How Voltron Became a Tragedy | Part I: Production

[Music] I put off writing this review I've loved Voltron for years I hopped onto the fandom train about a day after season two dropped I've composed fan songs drawn fan art role played created over an hour of review material and written over a hundred thousand words of fanfiction and when season seven came out I had to come to terms with the fact that I didn't like the story anymore I noticed some story problems within the first six seasons of course I have discussed jarring tone shifts disappearing characters the unfinished story arcs in this channel in the past but I never anticipated a situation where I would cease to believe the characters liked each other the flaws I perceived in the first and second arcs didn't seem too detrimental to a story that ultimately focused on the power of teamwork and seemed to be on the path to a traditional happy ending season seven was what made me realize Shiro was going to be sidelined for the rest of the show which was a real bummer but more critically I was faced with a realization that the core cast had never really bonded and the showrunners had run out of time to patch the gap between them the show about found family and the power of teamwork they were never really going to feel like a family to me and I didn't know how to deal with that I wanted to believe for so long that these character arcs would be tied up that I'd get to watch this quirky found family tackle the worst the universe had to offer and win with the power of friendship but season AIDS moment of triumph rang hollow to me I felt like I'd witnessed a tragedy and that's a problem for a story based around themes of Hope and teamwork you may say well don't be mean to a kids show but the Voltron show runners have stated on multiple occasions that Voltron was designed to appeal to a wide demographic kids adults grandparents themes of friendship and love and teamwork are propped up alongside topics like abandonment massive genocide the morality of slavery torture PTSD and you know the difficult question of should I as a man with a terminal illness slated to kill me in a couple years trade my dreams of space travel for the love and support of my boyfriend you've broken every record there is to break I know I can't stop you but I won't go through this again there's content for younger and the older fans alike and that's a deliberate choice by the Voltron showrunners and I feel like they failed and their appeals to both those audiences elaborate on this more in the second video but as a children's show Voltron failed to follow through on their hopeful messages and as a show for older audiences it failed the tie-up it's more complex themes I feel like it's fair to critique the end result from either of these perspectives as long as it's done with respect because I do think these people deserve respect one of the reasons I didn't want to write this review is because I care so much about what these people think of me these writers story borders voice actors are my heroes they brought me a show that gave me so much joy and inspiration during a difficult part of my life the thought of one of them coming across my review by some weird twist of fate and thinking ah there's another for his new hates me and thinks my work is crap I would honestly break my heart a little can I say I'm a sensitive person and it makes negative reviews difficult and this will be a negative review across the board this show has made people upset and that's definitely not the reaction the creator's aimed for when they set out to make a reboot of Voltron it's enough of a reason to want to understand what went wrong many people like myself for sitting back in their chairs right now asking themselves this used to be my favorite show when did things go so wrong what happened so I said about finding an answer in my attempts to untangle the mystery of Ultron's production I read literary analysis and data crunches within the fandom read 44 written interviews watched two video interviews and listened to one podcast interview contacted eleven people associated with the production of Ultron editors writers supervisors VP's directors and executives and messaged eight LinkedIn profiles or Twitter's to Facebook's and sent three emails even got Joshua Hamilton on the phone somehow I recorded the conversation for my own personal reference on the one in 300 billion chance he let me ask questions on the record so no I won't be sharing the rest of the video with anyone ever just know that Joshua Hamilton is a really nice guy he wasn't able to answer my questions as expected since I'm a random college student and I'm not with the press but he passed me along to DreamWorks press secretary anyway I have pieced together what I personally believed to be the story of what happened to Voltron some pieces are more solid than others but without further ado here's my take as in all projects many changes were made to the showrunners original plans for example Lauren and Joaquim have alluded to a Voltron that began on an apocalyptic earth with a white-haired famed Keith here's how the production process works as explained by a Voltron director Chris Palmer you hand out you know the script with the new directors notes it gets storyboarded and then director sees like a rough pass and you make your notes along with the show owners Joaquim and Lauren would look over stuff and then Ryu one of the supervising producer so we're all kind of you know everyone's kind of got their hands in it jumping on it massaging it down to the final episode that you see and again by to lead writers Mitch Iverson and Tim Hedrick but basically every episode starts with a premise which is about a page or two pages that are the idea of the episode and that goes out to everyone on the show for notes and then we take those notes and then we develop that into an outline and when we do that we put three by five cards up on a cork board and we lay out the whole episode and we say these are the beats that are going to happen and here's the character beats that we want to hit and that gets turned into an outline it's usually about eight or nine pages and then that goes out four notes from every one we take the feedback from the executives and Milwaukee Morin then we turn that into an episode and usually our scripts are like 23 24 pages long and then that goes out again more notes notes incorporated another scripts more notes and then notes notes notes notes and eventually it becomes a show somehow the first real draft of the show runners pitch to the executives as far as we know was one wherein Shira was a mentor figure whose death kicked off Keith's development from a lone wolf to a leader she rose role was then expanded upon with his death slated for the end of season two sometime before the first season could air executives decided they actually really liked Shiro and correctly predicted he'd be popular with viewers they demanded that he be kept in the story and his death was ultimately scrapped more than that the executives asked for Shiro to be brought back early we don't know how far ahead the production had reached by the time word got to the showrunners but many speculate storyboards had already been approved for episodes of seasons 3 & 4 maybe the executives were unfair and surprised the show runners with the order to keep Shiro around when the show runners had already mapped out later seasons or maybe the show runners raced ahead without the executives permission and hit a wall when they got wind of what they were up to for whatever reason the show runners were faced with a very tricky situation they were already far enough ahead into the production of at least seasons 3 & 4 that they couldn't afford to scrap all the work they'd paid for all the concepts scripts and storyboards the executives said they weren't allowed to keep sure away for so many seasons so what could they do just paste Shiro into the background of these scripts and storyboards and hope no one would notice well now that was the thought he was meeting showrunners Lauren and Joaquim tell the executives or maybe the executives tell Lauren and Joaquim there's no way to tell here's what we do we don't have the money to start from scratch what we can do is bring Cheryl back as a clone and that wouldn't require new episodes from the ones you've already written ask the executives a few they say but not too many will need one to establish Shiro as a clone and a couple at the very end to tie up the arc maybe a Dungeons & Dragons game for the rest will pace euro on top of Keith ah the executives say but then what about Keith if Shiro replaces him where does Keith go oh well we've always wanted him to find his mother now would be the opportunity to have him leave and find out more about himself this plan would save everyone a lot of time and money instead of Reese crypting and storyboarding all those scenes to include Shiro they could just put him on top of Keith and they had the perfect excuse for Shiro to be out of character he was actually a clone there aren't that many scenes where the shiro clone stands out or does anything keith wouldn't have most of his plot relevant moments are short and the real keith doesn't need that much screen time tailing a comic code of honor and blood duel are really the only episodes that focus explicitly on Keith's relationship with the team or his time away the rest of the time he's mostly sequestered two short scenes across the seasons then you tie the clone arc together with the colony and the black paladins the shots from all good things are mostly static albeit beautiful and Shiro and Keith only appear together at the end of defender of all universes there you go tada you're done with the new parts thus only a few new scripts minimal edits to the storyboards and a whole lot of time and money saved and you managed to appease the executives because Shero never left y'all buncha quitters I have thoughts ideas but I need you anyway I'll rewrite the show get rid of the whole lot of you replace you with new paladins real hero oh never get rid of you popular character so if you've watched season 3 through 6 and found yourself asking questions like if Ethan the timur found family why does no one ever mentioned keith why do they act like he's so replaceable why do they never say they miss him how can they work without him is Voltron without any hiccups when they took several episodes to regroup after Shiro left well now you have your answer Keith never left this was originally the arc where he bonded with the paladins this was the arc where he moved from a rivalry with loader to a kind of kinship with him as a fellow half Gaul Hren where he struggled with his loyalty to the paladins versus his belief and loaders cause there were no emotional repercussions for Keith leaving the team or currents painful brainwashing because these elements were pushed into a script that wasn't built to accommodate them this is why you'll catch shiro acting out with Keith's temper or standing exactly as Keith would because that's only a she rope shell over Keith's rigged model as a storyteller you would want to explain as the showrunners did outside the narrative that the clone and Shiro souls were combined when Elora passed Rio's essence onto the colognes body no one died or was consumed by the other but that point wasn't in the original narrative and for whatever reason the creators didn't make room for that canonical explanation and so none of the Paladin seemed to care that a person they lived with and fought beside for months was most likely obliterated right under their noses they don't contemplate the morality of that decision because there was never supposed to be anyone to mourn there's an argument for the fact that I'm nots of course and I absolutely cannot blame all the narrative problems from seasons three through six on the supposed switch up there were always issues with Voltron Voltron has a tone swings back and forth like a pendulum moments that feel rushed or skipped a cast of characters enter and leave the story through a revolving door wait you just fought a little defeated him stopped an explosion that could have destroyed reality took your friends consciousness from the black line of Voltron put it inside his clone and I was simply removing it trust me I'm always saying the exact same thing but these guys like to move on but I was able to look past all that or dismiss those problems as a quirk of the narrative because I believe the bond between the cast members and therefore had a stake in their escapades the narrative effects of these cut-and-paste choices deeply damaged Voltron's core themes of love and friendship and that changed my ability to overlook this earlier narrative problems the point remains there's a possibility that all this weirdness stems from you know first time writer problems Lauren and Joaquim are first-timers and they were assigned a space opera but the cut and paste Theory answers so many of my questions at once seems a lot more solid to me than the theory of well the showrunners suddenly forgot that keith matters to the story back to the production timeline cut and paste crunch time or not I can say for sure that this was a hectic situation for everyone Chris Palmer left due to burnout as the showrunners refer to here and he himself mentions here so I worked on like the fifth first 52 episodes of Voltron you like every third and the show is amazing it's also a very difficult show so it's at a point like you know the play between either budgets were pretty pretty slim yeah I mean there there's what is being made for Voltron is like it it's this like grand amazing looking show and you'd you'd be surprised like you know it it's it's quality is here and I know that like you know it's you know it's not being made on like a feature budget or anything you know so another director Steve on left to start his own company writers quit whether to abandon ship for unrelated reasons Hedrick one of the strongest writers with the most knowledge of the new series was among the writers to leave and the craziness didn't end with the season three through six provisions oh no oh no here's the thing story borders are only kept around until the storyboards are complete so fandom eyebrows were raised when some story borders were only released as of March 2018 a traditional episode of animation takes from four to six weeks to complete plus a week or so of post if the story borders were still working up until March of 2018 that meant that everyone was months behind schedule how much work did these people have to animate by the final release date the prevailing theory goes like this somewhere in there scramble to edit seasons three through six Lauren and Joaquim made an appeal to the executives they wanted Keith to remain the black paladin for whatever reason whether to give Keith some time to bond with the paladins or simply to get him out of the way Lauren and Joaquim asked for Shiro to leave his position as the black paladin some suspect this pitch occurred when a new VP the person at DreamWorks who has final say on all the current shows entered the company in January 2018 so we do know that the showrunners had to convince the executives to let them put Shiro an atlas and that there was a draft where Shiro returned to piloting black if people didn't notice the weirdness of seasons three through six they definitely started to smell smoke when season seven hit past the anger at Adams death there was a lot of confusion surrounding the prolonged Lian swamp Shiro's lack of screen presence the lures crystal the battle between Shiro and Sendak the list goes on even to casual viewers there was a sense that something had gone one of the biggest revelations came in the form of this article the wolf the Atlas and the Bayard where a fan named Jane strider theorized about another potential cut-and-paste scenario in this theory which I personally standby Shira was supposed to come back with a stronger bond to black than ever before each lion has a special elemental power red controls fire blue controls water and so on the black lion controls either or the essence of space its strongest power is teleportation Shiro unlocked blacks teleportation ability before he was stuck in her consciousness for several seasons it would make sense for Shiro to come back with an even closer connection but Keith never leaves black's chair Lauren and Joaquim had to explain outside of the show how Elora had broken share his bond with black when she extracted his consciousness the show never actually addresses the fact we're left to make up our own reasons for why Shiro doesn't fly black anymore even after he's recovered from his time in the astral plane another piece that doesn't fit the audience knows how much heroes happiness means to Keith I'm sure Keith wanted Shiro to remain the leader so he wouldn't have to take up his mantle but he also wanted cheero to recognize that he had a place on the team she rose the head all the time didn't you see how he stole the black line right out from under Shiro or that he could do all that cool stuff with his Bey are she rosebay art I've got some comes back you're mayor you take the Black Lion I'll stay with Koran in the castle and provide support Keith are you sure I'm sure he uses Shiro's position to remind him of his worth when others suggest Keith takes up the position of black paladin he refuses even when he's finally convinced to fly black Keith does so as the pilot of the Black Lion not the black paladin i'm elora daughter of alpha king of altair and paladin of the blue line I'm pitch the Paladin and the green lion I'm hunk the paladin of the yellow line I'm Keith the pilot of the Black Lion what should I say I'm a paladin I fly the Black Lion I I said that already see that's why I'm bad at this throughout season three he's very obviously saving Shiro seat leading and Shiro's name this one's for you sure to see Keith assumed the role of black paladin without so much as a nod between himself and Shiro feels completely weird it leaves the viewer totally baffled with the ever-present question it's assumed that this discussion doesn't exist between Shiro and Keith because Shiro was supposed to keep his position as black paladin armed with his Barrett's teleportation power when that status was revoked after Lauren and Joaquim got the go-ahead from Executives story problems emerged you can paste Keith on top of Shiro from the old scripts and story boards and say the reason he sounds like Shiro is because he's matured from his time away with his mother but the script still calls for scenes where Shiro uses blacks teleportation power they can't just give Keith those powers because he's already supposed to work alongside Shiro during those scenes not as him with Keith [Music] a teleporting space wolf it's a genius it gives keifa cute travel companion and the creative team doesn't have to stray too much from those pre-existing teleportation sequences again they save money because they don't have to make totally new scripts and storyboards except this time all the cut and pasting is done to keep Shiro out of the narrative instead of in it here's how things were going to go before Shiro was swapped out with a dog as per the wolf the atlas and the bay art seriously go check out this article there's more to read than I've cited here I've linked all my sources down below for you to peruse Jane Strider posits in the original story season 6 happens the same way - wolf she returns not as a retired paladin but even more closely bonded with black than ever however he doesn't go back to piloting just yet he's recovering getting used to a new body in a new arm sorting through his head after being merged with the clones consciousness and everyone is settled in this configuration at the moment he's content to rest up while keith pilots black but there is a sense that this is temporary the Pirates attack Shiro rearranges the passengers Shiro ends up in the green lion with Pidge coincidentally the green lion is where Shiro spends most of the journey home after this point then Shiro to protect Pidge teleports inside the gallery fighter to take it out but gets injured because of course she rat would shiro being hurt unconscious for the majority of the episode would explain why he did absolutely nothing while paige was threatened and why Keith would defer to Lance to lead the team out it would also raise the stakes since they need to get cher to a pod it's possible that this is the point where the first episode and the pre-curved flashbacks would have gone she rose in a pod now because he was injured not because the cloned body is rejecting him if I recall correctly the Lions were depleted at the end of season 7 episode 3 but it has never explained how they recharged them I just looked at the Lions and they're worse shape than ever we should probably give them some time to recharge before we head back on our way so the planet where they meet and talk to auction is where they find the Almar and go on their little adventure it's a lot more fun to watch these sequences with Shiro as the wolf there's a curious absence of Keith and Cher as usual dynamic throughout season seven and eight made all the more suspicious after their emotional clash and reunion from seasons prior saved each other after that they rarely spoke and treated each other like co-workers at an office at least this way we can pretend the original version came through when they fought together as lion paladin's once more the narrative stakes are a lot higher and the story a lot more personal for sure oh and Keith fighting side by side here rather than Keith and his dog besides the sudden dynamic shifts between Keith and Shiro the wolf creates another problem as a retired paladin Geo has nothing to do for the first part of the season Shiro fans will note he appears to be dissociating throughout the road how him and the way forward he's also not present for the feud he's quickly paralyzed in the ruins unable to engage with the paladins of the story at large then paralyzed again during the events of the journey with him and some shots the animators even appear to forget to draw him for many of these scenes it's even more apparent than it was in season three through six that Shiro is simply not supposed to be there then the Atlas Laura has spent the last season learning how to use transformative al tain magic to create a transdimensional ship it makes sense that she would go on to use these new abilities to make volt Ron's new castle ship she'd get the chance to use her powers for good when last season she was used by loader to create a machine for evil rather than lose another piece of her heritage she'd be allowed to reclaim Altay and magic for her own placing laura at the helm of the atlas would give her back her position as a commander where she had lost her planet and her people she's gained a new home a new people who look up to her for guidance and support now she's a leader a general a queen Atlas is also powered by Laura's crystal its mecha form represents a more traditionally feminine figure with giant curved hips this revelation here about the ships quintessence lines up more with allure its past relationship with a castle ship and her new knowledge of transformative Altan magic then with she rose past relationship with black who's more associated with aether and teleportation it would make more sense for a Laura both narrative Lea and design wise to be the one to build transform and ultimately pilot this ship armed with a lesson she learned as the blue paladin also the scene where a lure gives shiro her crystal comes out of nowhere there's no reaction beat at all she Oh screams Laura stuffs her crystal in his arm and suddenly he's healed Shiro never thanks to Laura the cast doesn't acknowledge the event at all simply doesn't fit with the rest of the story I believe Shira was given the atlas as a way to keep Keith as the black paladin consider it this way if Shira went back to black then Keith would have to go back to red and Lance would return to blue Elora would need a new castle ship to pilot but with Keith and black shiro was the one who needs a new place so he replaces Elora as Atlas's pilot Keith and Shiro's offbeat interactions in the last two seasons make much more sense under this lens with Shira pasted on top of Elora and Keith pasted on top of Shiro Keith and Elora became closer over the course of the series but their bond doesn't hold a candle to Keith and Shiro's so there was a relationship with Shiro is stronger than a relationship with Keith they adventured together and have demonstrated their commitment to each other sure oh he saved Elora and vice-versa but again their bond doesn't have as much time to develop as Gio and Keith's it makes sense for Laura to be so formal with Keith and Shiro because that's their established dynamic whereas that same formality feels really weird and cold coming from Shiro he doesn't feel like the same person as Loras presence plays a large role the latter parts of season 8 strike me is almost entirely new content but the rest of the season was still very obviously a product of a cut-and-paste frenzy it seems likely that loader's role was heavily altered for example Taylor from the geeky era comments loader syncline mecca's returned with very little explanation as to how and impossibly the most confusing manner is loader in there is he not why does he suddenly start attacking the altai in mechs why does a Nerva have control over him this is another place where it feels like significant chunks of the story are missing the gap leads fans to believe loader might have been originally slated to return as himself another oddity it seems obvious that Ezra was supposed to stay dead after last season but the crew brought her back to appease fans this decision was made so last-minute that the creative team couldn't get a hold of Ezra's voice actor so she only speaks once with someone else's voice the other characters never seemed to acknowledge her presence on screen the same article by Taylor leads me into my next point separate attacks Keith she clearly blames him for the loss of azor then zeth red shouts more about revenge and states now you'll feel what I felt but she doesn't point the gun at Keith as she would if she were trying to hurt Akshay by killing her crush rather she points the gun at Shiro as defined by the official audio transcription the separate points are gonna cheero than a bright light flashes in slow motion as Etheridge falls off the edge of a cliff a lot of season 8 remains a mystery to me serious changes were made to the story but where shiro was the catalyst before now the reason remains unclear there's also the matter of a Laura's death it's a confusing moment to say the least and completely unwarranted the show never explains how a Laura's death will feel the universe seems like the Lions could have easily replaced her on the chopping block that was the development I'd expected given the showrunners comments about how they plan to end the series without the possibility of a sequel I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Lions were originally meant to take a Laura's place as the ultimate sacrifice for the Paladins but were swapped out for Laura so DreamWorks could reserve the Lions for future spin-offs and comics and then came the weeks [Music] on September 13th 2018 two months before the first scheduled release date of Ultron season eight one of the head producers in storyboard artists kyun view posted a picture of Shiro as he sent off his final scene for Voltron animation should have wrapped months ago another month passed and then photos from the final season were leaked to the general public fans were puzzled and dismayed at what appeared to be a Voltron epilogue one picture showed Shiro marrying another man fans recognized his face from Ryu September drawing the groom was really from the cross this fact among other things prompted fans to believe the leaks were fake as the studio with the rights to Macross would never let DreamWorks get away with such a blatant cameo in the end the leaks turned out to be real but Fokker was replaced at some point by a background character whose name has only ever appeared in subtitles some say Lauren and Joaquim didn't believe Macross his copyright holders would mind the Cameo and that's why Fokker was originally the groom others suspect the showrunners wanted to make trouble for DreamWorks before they left the company to work on the new animated spider-man films we'll never know the full story until someone comes forward regardless the question remains why was this clip show added to the end of Ultron some believe the showrunners the executives added Shiro's wedding to placate fans as many were still upset about Adams death it seems someone wanted to leave fans with some positive representation or at the very least prompt two last hurrah from the press in the end the wedding scene struck many audience members as rushed and disingenuous but I'll say now that I cried happy tears think of all the kids we'll get to see these two men get married on the screen in any case despite or perhaps because of all these changes to the story dreamworks anticipated a- enough response from fans to bury the final Voltron season while DreamWorks normally prefers to pace out their releases by three to four weeks they gave Voltron to release lot only a week before the drop of another highly anticipated show troll hunters they also chose to release it on a weekend when most students were busy with finals a demographic they rely on to stay up and binge the season drops there were very few advertisements for the final season and no special events with only an oddly done still frame trailer available until two weeks before release unlike with the other seasons there were no interviews to pre loot season eight not even with outlets like den of geek and hyperbole some of the show's strongest supporters all these factors added up to what felt like a solemn almost embarrassed season release on the 14th of December and so we emerge at the present day in the wake of what appeared to be a collage of a totally different story the fandom was left wondering what the hell happened this is the timeline fans have scrounged out of the madness I don't claim to know any of these things for sure unless we get word from DreamWorks or someone from the Voltron team we can only speculate maybe one of these days the matter will be put to rest but until then I hope this video has given you a better sense of how these changes were made and why please feel free to correct me in the comments if you know more about the situation but of course I'm not done what did these narrative changes do to the overall story and tone of Voltron and what do they mean for the fans [Music]

Channel: The Sin Squad

Views: 344,207

Rating: 4.8775001 out of 5

Keywords: voltron, voltron legendary defender, vld, what happened to voltron, how voltron became a tragedy, dreamworks, cushfuddled reviews, cushfuddled, sin squad voltron

Id: iiFiVFxR_Q8

Length: 31min 19sec (1879 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 13 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/dcapitan7]

I've watched the whole video. I'm sorry, Voltron was not a "tragedy." It's far from a "tragedy." It has a few flaws, but isn't nearly as bad as the vlogger made it out to be.

As for all of these fan theories she discussed, the only theory that I believe is legitimately possible is the theory that Ezor was intended to be killed off in S7. The one theory I believe is remotely possible is that Allura was supposed to pilot the Atlas, while Shiro, Keith and Lance were supposed to revert back to their original lions. Everything else, to put it as diplomatically as I can here, is wild speculation.

[u/Rakisanalligator]

I know there's been a tonne of negative posts surrounding the final season...but give this video series a chance.

It's genuinely one of the most well thought out breakdowns of the managerial/directorial missteps in Voltron's production. I might link the second part in a different thread, which covers how this influenced the overall writing quality (in season's 3-8).

[u/LetsOverthinkIt]

I didn't make it 10 minutes, unfortunately. First warning sign was name dropping Ptw30 and Janestrider -- two Tumblr bloggers who've come up with some of the more... creative conspiracy theories I've seen posted here. (I think Janestrider is the one who created the "Kosmo replaced Shiro," insanity.)

But the klaxons really began sounding when she blended the "Shiro was originally going to die" fact with the "Shiro was forced back early" fact.

Both of those are true, of course. JDS and LM confirm them both. (I mean, they're the ones who told us as much, frankly.) But they are two very separate occurrences. And when they get linked it creates a weird sort of hybrid untruth that leads to crazy theories. Like Kosmo replacing Shiro. Which is madly frustrating. Because the second fact (Shiro's return had to come earlier than expected) is an interesting issue that I think could make for some great discussion.

But as soon as the whole, "and they wanted him to die, anyway!" fact gets thrown in, all discussion is brought to a screeching halt. (I think because it leads to emotionalism? A sense that the writers and show runners hated Shiro and Shiro has to be protected from them or something?) I don't know. It just always gets weird and twisted and it's frustrating. Like this video.

[u/LapsedVerneGagKnee]

Production? That can mean anything, and I feel like I’ve seen enough hot takes about how X is full of unfortunate implications or representation and all the other Tumblr buzzwords.

If you want to talk about the funding going God knows where, showrunners that hated giant robots, alienation of toy and merchandise makers till they had to settle on freaking Playmates, then that would be worth discussing.