Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 8

[t209]

So I made this thread on the recent and (possibly) last season of Voltron.
Basically, it's like....
- Honerva/Druid got a happy ending despite destroying an entire reality out of being annoyed that her alternate-son hates her.
- Allura sacrificed herself.
- Entire finale being "oops, we brought in an unprotected power source after defeating Honerva/Druid"
- Clear Day filler.
Yeah, I don't know what to say.

[Metahuman1]

Ok, I get what they were trying to do with the ending. I do. I just, don't think they quite stuck the landing.

I don't think Allura sacrificing herself was a good move, honestly. It felt like they really were just trying to have that emotional gut punch not because it flowed naturally, but because they wanted to have an emotional gut punch to end on. Which, made it feel manipulative.

I think if maybe Allura had passed what she learned of ancient alchemy too Honerva, and they had used most of Voltron's power as a boost to her to let her sacrifice herself to fix her own mess and restore the destroyed reality's, that would have made a MUCH better end point. Honerva get's to end on a tragic note but also get's to sort of redeem herself at the end, and Allura get's a happy ending.

Wasn't real thrilled with Lance's end point being "went back to the family farm while everyone else is out shaping this new universe my friend and team mate and love of my life sacrificed herself for.". If you had to have Allura sacrifice herself, have her at least pass the information she had about her people onto him so that it would be passed, in turn, to her people. Have him teaching on the restored home planet.



And I will say this, I noticed they left abit of room to do another series at the end there with the Holt Family epilog. Rather appreciated that actually.

[t209]

I don't think Allura sacrificing herself was a good move, honestly. It felt like they really were just trying to have that emotional gut punch not because it flowed naturally, but because they wanted to have an emotional gut punch to end on. Which, made it feel manipulative.

I think if maybe Allura had passed what she learned of ancient alchemy too Honerva, and they had used most of Voltron's power as a boost to her to let her sacrifice herself to fix her own mess and restore the destroyed reality's, that would have made a MUCH better end point. Honerva get's to end on a tragic note but also get's to sort of redeem herself at the end, and Allura get's a happy ending.

Also
Honerva is like Superboy Prime, except the comic actually noted that he really crossed the line after he destroyed multiple realities and everyone of his loved ones shunned him once he returned to his home universe.

[Thanqol]

I'm just mad that the Lance/Allura romance was absolutely profoundly devoid of chemistry or passion. It felt like Alura's motivation was pity and Lance's motivation was anger at a cartoon and they had nothing in common and zero spark or entertaining dialogue. I am a degenerate shipper by trade and this was the biggest anti-ship I've ever felt in my life.

[Metahuman1]

I'm just mad that the Lance/Allura romance was absolutely profoundly devoid of chemistry or passion. It felt like Alura's motivation was pity and Lance's motivation was anger at a cartoon and they had nothing in common and zero spark or entertaining dialogue. I am a degenerate shipper by trade and this was the biggest anti-ship I've ever felt in my life.


Eh, I dunno. It wasn't too bad. They've been on the same team for awhile, he's taken with her, she gave him a shot. Maybe it wouldn't go anywhere, a year or two they'd look back on it and say "Hey, remember when we were dating for a couple of months? Boy I'm glad we figured out that was a dumb idea.".

Course, they had her die off at the end so, we don't know.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying it was some romance for the ages or anything. It just wasn't nearly as detrimental to the series as ending on Allura dying was.

[Thanqol]

Eh, I dunno. It wasn't too bad. They've been on the same team for awhile, he's taken with her, she gave him a shot. Maybe it wouldn't go anywhere, a year or two they'd look back on it and say "Hey, remember when we were dating for a couple of months? Boy I'm glad we figured out that was a dumb idea.".

Course, they had her die off at the end so, we don't know.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying it was some romance for the ages or anything. It just wasn't nearly as detrimental to the series as ending on Allura dying was.

If the romance was done better there would have been some actual pathos to having her die - but not like that decision was much better either. I'd describe the entire thing as forced.

[Metahuman1]

If the romance was done better there would have been some actual pathos to having her die - but not like that decision was much better either. I'd describe the entire thing as forced.


I don't think there would have been though. See, there was already some pathos. It *was* a gut punch cause she was a really likeable character with a lot of charisma in her writing an animation and voice acting. And they killed her.

Forget leaving her love interest hanging in that sacrifice, they killed her. It would have been a nearly identical stunt if the date had been not a thing at all, or if it had been kept firmly as a 1 off and the date episode ended on them determining that romantically they mix like oil and water and just laughing the whole thing off. End of subplot.



Frankly, I'd have had Allura and the former Paladin spirits do something crazy near the end, snap Honerva out of it, and have her have the "what have I done?" moment, they argue who's going to do what, and have Honerva sacrifice herself to undo the destruction of the other universe's. There's your big tragedy. Maybe even have the good guys musing amongst themselves about what a nasty business it all was, that every loss on both sides was, ultimately, it's own tragedy. That point that while it's necessary sometimes to fight a war, the cost of that is that there will be good, if perhaps misguided, or maybe not even that, people on the opposite side, and it will be necessary for your to bring about there deaths.

And then so it's not a dower ending, you move on to focusing on the stuff with New Altiea and everyone getting there happily ever after epilog. Because the show is suppose to be enjoyable entertainment at the end of the day, no reason to end on a needlessly morbid or depressing note.




All told, I really like the series. I think they goofed the ending, but I think this is the gold standard for these kinds of Reboots almost in spite of that. I'd love to see Netflix get reboots for things like The Centurions or Thundercats or Silver Hawks or G.I. Joe or Transformers or Thundarr The Barbarian or He-Man going in a similar manner. Just, try not to drop the ball at the end.

(I know they have a She-Ra Reboot. I ceased caring about it after the marketing staff made it very clear that as far as they were concerned there was only 1 flavor of criticism in the universe were there reboot was concerned: Illegitimate criticism from Woman Hating Nazi Perverts. Don't bring it up to me, nothing productive is going to come of it I can assure you. Been down that road before.)

[Hunter Noventa]

All told, I really like the series. I think they goofed the ending, but I think this is the gold standard for these kinds of Reboots almost in spite of that. I'd love to see Netflix get reboots for things like The Centurions or Thundercats or Silver Hawks or G.I. Joe or Transformers or Thundarr The Barbarian or He-Man going in a similar manner. Just, try not to drop the ball at the end.

(I know they have a She-Ra Reboot. I ceased caring about it after the marketing staff made it very clear that as far as they were concerned there was only 1 flavor of criticism in the universe were there reboot was concerned: Illegitimate criticism from Woman Hating Nazi Perverts. Don't bring it up to me, nothing productive is going to come of it I can assure you. Been down that road before.)

As long as we don't get another ReBoot reboot for every Voltron reboot.

[Metahuman1]

As long as we don't get another ReBoot reboot for every Voltron reboot.

I do not think there is any word in any langue known to humanity to express the strength with which I agree with that sentiment.

[ElFi]

Finally got around to finishing this series.

Overall, I think season 8 is pretty representative of Voltron as a whole- a show with a ton of potential and a lot of good ideas, almost all of which go unused or don't develop in meaningful ways (that I liked, at least). I give credit to this season and the previous one for finding a proper balance between humor and drama that the series has long lacked, establishing genuine stakes, and finally figuring out how to make the supporting cast (sort of) work... I don't know. For me, a lot of it felt like too little too late after the promising start of the series followed by the seriously uneven middle seasons.

As for the episodes in general... is it mean to say that my favorites ended up being those that don't focus on the Paladins? Honerva's focus episode was great, Acxa and the Atlas pilots getting some genuine character development was nice, and "Day 47" is a frankly ingenious take on translating the found-footage genre to an animation medium. Krolia basically disappears as a character and (as usual) Corran and Hunk have very little to do, alas. Allura essentially stepping into the central protagonist role was an interesting choice that mostly worked, though I feel like previous seasons could've worked harder on letting us see her develop into the team's de-facto leader.

I mostly agree with everyone above that Allura's sacrifice feels unearned and dramatic just for the sake of it. I don't necessarily agree that the reason it feels disappointing is because Honerva should have been the one sacrificed, though.

The show has established from very early on that Allura is always willing to sacrifice herself if it means saving someone else- to revive the Balmera, to save Shiro from capture by the Galra, and so on. Out of everyone on the final Paladins lineup, she's the one who has the most meaningful emotional connections with everyone else- she's the love of Lance's life, developed a commonality with Keith over their lost heritage, plays a big-sister role for Pidge, and spends a lot of the last season working alongside Hunk in forging a connection with the rogue Alteans. If anyone's going to die that's going to leave a mark on everyone else, and have it make sense in-character, it's Allura.

That's the why, but I don't think the showrunners put too much effort into the how of her sacrifice. Allura's magic powers and connection to the multiverse have always been frustratingly vague for me, and the ending deepened that frustration tenfold. It's never explained why she has such powers, what exactly they do, and what their limits are- think the magic of D&D wizards, but it runs entirely on narrative fiat. In any case, when the team have their backs to the wall and the fate of reality collapsing lies in their hands, it's only Allura who can save the day, and only by sacrificing herself, apparently. Not Honerva, the uber-powerful space witch who can destroy entire galaxies and has spent most of the season building crazy magitek devices and casually ripping holes in the fabric of spacetime. Only Allura. Why her? What do her powers do that enable them to save everything in such a way? That's the part of the ending that rubbed me the wrong way.

Those are my thoughts, in any case. No doubt the mileage of others will differ.

[Winthur]

As the person who watched this for the mecha,

there wasn't enough of it this season. I mostly felt disappointed because it felt like we're now rushing to tie up loose ends and set up a spinoff with the vehicle pilots of Voltron, and also with showing all the weird screwy magic of this universe (that makes no sense as ElFi pointed out). Not enough robot porn.

As for the

sacrifice of Allura, it felt like the writers of Voltron have written themselves into a corner where they refused to actually sacrifice anyone else. Even the third-rate villain / nameless bald chick / Lotor's groupie was resurrected for some reason. Shiro got back to them and got a spiffy new Rayman arm for his trouble. They really, really wanted to convey the emotion of the fact that this is a hellish war landscape and that anyone could die... and then they just were merciful to everyone until they decided to just slap on a plot twist. It elicited a resounding meh from me. You know who I cared about and who was very likely to die at any second in any operation, be it with the Blades or on the capital ship itself? Keith's mom, for example. But none of that happened, and I guess they felt like no one will care. Pidge's long-lost brother was presumed dead for all of 34 seconds of runtime.

You know whom we actually lost these past few seasons? Shiro's nameless boyfriend that 1) shippers didn't care about because he was a literal nobody in the shipper fandom and 2) only served to annoy people who pointed out the Bury Your Gays problem, but otherwise the emotional reading from this is just a big, resounding meh. And the annoying admiral who OF COURSE is an annoying stick-up-her-ass twit that OF COURSE ends up selling out everyone else for "pragmatic" reasons and OF COURSE gets a hero's burial and in memoriam in spite of sabotaging literally every single operation and making it absolutely apparent to the viewer that she exists to be utterly incompetent, but she STILL shows up in poignant flashbacks of all the "great people we lost" in season 8.

Also, of all the things to borrow from Gurren Lagann, last-minute sacrifice of a loved one for cosmic but otherwise annoying reasons is probably the worst, and I don't even like neither Lance nor Allura.

[ElFi]

sacrifice of Allura, it felt like the writers of Voltron have written themselves into a corner where they refused to actually sacrifice anyone else. Even the third-rate villain / nameless bald chick / Lotor's groupie was resurrected for some reason. Shiro got back to them and got a spiffy new Rayman arm for his trouble.

Ezor (Lotor's lizard girl lieutenant) and Shiro's deaths were both reversed last-minute because of the negative responses from the fanbase to their fates. It's really obvious in Ezor's case if you're paying attention- Zethrid's motivations for wanting the Paladins dead really make no sense if Ezor abandoned her (as it turned out) rather than being killed by the heroes, and Ezor herself appears only extremely briefly after that point, on top of getting exactly one word of dialogue after her return, which is clearly delivered by a different voice actress. Not to mention the girl goes from repeatedly stomping the Paladins in close combat and casually discussing torturing Pidge to get information to being perfectly okay with chilling out in a prison cell for the rest of her life as long as she gets to be with her girlfriend.

In Shiro's case, he really was supposed to die, forcing Keith to take up command of the Black Lion and leadership of Voltron full-time from that point on. But the writers ended up bringing him back at the behest of the fans, and instead we get the constant back-and-forth between him and Keith for control of the Black Lion, which negates a lot of their character development on both ends and ultimately ends up not mattering a whole lot since Shiro gets the Atlas and Keith the Lion in the end, on top of the confusing mess that is the seasons-spanning Operation Kuron subplot.

And yes, I agree that doing this repeatedly deflates the tension of a series that for all of its comedic moments still tries to be insistent about the protagonists being in a war with casualties on both sides. Another case in point- Veronica somehow surviving her fight with the Galra soldiers in season 7. It could've been a genuine and effective Sacrificial Lamb moment to kill off a character the audience was just starting to learn about to establish the stakes and gravity of the new story arc, not to mention an opportunity for genuine pathos for Lance, learning that he'd lost a sibling in the fighting while away from home. But nope, she miraculously survives a situation that for all appearances seems to be certain death, and finds a whole new band of revolutionaries in the process.

[Hunter Noventa]

I really want this version of Voltron to show up in Super Robot Wars, if only because then the 'evil entity' could be replaced by the Anti-Spiral and we don't have to stupidly sacrifice anyone because WE GO BEYOND THE IMPOSSIBLE AND KICK REASON TO THE CURB!

Except Kittan. Because Kittan never gets to live. Nia is saved. Allura is saved. Honerve rightfully dies, and Kittan still dies because that's his only job.

[Kato]

Finally got around to finishing it...
It wasn't terrible but i mostly had it on as background noise when playing or doing other stuff... Which I do with most things these days so that's not really against the show.

But overall... it was okay. It's not that the serious story was all bad but I really liked the more light hearted episodes more (Like 'Monsters and Mana')
It's certainly not the best western cartoon around but I'd say there's nothing terrible about it... Except I probably should have paid a bit more attention because Shiro's romance at the end came totally out of nowhere for me. But I guess we've come a long way since Korra(?).

[t209]

But overall... it was okay. It's not that the serious story was all bad but I really liked the more light hearted episodes more (Like 'Monsters and Mana')
It's certainly not the best western cartoon around but I'd say there's nothing terrible about it... Except I probably should have paid a bit more attention because Shiro's romance at the end came totally out of nowhere for me. But I guess we've come a long way since Korra(?).
At least Korra's relationship kind of hinted that in that season with she and Asami being a bit close and supportive, or her poor relationship with Bolin and Mako before...
Or the last part is just hindsight.

[Kato]

At least Korra's relationship kind of hinted that in that season with she and Asami being a bit close and supportive, or her poor relationship with Bolin and Mako before...
Or the last part is just hindsight.

I was under the assumption that there was build-up and I missed it.
But I was referring to this time there being not secret, symbolic hand holding but marriage and I think proper snogging.

[ViridianIIV]

It was Fifty times better than last season... but still the second worst season overall.