Let’s go Voltron Force!
I would like to welcome everyone to the first official post of the new blog. I’m excited to talk to the void for the first month of existence as we currently have two followers, but thank you to those two followers, it means a lot.
I had a very concrete idea of what I wanted to write about for my first blog post. So concrete, I was even taking notes for it. But after watching Voltron: Fleet of Doom, I just had to talk about it, because why not. If you don’t know what Voltron is, let me give you a brief rundown.
Voltron is the name of the American adaptation of two Toei Animated series, Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, two separate shows that had nothing to do with each other in Japan. In America, GoLion was Voltron 3 and Dairugger XV was Voltron 1.
World Events Productions created the Voltron brand in 1984 with the idea to sell toys. If you created a TV show in the 80s, 11 times out of 10 you were trying to sell toys and Voltron was no different. The idea was to have two different Voltron teams but, under the same brand. The more Voltrons, the more toys sold.
Makes sense on paper, but man, was the plan poorly executed.
Voltron ran for two seasons from late 1984 to late 1985. Season one featured the Lion Force and the show was well received. Season two featured the Vehicle Force and that confused the masses who spent the last year with the Lion Force. The Voltron brand took a hit and the show was cancelled after those two seasons, however it didn’t 100% go away.
That’s how we got the Fleet of Doom.
The Fleet of Doom TV movie was a crossover, designed to bring the two Voltron’s together. Finally, the Lion Force and the Vehicle Force would share the screen for the first time, bringing the show full circle, and making the minds of 10-year-old boys everywhere explode. Or so they thought.
To give a brief rundown of the plot, King Zarkon teams up with Viceroy Throk of the Drule Empire to finally destroy the Galaxy Garrison and it is up to the two Voltrons to stop them. Also Haggar the witch kidnaps Princess Allura because she feels like Zarkon hasn’t given her the credit she thinks she deserves.
And that’s it, that’s the entirety of the Fleet of Doom‘s plot.
Voltron: Fleet of Doom is an exposition heavy mess, filled with lazy writing, boring voice work, featuring an uninspired plot, topped off with the use of pre existing GoLion and Dairugger XV footage, giving you the illusion of new, American made footage. The two Voltrons are rarely on screen together and when they are on screen together, it’s usually still images.
What should’ve been a fun crossover adventure ended up being a laborious slog fest in which nothing really happens. In that 45 minute special:
- Neither Voltron appears until the 34 minute mark
- The Lion Force is split up for three quarters of the entire thing as Keith has to rescue Allura
- Both Voltrons have to travel pretty far to reach the planet Agoran, which is the planet the Fleet of Doom is invading, but the Lion Force is intercepted by Prince Lothor before they can reach the planet. An asteroid field slows down the Vehicle Force leading to them joining the party late. Allura gets kidnapped, Keith rescues her, the two of them come back, and form the Lion Voltron BEFORE the Vehicle Force escapes the asteroid field
And that’s kind of like… it. Allura being kidnapped is definitely the biggest plot point, somehow bigger than the formation of the Fleet of Doom and the invasion of Agoran. In the end the Fleet of Doom is destroyed and the Voltrons emerge victorious.
Man oh man, what a disappointing crossover.
Above and Beyond the Screen 