Voltron: Legendary Defender

you know what. fine. i will review voltron.
im actually sitting here scratching my head at that ending cus how did it go downhill so fucking fast
i want to preface this by saying i am not an insane person who just watched vld for the first time in the big year of 2024 just for fun. i watched voltron when it was originally airing on netflix a million years ago, but realized only while i was rewatching that i'd only seen up until season 4 or so. lol. but i kept up with the fandom until all the drama happened and knew vaguely about certain scenes like kuron vs keith, even though i didn't know it was kuron at the time. basically i revisited this show because i wanted to see if we were all delusional back then or if it was actually good and well. i definitely got that question answered.
everyone says seasons 1-2 or 1-3 are the only ones worth watching and like. that’s true. but honestly seasons 3-6’s only crimes were being kinda boring. other than that it’s not like… unwatchable. i even thought the show was fine halfway through season 7. and then we get back to earth and everything goes to shit
i didn’t really wanna do a full comprehensive review for this show and honestly i will not be because i don’t think it deserves my time or brain power so. this is gonna be more of like… a summary of my thoughts on it. it is not nearly as organized as my p3r review because i just don’t care as much.

The Shit

the atlas was stupid as shit. the mech design was ugly as hell and the fact that it had a mech version in the first place was just dumb. if you’re going to make a giant mech for literally no reason, at least make it look good. making the atlas just so shiro has another giant mech to pilot so he can be relevant to the story post clone reveal is just. ugh. on that note. shiro should have died in season 2. Idgaf. he should’ve stayed in the black lion’s consciousness for the rest of eternity like i’m so serious. the clone stuff was actually interesting and done well. i liked the way it was super long and drawn out and there were subtle clues to it throughout the 3 seasons it takes to get to the reveal. the reveal episode was also good. you know what wasn’t good. when allura somehow transfers his “soul” or “essence” from the black lion’s consciousness into the lifeless corpse of his clone. and no one gave a fuck after that. i don’t really think How she did that is important but it was just so supremely stupid i was kind of in shock. here are alternative ways they could’ve kept shiro in the show since that was so important to them apparently:
1) kuron survives his fight with keith and maintains the slightly different personality and everyone has to come to terms w the fact that there’s an imposter walking around wearing shiro’s skin and he isn’t shiro and never will be shiro and he has to live with this fact. also that he’s not his own person and never will be because he wasn’t programmed to be
2) shiro’s spirit or whatever the fuck stays in the black lion/merges with it in some sense so it takes some of his personality and memories i dunno something something merging something quantum realm something literally any other solution works
if they had just killed shiro they wouldn’t have had to go through all the trouble of allura reviving him in some bullshit way and making the atlas an ugly ass mech.

honerva. man. the way they come to understand her motivations is actually such bullshit and just a way to put allura through more bullshit. allura is the team’s punching bag this season. shiro passed on that role after he died. but anyway. fucking. going into honerva’s mind??? to discover that she too is a person that used to have a family n used to experience things like love and happiness???? Wow! it would’ve been so much more compelling if they had actually talked to her face to face about her motivations. if honerva had said just once, desperately, that she wanted to have her life back again, before it was stolen from her. but she never, ever says that. not once. it’s implied, sure. but if we want to sympathize with this villain because her story and character are so complex, you can’t just throw it into one bullshit episode where they “go into her mind.” i was actually excited for honerva to be the final villain because i think she’s a genuinely interesting character considering that she is also a victim in a lot of senses. to the entity, to zarkon, etc. obviously she’s a shitty person and has done crazy bullshit but the way the entity corrupted her and erased her memories of her past life is genuinely interesting and really sad. the way she’s treated by zarkon in the flashback episode is depressing as fuck and the birth/pregnancy is kinda horrific if you think about it. but nooooo they never go into that because who cares apparently… they only have honerva explain her side of the story in the LAST FUCKING EPISODE. like is this legend of korra or something. they hit honerva with the kuvira beam and made her a soulless villain.
also on that note: bringing back the original paladins to help the new paladins fight honerva? fine whatever. giving ZARKON a redemption arc to fight the corrupted version of his wife that exists only because of his greed?????? OH MY FUCKING GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. zarkon of all people. the fucking. oh my god. i don’t even. it was so bad. genuinely so bad. just so what?? keith could have a black paladin with him??? isn’t the whole fucking point of the black paladin that it has a crazy ass legacy that keith n shiro battle with for the first like 6 seasons??????? hello????? it was genuinely interesting when keith was left alone in that fucking consciousness realm thing because he was the only one whose paladin hadn’t been trapped in honerva’s mind which is. a whole other thing but whatever. and then they just totally negate that by going back in time to when zarkon was ‘good’ and having him help keith. man FUCK YOU. zarkon was always the leader of an empire. they state this MULTIPLE times. he was never GOOD. and he is NOTTTTT the kind of leader/mentor that keith needs. he LITERALLY HAS SHIRO!!!!!!!!!!!! if shiro had fucking died and stayed in the black lion guess who could’ve been there for keith. GUESS. getting into different realities and jumping realities in a sci-fi show is all good and fine but they actually took it way too far without considering that their story and setup is not nearly as epic enough to make this look cool. now i’m just sitting here like … ok. honerva losing her mind when lotor doesn’t accept her in her corrupted state is good. honerva going berserk and trying to wipe out every reality because of how much suffering she was going through is good. everything else was bad. i wish they had fleshed her out better because a selfish villain who does bad things because they just want to be happy again is like… genuinely good and interesting. but they just laid out the bare bones of that story and didn’t do anything with it. genuinely disappointing.
this show also is not equipped in any capacity to be writing about imperialism and colonization. giving the leader of the empire a redemption arc so he can help the heroes kill his grieving wife is . ok. i don’t think zarkon would be upset about all those memories allura showed him. he was the leader of the galra EMPIRE before all of this bullshit started. Ok. i also hate that they imply that zarkon only colonized so violently bc of the ‘entity’ and quintessence poisoning or whatever. the implication that colonization is not… an evil regular people are capable of. or something. i’m not saying this right someone smarter than me can hash that out. and the ending???? ok so the galra empire just joins the voltron coalition??? and they decide to vote on a leader instead of doing the kral zera shit? fine. whatever. i don’t care.
honerva “trapping the original paladins in her mind” is so….. man. like it’s so stupid. the story gets so convoluted so fast. like dude slow down cus now it all sounds dumb. the paladins did not need to meet the original paladins. it just feels like a ploy for allura and lance to meet her dad. it’s just… boring and unnecessary.

allurance: bad! just done so poorly. “hinted” at once or twice at the end of season 7 when things started really going downhill. before that allura had never once indicated that she had feelings for lance. and also literally like the season before this she’d fallen in love with a man that had manipulated her so severely for nothing but his own gain. i highly doubt she would be like. emotionally available at this point in the story. after they get together officially it becomes so stupid bc it’s like suddenly lance is the only one that cares about allura enough to object to her doing all this stuff that puts her life in danger. it cheapens her relationship with the rest of the cast, which in turn makes the final scene where she says goodbye to everyone stupid as shit. i think lance being in love with allura is fine and makes complete sense. here’s me fixing allurance: lance never confesses to allura officially and the only thing that stays is lance being worried about her and lance telling her he can’t do this without her when she’s in the med bay after she collapsed. that’s it. they should’ve alien staged it: keith → lance → allura → romelle. except allura and romelle actually get together cus they were cute. keith having unrequited feelings for lance is good and honestly implied and they should keep that. i like that klance have genuine conversations even/especially after allurance get together bc it shows keith’s urm. genuine feelings and care for lance. good!
ok the ending: i honestly laffed. keith turning the blade of marmora into a humanitarian aid org: i honestly laffed. shiro having the most half assed ending with a literal random dude i have never seen before: i honestly laffed. hunk becoming a professional chef: ok i didn’t laff.
ok let’s talk hunk. i shouldn’t have expected anything from the fat comedic relief character. but my god i wish they did this guy justice at least once in the entire series. he is sooo cute and charming and extremely lovable. i talk about him like he’s a dog. but seriously he’s so cute and like that he’s a super nerd and honestly the cooking thing is fine because i like his motivation for it being a way to spend time with loved ones and bring people together. very good! what’s not good is the “constantly thinking about food” trope. it’s so fucking tired. if hunk loves cooking because it reminds him of the time he spent with his family why the fuck was he thinking about food in that early season episode where they’re trying to bond as paladins and not his fucking family. fuck you. not once does hunk get a standalone episode where he goes to do things on his own. which, fine, lance doesn’t really either. but lance gets a lot of love from this show. hunk’s most memorable, and only actually deep moment he gets is when they come back to earth and he sneaks out to see his family. that’s it. and it was cute, i like his relationship with keith a lot. the weblum episode was also cute but that’s. it. he goes to look at his parents and then they fuck off back to the garrison. like what the hell. also what happened to him being a mechanic? and being a nerd? like i thought he was going to be a mechanic? for space shit? whatever. he’s so cute i love you hunk.
on allura in general: she was so good in the beginning. i loved the way they had her parallel keith; their anger, their frustration, the way they lashed out and made rash decisions based on their own ideals. it was very good and i thought the episode where they run away together was one of the best shows of that. but over time it just becomes like… a self sacrifice party… all allura does is give and give and give and i’m tired of the ever selfless princess character that sacrifices everything for “the good of the universe.” allura should be selfish. she should be mean. she should be stupid and impulsive. and she is. but she just… isn’t after a certain point. and you could call it character development i guess but i don’t think it was a good one. allura dying at the end isn’t even that bad. i just wish they’d gone about it in any other way. the ending with her saying goodbye to everyone sucked too. like it was done so badly. i thought we had infinite realities to save why are we wasting time. and it didn’t evoke any emotion in me at all. if it had then maybe it would’ve been ok. but it didn’t. and on that note i wanna talk about how alteans are treated in this show cus what?? i hate the way this show has made alteans give up so much. like. all alteans do is sacrifice their own livelihoods for some bullshit cause or another in this show. it seems very counterintuitive to a story that supposedly is about the two survivors of a genocide dismantling the empire that destroyed their planet. like… why are alteans always the ones suffering, especially in season 8. and oh my god. the finale boss battle being a team up of humans, alteans, and galra against… one altean woman. like are we supposed to think this is epic? it’s just sad. the alliance with the galra is so fucking shallow and doesn’t feel meaningful at all. krolia and kolivan are sent away to “convince galra fleets to join the coalition” but we literally don’t see any of that happen until all of a sudden a dozen fleets show up during the final fight. what the hell man. it just doesn’t feel genuine. also the balmera showing up was so fucking stupid like how did shay know they needed help and exactly where they were???? ugh.

final voltron design was also ass. just gets rid of everything that makes voltron special(the colors of each lion)and makes it butt ugly and boring. i suppose it looks more “altean” after fusing with the atlas but 1) that doesn’t make sense and 2) voltron is entirely altean tech???? it’s altean enough already???????? it’s just bad design. the galra mechs were not bad though i liked lotor’s enough(tail was pretty cool and i liked that it was made out of his ships)and haggar’s wings were cool. but on that note: honerva should not have had a mech. i understand this show is about giant mech fights but honestly after the third voltron copy i was tired. they don’t know how to choreograph giant mech fights either. every single giant mech fight had me yawning. but anyway honerva should’ve used nothing but magic. that’s her WHOLE THING. she uses magic/alchemy to do everything. it would’ve been way cooler if it was her own body doing everything, or she created like a giant avatar using magic. idk. it just throws away everything that haggar was about and replaces it with mech bc hehe mech fight cool. and it wasn’t even cool. the worst sin
i honestly cannot say anything about lotor because i was completely checked out for all the seasons he was in. i just didn’t care that much. i liked his goons cus they were lesbian as fuck. i was also genuinely expecting some kind of commentary on lotor/his goons/keith and being half galra but i guess not. maybe for the best cus it probably would’ve been bad anyway.
i think keith growing so perfectly into the leader role and emulating shiro in some ways was very good but it was downplayed by the fact that shiro was still… right there…. and on that note: SHIRO’S NEW ARM IS FUGLY! WHY IS IT MISSING THE ENTIRE UPPER ARM. FUCK YOU. i don’t care that he’s supposed to mirror sendak. I DON’T CARE. GIVE HIM A FULL ARM. it’s actually so mind boggling ugly i can’t even comprehend it. the mech design post season 6 got so bad man.

The Less Shit

keith and shiro’s relationship was good. genuinely heartwarming. i’m also just a sucker for found family big brother tropes but their story is so cute. i loved the flashback episode in season 7, i thought it was a great show of how they got to know each other and get closer even through small snippets. side note the adam thing was so random i can’t believe people latched onto him so hard. all scenes with adam could’ve been entirely removed and the story nor its impact wouldn’t change in the slightest, but i guess it was to confirm that shiro’s gay. but also like why kill adam then LOL… i think it would’ve been nice if shiro came home to his boyfriend/fiance/whatever and they expanded on that relationship just a little. shiro’s chronic illness was honestly fine. very abrupt and never mentioned literally ever again but josh keaton’s performance during the scenes where keith asks about his bracers and demands an answer from him was so good. he saved that plot point just by being goated. speaking of goated the kuron vs. keith episode was genuinely the best episode of the entire series. the direction of that episode was insane like why was the fight choreo and animation and lighting so good. also i’m gonna be honest i know it was a total star wars reference but idgaf abt star wars and i thought it was done well…… you’re my brother… i love you… but i just like stuff like this. i loved keith’s refusal to let go of kuron, even though he knew it wasn’t actually shiro. he still couldn’t give up on him. so good. i love keith’s attachment to shiro… he was the only person he had… the only person who hadn’t given up on him… for no reason too, just that he had wanted to, that he had trusted keith to pull through. that was all he needed. and he will never, ever forget what shiro did for him. so good!!!! i love them [grin] you know what i hate that i have to clarify this but i do not ship sheith. just to make it clear. shiro literally birthed keith himself like that's his baby brother.
speaking of shiro: seasons 1-2 shiro aka #thereal shiro was the best. he was sooo. silly, kind, and very sexy. the perfect man. honestly i understand why they brought him back. like. just such a good character. the silly leader older brother figure to the crew with a traumatic past. i think his parallels/whatever with zarkon were really good too. how zarkon is everyone’s enemy but zarkon is shiro’s like. personal enemy. the black paladins. super good. actually his little arm wrestling stunt in season 8 was cute… i like that shiro can have fun now…
keith’s turn…yeah…… i like the emo one……. no one is surprised…..but keith isn’t as emo as i thought he was. he’s definitely the “lone wolf” of the group but like in the early seasons he was genuinely kind to everyone and got along with them well, aside from lance. but even that was like whatever a silly little rivalry. i liked keith joining the blade of marmora and being conflicted over his place in voltron in season 3(being a shitty leader, not wanting to lead, being offered a place in the blade of marmora, shiro “coming back”)it was all quite good. i liked that keith joined the blades because they aligned more with his original moral code(extremely strong sense of justice, bigger picture > smaller details/individuals)and how that eventually clashed with the ideals that he came to adopt after working with and eventually leading voltron(the importance of individual lives). i loved his refusal and reluctance to take over as black. sitting in the black lion going, “no, no, no, don’t do this” because he hated to acknowledge that shiro was really gone, that what shiro had said had become true, that he would have to fill such a huge gap in the team. soooo good. also idk if this was intended but i kinda saw shiro being in the black lion’s consciousness at that point as him like encouraging it to accept keith as its paladin. cute… not wanting to give up on shiro but knowing that he would have wanted keith to move on and take his place…urghhh. i will admit a main character being largely absent for 3 seasons was definitely a choice though. at least he met his very sexy mom. and got a dog. i appreciate that they gave him a dog.
now pidge. actually the most goated character in this entire series idgaf. my beautiful ginger transgender nerdy into coding green coded girl(#futabasakura). she’s soooooooo cute… i love that she likes weirdo cute things like beezer the robot and she kept those fuzzy aliens from when she got stranded….. she is actually peak. i love the juxtaposition between her experience and love for coding/games vs her connection to the earth and nature. the first olkarion episode was awesomeeeee. she’s just like me!!!!!!! and she’s dumb and hotheaded and gets angry because she cares so deeply. i love her so bad.
um. hunk. he’s just cute. i think his relationship with everyone on the crew is adorable. but they fucked up every other aspect of his character so there’s not much to say.

Conclusion

this show was so good and then it tanked so hard it’s lowkey unbelievable. also the legacy it left behind is literally unmatchable and we will never see anything like it again. i still remember the day all that shit went down with lauren montgomery and joaquim dos santos. anyway i think seasons 1-2 are the only ones worth wasting your time on if you have already seen this show. if you haven’t seen it, don’t even bother. the worst part about this show is that all of its characters are genuinely lovable and very cute. but then it completely fucks them all over. i’m not even gonna give this one a rating i think the rest of this post speaks for itself.

#loveandfriendship