As a follow-up to my blog about whether it would be technically possible to design a Matty-style Vehicle Team Voltron that can hold its 15 pilots, I thought I’d try another thought experiment.
Might it be possible to design a Panosh Place-style Vehicle Team Voltron that can hold its 15 pilots?
Maybe. Juuuuust maybe.
Pardon the horrible quality of this photo.
One month ago today, I released my first VOLTRON fan video, awkwardly called the VOLTRON Lion Force / Vehicle Team Combined Opening Sequence. In this blog I’ll explain why I made it.
When VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE premiered in 1984, I was eight years old. I often wondered why the show’s two robots named Voltron almost never interacted. Years later, while browsing a then-back issue of STARLOG magazine (Number 105, April 1986), I learned that VOLTRON had been made using two unrelated Japanese animated television series:
This current program consists of two separate Japanese giant-robot serials, renamed Lion Force Voltron and Vehicle Team Voltron…. (Japanese titles: Go Lion, King of Beasts; and Dairugger-XV, the Armored Squadron.)
Even knowing this it continued to bother me that, with rare exception, most notably as the “Fleet of Doom” two-part final episode, neither Voltron story line mentioned the other in any way. Lion Force Voltron’s Green Lion pilot, Pidge, was said to be the twin brother of Vehicle Team Voltron’s pilot Chip, and in “Fleet of Doom,” references are made to the Lion Force and Vehicle Team’s pilots having been classmates and friends at some space academy, but that was about it.
Most confusing was that the Lion Force episodes and Vehicle Team episodes of VOLTRON had entirely different opening sequences, neither of which directly acknowledged the existence of the other Voltron, either in the video elements or in the narrations. The narrations were almost identical, and because each narration referred to Voltron as a legendary robot from the distant past, each narration seemed to imply that its Voltron was that legendary robot of the past.
The episodes themselves told a different story. In the earliest episodes of Lion Force Voltron, it’s directly stated that Lion Force Voltron is the robot of legend from days of long ago and uncharted regions of the universe. Episodes of Vehicle Team Voltron establish that Vehicle Team Voltron is a more recent construction, engineered by a now-dead scientist.
As someone who dabbles in moviemaking as a hobby, I thought it would be fun to make a hypothetical, single opening sequence for VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE that acknowledges both robots, while retaining the same basic feel of the Lion Force and Vehicle Team opening sequences.
While doing so I decided to try to fix another pet peeve of mine — obviously inaccurate use of space terminology. Even as an eight-year-old, I recognized that the show’s narrations’ treatment of “universe,” “galaxy” and “solar system” wasn’t correct.
I also wanted my opening sequence to look like it could have been made in 1984, so I decided not to do anything fancy, such as Photoshopping the two Voltrons together in a shot, or compositing the five pilots of Lion Force Voltron into the same shot as the fifteen pilots of Vehicle Team Voltron.
Finally I wanted my opening sequence to be of the same length as the “real” Lion Force Voltron and Vehicle Team Voltron opening sequences, so that, if my opening sequence had happened to have been made in 1984 by World Events Productions, then it could have simply been swapped in to replace the old material.
Unlike World Events Productions, I didn’t have access to the “raw” video and audio elements of GoLion, Dairugger or Voltron. I only had access to DVDs of those shows, plus a Voltron soundtrack CD.
With those goals and restrictions, I began with a script. In theory Peter Cullen, who narrated both original opening sequences, could be called in to narrate my opening sequence, but reality required me to edit together a script and narration from elements recorded for Voltron in the 1980s. The source material for my opening sequence’s narration was pre-existing narrations. So that I’d know what I had to work with, I transcribed each source narration:
Peter Cullen’s narration from the Lion Force Voltron episodes’ opening sequence:
From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend — the legend of Voltron, Defender of the Universe, a mighty robot loved by good, feared by evil. As Voltron’s legend grew, peace settled across the galaxy. On planet Earth a Galaxy Alliance was formed. Together with the good planets of the solar system, they maintained peace throughout the universe — until a new, horrible menace theatened the galaxy. Voltron was needed once more. This is the story of a super force of space explorers — specially trained and sent by the Alliance to bring back Voltron, Defender of the Universe.
Peter Cullen’s narration from the Vehicle Team Voltron episodes’ opening sequence:
From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend — the legend of Voltron, Defender of the Universe, a mighty robot loved by good, feared by evil. As Voltron’s legend grew, peace settled across the galaxy. On planet Earth a Galaxy Alliance was formed. Together with the good planets of the solar system, they maintained peace throughout the universe — until a new, horrible menace theatened the galaxy. Voltron was needed once more. This is the story of a super force of space explorers — entrusted by the Alliance with the ancient secret of how to assemble Voltron, Defender of the Universe.
Peter Cullen’s narration from the “Fleet of Doom” opening sequence
In the far reaches of the universe, the beautiful planet Arus had been enjoying peace and prosperity, thanks to the courage of the Voltron Lion Force. In the near universe, happiness reigned throughout the Galaxy Alliance, with the special help of the Voltron Vehicle Team. Goodness prevailed – until the day that Viceroy Throk, ruler of the Drule High Command, joined forces with Zarkon, king of planet Doom, and created a mighty armada to smash the Alliance. Fear and confusion was spreading across the universe. Princess Allura would be captured by witch Haggar, and only Commander Keith could possibly rescue her. Finally, the two Voltrons would have to fight side by side, to save their worlds. But would even their combined power be enough? Could the evil armada be defeated by Voltron, Defenders of the Universe?
Peter Cullen’s narrations from the two Lion Force Voltron pilot episodes:
From the far reaches of space, World Events Productions presents Voltron, the trilogy, defenders of the universe. The Voltron Trilogy: the adventure series that follows the interstellar heroics of three super robots who protect a group of daring, young space pioneers. Voltron One — the magnificent mechanical wonder who is guardian of the near universe. Voltron Two — the intrepid protector of justice in the middle universe. Voltron Three — the spectacular super robot who battles the forces of evil in the far universe. The Voltron Trilogy — today featuring Voltron of the far universe.
Peter Cullen’s narrations from the Vehicle Team Voltron pilot episode:
From the far reaches of space, World Events Productions presents Voltron, the trilogy, defenders of the universe. The Voltron Trilogy: the adventure series that follows the interstellar heroics of three super robots who protect a group of daring, young space pioneers. Voltron One — the magnificent mechanical wonder who is guardian of the near universe. Voltron Two — the intrepid protector of justice in the middle universe. Voltron Three — the spectacular super robot who battles the forces of evil in the far universe. The Voltron Trilogy — the explosive and thrilling three-part series that follows the amazing adventures of daring young space explorers — traveling in the near, middle and far universe, protected by three uniquely different champion super robots. The Voltron Trilogy — today featuring Voltron of the far universe.
I came up with the following script:
From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of space, comes the legend of Voltron, Defender of the Universe, a mighty robot loved by good, feared by evil. As Voltron’s legend grew, peace settled across the universe. From planet Earth a Galaxy Alliance maintained peace — until a new, horrible menace theatened the universe. Voltron was needed once more. This is the story of the super force of space explorers — in the far universe, a group sent to bring back Lion Force Voltron, and in the near universe, a group entrusted with a new Vehicle Team Voltron.
My opening sequence would have one of two conclusions, based on which Voltron was being featured in the specific epsode. For the Lion Force Voltron episodes, the narration would conclude with:
Today: the interstellar heroics of Lion Force Voltron, Defender of the Universe.
And for the Vehicle Team Voltron episodes, my narration would conclude with:
Today: the interstellar heroics of Vehicle Team Voltron, Defender of the Universe.
You’ll notice that, because my narration focuses more on the two groups of space explorers and their respective Voltron robots, I had to reduce the focus on the back story.
Once I’d “written” the script for the narration, I had to edit it together. While perusing the Voltron DVDs, I was fortunate to find an almost clean, voice-only audio track of Peter Cullen narrating the Lion Force Voltron episodes. I wasn’t so fortunate with the other source narrations, so I used the Lion Force Voltron narration as the primary audio source. (This is why my narration refers to “the super force of space explorers,” rather than “a super force of space explorers.”)
My “Frankensteined” narration went together amazingly smoothly. The toughest part was having to create the phrase “a group,” because that phrase from the pilot episodes’ narrations sounded too happy in tone for my narration, and it was too intermixed with background music. The phrase that I edited together used the word “a” from the Lion Force Voltron narration’s “a Galaxy Alliance,” and I stitched together the word “group” from the Lion Force Voltron’s “legend grew” and “good planets.”
Once the narration was edited together, I had to find suitable background music. Ideally I’d have used the same pieces that were used in the original Lion Force Voltron and Vehicle Team Voltron opening sequences. I didn’t have access to all of those elements without sound effects and narration, so in some cases I had to substitute what I thought were appropriate alternatives from the soundtrack CD.
I also didn’t have access to sound effects without music or dialogue, so my opening sequence lacks any sound effects — except for a “whooshing” sound from a spaceship in the Lion Force Voltron opening sequence. I couldn’t eliminate it without also eliminating the signature music from that part of the opening sequence. Because my opening sequence would use different video footage than the original opening sequences, I had to find something else that could make the whooshing sound. I wound up choosing a comet from an early episode of GoLion. It’s true that comets don’t make whooshing sounds in space, but in reality, nothing makes sounds in space.
The last challenge in editing the audio was to figure out how to edit in a signature, electronicized voice that follows Peter Cullen’s narration by saying, “Voltron, Defender of the Universe.” I wound up using a portion of the Lion Force Voltron opening sequence, complete with music. In editing I dissolved from the music that I compiled for my opening sequence into the finished Lion Force Voltron soundtrack just after both sequences’ Peter Cullen narrations conclude. The transition worked well enough.
Now that the sound elmeents were more or less finished, I had to find suitable video elements.
For the parts of the opening sequence that mention the ancient legend of Voltron, I chose video elements of Lion Force Voltron, since the episodes establish that robot and not Vehicle Team Voltron to be the legendary Voltron of old. To make Voltron seem mysterious, I chose two shots that begin with Voltron being in silhouette. To create a sense of being old, I added a sepia tint to the shots.
For the parts of the opening sequence that mention the “new horrible menace,” I replaced the generic space monsters form the original opening sequences with a montage of Zarkon, Hazar, Drule ships and a Doom ship. In other words I showed the actual menace!
Because of the extended narration describing the space explorers, I didn’t have enough of the signature musical cue to initiate it when the narration mentions that “Voltron was needed once more.” As a result I kept the “menacing” musical cue running through that portion of the narration, and I chose video elements to illustrate just why Voltron was needed — the forces of the Drule Empire and Planet Doom were devastating cities and planets.
My narration describes each of the two groups of space explorers — the five who operate Lion Force Voltron and the fifteen who operate Vehicle Team Voltron. For the beginning of this portion of the narration, I made a composite shot of all 20 space explorers, partitioned in groups of five — the five Lion Force Voltron pilots, the five Air Team pilots of Vehicle Team Voltron, the five Sea Team pilots of Vehicle Team Voltron and the five Land Team pilots of Vehicle Team Voltron. The composite shot was simple enough to have been created using video-editing technology of 1984. My composite shot didn’t use the goofy 3D “twisty turny” bells and whistles of the original opening sequences, so in that sense my composite shot was simpler than the ones made for the original opening sequqences.
For each Voltron force — the Lion Force and Vehicle Team — I wanted the video elements to be as similar as possible. For each group I began with a shot of the entire group, dissolving to a shot of that group’s Voltron striking a pose. The video footage of Vehicle Team Voltron didn’t have him holding his pose long enough to support the narration, so I looped the last few frames until it was of sufficient length. The last few frames of this sequence were also from a different video element than the element used for the preceding frames. The two elements had the same foreground but different backgrounds. I did this mix and match because I thought the combination made the resulting Vehicle Team Voltron “striking a pose” segment look more like its Lion Force Voltron counterpart.
As each Voltron strikes a pose, I added a brief cross-dissolve to a shot showing the units which form that Voltron: either the lions or the vehicles. I did this for two reasons — because my opening sequence doesn’t show any separated Voltron components anywhere else, and because the narration’s phrases “Lion Force” and “Vehicle Team” came from the “Fleet of Doom” narration, which had a flange that, in this new narration, gave those phrases a sort of ethereal quality that seemed suitable for the cross-dissolves.
The most labor-intensive part of the video project was rotocoping the word “VOLTRON” over the footage of Vehicle Team Voltron. I never liked the original Vehicle Team Voltron opening sequence’s final shot — its “VOLTRON” word was smaller than it was in the last Lion Force Voltron shot, and the shot just didn’t seem cool enough. The original rotoscoping looked bad — the metallic word “VOLTRON” had a pink glow, as well as a black matte outline. It was clear that the “VOLTRON” and pink glow had been made against a plain black background, and it was then badly rotoscoped over the GoLion and Dairugger video elements.
Keeping with the spirit of making my opening sequence look like it could have been made in 1984, I chose to reproduce the rotoscoping effect, complete with the black matte line. I used the Lion Force Voltron sequence’s last shot as source material, since its “VOLTRON” word was larger than it was in the Vehicle Team Voltron sequence. Frame by frame by agonizing frame, I animated track mattes around the ugly black matte lines of the original footage. The resulting Vehicle Team Voltron last shot in my opening sequence is basically the “VOLTRON” from the original Lion Force Voltron video element rotoscoped over shots that I chose from Dairugger.
Despite my best efforts, my track matte outline didn’t exactly match the black matte lines from the ’80s footage, so in order to make my rotoscoping effect identical in both the Lion Force Voltron and Vehicle Team Voltron versions of my opening sequence, I actually used my rotoscoped “VOLTRON” word over top of a “blank” shot of Lion Force Voltron from an episode of GoLion.
So after all of the technobabble, what does the video look and sound like? Check it out here:
For reference here are the original Lion Force Voltron and Vehicle Team Voltron opening sequences:
I’ve been a “Voltron geek” since first watching the original VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE animated series starting in 1984. This year I’m collecting the Voltron Classics lions and action figures by Matty Collector. Each of the five Voltron lions can accommodate a pilot action figure that’s about 3 3/4″ in height. The five lions form a huge Voltron robot that stands about 23″ tall.
The “other” original Voltron, known today as Vehicle Voltron, has never enjoyed the popularity of Lion Voltron. “VV” is a niche interest even among hardcore Voltron fans. For this reason it seems unlikely that Matty Collector will produce any toys for VV.
Not long ago Toynami produced limited edition, 60-centimeter-tall “Shogun Warriors” figures of Lion Voltron (technically GoLion) and Vehicle Voltron (technically Dairugger). For those of you who aren’t metrically minded, 60 centimeters is roughly equivalent to 24 inches, which is slightly taller than the height of Matty Collector’s Voltron Classics Lion Voltron.
Because I’m a geek, I thought I’d play with an image of the Shogun Warriors Dairugger swiped from ToyArk.com, and an image of Matty Collector’s Voltron Classics Lance figure from MattyCollector.com, to get a feel for whether it would be possible — ignoring the economic unfeasibility — to design a similarly sized Vehicle Voltron whose fifteen ships could each accommodate a 3 3/4″ tall action figure.
Assuming the Toynami Dairugger figure is 24″ in height from the “ground” to the point on the top of his head, and assuming the Lance figure is exactly 3 3/4″ in height with helmet, I placed roughly in-scale images of Matty Lance in the image of Toynami Dairugger. Click the thumbnail below in order to view the full-size image.
If VV’s proportions were altered somewhat, as was done for Matty’s Lion Voltron, this thing just might work.
So… this seems feasible from a design standpoint, although it would certainly be unfeasible from an economic standpoint for Matty Collector.
In the 1980s animated television series VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE, the five heroes who comprise the Voltron Force pilot five robotic lions which, when in a bind, can merge into the giant robot Voltron. When not in use, each lion resides in its own hidden “den.” To activate a lion, its pilot must insert a special key into a slot within the lion’s cockpit.
Much of the appeal of the VOLTRON series lies in its interesting visual designs. Even the lion keys, which could easily have been designed to look like ordinary keys, have a unique and “cool” look that sparks kids’ imaginations. This blog examines the lion keys in some detail.
Before looking at the lion keys, here are a couple general terms related to keys:
Although the keys are featured in nearly every “Lion Voltron” episode, they were most prominent in the series’ third and fourth episodes, “A Ghost and Four Keys” and “The Missing Key,” respectively.
In “A Ghost and Four Keys,” the newly formed Voltron Force seeks the keys in order to activate the long-dormant lions and defend Planet Arus from the latest attack from Planet Doom. At first Coran is hesitant to retrieve the lion keys because ”it was the last wish of our good King Alfor that they be placed in the tomb with him.” The princess convinces Coran to take them to the tomb, and after the lid to the king’s coffin is opened, the Voltron Force and the viewing audience see the keys for the first time.
The keys are kept in cases which are positioned around Alfor’s body. One case is located near each of the king’s hips, one case is located near each of the king’s shoulders, and the fifth case is positioned above the king’s head.
It is possible that the position of each case is indicative of the lion that it activates:
In this scene only the key near King Alfor’s right hip is shown in close-up. The key’s blade is gold in color. The key’s bow is circular, with a silver border, and it is decorated with a coat of arms. The foreground of the coat of arms consists of a sylized gold cross with a gold crown positioned above it. The background of the coat of arms is divided into five regions. If the key is positioned such that the blade points to the left and the crown points up, then the central region of the coat’s background is black, the upper left and lower right regions of the background are blue, and the upper right and lower left regions are red. The lower regions are roughly twice the height of the upper regions.
Although only one key is shown in close-up in this scene, all of the keys seem very simliar if not identical. This would lend credence to the notion that the key cases’ positions relative to Alfor’s body would suggest which lion each key activates. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that all five keys would be completely identical, because of the possibility that a lion pilot might mistakenly try to activate a lion using the wrong key. Perhaps some subtle detail, invisible at “cartoon resolution,” visibly distinguishes each key from the others.
Unfortunately Lance notices that one of the keys — the key near Alfor’s head, the key to Black Lion — is missing. The key’s cases is shown in a close-up, and the outline of the key suggests that it, too, must look very similar if not identical to the other keys.
Although the fifth key is missing, the Voltron Force decides to use the four remaining keys to launch four of the lions. Lance pilots Red Lion, Keith controls Green Lion, Sven operates Blue Lion and Hunk flies Yellow Lion. As the Voltron Force accesses and activates their lions, Keith is shown inserting his key into a slot in Green Lion’s cockpit. When Keith first inserts the key, it looks different than it did when in the case in Alfor’s tomb. Instead of looking like a circular bow with a gold-colored blade, the key has a semicircular half-bow at each end, and the half-bows are connected by two silver-colored struts.
In the very next shot, for no known reason, the two silver struts have been replaced by one gold strut. Once the key is in the slot, a mechanism in the slot presses the half-bows together, causing the gold-colored blade of the key to protrude through the left half-bow. Once fully exposed the blade rotates 90 degrees along its lengthward axis, and then the key then slides to the left, activating Green Lion.
In the next episode, “The Missing Key,” the Voltron Force asks the mice whether they’ve seen a key that resembles one that Keith holds — presumably the key to Green Lion, since Keith had just operated that lion. It turns out that the mice had taken Black Lion’s key, thinking that it was pretty. As the mice retreive the key, the key is seen to strongly resemble the badge worn on the left breast of the Voltron Force uniform. The key’s bow appears to be bisected vertically, and between each half-bow is a rectangular, central section. The key also changes thickness from shot to shot.
As one of the mice gives the key to Allura, the key is shown in a close-up shot. The Black Lion key looks essentially identical to Green Lion’s key in “badge” form. It’s not explained how the mice managed to convert the key from its conventional key appearance into its badge-like appearance. It’s also not explained how, in this one shot, the central region of the key bow’s coat of arms is white instead of black, and the colors of the corner regions of the key bow’s coat of arms have swapped positions: the upper left and lower right regions are now blue instead of red, and the upper right and lower left regions are red rather than blue. The corner regions of the coat of arms retain this color scheme for the remainder of the shots which are examined in this blog.
Coran removes the center piece from the key, and Black Lion’s key is found to resemble Green Lion’s key when Keith had inserted it into the slot within the lion. The two half-bows are connected by a single, gold-colored strut. The bow’s central region is once again black, and it remains black for the remainder of the shots which are examined in this blog.
Coran then pushes the half-bows together, and the key’s blade protrudes through the left, movable half-bow. Black Lion’s key now appears similar if not identical to Green Lion’s key after its half-bows had been pressed together in the cockpit slot. The key also looks like all the other keys when they were in their cases within Alfor’s tomb.
The fact that the center piece of the badge-form key must be removed in order to convert the key into its more conventional form suggests that, when the mice originally stole Black Lion’s key, they must have also located the center piece of the badge, presumably concealed in the key’s case in Alfor’s tomb, and then converted the key into its badge form,. This feat seems unlikely until one considers that the mice are intelligent enough to communicate with Allura and to perform a song-and-dance act for her entertainment.
Later the Voltron Force launches all five lions. Keith orders, “Insert keys now,” as he removes a part of the badge of his uniform. As the key is removed, the center part of the badge — the part that Coran had removed from Black Lion’s key during his examination — stays behind on the uniform. The key is also seen to be two-sided. Both sides of the key have the same design. For example on both sides of the key, the upper left region of the bow’s coat of arms is blue.
In a split screen, we see Lance, Pidge, Sven and Hunk remove the keys from their uniforms. When they remove the keys from their uniforms, their badges seem to disappear entirely from their uniforms.
The next two shots feature Keith inserting his key into the slot in Black Lion’s cockpit, followed by the slot’s mechanism pushing the key’s left half-bow until it touches the right-half bow, revealing the key’s blade. Afterward the mechanism pulls the entire key to the left. With two exceptions — the key glowing briefly once it’s in in its slot, and the area at the bottom of the screen being blue rather than black — the footage is the same as when Keith had inserted Green Lion’s key, which suggests that all five lion keys interface with their respective slots in the same way.
The uniform badges are often seen to be fully intact on the uniforms even after the keys have been removed and while the lions are active.
In other shots the badges are shown to be entirely missing from the uniforms while the lions are active.
In “The Missing Key,” during the sequence when Keith orders the team to form Voltron, Black Lion’s key is shown to be in its slot, and Keith’s uniform is shown to have a full badge. This sequence of shots is shown in possibly every episode in which the lions form Voltron.
In the close-up shot of the key in its slot, the key moves simliarly to how it moved after the key is inserted into the slot, except that the left half-bow is already connected to the right half-bow, and the key’s blade never rotates. The entire key appears to slide to the left, although a close examination reveals that the blade remains fixed, while the key’s bow slides to the left. It is likely that the stationary key blade was a short cut taken by the TV series’ animators.
As early as during the second episode, “Escape to Another Planet,” the uniforms are shown to have badges before the keys are recovered from Alfor’s tomb.
It seems that a lion’s key must remain in the lion’s cockpit slot as long as the lion is active. Although the evidence is often self-contradictory, it also seems that the badge worn on the uniform’s left breast is comprised of a backing, a center piece, and the lion key. When the key is removed from the badge, the center piece detaches from the key, but remains attached to the backing. Perhaps the centerpiece flips open on a hinge when the key is removed, and it automatically closes afterward, using either a spring or a more futuristic mechanism in the hinge.
A single scene in the second-season episode “Envoy From Galaxy Garrison” depicts the key as looking like an ordinary key — or perhaps a fishing hook.
Perhaps this obsessively detailed analysis is best concluded by some friendly advice in a lyric from one version of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song:
Repeat to yourself, “It’s just a show. I should really just relax.”
Special thanks to Chee-toy for recalling the name of the episode in which the key looks boring.
One of my favorite animated television programs from my childhood in the 1980s is VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE. The series follows the adventures of two teams of space explorers. The first team, the Voltron Lion Force, consists of five members — Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk and Princess Allura — each of whom flies a giant, robotic lion. When attacked by the forces of Planet Doom, the lions provide a formidable line of defense, but when their might isn’t enough, the lions can unite into Voltron, a mighty robot loved by good, feared by evil. The second team, the Voltron Vehicle Team, had fifteen members who are divided equally into three sub-teams: the Air Team, led by Jeff, the Land Team, led by Cliff, and the Sea Team, led by Krik. Each team member pilots a combat-ready exploration vehicle, and each sub-team’s vehicles can unite into a faster and more powerful “sub-unit.” The Air Team’s vehicles form the Strato Fighter, the Land Team’s vehicles form the Turbo Terrain Fighter and the Sea Team’s ships form the Aqua Fighter. When neither the fifteen individual vehicles nor the three sub-unit ships can adequately defend all that is good from all that is bad, the fifteen vehicles can combine into another might robot called Voltron.
Although each Voltron had its fans, Lion Voltron was by far the more popular among kids of the 1980s. In the late 1990s, an all-new animated series, VOLTRON: THE THIRD DIMENSION, followed the further adventures of the Voltron Lion Force. Many of the voice actors from VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE returned to reprise some of their roles, and the show’s visual effects and motion-capture-based animations were very advanced for their time.
On June 16, Nicktoons will debut another, all-new animated Voltron series — VOLTRON FORCE. Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk and Princess Allura are back, and they’re joined by three new cadets. Earlier today Nicktoons released an HD-quality trailer for VOLTRON FORCE, and it’s made me even more excited to watch the show.
Check it out!
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