It's because these are the elements that have the power to make real changes in real people's lives So if there is any room for improvement, you bet your ass, I'm gonna be pointing it out But getting back to Pidge I see why the writers wanted to have Matt be alive so they could reward pitch for all our hard work and rekindle the interest in her by this point for Season-long Arc later on Zarkon reveals that he has pidge's father in capture and is willing to trade him for lotor and Pidge Immediately insists that the team is going to go through with this trade despite the hesitation to do so by the other group members And that hesitation is proven to be appropriate as Zarkon indeed double-crosses them and Pidge ends up taking her father back by force This is the effective end of pidge's character arc as her Motivation beyond protect to the universe has now been fulfilled and I actually like it a lot the way Pidge acts Disregarding logic and what the other group members want is very uncharacteristic of her and it's framed as irrational and irresponsible Think of the lives we could save think of the countless worlds we could free And it almost gets her father taken away from her forever this characterization of pitch not only highlights Just how much she cares about her family But also more clearly sends the message that should have been sent in Episode five and that could have been sent after the graveyard scene Unlike the graveyard scene. However, the conflict here is resolved directly by Pidge herself and the help from the friends She has gained throughout this massive journey pidge's entire story has been building up to this moment So it's nice to see just how far she has come in the process of achieving her ultimate goals and like with Matt It's just great to see her reunite with her dad And even after all this when she doesn't have any more huge moments in the show She still performs her role of comic relief and audience Vessel nicely making her just enjoyable to have on screen if I had any remaining Criticisms of Pidge it would be that her extreme talent with machines and computers while being an interesting and fun character detail allows for a lot of Instances in the show wherein a problem is presented to the main characters and Pidge just solves it by hacking into some mainframe or whatever It certainly isn't as bad as allure as magical abilities because the problems Pidge solves this way tend to be more minor hurdles the group Has to get over but it would have at least been nice to see a better Explanation for how Pidge was doing all of these crazy machine related stunts that said Pidge is fucking amazing best girl best character moving on I Find a lure to be a very interesting character to analyze there's a lot that goes on with her during the show and the simple Concept of her character is also part of what makes her so Fascinating Allura is clearly based off of a Amalfitano Last Airbender down to the glowing face marks And I'm not saying this in a negative way. Hang is a fantastic character from a hugely influential show So it only makes sense for other Studios to look at The Last Airbender and want to recreate that magic but despite alura's seeming to be a carbon copy of an on the surface look a bit deeper and you'll find that the Similarities largely end at the surface Aang's character arc is about learning to take on Responsibility and do what's best for the world and not himself alura's arc. However centralizes around her chronic xenophobia Both of these respective arcs are built off of the same premise being the last survivor of a genocided race looking back I realized just how different Elora and Aang truly were and it made it even more Surprising that Elora was actually written pretty Well, not only did she have lots of different elements and significant plot points that progressed her arc throughout the show But each of those points managed to service that arc effectively I also give props here because I think that the lesson that can be learned from alura's arc Don't judge a book by its cover is a great one to teach to kids and although this message doesn't require some complex intellectual storytelling to be told and offensively in fact the simpler the story around that message the more broad of an audience will be able to Resonate with it I really appreciate when a show is willing to take that extra step and show us why the character has this prejudice? How it's negatively affecting them and the people they interact with and give a reasonable explanation for how they get over it Elora has all of these elements she's prejudiced against the gall row because her entire race was wiped out by Zarkon that prejudice causes her to regularly create conflict with gall her trying to help team Voltron and she realizes that not all gara are as bad as Zarkon through meeting several of them who fit that description now I'm sure you're thinking if allure is a more interesting relevant to the main story and leading character than Pidge Why isn't she your favorite character and there is one big reason for that being the case I hated Elora on first viewing Ok, well hate is a strong word but It felt like she was getting way more Praise from the other characters than she deserved just for being a princess in the pilot of the castle of lions I knew that her whole race had been wiped out by the Gaul rub, but I just inexplicably didn't care It also didn't help that. She was the main vessel for bullshit magic that solves problems for no reason, but we'll get to that later That is until my second viewing. It was only upon a rewash that I realized The one blunder alura's character has that brings down just about every aspect of her art She isn't devastated enough by the genocide of the alt hands and neither his Koran for that matter though He would be expected to handle the situation better Seriously her immediate reaction to finding out her entire Civilization was destroyed in what felt like minutes ago for her is seemingly to get frustrated with Zarkon Like he's that annoying kid in class who stole your blue-eyes White Dragon card. I know it was you Kyle Like seriously Am I supposed to get the impression that allure is anything more than mildly? annoyed from this scene because it really ain't doing much else and I know she has Koran to comfort her and I know she's probably More emotionally stable than say twelve-year-old Aang and I know she gets later scenes establishing how much she misses her father But it really just isn't enough. It makes it seem like the loss of her entire civilization was no big deal Imagine you woke up one day to find out every other human being on the planet had been killed to tell you the truth I'd probably kill myself just because there'd be no one to subscribe to my channel Now I know it's not that cut and dry but again Elora just seems to handle all of this way too easily as a result her xenophobia against the Gullah feels weirdly Unjustified and just kind of makes her seem like an asshole Like I said this issue poisons Allura for the rest of the show And it makes what are supposed to be hard-hitting moments feel less hard-hitting Imagine if you will that upon realizing her entire race had been genocided Elora immediately fell to the ground and started sobbing even though we know nothing about Elora at this point we can right away gather how Devastated she is and how much this event will affect her behavior in the future. Even if we didn't know what she was like before Unfortunately, this didn't happen so the best we can do is speculate on how much more powerful her art could have been if more emotion had been injected into It but don't let that make you think I don't like Elora she has plenty of good attributes that outweigh the bad ones like how she tries and succeeds to help her team as much as she Can by piloting the blue lion and that she gets involved in Gawler Politics later on in the show and that she makes this face Like I said, though, her overarching character development is in her relationship with the gara throughout the show She constantly makes statements about how the Galler are a vile terrible race that only want to enslave the entire universe and the sheer Frequency and lack of opposition to those assert asians makes the audience start to feel like they're correct This eventually gets to the point that when it's discovered that keith is part cholera alors becomes Extremely distant towards him and although that plot point gets resolved quickly It just goes to show how difficult it is for a lure to not make such broad assumptions about the gara I'll come right out and say it This is a comment on racism and why it's bad and it's a good thing The creator's knew what they were doing with Elora because like the comments I made on pages section I believe this is a great lesson to teach to the target audience of this series and that should be of utmost priority in a kids show earlier I mentioned that one of the reasons I didn't like a lure on first viewing was because she's the main source of bullshit solve all Your problems magic and unlike the other aspects of her character this was the one that I actually found to be even more unbearable the second time through simply because of how many alors used magic and solve the problem situations happen in the show and how many I had just straight-up missed the first time through like Seriously, however many times you remember this happening it's probably twice that the sheer number of times the lure just fixes a problem with no explanation given to us is Infuriating. I know some people are thinking but why is this such a bad thing for the show and it's because it lowers the dramatic Stakes if a character is in danger or just some high tension situation but solves the problem through methods that don't make any sense or we're obviously written into the story just to get the character out of said problem you start to develop what is known in the biz as Plot armor plot armor is the feeling that a character will never ever be in danger due to previous convenient moments of them dodging the bullet in Specific case what makes this possible is the fact that we never get a very detailed idea of altai and alchemy How does it work? What are its limits? How can it be used creatively? It is because of these Questions being left unanswered that the creator's can just write themselves out of any corner by saying a lure used a new kind of magic You could go on all day with this shit and it gets very boring very fast this is because the audience will catch on even if only Subconsciously to the notion that one of your characters is invincible and because the audience starts expecting that from them it becomes incredibly Hard to think that they will ever be in any sort of danger which lowers the dramatic stakes Allure is kind of like Kirito from sword art online in this way. Allura is an overall enjoyable character though She is very OneNote thematically which makes her quite easy to get bored of but she rarely insults The audience's intelligence outside of bullshit magic and has some pretty good jokes here and they're not the best character. Not the worst Okay, I discovered a section of my notes about Elora but I don't want to rewrite this entire section to make it fit in more naturally So I'm just inserting it here at the end Revealing that Elora has been asleep for 10,000 years and that her people are dead As soon as she is introduced Immediately turns alura's entire character into one trait a trait that makes perfect sense as for what her motivations are But it makes it difficult to add anything more defining to her character There is a reason that The Last Airbender waited until we had gotten to know Aang's Personality before revealing that he was the avatar had been trapped in a ball of ice for a hundred years and that his entire race Was dead they needed to show you what this character is like before turning him into the one whose entire race got genocided And that's what Voltron does to Elora This is very akin to making a character in your show. Queer If you reveal it immediately, the viewer automatically characterizes them as the gay one or the trans one etcetera But if you build that character up before the big reveal and give your audience something that will get them endeared to said queer character Then when you do reveal it, the moment will be infinitely more impactful and instead of consuming the character They are queerness for lack of a better word will add to it. What's funny is that Voltron? Did this right with Pidge pages characterized as liking tech having the most compelling? motivations for joining Voltron and just being a joy to see interact with the other characters the Is why revealing that she is a girl is such a landmark moment for her and even the reveal itself is done Fantastically as its treated like not a big deal because it isn't Elora has very few moments where she really? escapes that first description as a victim and it's a shame because she really could have been a Fantastic and interesting person to watch grow past her problems and establish new elements to her personality But from what I can gather it seems like the creators played it a little bit too safe with her Lanson hunk both suffer from the same crippling issue, which is why I've decided to group them together in this section Both of them are woefully underdeveloped punk much more so than Lance This is the kind of problem that is difficult to analyze because how can you analyze something that doesn't even exist? to be fair Neither hunk nor Lance is completely barren of character development Lance has to come to the Realization of his role in team Voltron as the right-hand man instead of the leader and he has the whole in love with Allura thing But I'm gonna get to that later on Punk also gets some development and that he learns to take on the responsibility He has as a paladin regardless of how afraid he is and that he struggles with missing his family, but unfortunately Not much else can be said about these characters while other members of the team don't have crazy numbers of plot points and separate arcs inter woven into their Developments they at least deliver on what was present and this is what they seemed to trip up on when writing lance and hunk hung Chris Eve's virtually no major development throughout the entire runtime making him feel like more of a background character than anything He pops in every once in a while to make a joker have a joke made of him But these kinds of disposable moments in the show do little to get the audience invested in his character The only time it really feels like hunks character has a pulse is late into season 7 wherein he and the rest of team Voltron Return to earth and hunk has to watch his friends reunited with their families while having no idea where his is and having to deal with the Possibility that they might not even be alive when hunk opens up to Keith about how much this has been eating at him you really feel the weight of the emotions he must Be feeling which is partly due to the absolutely stellar voice acting About coming home to a peaceful earth and that would have been great, but I realized that nothing Nothing would have been greater than seeing my family This was easily the highlight of hunks entire so-called arc But it could have been so much more Had there been more dedicated hunk episodes like so many of the other characters got and had there been more Conflicts that arose because of hunk feeling homesick The audience would have had a deeper connection with him and the degree to which he struck with being homesick on Several occasions hunc does mention that he misses his family and that he would like to go back to earth But this is never the cause of any conflict for the team unlike for example Pidge insisting that the group trade lotor for her father due to her fixation with saving her lost family simply stating that a character has Problems isn't enough to get most audience members to care about them You need to show the audience how those problems are negatively affecting the characters. So hunk is pretty bare-bones But what about Lance surely he has more going for him? And yeah, he does Lance has a lot of landmark moments in the show that demonstrate a lesson He has to learn or a development He has to make the problem lies in that despite these moments of what should be Development Lance does not develop outside of immediately following said landmark moment He just kind of goes back to making jokes in being pretty Egotistical kiddicraft worded it best saying that Lance had many opportunities to develop as a character, but the writers didn't take those opportunities I can best explain this issue by drawing a connection to a more extreme example of the same thing happening in a different show Gravity falls is a masterpiece if I've ever seen one but it does suffer from this very problem in one of its most important characters Mabel Mabel begins this show as an immature Goofball Who constantly makes fun of dipper falls in love and becomes obsessed with half the boys she meets and she ends the show as that Exact same character despite there being numerous instances in the show wearing It seems like she has learned her lesson, but then immediately goes back to her old ways afterwards This is most egregious in the episode socotra wearing after promising dipper She would help him find the password to the mysterious laptop found two episodes earlier Mabel fucks off to chase after yet another random boy based solely on how handsome he is The problem is that this episode comes after four separate occasions in which Mabel's obsession with boys causes conflict for the other characters Okay Not so much with Gideon that was more because of her inability to refuse his advances But still the point is that she should have learned her lesson, but didn't change her behavior And this is where we circle back to Lance. Like I said, he isn't as extreme of a case as Mabel He does have more serious moments with the other group members and just generally seems to be more mature But it feels like he would have changed a lot more based on the extremity of the events that happened to him For example seemingly dying and being brought back to life You'd think that an event like this would be brought up later on but it simply isn't and Lance doesn't seem to have been Majorly affected by this incident moving forward The very next shot of him has him with this goofy ass look on his face presumably because Elora touched him seriously, am I supposed to believe that this is a face of somebody who just suffered a possible fatal injury because he seems to have forgotten completely on this subject I largely left out Lance's Relationship with Elora from this section because it would have been impossible to discuss it without getting into the final season of this show But I have an entire section of this analysis dedicated to season eight. So I'll pick up on that point later This was definitely one of the shortest sections in this video and that's because due to the type of criticism I had of Lance and hunk being the lack of substance and their characters there wasn't really much to analyze I also don't want it to sound like I didn't like it whenever either of these characters were on-screen both are entertaining But they had the potential to be so much more which is hard to look past when stood up against some of the other Characters also can someone explain to me why it was necessary to give Lance a sword he uses it in battle literally once for four seconds same thing happens with those turrets honk had You Keith is an excellent character conceptually, but the execution of his full art caused that excellence to suffer even though I would say He's one of the better Characters in the series one of the biggest weaknesses of his character comes from the length of time It takes his arc to make any meaningful progress so much so that when I was writing this script I legitimately thought that I had forgotten a huge part of his story because all I could remember was bits and pieces of it that Were seasons apart, but after going back and making sure I wasn't missing anything I realized that I had remembered just about everything that happens to him during the show, unfortunately This problem would have been difficult to avoid considering the large number of characters to keep track of Episodic storytelling and method of releasing the show one season at a time with months between each new drop of episodes Thankfully binging the show now that it's all up and ready to be watched does help this problem a bit It's similar to Stephen bombs in that way albeit not nearly as Extreme Keith gets a moment or two in the spotlight then a long stretch of nothing while waiting for the next season then we come Back two unrelated events, which makes his arc take much longer than it needed to to finish now I'm sure a lot of you are thinking isn't a character supposed to develop throughout the entirety of a show and the answer is no talk from The Last Airbender as proof of that she was Introduced into the main group early on into season 2 and her effective character arc was resolved almost exactly one season later with very few Total episodes contributing to that arc and Toph never changed her baseline behavior throughout the entire show Despite this she's one of the most beloved characters Amongst the avatar fans, and this is because she was so damn lovable and fun to watch She never needed to change everyone would have been perfectly satisfied as she stayed the sassy brash Independent character that she is and she did stay that way and people loved her Keith isn't fun to watch in this way He's a loner he's quiet. He doesn't like to be the center of attention The only time the spotlight is put on him is in specific moments that are crucial to his arc And those are very few and far between for the most part top However steals the spotlight in any scene that she's in This is why you don't need to change someone massively or have them come to a life-altering revelation for them to be a great character But even if this was the case Even if characters were always at their best when they have to go through some sort of long-form Transformation that doesn't suddenly fix the issues with Keith Sark you can have a character arc that spans the entirety of a show but you have to keep it interesting the whole way through and Logically progress that arc at a natural pace and this is where the issue with Keith lies The actual episodes that further his development and give us information About his past are some of the most memorable and engaging in the entire show because they offer insight into an already Beloved character that fans have been starved of content for unfortunately These moments come between long gaps of unrelated events. This creates the problem of Keith Sark feeling very dragged out It doesn't even really get started until the latter half of season two where in the group encounters the blades of Marmora and the focus is placed on Keith's longing to find out the truth about his past and Confronting his abandonment issues up until then all we really get is some dialogue between Keith and shiro Suggesting that they have a long history together, but no big revelations keith was easily the most engaging Character in season three and episode 1 of season 4 and that was the only time in the series where the position he had been placed in pilot of the Black Lion tied in very well into his character struggles and allowed for a very natural and continuous progression of his arc Unfortunately following this brief period remember season 3 was only seven episodes Keith leaves the group to go work with the blades of Marmora and remains almost completely absent from the show until halfway through season Six now to be completely fair, the brief glimpses of Keith's adventures with the blades are some of my favorite episodes in the show It's just very satisfying seeing a group dynamic other than the one we've had in the main team The blades are strictly utilitarian they plan out every action they take and they never take risks this starkly Contrasts with the leave no Man behind mentality that the main team has and it's interesting seeing how Keith reacts to this new environment and being surrounded by new people Furthermore the simple departure from the main group enhances the world-building third universe building Yeah, let's go with universe building It shows how this story isn't just Voltron versus the gall rod There are factions and individual groups on both sides which really makes it feel like a real war where in each side has a lot to keep track of and ask to Strategize all of their moves carefully, of course the most memorable event that occurs during Keith's departure is his reunion with his mother crow Leah This is where things get Confusing for a lack of a better word. I don't think anyone would disagree that It's super cool and satisfying to have Keith meet his mother and learn about his parents past but Keith Realizing all of this doesn't inform any of the decisions He makes later on in the show by the time of razor's edge. Keith's arc is effectively over He's learned about his past He knows his place in team Voltron and the presence of his mother just makes his abandonment issues disappear into thin air Which is not how abandonment issues work, by the way The only time he really gets the spotlight along with Shiro after this is in the episode the black paladin's which admittedly contains Possibly the best fight scene in the entire show learning about his mom and dad is really cool But it doesn't service Keith's arc at all it just exists so that Keith and Crowe Lia can form a close bond and give a Lackluster explanation for why Keith's personal issues have vanished but once again their new relationship never has any significance to the plot I suppose it's also worth mentioning that it would have been a real shame if we didn't get to learn about Keith's past So I'm glad they included it It's just that if there was a way to reveal Keith's Backstory without having him leave the team that could have allowed the creators to involve him more interestingly Into the main story like Keith is half gora What if he fought for the Gaul were thrown like lotor did? Latour is only half cholera and that didn't stop him and Keith can pilot the Black Lion for God's sakes It just makes sense and it would have been so engaging to watch the reaction the Gaul REM power might have to keep taking power And his Ark is already about him becoming a leader This makes so much sense, and it would have been so cool to see happen How am I the first person to think of this? Okay, I'm not there is a fanfiction This is the kind of thing That would have been possible if Keith had stayed with the group and once again I have to reiterate that this doesn't mean that I hate the episodes that focus on Keith with the blades admittedly though His absence does also hurt what could be considered the most important part of his arc his relationship with the other paladins keith is able to leave the group because shiro can pilot the black lion again this explicitly flies in the face of the idea that the team has formed a close bond with one another and the idea that the Lions select specific individuals to pilot them I'll get even more into that latter statement in the Shiro section but I'll preface it by saying that the Shiro clone who replaces Keith not only fits back into the black lion and the rest of the group but does it way too quickly Andy's on the point of the Relationship between Keith and the group Keith is simply treated as far too Replaceable when Cheryl went missing and Keith took up the lead position the group had a lot of growing pains There was a whole mini arc about how the group would function differently now that more than half of the paladin's were in new lions And this enhanced the sensation of camaraderie between them but once Keith decides to leave no one seems to miss him There are no scenes where in the group mourns over Keith's absence or conflicts that arise due to it? Sure just replaces him No strings attached this whole situation undermines the concept that team Voltron was this group of people who had become such close Friends to the point of considering one another family because of the experiences They had been through together. And on top of that once Keith does return after what I'll remind you was two years for him He doesn't miss them either at no point do we get so much as Keith remarking that it's good to see everyone again and after this he remains Extremely professional towards the others one might argue that this is because he matured a lot in the two years he was away Which is why he acted this way to the others and could even be seen as some character development But there are two big holes in that argument The first is that this development happens way too fast on screen just over one minute is spent from the time Keith and his mom arrive on that space whale to the time they Arrive at the colony rimmel is being held at one minute Which I'll remind you consists of a montage of them doing basic survival stuff Which is devoid of any dialogue and the second issue is that at no point in that one minute? Is it? suggested that Keith had to learn a lesson or develop in any way aside from learning how to take care of a space wolf and basic survival skills none of that translates to emotionless utilitarian now I'm sure those of you who are very observant will point out that Keith might have picked up these personality traits from the blades of Marmora and I will admit that that is Possible the issue there is that Keith is surrounded by people who are extremely utilitarian and professional However, he is shown on multiple occasions disobeying their orders or contrasting their values true Keith might be slightly more professional than the other group members But in comparison to the blades he's working with he's not even close and this is a great thing for his character It's what I was talking about when I said that it was enjoyable to see Keith surrounded by a new environment It's just that it makes it hard to believe that the blades are instilling him with these new character attributes When Keith is verbally rejecting them all of this amounts to a feeling of disconnect between Keith and the others There are no longer close friends they're just associates who happen to be Co pilots of this big-ass mech and that is a problem when the driving theme of your story is the Power of friendship and found family and Keith is arguably the biggest offender of this like I mentioned at the beginning of Keith's section I would say that he's one of the better characters in this show on his own but a lot of the big decisions it seems The creators had to make when progressing his plot had a negative impact on the quality of the show as a whole Keith was super fun to watch but heads with Lance and learn about his relationship with Shiro and his heritage But as time went on we just saw him less and less and eventually he kind of faded into the background An unfortunate fate for the head of Voltron, but at least it was good while it lasted Saved cheer for last when talking about the characters because Analyzing his arc segues into talking about the rest of the show at large and after half an hour of talking about just characters It's about time we move on to other elements of the show before any of that however, we still do have one character left to discuss and Look I really didn't want to have to complain about the characters in this show as much as I have and I especially feel bad About doing so to Shiro considering he might be my favorite character in the show behind Pidge But they fucked up sure was a fan favorite for myself and many others early on due to him being the most emotionally stable Character in the entire show and his ability to connect and effectively communicate with all the radically different personalities of the team He truly is the glue that holds the team together and a perfect role for leader Voltron Not only this but he has a genuinely fantastic set up for his arc And I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record by saying he started out good only to complain about him. Later But bear with me sure was kidnapped by the Gaul row along with pidge's brother and father Kept aboard zarkon's ship as prisoner forced to participate in gladiatorial Combat to entertain the masses for a year and had his arm forcibly replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic All of this scarred Shiro and left him with a clear case of post-traumatic stress disorder similarly The black lion was used by Zarkon to do unimaginable violence and ten thousand years. Later it's still under zarkon's influence this connection between the black line and Shiro makes a lot of Thematic sense and allows for the show - clearly progress to his arc through his relationship with the black lion that is every time she ro makes a step towards getting over his PTSD he forms a stronger connection with the black lion, which Directly helps Team Voltron by unlocking black Lions wings or making Zarkon unable to track them. Unfortunately all that I just praised about his arc only applies to the first two seasons at the end of season two She rode dies as is revealed later on and a clone of him Which is also revealed later on returns in his place laid into season 3 and real quick before I forget Why exactly was Shiro the only one who died? I mean the explosion that appears to kill him didn't kill any of the other pal And Zarkon was literally inside of the explosion, but he made it out alive Yet somehow sure his entire body and suit were destroyed while he was inside the black lion. I don't know I just thought I'd mention it regardless once she was clone who will now be referred to as Quran returns None of what I mentioned earlier about shears story applies anymore. Quran never has a moment of increasing his bond with the black lion He doesn't have to deal with Zarkon trying to take the black lion back from him He doesn't even have flashbacks of time spent in prison Which are replaced by brief moments of hagar trying to take over his mind which are a totally new trauma I will admit that having Keith ultimately saved Shiro from this new trauma was a good move and works Well ensures story but it ultimately means nothing and I'll get into why in a moment. No, of course It makes sense The Quran wouldn't be able to connect with the black lion super well or be exactly like Shiro in any other sense But if that's the case then why can he even pilot the black lion? Is it because Quran vaguely shares Shiro's personality - the Keith like outbursts? If so, then this once again contradicts the concept that the paladins are specifically chosen because of their unique attributes In fact sure his spirit was literally inside the black lion's Consciousness while the time Quran was piloting it black had to have known that whoever was piloting It was not Shiro and yet it allowed Quran to do so anyway This means that the black lion head of Voltron had four different paladins over the course of the show's runtime funnily enough There's a season 7 episode that deals with this exact issue The main five gets separated from the Lions and drift through space causing them to go insane at one point in the episode Keith says this while space mad Then once the team regains their sanity Keith says this Reason They brought us together as paladin's some more importantly They brought us together as friends But honestly Space mad Keith sounds more believable based on the actual events that happen in the show this applies to share Specifically and that his relationship with the other paladin's never appeared to be one based on friendship shiro Like keith in the second half of the show talks to the other paladins as if they are Co-workers not found' family the only exception to this is Keith Shearer was a role model for Keith growing up and personally taught him a lot of life lessons that permeate throughout Keith's Personality as a result. Keith is the only character who sees Shiro as a person rather than a hero or a teacher Keith is the only character who was allowed to acknowledge hero's flaws and know about the things he struggles with like that terminal illness Which was added to his character for seemingly No reason and this is part of what makes it become increasingly more depressing the chiru's relationship with Keith deteriorates throughout the show's run time in the beginning Shara when Keith had multiple personal moments together where it was obvious that they had a bond like family then Shiro dies and Keith doesn't get to talk to him for four seasons and once zero comes back he transitions into acting the same way around Keith as he does around everyone else and on top of this sheer seemingly never gets over his PTSD despite now having gone through a lot more traumatic stuff Like y'know dying it just vanishes once he's revived after season two Shiro just stops being a character Everything that happens to him in season 3 through 6 doesn't actually happen to him It happens to Quran and when he does come back his arc comes to a screeching halt and never finishes Jiro is easily. The biggest dropped ball Voltron has if you ask me because his arc had so much potential He could have gone from a soldier type character traumatized from his past and unable to make meaningful emotional connections to a mentally healthy Person who knew how to be open and vulnerable with his feelings as it is, though shira's arc is just depressing as fuck and we haven't even gotten to You want to talk about the queer representation in Voltron You want to talk about the fucking queer representation in Voltron legendary defender. It's awful it's possibly the worst I've ever seen queer representation done in an animated television show and that is a Very low bar to crawl under remember how I said I was going to judge this show based on its content and nothing else well I'm not quite going to break that rule but I am gonna bend it and this is because the reason the queer representation in Voltron Is so bad has to do with content outside of the actual show now I'm sure you're thinking hey Didn't you say you wouldn't be judging Voltron based on outside information? And I did say that however in this case the discussions and theories about characters in this show being queer were so Rampant online that you would have to have been living under a rock To have not heard about it and have it color your experience with the show And that is precisely what I'm trying to get at most Voltron fans including myself heard about Shiro being gay before season seven and went into season seven with that expectation For those of you who somehow missed all of this whether by sheer luck Or because you never watched Voltron and just like hearing me talk in which case thank you very much Let me give you full context so Voltron came to Netflix in 2016 an era of Western animation that we are arguably still in in which seemingly every show was trying its hardest to be politically Correct and inclusive to minorities, I have no problem with either of these things for the record I'm just stating a general observation that can be made of the 2010s the juggernaut of these shows being Steven universe with massive success largely Attributed to its take on just this subject and an age where diversity in the cast of a show is almost Universally praised it makes sense that Voltron would have wanted a cut of the pie So the logical conclusion from the perspective of the Voltron writers would have been to place a character who is part of a minority front-and-center Unfortunately, this didn't happen There was the bit about Paige pretending to be a boy and although I love how what gender the others think she has changes nothing about how they act around her Paige only pretended to be a boy because she was disguising herself not because she Identified as a boy So the whole situation kind of skirts around a potential discussion to be had about transgender people not within the context of the show Of course anyway instead of having a central character be obviously queer from the start We got romantically coded client scenes a comic-con panel announcing that Shearer was gay and a literal Last-second kiss between Shiro and a background character completely out of the blue. That's it Like seriously the three things I just mentioned is all we get for quote-unquote queer Representation and each one of them seems to be symptomatic of the same issue with the creators They are too cowardly to have non straight characters be an integral part of their show But they still wanted to cash in on the fans who came to the show for diversity This is why there are so many romantically coded scenes between Keith and Lance why they announced that sure was gay Outside of the show itself and why it was confirmed in the show literally seconds before the credits roll All of these aspects of the show are things that the core audience was not going to miss but that the casual viewer who isn't As obsessed with the show might not think about or even notice but this is an in-depth analysis dammit So let's go in-depth with each of these examples starting with clans. Like I said just a moment ago There are a lot of scenes with Keith And Lance that are romantically coated now coding is a technique commonly used in media in the current age in which a character or characters Are given traits that would suggest that they are of a certain sexuality gender race political standpoint, etc Without said characters being outright Confirmed to be of that group a good way you can test if a show is doing this is by asking yourself Would a insert group act the same way this character is acting or more simply Does this character fit the stereotypes of insert group in this case? The question is would two people who are in a relationship Act the same way Lance and Keith are acting and the answer is a clear. Yes We did it we are a good team So, what's the issue here cross you got a bone to pick with gay guys No, I don't quite the opposite. In fact, the issue here is not that these suggestively gay scenes exist at all It's that they're not gay enough these moments are not making it absolutely clear that Keith and Lance are attracted to one another meaning that somebody who is Homophobic which is a bad thing to be could reasonably assume that these two are not queer Especially since Keith has a couple romantically coded scenes with Elora and Lance is clearly attracted to her from day one in an argument over Whether or not Keith and Lance are queer I think the parties stating that they aren't would win simply because it's not outright stated in the show and only about 5% of adult Americans identify as LGBT but the core audience doesn't care about that they care about the ships and this was all they needed to go batshit crazy writing fan fictions and theorizing and reddit threads I want to make a TV show about a group of friends but one of them is gay could be gayer even plants themed Netflix thumbnails and merchandise was made and this only Perpetuated the cycle Imagineer reserved a table for a super fancy Restaurant because you had heard all over town that they had the best food in the world But when you got there all they gave you was an appetizer You'd probably be Disappointed and would want more and that's exactly how a lot of the core fans felt when nothing came of Keith in Lance's relationship So, okay, the whole Clint situation is pretty frustrating, but I definitely wouldn't call it offensive Shiro's being gay, however just How do you fuck up this badly? Once again the presence of queer characters? Not the problem the presentation of said queer characters definitely The problem sure was confirmed to be gay and to have a boyfriend who you would get to see in season seven at a Comic Con panel and naturally everyone went insane the hype was astronomical and the news spread faster than the fires in paradise point is that this was such big news that if you are anything more than an extremely casual viewer you heard about Shiro being gay even the Netflix thumbnails were suggestive of this but then Season seven actually came out and we got one flashback scene featuring Shiro and his boyfriend Adam Which is suggestive of them being in a relationship? But could have easily also been suggestive of them being close friends Then seven episodes later comes a scene where an in aerial combat team led by Adam gets killed in the resistance against the invading Gaul rips and Finally a 16 second scene of Shiro mourning over Adams killed in action plaque Which is even less suggestive of a relationship between the two of them the issue here. Is that nowhere in the show? Is it confirmed that Shiro and Adam are a couple? For the casual viewer who didn't hear about Shiro being gay beforehand It would be very possible for them to just think Adam is a close friend of Shiro or even his cousin or something but I'm not going to go too in depth about this part of the problem because it's basically the exact same issue I explained in The client section of this video so you can just apply Everything I said there to this one scene of Shiro and Adam what makes this so much worse than the clients shipping Is that the creators confirmed that Adam was Shiro's boyfriend hyped up season 7 then gave us 0 noteworthy information about Adam killed him off and acted like he was never a big deal to begin with by having Shiro mourn his death for 16 seconds and matching him up with an equally useless character This would have been more acceptable if the creator's just said nothing about Shiro and Adam and allowed the fans to speculate like they did with Keith and Lance that Would have been better than intentionally getting core audiences hopes up and dropping the ball harder than America dropped bombs on Japan This is what I was talking about when I said I was going to bend the rule of only analyzing information given to us by the show itself Shiro being gay was such big news that it reached a huge amount of Ultron's audience and Colored their perception of the show and what is the purpose of analysis? if not to decide what the quality of something is and thus how much somebody can expect to enjoy it all the people who got Excited to learn about Adam certainly did not enjoy this and they made their opinions very clear There is one more thing to talk about though And that's the moment where the show actually does confirm that she was gay I heavily considered moving this part to the section about season 8 But that would have broken up the flow of this script so far and there really isn't much to say here This is the most underwhelming confirmation of a character's sexuality I have ever seen partly because I already knew that sure who is gay But also because this moment changes literally nothing about Shiro's character the kiss between Shiro and Kurtis. Yes I had to look up his name to remember it comes at the very end of the last episode She rose quote-unquote arc is already concluded. Everyone's is the whole point. I'm getting at by deconstructing Shiro being gay Is that it was completely unnecessary and changed nothing about his character or the story at large There are no scenes that you can go back to and have a different experience with knowing that Shiro is gay his sexuality influences, none of his decisions or any of his relevant relationships It seems that the Voltron creators wanted to bring representation into their show somehow but only gave it a half-hearted effort What's especially depressing is that there are still fans of Voltron praising it for its queer representation? How low do your standards have to be that slightly? Suggestive dialogue and a character just being gay despite that changing nothing about the story is enough to satisfy our desire to see queer people Represented in media if the Voltron creators wanted to have a gay character in their story They should have had a scene of Keith and Lance kissing Shira talking about how much he misses Adam and a central conflict Revolving around that as pointed out by kiddicraft even if they didn't want to scare away homophobic viewers They could have at least had shiro talk about Adam in those paladin vlogs that could post it to the DreamWorks YouTube channel then at least they wouldn't have had to worry about Shiro being openly gay in the actual show, which shouldn't be and isn't a restriction in the first place but still could have fleshed out his character a bit more and given Adams death a bit more kick to The fans that cared enough to hunt down that information as a final note to this section I'd like to mention that there is something to be said about the unimportance of queer characters in a TV show or any minority for that matter I know that a show doesn't need a reason for a character to be gay or Mexican or Autistic or whatever and I know that complaining about how queer related material and Voltron can make me come across as a bit homophobic But that isn't my intention the underlying issue I have with these elements in Voltron is that they were a letdown the core audiences obviously wanted the show to tackle this subject matter and the creator's took advantage of them intentionally or not by providing a Laughably small amount of content on that front and acting like it was more than it turned out to be you Presentation is something that a lot of critics will tell you doesn't really matter when discussing the merits of a piece of work and while It does tend to be a much more subjective point of discussion I still think there is a valuable reason to break down the visual and auditory experience of a show This is because presentation does affect your experience of a show if the directing is done poorly Then you might not be able to follow what's going on on screen very easily if the voice acting is bad and the voices don't Fit the characters very well. You might get distracted or even annoyed likewise if these elements are done Well, they can enhance your enjoyment of a work. Look at my hair academia's biggest fight scenes for example The art style movement of the camera and timing are all on point and this enhances the weight behind each punch Escalating the tension and energy of these battles then you compare that to some of the fight scenes in one punch man season 2 wherein the animation can be Genki and it's just generally hard to follow everything that's happening on screen due to poor directing and editing So where does Voltron fall on this spectrum? Well, I think the presentation is pretty solid overall But why is that if I had to point out one thing about the visuals that stood out it would be the character designs each Of the characters have a number of different outfits that all look great on them Each of them have a primary color that makes them distinct from the others. Shiro is black pidge's green Lanza's blue, etc And everyone is constantly rendered with high detail Even the villains who appear way less often on-screen clearly had a lot of love put into their designs Everyone just looks great to the point that you could use just about any character design in this show as a lead role in their Own series, but why do these designs look so good as an example? Let's look at Keith He sports a red jacket with a grey t-shirt underneath dark jeans and red and white boots His attire follows a clear red white and black design with a pinch of yellow thrown in on his jacket which cleverly makes his jacket look a bit like the face of the Red Lion take this as a lesson in color design for your Character to look visually pleasing. You should generally follow the 60/30 10 rule sixty percent of your character is taken up by the main color 30% the secondary color and 10 percent what I like to call the accent color on top of this there are things like what colors? Go well together, which is an entirely separate video but as a simplified benchmark draw a scalene triangle In a color circle follow the 60 30/10 rule and browns and grays are always good for filling in empty space Also, please don't over saturate your colors even the Lions follow this rule somewhat you can see that the designers put a lot of thought into the construction of each character and It really shows especially in how they position them in scenes. You can frequently notice that each character has their own posture For example, Keith can commonly be spotted leaning against walls Lance slouches a lot Pidge sits crisscross, etc It's just little details like this that bring a character to life and make it feel like they each have their own unique and distinct Personality on a moment-to-moment basis at least there is a downside to all this praise though And it's that because it takes so much time and effort to add these little details The characters are rarely Animated as much as those from say adventure time Gurren Lagann or The Last Airbender the characters do a lot of just standing around and talking or Satting throughout the show and it can be pretty easy to just check out mentally until the action starts even before I rewatched the series I noticed this as the show went along because I got so used to seeing the same few backgrounds and characters that I started to pay more attention to those visual elements and I was a bit disappointed to come to the realization that almost every conversation Scene is just panning shots of whoever's talking which gets a little boring if you want to test out what I'm saying just mute the show and play an episode and you'll start to notice how little the Characters move in these scenes now compare that to something like kill la kill which has the characters Constantly moving as much as possible and visually reacting to what's happening around them Voltron does use a neat editing trick to counteract this wearing it moves the foreground mid-ground and background layer separately while the camera pans to make it feel less like you're watching a 2-dimensional show and more like a three-dimensional space but this is no replacement for actually animating the characters another issue the highly detailed Characters creates is that when they do move particularly in action scenes, they feel a bit stiff again This is just a symptom of over designing your characters personally I would prefer it if Voltron was more willing to deform their characters and animate them more loosely for lack of a better word Akin to something like the previously mentioned kill la kill though. That show does go all-out with the idea Panty and Stocking or tengen toppa, gurren lagaan the to shows both animated by studio Gainax by the way in gurren Lagaan, each of the characters is made visually distinct from one another not in color But in their silhouette the unique body types and accessories on each of the characters makes them easily Identifiable even when they're animated more cartoonishly this allowed gurren lagaan to constantly have its characters moving even in the conversation Scenes which matches the frenetic energetic story it tells again this is just my preference of visuals and animated television shows and I completely Understand that the more hyper detailed static shots appeal to some viewers more than constant movement and to that point Voltron isn't quite as ridiculous and bombastic as shows like gurren lagaan or kill la kill so having the characters Constantly squash and stretch could generate a lot of tonal dissonance But the few moments where they do really shake up the animation style and get more ridiculous Don't feel out of place in the slightest and are some of the most memorable moments in the entire show Like the milking Calton occur scene that was fucking hilarious and it was largely due to the dramatic camera rotation and deformed quran and Ellora They aren't rendered in high detail or even in color and that's what emphasized their mortified expressions Voltron needed more scenes like this scenes where the animators were willing to simplify the art so that they could create more Experimental and extreme visuals but simplifying the art would have even more implications than that Like I mentioned earlier each character is decently identifiable by their color palette alone So what if during some fight scenes they didn't draw those extra lines and instead focus more on Expressive keyframes and camera rotation that would make the action pop more and since everything is moving really fast No one's really going to notice the intricate details on someone's armor where the flaps of their clothing Anyway, the medium of animation is built on the principle of exaggeration. That's why anime characters have such big expressive eyes It's why their arms and legs frequently turning to noodles. It's why they're made up of such crazy colors all of it is in service of Exaggerating the emotion that these characters are feeling and if you don't believe me search for any Emotion then person and see what the results are now replace the word person with anime and notice the difference What I'm getting at is just that Voltron could have been more expressive with its visuals They could have still had those hyper detailed shots, which do look great But they could have also used some good old-fashioned Simplification and even if they really wanted to keep the vast majority of the show looking as detailed as possible They could still spice things up by Experimenting with the color depending on the emotion of the scene or throwing in some interesting camera angles are focusing on dynamic shot composition Now, I'm sure at this point. Some people are thinking cross your big dumb. Idiot You keep talking about how the show should be moving more, but you completely forgot about the scenes with the most movement in them The cgi robot fights and no I did not forget about those The CGI robot fights are certainly more exciting than the characters satting for about three episodes This is because the group forms Voltron so often and although this show has better CGI than most other animated series I've seen it just gets way too repetitive to be constantly engaging Voltron looks the same in every fight just swapping between a handful of weapons available to the team and although there is more movement in The fight scenes with Voltron it rarely amounts to more than shooting lasers flying around in swinging swords There just isn't anything that revolutionizes the way the team fights in Voltron the way that say metal bending Revolutionizes earth bending in avatar or freezing water or lightning bending. So what could be done to fix this so-called problem? Well the way I see it the best way to keep the audience Invested in these battles would be to give Voltron a permanent upgrade of some sort that was visually distinct from its base form, obviously Doing this too much and too often would result in DBZ itis, which I'll get into later but what if Voltron obtains some sort of new accessory halfway through the series what if Pidge made a little Specialized combat pod that would frequently accompany Voltron in battle that would add a whole new layer to space combat Allowing the team to figure out creative new uses for such a device This is the kind of thing that makes a dedicated audience member happy because it gives them a sense of reward for sticking with these Characters for all this time. It's a visual confirmation of the team's growth and the progression of the plot This is the kind of thing that well-thought-out visual design can accomplish in a long-form TV show and although Voltron paints a very pretty picture It's only a matter of time before your audience gets bored of literally seeing the same thing over over again as it is though I think that Voltron looks pretty good overall Like I said at the beginning of this section Voltron visuals are serviceable without any gaping flaws There's just a lot of room for improvement So yeah, it certainly is a pleasant experience for the eyes also god damned as are so fun Oh my god hearing noises Mm-hmm Moving on to the audio audio is yet another area that this show does service ibly without any gaping flaws But it still has a lot of room for improvement the only element that I would say is straight-up bad is the lack of memorable music the only song I can replay in my head is the main theme and I can't quite tell if that's because it's a Good musical piece or if it's because the show plays it at the beginning of every episode And whenever they form Voltron I'm leaning towards the latter time out why do they play the same 1/2 minute long clip and the full opening every single time the group forms Voltron there is not a Single person who didn't skip through the transformation sequence once they realized how frequently it gets played who made that decision Time back in even if this would be considered a good theme by a musical connoisseur Which I am NOT the fact that we hear it So often waters down its impact on any given scene when I hear the beginning of the Guardian theme from breath of the wild I am immediately on edge and I get a little adrenaline rush knowing I've been spotted by and will have to battle one of the most powerful enemies in the game that first note wouldn't Be nearly as effective At shooting fear down the player's spine if they played it every time an enemy spotted you it would make each encounter with a guardian Feel like just another battle and that's exactly what playing the main theme over every Voltron formation does now I'm not saying they shouldn't have formed Voltron as much that's ridiculous What they should have done was have Voltron be formed off screen more if this were the case then on the few occasions When they did show it on screen it would carry a bit more weight this change would have improved scenes like when the team first forms Voltron under Keith's leadership or After Zarkon tore apart the Lions in the season 2 finale But even if this change was made it still wouldn't fix the problem that there aren't any standout musical pieces just for kicks I looked up the original soundtrack and I thought it was actually pretty good Like I said, I'm no music expert so I can't annele all the chords and the specific instruments to give precise constructive criticism But from what I can tell it's obvious that these themes were made with the intent of being Background music and they serve that purpose Well the songs that play over Calm scenes invoke a very space like feeling as they tend to be slower and more mystical than songs from shows that take place in more familiar settings like earth the themes for action sequences are Energetic and really get your blood pumping the themes that play over sad scenes are somber and played delicately again This is all serviceable. It does the job. It's supposed to and I'd even say that it does that job pretty well it's just that with films like up an animated movie which is Universally praised for its first 15 minutes Which features a wordless montage only accompanied by music that made everyone who watched it cry I know how much of a difference a shows score can make I just wish there were more themes that took the center stage and Felt like they were deserving of my full attention. But as it stands, I would only really have the Voltron Oh s D playing in the background, but music isn't the only part of this show's sound design We also have to talk about the voice acting which is pretty great in English. Anyway, well you have a head out Each of the voice actors seems like they're genuinely having fun performing these characters and it really shows Just about everyone in the main cast can do a full range of emotion and sound Convincing at it to boot even the villains have great voice actors in my opinion Especially lotor and some people might think that Zarkon is just a generic deep voiced strong, man But I really love how growly he sounds one way You can test how much voice acting adds to a show is to simply remove it read the comic book form of the show If it exists turn on subtitles, etc And I feel that if you were to take that away from Voltron You would lose a lot of the heart of this series the jokes emotional landmarks and personalities of the characters are all made to feel much more real thanks to the voice acting Audio is a lot more important than I think a lot of people give it credit for and I'd like to see it covered in more depth by people who are more knowledgeable on this subject than I am but hopefully I was able to word this section in a way that you could understand Voltron got some good ass presentation Okay, I'll be honest I meant to have the villains of Voltron be in a section of their own but there's a lot of connection between these two elements of the show that I didn't realize and I found myself struggling not to transition from one to the other while writing this script so Bear with me it'll make sense later as time goes on there seems to be a slowly growing popularity of serialized storytelling in media If you don't know serialization as it applies to TV shows is the practice of telling an overarching Interconnected story throughout the course of a series run time And I should mention that there are varying degrees in the episodic the serialized spectrum now I have nothing against serialization but its popularity has created a bit of a cultural distaste for episodic storytelling It tends to be seen as childish or lacking an intellectual value This is because most Episodic shows are made for kids as children won't likely be able to remember everything that happened in the last episode Which is a fair point, it's just that when applied episodic storytelling can be extremely successful Just look at Adventure Time gravity falls in the last airbender Each of these shows has some overarching elements, but they're primarily monster-of-the-week type experiences And I don't need to point out how successful and beloved. These shows are by basically everyone Unfortunately, though as serialization becomes more prevalent series that might work better as episodic stories are going in the other direction Netflix in Particular is a big part of why this is the case because of their method of releasing an entire season of a show at once Although I do think binging is the best way to enjoy a show because you don't run the risk of forgetting information between the episodes especially For people like me who tend to watch a few episodes of a show and never get around to finishing it Netflix is releasing method has caused everybody making shows for them to make their episodes blend into one another pay attention to each episode in a Netflix show and more times than not there will be a scene of the Villain vaguely talking about how their plan has only just begun or something along those lines they want to create that desire to watch just one more episode and get the accomplishment of knowing what the villain was talking about or getting to hear the second half of that sentence which got cut off by the credits And Like what I said about episodic storytelling Serialization can work incredibly. Well, just so long as the story It's being applied to is suited to be told in a serialized manner, but how does everything I just said apply to Voltron? well If you ask me Voltron is one of these shows that should have been more episodic but was turned into a more serialize DEQ's perience because of its release nature the main Conflict in the story is that the Gaul responds would cause death and enslavement of countless Life-forms across the universe one way or another and team Voltron Doesn't want that the hurdle you need to get over when creating a conflict like this and frankly any Conflict in a story is answering the question Why should the audience care and in this situation the best way to answer that would be to establish lots of fun? supporting characters throughout this setting so that when the universe is under threat of essentially destruction the audience thinks Oh, no, all the interesting characters. We met along the way are going to die therefore I want the protagonists to prevail and what would be the perfect way of doing that? Have more episodes that tell their own self-contained story involving a new and unique Character and how the current antagonist is hurting those people, you know, it's coming. So let's just get it over with this was done masterfully in Avatar The Last Airbender Wherein there are countless episodes that took place in small villages or cities that provided the main group with a conflict That would not only be solved by the end of the episode but showed them and the audience firsthand the number of lives that needed saving katara And sokka's entire tribe jet in the bandits gyeongjong King Bumi Haru master pakku the beifongs the Kyoshi warriors The cabbage guy the list goes on and on and on and that's not even mentioning the main group We meet so many memorable characters in The Last Airbender that all get at least an episode of flushing out and Return later in the series to remind you of just how many awesome personalities the main cast met throughout their journey Which reminds you of everything they're fighting for? Voltron has very few of these kinds of characters. Literally. The only ones that are in the same ballpark as everyone I just listed off from the last airbender are the bull Marans The old car II and I guess the blades of Marmora, but I'll talk about them later We meet both of these alien races pretty early on they leave a memorable impact and they come back later to help out the main Cast and remind them of what they're fighting for the reason there aren't many episodes focused on all the literally colorful characters we could be meeting is that Voltron z-- narrative is deeply rooted in its main characters and the threat they face and have already Discussed the issues I have with each of them Another common issue you run into with serialization is that you have to keep your story focused on the main conflict at all times and although Voltron isn't as serialized as say The Legend of Korra which ran into this issue a lot You can still see how it affects Voltron a whole lot of episodes focus on one-on-one confrontations with Gaul rebuttal ships and commonly reach their climax during said confrontation and this often robs the tertiary characters of their time in the spotlight as a result We are constantly shown the Gaul row doing bad things But we rarely get insight into how their actions are hurting specific people beyond that They're probably going to be enslaved or killed loads ARS harvesting quintessence from Alton's is a perfect example of this We know that all tans are dying, which is bad, but we don't get to know any of them personally except sort of rimmel but she is so obviously used as a plot device and nothing else that I could not possibly give a single fuck about her if I tried all we Know is that her brother died from loads experiments and she wants to help save the universe But she does literally nothing except yell at lotor for killing Alton's which Allura does anyway at the very least she seems to have intentions of helping the team in whatever way possible and I'd be willing to assume that she does Off-screen, but the other two races I mentioned don't get anywhere near this level of personality Which is already not much to begin with None of them stand out in the slightest in any of the episodes they show up in they all look nearly identical To the other members of their respective races and I cannot remember any of their names for the life of me except Shay they only Exist to be victims to the Gaul rahul needs saving because it's the right thing to do and as a result when we find out Way later on that the ol carries home planet is totally lifeless leading to the belief that the old car It really doesn't hit that hard. If not for pidge's reaction to this event There would have been virtually no sympathy for the crippling of the greatest engineers in the entire Universe the fact that the creators chose not to spend time Establishing a compelling story for at least one of the old cars meant that we had no one to connect with and as a result Finding out that they lost their homeworld left little to no impact Whenever the old Carey's were on screen the show used their connection with Pidge to flesh out her Character because they were just more concerned with Pidge than the bipedal cockroaches and I don't necessarily Blame them for this pidge's connection with the old Carey's does lead her to form a stronger bond with her lion Even if she didn't do anything to earn that stronger bond, it's just that there were certainly other ways They could have made pidge's connection with green feel more natural in other episodes That way they could have used the screen time which gets devoted to pidge's Development in the old Carey's episodes to actually flesh out Wilk Ari's But unfortunately this show seems to think that any time not spent on the main Characters or the current villain is wasted time, which is simply not the case Establishing a strong supporting cast especially when those cast members are as different and diverse from one Another as the aliens are in Voltron makes the setting your story takes place and feel much more real and alive Remember how I said the blades of Marmora improved the universe building of Voltron? Well, that's a perfect example of how the serialization helped Voltron wear. The OL carrion balm. Aaron's had room for improvement What separates the blades from the balm irons and the iqari is that the blades are actively fighting against the Gaul remember? They're not just victims This means that the show can focus on them for the better part of entire Episodes and not lose sight of the central plot on top of this they also didn't need to go super in-depth about the blade members individual backstories because they were characterized enough by all the effort they put into resisting zarkon's imperial ization while Elora and Quran we're in cryo sleep based solely on the foundation of the blades of Marmora you feel like you have an understanding of what type of people the members are and how hard it Is for them to have essentially been fighting a war all on their own for thousands of years That's a hell of a lot better than a race of Anthropomorphize rhinos who just sit around and mind their own business until they get attacked in need Protagonists to save them and they still win a step further than they needed to with the blades by having Keith's mom be a member they gave us insight into who crow Lia was what her Motivations were for resisting the gawler Empire and how much effort she put into fighting for what she believes in then they send her off To rebuild the blades with Cola Vaughn after masa de swipes out a large chunk of their members and she decides to go with him because she knows that Keith can take care of himself by this point and it would be better for the universe if the two of Them went their separate ways. It's really touching and this is the kind of story beat That would only have been possible if lots of thought had been put into it Or maybe they just stumbled into a good situation by sheer luck. But I'm gonna assume it was the former I just wish that that same amount of thought went into che or Reiner x' characters, and yes I looked up ryder's name I give the creator's a lot of shit for missed opportunities and there will definitely be some people who think I'm being over critical and that even if the ball mayor is an elk re aren't as fleshed out as crow Lea they still give us a reason to hate the Gaul ray Empire because they're attacking completely innocent lives It's just that the writers showed what they were capable of when they put in the effort They showed that they could use the delivery style of the story to enhance its dramatic weight rather than hinder it They showed that they could create a side character who was interesting and contributed to the main story in a way That was satisfying and felt natural and that's what makes these missed opportunities so much more disappointing They demonstrated exactly the statement I made earlier about serialized and episodic Storytelling that when used correctly both can do wonders for your story and when used incorrectly they do the opposite episodic storytelling tends to work best in a narrative that establishes its main characters early on and throws them into a bunch of entertaining and unique situations that somehow Contribute towards a broader goal Serialized storytelling tends to work best in a narrative that has lots of moving parts which are all directly Connected to the main story and need to be kept track of in order to keep the story rolling Voltron leans very much on the serialized side of things despite seemingly being set up to work around an episodic Formula the main cast and their ultimate goal is introduced very quickly and they're put into a setting that all but guarantees lots of unique Locations and set pieces but we spend a ridiculous amount of time in the same handful of places throughout the entire show So many episodes open on the castle of lions Just floating along in space with nothing to distinguish these shots from once we get in seasons earlier it gets boring after a while especially when we only get to see one room in the castle most of the time on top of that the main story of the First two seasons is rather simple stopped Zarkon they didn't need to focus on this so often because any Revelation that we might have about Zarkon doesn't change the fact that he needs to be defeated He's like fire lord. Ozai in this way thing is after season 2 Zarkon is out of the picture And Prince lotor is introduced and for a while. This actually worked out pretty well suddenly The goal remember was in disarray. We had to keep track of the main group. Whatever lotor was up to and hag are all at the same time while not letting them confront each other because that can't happen until the Narrative climax. This was the kind of story that was perfectly suited for serialized storytelling and it looked like it was going somewhere but then Turns out that all lotor wanted was quintessence and to rule over the alt hands in the gara empire now who does that remind me of the Creator's introduced lotor is a complete mystery his intentions and motivations were totally unknown and from season 3 through 6 we slowly Figure out more and more of his plan with some twists and turns throughout such as learning that Hagar is his mother and he's half Altay in thus giving him a connection to Elora or that he intended to Work with Team Voltron to unite the Gaara Empire and bring peace to the universe Golly, what a complicated and well-written character Of all my enemies Voltron hagga and the rest of agora They got everyone's hopes up by crafting this extremely interesting new character just to turn him into the same villain We already spent two seasons on at the last minute Trust me when I say that making a villain evil for the sake of being evil is the most boring way You can possibly write an antagonist, especially when you're focusing your story heavily on that Antagonist, you see people are not born evil or without the capacity for sympathy unless they have some sort of mental health issue Most people probably haven't encountered that many true Psychopaths in their life and as such they rightly assume that most people are not psychopaths This is the first hurdle you need to jump as a writer when creating an antagonist You can't just have them be evil for no reason because that makes your villain look like an idiot and stupid people are not Intimidating because here now this isn't to say that you need your villain to be in some sort of moral gray area You just need your audience to understand on a basic level why they are doing the things that they are doing I turn your attention to Thanos as a widely recognized example of a great villain as many people are aware He wants to prevent overpopulation by killing half of all life in the universe Obviously, this is a terrible plan because it requires the sacrifice of countless lives But the question is does that OSes solution solve the perceived problem? Yes Fanie supplies his solution to many planets in the results speak for themselves when there were less people on these planets each person had more resources to live off of Thanos has even seen the results of what happens when no solution is put in place as his home planet Titan became Overpopulated and his entire race collapsed because of this from Thanos's perspective He's doing the right thing when he didn't implement his solution Everyone died when he did implement a solution half the population survived This is the set of data that Thanos has and his actions in infinity war are all based on that information But despite this no one was rooting for Thanos. He was still undeniably the antagonist because his plan involved literally killing half the Population of the universe and we know that there are better ways to deal with the issue of overpopulation When you focus a large part of your story on the villain Intentions become integral and this is where we circle back to Voltron like Thanos Lotor was presented as somebody who was doing terrible things with the universe's best interests in mind We can understand why he would think it's okay to sacrifice countless, alt hands if it meant that countless more would survive that's just utilitarianism 101 and not to mention that Latour was raised by Zarkon who may have had just a teeny bit of influence on how lotor developed his worldview However, he still had to be defeated because his methodology was out of line this made Latour sympathetic Even when his colony of Alton's was revealed because the show still enforced that his intentions were in the right place just like fan OHS unlike fan OHS however We get the rug pulled out from under us in the final battle Revealing that saving all day and culture was never his intention to begin with but simply to gain more power from quintessence Hey You know how we spent three seasons slowly building up this really interesting and fun to watch an antagonist who's genuinely concerned about the well-being Of his friends and wants to bring peace to universe Yadin eating it out Let's just make him addicted space cocaine all the time and well-written sequences revolving around low tours made irrelevant at the last second seemingly So that we can have a villain who is unforgivably evil so that no one can feel bad for him but they apparently forgot that we already had that villain in Zarkon who despite receiving a bit more screen time than Necessary for the previously mentioned serialization issues was still kept simple His goals were to conquer the universe and obtain more quintessence He simply wanted power the most basic motivation for a villain possible But it largely worked in the first two seasons because we spent more time on the protagonists and their stories hadn't been screwed up yet Funnily enough the show does almost exactly the same thing with the villains Immediately following season six with worse elements surrounding them the first half of season 7 doesn't really have a central Antagonist it focuses on Team Voltron strip back to earth and it's actually pretty enjoyable when we do get back to earth however The main antagonist becomes Sendak who has the exact same goals as Zarkon and lotor capture the lions Take over the universe harvest quintessence yada yada yada. We are now on the second to last Season and every central antagonist has had the exact same boring-ass Motivation we don't need a third version of the same guy now Ignoring the fact that we've been through this before and that Sendak is considerably less Intimidating than Zarkon by virtue of him being literally less powerful and having a lower rank Sendak does serve his purpose in season 7 just fine his ultimate goals involve the death and enslavement of millions His motivations are simple, but they don't really matter anyway, and the show doesn't focus too heavily on him I'd be saying the same things about Sendak as I did about Zarkon circa season one and two if Sark on circus season 1 & 2 didn't exist already So the villain is okay And now that we have been introduced to a bunch more characters all of which are unified under the same goal of not letting earth Be taken by Sendak we have lots of things to keep track of other than the simple villain so that the serialized Nature of the show can really shine through right well No, I mean it's not like episodic storytelling would have been much better in this situation But they just don't play the serialization strengths specifically. No one gets any relevant character work because there are so many Characters having lots of characters can work great in a serialized show stranger things season 1 pulled this off masterfully But Voltron just introduces way too many new characters Way too quickly and doesn't have nearly enough time to flesh them out past general archetypes as a result Nothing is interesting in the slightest. All of the main characters arcs are virtually over by this point None of the supporting cast gets fleshed out and the villain can't be fleshed out without making him a worse villain So yeah season 7 started out pretty fun but it ended up being very underwhelming partly because they reuse story elements where they were not appropriate but surely they learned their lesson in season Oh No Wow Just wow season eight of Voltron legendary defender is Astoundingly, terrible the kind of terrible that makes me hate it beyond belief and also love it for being as bad as it is I can say that there is not a single thing about season 8 that I UNAC Lee enjoy and that is not an exaggeration Every element that was carried into season 8 from previous seasons Crashed and burned and every new element crashed and burned harder I left some things out of previous sections in this video because I knew from the start that season 8 had to be taken on As its own beast and dispersing all of the ways it thoroughly shits on so much of the show through this analysis would have undersold just how awful it is, but allow me to finish my Deconstruction of Haggar va's both the conclusion to my discussion on the show's Antagonist and as my introduction to my criticisms of season 8 as a whole Hagar was introduced in the first episode as nothing more than zarkon's assistant and she doesn't do anything other than help him little bits of information are Occasionally given to the viewer over a long stretch of the show's runtime including her being Alton her true identity as a nervous Archons wife and her being low to his mother We also find out how she became Hagar so basically ten thousand years ago this asteroid landed on dives all which made a sort of wormhole between universes and the area between Universes is made up of super concentrated quintessence Zarkon and a nerve I researched it together on divers all and eventually got married But as they spent more and more time on their research and continued to be exposed to quintessence They became obsessed with the potential power that it could grant them and seemingly due to all of this a nerve a fell ill this Culminated in Zarkon tricking the other paladin's into opening the inter Reality rift further so that he could expose a Nerva to the purest Quintessence possible in order to heal her unfortunately both he and a nerve a died in the process by absorbing too much however They later came back to life presumably now running on Quintessence and a Nerva has amnesia too prompting her to take up the name Hagar and the position of zarkon's right-hand woman By the way, nothing is really explained of how quintessence affects the body and mind It just seems to be like a really Addictive drug that can kill you, but it also brings you back to life and it burns keith's in that one episode But it also seems to be what Zarkon uses to power himself up in that robo suit. So who even But eventually a nervy does reclaim her memory of being zarkon's wife and eventually of being low towards mother which is coincidentally the same episode that Zarkon dies Yikes side note. Am I a bad person for thinking that's really funny a nerve Oh with her recovered memories decides that all she wants Is to be together with her family again So she captures lotor brings him to her and tells him the big news - which lotor? refuses to acknowledge her as his mother this Naturally upsets a Nerva and once lotor is defeated and killed she decides to travel to another reality where her family is still alive So that she can be with them And now we finally make our way into season 8 territory now Reuniting with her family is slightly less generic of a motivation than simply to obtain power slightly But it's kneecapped by the fact that season 8 spends way more time on a Nerva than it needs to They could have fleshed out why an herbal Eve's that sacrificing trillions of lives is worth spending time with her family again Or how much effort she put into trying to reunite with her family only to have the chances of that happening in her reality ripped To shreds, but that's not what gets the focus instead It's all about how she's going to execute this plan and how the main team is going to try and stop it which all rings hollow because it's so difficult to get Invested in why innervate is even doing this in the first place and even the parts of the plan that the show does focus on Make little to no sense Whether it be because of unexplained magic The writers pulled out of nowhere aka literally everything about other realities or because they just didn't follow logic Specifically her method of getting the colony alt hands to help her makes absolutely no sense She literally just tells them that she is lotor's mom. That lotor is dead that Voltron killed him and that she's going to avenge his death and the alt hands immediately pledged their allegiance to her seriously you're expecting me to believe that some random woman could just waltz into the colony and be like Hey everybody, your Lord and Savior is dead But it's okay because you can just follow me instead and no one cared enough to make sure she wasn't lying It's almost like this is bad writing But even disregarding the poorly written circumstances surrounding her plan and the underwhelming Presentation of her motives a nervous still falls apart as an antagonist when she travels to another reality where her family is still alive She arrives and baby lotor insists that is not his mom which sends a Nerva into a rage as she is now intent on destroying all realities whose idea was this Wow So first of all, why couldn't a nerve adjust look for another reality where baby loads are except sir? There are seemingly infinite realities So why she threw a temper tantrum after just one failed attempt is beyond me and let's talk about that temper tantrum Remember how I said? Trust me when I say that making a villain evil for the sake of being evil is the most boring way You can possibly write an antagonist, especially when you're focusing your story heavily on that Antagonist, that's exactly what Voltron does with the Nerva. She stood to gain Absolutely, nothing from destroying every reality In fact, she would be killing countless versions of Zarkon and lotar and afterwards she would have nowhere to go she literally says I Know a Nerva is supposed to be overridden with rage and mad from quintessence poisoning, but does that really make her retarded? If not, then why are the things she's saying defying? Rationality if a Nerva really believes what she just said, she is literally mentally disabled This writing is worse than tumblr fan fictions and it frustrates me to no end that the creators thought Anyone could watch this and not think what a fucking idiot? This is very possibly the least compelling villain I have ever seen But we're not done yet in the collective consciousness of all realities Which is really one reality by now Allura uses more alt and magic to remind a nerve that she used to be happy I think it is not explained. Well, or at all and a Nerva just does a complete 180 and apologizes Oh, yeah, sorry for destroying literally of a reality except one. Guess there's nothing we can do about it now then Allura decides that the only way to bring back all the destroyed realities is to use the quintessence in a nervous body as a Life-giving force to bring them back and doing this will kill both a Nerva and Elora What the fuck is? No one could have possibly Predicted that this would happen because this is the first time we are told that all tan magic can do this again I have to bring up the issue of the magic being unexplained when the audience doesn't understand the Limitations cost and general process of using whatever magic is present in your story the dramatic stakes become worthless because there is no reason to believe that the protagonist couldn't just solve any Problem that comes their way with the new spell or ability that wasn't revealed to us previously You want to know why the last airbenders magic system was so obviously well crafted It was because it made it very clear to the audience What benders were capable of they can only Bend an element when said element is present benders must move their bodies to make an element move benders can only control their element etc by setting up these rules the writers could Put the characters in situations that increase to the dramatic stakes take the episode the desert for example The team is stranded in the desert and has to find a way back to society the lack of water means that Katara can't bend The sand makes tough size makes sense worthless Aang can't just fly off and get help or else he risks losing the group and Sokka is high on cactus juice so he can't Come up with one of his classic plans, even though there are no Antagonists actively threatening the group you still understand that they are in serious danger Voltron has none of this kind of writing in season eight at no point Do we get an explanation of how alt a in magic works? It can seemingly redirect other forms of magic generate power from nowhere find and present lost memories. Bring people back from the dead and Regenerate destroyed realities. Is there nothing It can't do if we're supposed to assume that Elora had these kinds of ridiculously powerful magical abilities all along Why didn't she just Stan? Oh snap the entire Gaul Rey Empire out of existence the show never makes it clear that this isn't Something she would be able to do so, why should I believe that? She shouldn't be able to do it when she can do all this other shit Like I said in Allura section, there are so many times when this happens even in earlier seasons But never before has this kind of lazy writing been used when the stakes are this high On top of that this moment kills off Elora for no reason why did whatever she did require her to die Allura just says that she Knows the risk and then says goodbye to the group but why is the very end of the series where the creators decided it would be a good idea to start establishing the consequences to using extremely Powerful spells the worst she endured before this was just general tiredness from over exerting her magical abilities But they never seemed to be physically taxing especially to the point of damaging her body Elora is just denied a happy ending because the creator's wanted this moment to feel emotional and hard-hitting and it accomplishes the exact Opposite of that by way of confusing the hell out of most audience members not only does this denial aura of a satisfying conclusion But it rips up Lance's quote-unquote arc to pieces I already discussed Lance up until season 7 but left out season 8 for the reasons I'm about to get into in the first episode of season 8 Lance asks Elora on a date and she agrees Later in that episode They confirmed their love for each other and become a canonical couple sounds great on paper but the issue lies in the details this episode takes place after seven seasons of Lance being in a one-sided relationship with Elora Lance says that he was in love with Elora since the day he met her and there is no shortage of scenes where Lance's feelings About Elora are brought up. So the question is if he was so in love with Elora Why did it take him until season 8 to say anything? But that's not even the worst of it in the episode launch date. Lance has no Intentions of asking Elora out until hunk pushes him to do it And even when he does Allura says no before rimmel pushes her into it What all this amounts to is that Lanson alura's relationship doesn't hold the weight It should based on how long we've been building up to it Lance says that he's been meaning to ask Allah out for a long time But he never got around to it in the months since they defeated sin back in season 7 Does that sound like someone who is hopelessly in love in all fairness? It is sort of presented as though Lance is too nervous to ask out Elora, but that wouldn't make much sense Considering Lance's whole arc was about accepting who he was now is not the time to make it look like Lance is still dealing with feeling inadequate or unconfident in himself because that plotline was seemingly already wrapped up their relationship feels especially Unsettling because Elora has had romantically coded scenes with several other characters other than Lance most lotor Elora was very clearly attracted to him before she found out what a scumbag he is and having their break up so to speak Be as emotionally taxing as it was makes it feel like Lance is somewhat of a rebound I said one sided relationship earlier for a reason all the signals are pointing towards Elora not being nearly as invested in this relationship as Lance's which makes the conclusion to his story especially Depressing but I'll get into that in a moment I will say that when the two of them are shown together as a couple they are Admittedly pretty cute the dialogue feels like real couple banter and they're obviously still in the new relationship Phase where everything is perfect. And your partner is the best thing in the world I wish there were more scenes like this because it would not only allow us to see more of them being adorable but it would also cement in the viewers mind that Elora in Lance are indeed a real couple and not just a rebound fling but unfortunately their presence as an item is extremely minimal in the last season only appearing in a few rare scenes including the one I alluded to earlier in which Elora Sacrifices herself to save every reality in this scene Lance begs her not to sacrifice herself But Elora tells him that there's no other way and off she goes but not before they share a kiss and Elora gives all taen Markings to Lance you can already guess what my reaction to this moment was so to mix things up a bit Here's Kitty crafts interpretation of this scene Doesn't make any fucking sense Like I said, I hate this scene as much as I do because it thoroughly shits on Lance's Ark up until this point Lance obviously struggles with self-worth issues and it seems like the writers wanted his Relationship with Elora to be an indicator of him finally getting past those issues and how has he? Rewarded for this the love of his life dies He loses the lions and retires at a very young age to help out on his family farm and never finds love again Imagine you were in Lance's position while watching this show that you had a crush on someone but you were too nervous to ask them Out and found reconciliation in a TV character who felt the same way what lesson does Lance's situation send to impressionable viewers That if you start a relationship with the person you've been in love with for years They won't love you as much as you love them and it's doomed in you being heartbroken and never getting over them I bring up this point as a major flaw because Voltron is a show aimed at children People who have never been in serious relationships before or even had much life experience This kind of story beat would be more acceptable if Voltron was written to be a tragedy story which it kind of ends up being Koran never gets to say goodbye to Elora Lance loses the love of his life sure has a terminal illness All right, it turns out that his new body doesn't have the illness But they never state that outright in the series and I already mentioned that I'm sticking to the context of the show So no outside information. There's something unsettling about how the best way to describe the ending to a kids show is depressing I'm all for more mature content in kids shows But the themes are really what matter here gravity falls had a lot of serious elements and even just straight-up terrifying imagery seriously some of the shots in this show look like they belong in a horror movie but at the end of the day Despite its ending being pretty melancholy the message It sends to viewers was that life goes on and even though all good things come to an end That doesn't mean that even better things aren't waiting for you down the line it tends to be very easy to Identify the themes of a children's show because children aren't going to pick up on the more subtle story details so oftentimes one of the characters will just say the lesson that the audience is supposed to get and it does work out a lot of The time but in Voltron the negative messages It sends are so blatant that even kids could pick up on them and the positive themes that it pretends to have Namely that friendship makes you stronger and the bond between formed family is unbreakable, etc. Rings completely Hollow because the characters don't feel like friends everyone is off doing their own thing and the main six are almost never even in the same room together and when they are they only talk about the current mission or what the plans are for defeating a Nerva if you showed someone who had never seen Voltron just season eight they would likely come away with it thinking that the main characters were nothing more than Associates this flies in the face of the idea that their friendship is what allowed them to defeat such a ridiculously powerful foe They either needed to make the Paladins bond more clearly strong or make a nerve a less of a threat but this is the final season and the only way we know how to increase tension is the same way the most-hated arc of The Legend of Korra does by making the villain way bigger and intent on killing more people it's just a bigger set piece I've trademarked this effect DBZ itis because like in Dragon Ball Z It's the writers inability to come up with a more nuanced form of dramatic stakes that causes this problem This is also very common in superhero films where if the hero doesn't save the day the villain will take over the world or destroy The universe or whatever now this could be utilized well in a story like I said All you have to do is establish lots and lots of tertiary characters and make the audience care about them a lot Voltron introduces lots of tertiary characters but you already know how I feel about them as a result the threat that countless people will die is Nothing more than that statement and it means nothing people die literally all the time If just stating that a person died was enough to get an emotional reaction out of an audience member Showrunners would never have to give any personality to their characters If you want to make an audience member care about someone's death, you have to flesh them out as an actual person Not just a number on the confirmed deaths counter What makes this even more frustrating is that the extremity of a nervous plan's was? Completely meaningless to the dramatic stakes of the story because you already have a main cast of characters who the audience has grown to love The Lions are made of that interdimensional comet material So why not make a nervous plan to use black magic to take control of the Lions kill the protagonist so they couldn't stop her And use the Lions to open up a portal into another reality Then team Voltron could fight off a nervous control with the power of friendship Showing just how much they've bonded with their lions and with each other all while putting them in immediate risk of death see I just made a pretty simple edit to the story which would have improved it massively and which didn't involve bullshit ball mera appearances as an excuse to rip off Garen loggin the whole Attitude that creates this problem is that bigger is always better And if Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs taught us anything if that that's a bad attitude to have because it can easily lead to all the problems I just discussed season 8 is so transparent with its lack of effort that I Screamed at my monitor at least once per episode while watching it I wasn't kidding when I said there wasn't a single thing about season 8 that I UNAC Lee liked and that is why I got so much enjoyment out of watching it all I loved criticizing media as evident by the existence of this video and I love speculating on how things could have been better Maybe in another reality Voltron never had any of the problems. I analyzed in this video Maybe there's a reality where it has even more issues either way This is the final product we ended up with and I wouldn't have it any other way Ok that was alive but it makes for a good ending line ok There's a reason I attribute just about all the problems in Voltron to lazy writing and it's because the show has good elements the same people who wrote pages arc wrote season 8 the same people who wrote the first half of Keith's arc wrote Adam and Shearer's relationship etc the thought love and effort that was present in many of the show's attributes just fades away as it goes on the first two seasons are widely regarded as the best and I personally think season three is just as Good, but once season four starts you just lose what Voltron was always about Friendship Keith leaves the group shiro is dealing with being a clone by himself. No one other than Pidge and hunk Just hang out together and act like real friends. The sense of camaraderie is lost Even if it happens slowly over time And that's the sad part Voltron had the potential to be an incredible experience and if you paid attention you would have noticed that almost all my complaints about the show either stem from elements that were introduced later on or get worse as The show goes on and as a result I feel like I couldn't give this show a proper out of 10 rating I feel so differently about so much of the show and in such different ways that trying to lump it all together as one number would feel kind of misleading if I just averaged out my score for each season the full show would have about a 6 out of 10 but when I look back on my experience I realized that many of the elements which I loved about Voltron. I loved because I believed they would lead to a satisfying conclusion I've gone on record saying that a bad ending doesn't ruin a show but after watching Voltron I don't think I can stand by that statement anymore. Lotor Shiro and Keith's characters are all great examples of this I'll always look back on the highlights of their arcs and think man what an emotionally hard-hitting moment I wish it didn't mean nothing in the grand scheme of things I said at the start of the video that I wanted to make this analysis partly because I think that Voltron is a show that deserves to be discussed and thoroughly broken down as much as shows like The Last Airbender do I don't think that a show needs to be an absolute 10 out of 10 for a rewatch or a closer look to be justified because at least for me the purpose of an Analysis is to learn more about myself than the show in the process of making this video I have become more attuned to recognizing the things I like and dislike in my media and for that I am thankful of Voltron I don't know if listening to me dissect this show for over two hours have the same effect on you But at the very least I hope you can walk away from this with the motivation To think a little more deeply about the media you consume Obviously, I'm not telling you all to make hours upon hours of videos about the shows you watch because seriously I did not have to break this show down in as much detail as I did and Even still there are parts of the show. I didn't mention I barely talked about Quran at all. I mean to summarize But there has to be a stopping point somewhere and I tried my best to mention everything I thought was relevant if I did somehow miss something though I welcome your comments and if there's enough stuff to add I might even make a follow-up video But it wouldn't be nearly as long or have as much effort put into it as this video but with that said I applaud everyone who sat through this entire analysis the thought that anyone would be willing to listen to me Talk for this long about anything is totally wild. Once again. I'd like to give a huge thanks and shout out to kitty Kraft who is a gigantic help in the script writing process of this massive endeavor her channel link will Be in the description and if you want to get more content from us together We're both hosts of the podcast channel The Zoomer cast links are in the description if you enjoyed this Analysis show it by dropping a like and let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this style of video I've been getting a lot more experimental with my content and I enjoy the experimentation But I know that I should eventually settle on one style and stick with that. Thank you so much for watching the video I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you in the next one
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Channel: Kross
Views: 392,778
Rating: 4.8978276 out of 5
Keywords: Voltron Legendary Defender Analysis, Voltron analysis, vld analysis, how voltron became a tragedy, voltron legendary defender, Kross, vld, dreamworks animation, Klance, what happened to voltron, Netflix, Voltron season 8, animation, VLD, Shiro, Lance, Pidge, Keith, Hunk, Allura, Analysis, Steven Universe, Star Vs, Avatar, atla, discussion, in depth, comdey, anime, cartoon, Dreamworks, Avatar the Last Airbender, voltron, dreamworks, voltron lance
Id: 84sYxPIiCoU
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 143min 13sec (8593 seconds)
Published: Wed Nov 27 2019
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