Viewer Log: Voltron ep 29

Shiro's life on the run is far from fun.

You know who I’ve been missing? Shiro. The Paladins just aren’t the same without their leader/dad. While his disappearance was really important during the two episodes of this season, it kind of seems like the team has put finding it’s field commander on the back burner. Which, when you consider the stuff that they’ve been dealing with, is understandable. That all being said, you know who’s about to make a comeback?

Shiro wakes up suddenly in some sort of Gulra medical bay. He’s about as shaggy as I am, which is saying something. Shiro is able to get off the table with some difficulty, and starts stumbling down the halls of the ship. His trip causes, you guessed it, a minor flashback. He remembered the last time he was stuck on a Gulra ship, where they, you know, replaced his arm with a robotic prosthetic. Note that they never expressly state WHY he needed the mechanical replacement. Too subtle? Fine, I think the Gulra chopped off his arm. For science. Maybe. Or torture and entertainment, which seems just as likely. They reference something called Operation Corrone. I think I spelt that right…

There's a face that says "I'm so DONE with crashing."

As he moves, Shiro’s strength seems to return to him. In a matter of minutes, he’s got the strength and stamina he needs to over power several robotic guards and makes a break for it via an escape pod. Wonder if this is giving any of the Gulra soldiers déjà vu. What, it’s a big galaxy, but it seems entirely possible that at least one soldier served on this ship, and the one Shiro escaped from last time.  His pod is shot down, though, and he crashes onto the nearest planet. The captain/admiral/commanding officer rather cryptically mentions that Operation Corrone has hit Stage 3. Oh, that can’t possibly be good.

Shiro must have passed out during the crash, since he wakes up just barely hanging over a ravine. He’s able to escape his pod before it drops, mostly thanks to his robot arm and his hitherto unexplained parkour skills. So now he’s stranded on a planet that’s eerily similar to Hoth, and he doesn’t have Jedi powers like Luke. Oh, this blows chunks.

You know who else I haven’t seen for a while? Haggar. Not too surprising, since she’s probably pretty busy looking after her comatose liege. I guess she’s been paying attention to Prince Lotor’s actions, and she hasn’t been impressed with her temporary Emperor. Which seems odd, since, you know, putting him in charge was her idea in the first place. It almost seems like she didn’t think about what would happen when she put an exiled prince on the throne, even temporarily. She has another of her Generals, a hulking cyborg named Rott, to discretely follow Lotor and report back on his activities.

Shiro is able to survive on Not-Hoth for several days. He even copies Han and Luke and hides out in an animal carcass for warmth. He uses his robot hand’s energy mode to cauterize a wound on his leg, and muses on what could have possibly killed such a large beast. He finds water the next day, and, like an idiot, plunges face first into it. Shiro, what if that’d been salt water? Thankfully, it’s fresh, and relatively clean. I say relatively, because it is infested with a giant crab monster. He’s able to hold his own, but, a lone dude against a predatory animal, that just doesn’t work. Unless you’re Tarzan, which Shiro is not. Thankfully, a group of local hunters come in and save him. But then take him prisoner. Shoot.

While unconscious, again, Shiro remembers being examined for Operation Corrone. Considering he was the one soldier with a pair of scientists, it really isn’t too surprising that he was taken for super soldier tests. Just saying. He wakes up, and discovers that the hunters have slapped a clamp onto his arm, disabling his robot arm’s attack functions. The hunters are some kind of rebel fighters, the Star Wars parallels are everywhere today, but don’t believe that Shiro is a Voltron Paladin, or if Voltron is even really a thing. He basically begs them to try to contact the Paladins, or the Blade of Marmora, but they’re not listening.

Oh, what a surprise, the old witch has trust issues.

Back with the bad guys, Lotor’s team notices an anomaly in space following them. It’s not a huge leap of logic for them to figure out that they’re being followed. Lotor orders the ship shot down, and the pilot captured. Things aren’t looking good for Rott.

The hunters monitor communications from nearby rebel groups and Gulra. Shiro escapes his prison, and starts making a break for it. But then he hears the deep space radio mention Voltron. He changes his mind about leaving, and instead focuses on getting to that radio. He separates the Hunters from each other and takes them down. He proves that he’s not all bad, by not shooting them. The Hunters tell Shiro all about what they heard about Voltron. The last they heard was that the super machine was last seen around Thayserics. You know, the gas planet where they played Wolf and Bobcat with Lotor. So, here’s the rub, the Hunters do have a ship, but it doesn’t have engines capable of interstellar flight. But, there is a Gulra warship nearby that’s scheduled to jump into deep space.  Shiro’s plan, use the freighter to get close, and then stow away on the ship. It’s insane, but it just might work.

His freighter gets shot down, but Shiro is able to sneak aboard the Gulra ship. The Gulra ship warps, arriving during the battle with Voltron. Shiro is able to sneak aboard a Fighter jet, but has to smash is way free when the launch is aborted. He flies after Voltron, dodging the other Gulra fighters, but shockingly, a single fighter can’t keep pace with Voltron, or the Castle of Lions. He keeps flying after them, despite the fact he has like 0% chance of catching them.

Lotor, meanwhile, presents Rott’s cybernetic arm to Haggar. He’s rather annoyed by being stalked by his mystic’s goons. He claims that he’s the leader, now, but he refuses to be like his father. Keep this interaction in mind, I’ll be getting back to it later.

Hope isn't really hope until it is all you have.

Shiro spends a week flying around aimlessly in space. He’s running out of air, supplies, and time. He’s pretty much doomed to die in deep space. Rather then focus on his hopeless situation, Shiro spends his last few minutes of consciousness remembering his friends. It’s this mindset, assumedly, that calls out to Black Lion. The mechanical cat leaps into action, taking Keith and the others to save Shiro.

Shame that Shiro’s time away from the team wasn’t at least a little relaxing. Instead, he spends nearly the entire time almost dying, so it’s like his normal routine but lonelier. These kind of back to basics survival episodes are always kind of nice. Especially in tech heavy scifi. Force the hero to fight for basic survival, it always makes for great entertainment. The moment where he’s passing out, and choosing to think of his friends rather than moping about his hopeless situation was really sweet. Lotor and Haggar’s little story is also rather interesting. It’s clear that there’s a lot of disharmony between the two. It seems like Haggar was somehow under the impression that Lotor would be willing to ‘play ball’ when she brought him back in. But given the guy’s personality, it kind of should have been obvious that wouldn’t happen. Again, remember their interactions here for a later episode. Let’s just say, Lotor should have had a much, much snider comment for the old witch. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/16143409
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 28

Time to cross the dimensional divide.

Who’s ready for some multi-verse stuff? You probably knew that this was coming, if a scifi story lasts long enough, they always seem to go to parallel universes. I wonder why that is? A discussion for another day. Let’s get to it.

I wonder if any of the Paladins remember when this scene
would have seen odd...

We open to something completely impossible. Or, at least, what should be impossible. The Castle of Lions has picked up on a distress beacon. This isn’t too unusual, I have to imagine with the current state of their universe it’d be weird if they weren’t picking up one distress beacon or another. No, it’s unusual because it’s Altean. You know, what Allura and Coran are, the alien species of peace keepers and ambassadors that are now, functionally, extinct? Yeah, getting a distress signal from a species whose entire surviving population is on the Castle is weird. Unsurprisingly, Coran and Allura are quite excited to see if their species might not be completely gone.

They find the ship. This task was made all the easier thanks to the fact that the ship is stick out of a giant hole in space/time. Kind of hard to miss that. They try a few things, before their scanners figure out that the ship is radiating pure quintessence. Now, half a ship sticking out off a hole that is irradiating pure energy might be something to approach slowly with caution, Allura simply refuses to leave the ship even for a moment. Pidge can’t figure out what the portal is, other then kind of freaking. The group fly around the ship, through said portal. Coran loses visual and audio contact with the group as they fly into the vortex. As they fly out, they find the front of the ship. The portal they flew through is pretty obviously a wormhole, as the other side is a completely different section of space, complete with a giant planet floating not too far away. On the other side, they’re now detecting several life signs. The team boards the ship, but can’t find anything.

They are able to restart the ship’s power. After finding a few corpses floating around, they’re able to find a recording. The video reveals that the crew of the ship had found some kind of strange comet. It was giving off a weird energy reading. The crew, who were in fact Altean, were bringing it back to Altea… just before the ship exploded. Yeah, that would definitely put me behind the delivery schedule. A couple of seconds after seeing that, they’re attacked by some fellas in green, one humanoid, another looking like a…giant…centipede… What the heck is Slav doing here? And why is he suddenly a competent fighter? Though, that’s not the biggest question, as Not-Slav’s human buddy is Shiro! Who is now a swordsman. And he speaks in a Swedish Accent. That’s not Shiro. No, this Shiro look alike is named Sven. The two not-quite right characters cause some havoc but are scared off by the arrival of the Altean empire. Oh no.

The Alt-Alteans, upon entering the ship, see Allura, realize who she is… was… will be? And bow to her. Allura is brought to the Commander, Hera, who explains how history went down in this universe. Instead of being frozen for 10,000 years, Allura was able to rally her people and put down the Gulra Empire before it could take hold of the universe. They have since spread across the galaxy as the Altean Empire.

Back in their home dimension, Lotor and his crew arrive and watch the portal as well. Rather then do anything, Lotor opts to wait and see. It’s a win-win for them. Either, Voltron ends up trapped in the other dimension, ridding him of his biggest headache, or Voltron comes back with the Comet, in which case they’ll attack and steal it.

Shiro, now in Swedish.

The others examine the Comet in the cargo bay. It’s a bizarre metal that is the same material that make up Voltron. Just based on a few vaguely creepy things the head scientist says, it’s pretty clear that the Alt-Alteans have a few things in common with the Gulra of the Paladin’s home dimension. Outside, Sven and Slav plant a bomb on the ship. We then get the first bit of concrete evidence that these Alt-Alteans are kind of monsters. Science guy explains that his muscular companion is a Non-Cog, a former dissident that was given a brain implant to keep them calm and compliant. You read that right, Non-Cog’s get their brains rewired to make them nice and docile. Can’t get eviler then that. Hera, meanwhile, give’s Allura a…censored version of these events, to make them sound more palatable. She mentions putting down the Gulra before they had a foothold in the galaxy, the generations of prosperity, and all the other good things the Alt-Alteans have done over the centuries. But seems to gloss over the brain rewiring. Funny that.

The Paladins have a team meeting and agree that these Alt-Alteans probably aren’t the good guys in this reality. They are joined by Sven and Not-Slav, and the two groups agree to keep the Alt-Alteans from the comet at any cost. Unfortunately, the Alt-Altean troopers jump them a moment later. Really lousy timing for that. While the Paladins are getting corralled, Hera convinces Allura to help her and the Altean empire. Using her psychic powers, Allura is able to reactivate the ship and begins flying forward through the breach.

No one should smile when pointing out
extensive brain modifications.

Coran, back on their home turf, is desperately trying to figure out what the bloody hell is going on. He’s even talking to Allura’s mice, trying to get an idea of what he can do. He obviously freaks out at losing the ship.

The Paladins, and the “Guns of Gamara,” as Sven and Not-Slav are known, are brought to Hera and Allura. Seeing her friends in bondage is all Allura needs to realize that she may have made a terrible mistake in helping Hera. While, normally, escaping heavily armed soldiers would prove difficult, things are made significantly easier once Not-Slav’s bomb goes off. The Paladins over power their captors and make a break for it. During the escape, Sven takes a shot for Lance, saving his life and wounding the alt-universe Shiro. The Paladins get to their Lions, form Voltron, slice the ship open and steal the Comet. Not-Slav helps them out by disabling the Alt-Altean ship once again. Pidge does some magic science stuff and is able to get them back to their home dimension. Hooray! But they take a shot from the largely disabled Alt-Altean cruiser as they go. Boo! It’s this blow that disorientates the Paladins long enough for Lotor and his team to swoop in and steal the Comet. Oh that can’t possibly be good.

While I’ll say this episode is very good, it’s also kind of depressing. I mean, the fact that even in a reality where the Gulra are defeated, there’s still an evil empire flying around and causing trouble is just disheartening. It’s like the show is saying that, when a space government grows unchecked, it will inevitably become evil. Even if it was 100% good to start with. And, yeah, the Non-Cog concept is a pretty evil place to go. Not completely sure why, but the thought of forcibly taking someone’s free will, even if it could be argued that it’s for the best, just makes me uncomfortable. And that’s probably why the show runners included that plot point. If you want to make someone eviler then the bad guys, make them someone who screws with brains. This story is also rather sad for Allura. She gets drawn in, believing that she will get to see her people again, see a universe where her kind are flourishing, only to learn that her kind her are as bad as the Gulra back home. It’s a dream to nightmare situation, plain and simple. And Lotor stealing the comet, you know, the comet made of the same material as Voltron, is probably the single worst thing that could happen to said comet. With someone as intelligent and dangerous as Lotor with it, things are probably about to get a lot worse. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/16136135
Twitter: @BasicSuperhero

Review: Justice League

Swing and a miss.

I’ll start this post off with a little personal background info. In school, I sucked at Math. Not worst in the class, didn’t understand it at all sucked, just, rarely got the correct answer sucked. I’d learn a formula, or something, seemingly understand it fine, but when I executed it, I’d forget a key step and thus fail miserably. I imagine that my math teachers from, I’d say, fifth through twelfth grade all had the same thought. “He’s trying, but is just not getting it.” And that’s how I feel about Justice League, it seems like everyone involved is trying, but somehow just not getting what is needed for a smash hit. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Not shown: Superman
The guy that ends up doing 90% of the work.

We open to a quick montage of people missing Superman. Since his death, crime has apparently steadily risen, and a number of smaller time heroes have disappeared. Batman, meanwhile, has noticed something worse is rising. He runs down some no name thug, and then dangles him off a roof. Why? To draw out his quarry. Apparently, the fear stink of the thug is strong enough to draw an insect like monster, a Parademon. After a quick scuffle, Batman gets it stuck on a chimney, which causes the monster to self-destruct. Halfway around the world, Diana Prince is forced to stop a terrorist group from bombing the heck out of local bank. Like Batman, she seems uneasy about what might be about to happen.

As if on cue, a guarded treasure of the Amazons began to react. The treasure, a Mother Box, reawakens, and calls out to it its master, an alien conqueror called Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf arrives via a Boom Tube, a portal in space time. Steppenwolf plows through the Amazonians, quickly stealing the Motherbox despite the Amazon’s best efforts. After gloating to the surviving Amazonians, Steppenwolf escapes through another Boom Tube. Queen Hippolyta, realizing that the earth is pretty much boned if Steppenwolf gets what he wants, sends a warning to Diana, via a magic burning arrow.

Realizing the danger, Diana rejoins Bruce. She explains what they’re facing. Steppenwolf invade Earth thousands of years ago with his Parademons and three Mother Boxes. The Mother Boxes were used in a ritual called the Unity, which combined them together and cause a chain reaction that wipes out all life on the planet. Steppenwolf was pushed back by an alliance of Amazonians and Greek Gods, Atlanteans, and mankind. They got a little back up from the local Green Lantern, but Steppenwolf kills him really quick. Once Steppenwolf and his forces were removed from Earth, the Boxes were divided amongst Earth’s champions. The Amazons and the Atlanteans kept their Boxes in guarded chambers, while humans, in classic human fashion, elect to bury it so no one can have it. Realizing getting the metaphorical band back together is kind of impossible, getting the all the nations of the human race together alone is kind of a tall order, the heroes elect to make their own team and handle things themselves. The two heroes set about recruiting the other metahumans they’d learned about from Lex Luthor’s files to their team. Bruce goes for Arthur Curry aka Aquaman, and Barry Allen, aka the Flash. Curry isn’t interested, not too subtly telling Bruce to piss off, but Barry is open to saving the day. He, and I quote, “needs more friends.” He and Bruce make it back to his makeshift Batcave. Diana tries to talk to Victor Stone, aka the Cyborg, but the young man also isn’t interested in helping. At least, he says he isn’t, he changes his tune when he learns that his father, Silas, had been kidnapped by Steppenwolf.

Ciaran Hinds, maybe you and Nick Cage just shouldn't do
Superhero movies. It just never seems to end well.

Under da sea, Steppenwolf attacks Atlantis to get the second box. He defeats the Atlantian guards, but is slowed down by Aquaman joining the fray. He gets his hands on the box, though, and teleports away. Aquaman is confronted by Mira, a servant of his late mother, who convinces him to take action.

In Gotham, the three heroes are drawn to the top of the Gotham City Police Department, and get intel from Commissioner James Gordon. He shows them a map of recent missing persons. They’re all S.T.A.R. Labs employees, but nothing else connects them, nor can they figure out what the focal point of the attack is coming from. Cyborg joins them, and is able to pin point that Steppenwolf is hold up under Gotham Harbor. The team gathers up in Batman’s ride, a vehicle called the Crawler, and travel through the abandoned facility beneath the Harbor.

Using the Flash’s speed, and the others firepower, the group is able to save the kidnapped employees. Unfortunately, Steppenwolf floods the room before using another Boom Tube to escape. They’d probably all drowned, but Aquaman uses the hole to get into the facility and uses his water powers to hold the flood back as they escape. After that, Victor grabs the final Mother Box, which he’d hidden from his father. Victor explains that his father, in a rather insane attempt to save Victor’s life, used the Mother Box on him. The energies of the device healed Victor’s injured body, but also transformed his body into living machinery. Batman theorizes that, simply, the energies that the Box puts out could revive or heal just about anyone, but the energies are just too intense for human bodies to survive. But… what about someone stronger? Someone who’s cells could take repeated abuse on a colossal scale. Someone who was, in a way, already made of Steel. Diana and Arthur are against the plan, as they’re worried bringing back someone from the dead is not only ghoulish, but highly dangerous. They worry that, Superman may return, but he might leave a little of himself… back where he’d been resting. Batman assures them that he will have a contingency plan should Superman return broken.

They exhume Superman’s body from the Kent family plot, and bring him to the crashed Kryptonian ship. Using the incubation chamber in the ship, the Mother Box, and an electric jolt from Barry, Superman is revived. Clark Kent rises, literally, but isn’t completely there. He’s confused, and…irritable after his nap. He attacks the team, humiliating the other heroes. He’s stronger then Aquaman and Wonder Woman, more than durable enough to take Cyborg’s firepower, and can even keep pace with the Flash at his highest speed. Batman arrives and tries to talk him down, but Superman only seems to remember that they had had… issues. He nearly heat-visions Batman to slag, but is stopped by Batman’s contingency, Lois Lane. Superman calms down, but then flies off with Lois, back to Smallville. While all that had been going on, Steppenwolf Boom Tubes in and takes the last box back to base.

In retrospect, using minions that mindlessly
attack anyone that is afraid is kind of a
stupid idea, isn't it?

Despite being outclassed, outnumbered, and underprepared, the group track down Steppenwolf and prepare to attack. He’d set up out in the most rural of Russian villages, beneath a former nuclear silo. Can the team stop Steppenwolf and save the world? We’ll see.

The good section is short, unfortunately. The actors are all top tier, I love everyone in their parts, from Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck and the other returning cast, to the newbies like Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, J.K. Simmons, and Ray Fisher. Ezra Miller in particular is phenomenal as the most comedic member of the group, often breaking up more intense scenes with some levity. There are few scenes sprinkled throughout the film, bonding moments that are done really well. For example, Barry and Victor are tasked with getting Clark’s body. They have a moment, where Barry points out how creepy it is to rob grave Mother Trucking Superman, and he and Victor bond a little as the least experienced heroes. There’s also a good moment where Bruce, after getting tossed around by Superman, is setting his dislocated shoulder. Diana joins him and helps him pop the bone back into place, and the two have a moment. Some of the effects were good. I liked the Boom Tubes’ effect, seeing one of the most iconic means of transport in the DC Universe brought to life was pretty cool.

This guy right here is one of the best elements
of this movie.

Now that we’ve gotten the good out of the way, onto the bad. Most of the effects are terrible. Particularly on Superman. For those who don’t know, post production of Justice League was handled by Joss Whedon, who took over for Zack Snyder after Snyder took a leave of absence following his daughter’s suicide. Whedon completely reworked and added in several scenes. This called for Henry Cavill to do some reshoots. Unfortunately, he was working on Mission: Impossible 6 at the time which called for him to have a scruffy mustache and beard. Paramount Pictures refused to allow Cavill to shave, as it would put production of their movie behind. Since Superman doesn’t really do facial hair, the guys upstairs decided to just digitally remove the hair. The end result is bad, like really really bad. Like, Grand Moff Tarkin’s CGI face in Rogue One bad.  It’s just… unnatural. Same goes for the motion capture effects used to turn actor Ciaran Hinds into Steppenwolf. It looks unnatural, and at no point did I believe that Steppenwolf was in the room with anyone. Steppenwolf kind of has the same issue as Ares had in Wonder Woman. Both characters are played by respected actors, but neither Ciaran Hinds nor David Thewlis could physically portray their character when the fighting started. So, they try to overcome it with Motion Capture for the close ups, and CGI for the far away stuff, but the result is that I don’t believe the character is in the room. I especially find it funny that they reworked Steppenwolf’s appearance so heavily. Just do a quick Google search, Steppenwolf DC, and you’ll see what I mean. For those that don’t want to, New Gods come in all different shapes and sizes. Some, Like Darkseid, his son Kalibak, and chief adviser and backstabber Desaad could not pass as human. Others, like Darkseid’s heroic son Orion, the equally heroic Scott Free, the deceptively named villainess Granny Goodness, and, yes, Steppenwolf could easily pass for mortals. In looks, not when they show off their powers. I just don’t understand making more work for yourself like that.

The final massive negative is the plot. It’s littered with plot holes, and unexplained circumstances. Like, a huge thing in the finale is Batman using a noise that attracts the Parademons to make a hole in the forces for the others to slip passed. How did Batman learn about this noise? Never explained. Or there’s Steppenwolf’s return. So, he was kicked off Earth and waited millennia for another crack at it, which came when the Boxes called out to him after Superman’s death. So… why didn’t the Boxes call out sooner? Like when Ares went insane and killed the other Greek Gods? Or when the Atlanteans were driven under the sea? Or when the “Tribes of Men” got too big, prideful, smug, stupid, lazy, shortsighted, pigheaded, stupid stubborn to ever work together again? Seems like there was ample opportunities to come back and conquer between when he was kicked off the first time to the five years Superman was running around. The Dark Ages for example, or during WWI or WWII. Just saying. And there’s a lot of cringe worthy info dumping. Like when Aquaman and Mera are talking after the attack on Atlantis. We get a painful three-minute-long back and forth where we learn about Arthur being left on his father’s doorstep, the trust issues he has because his mother clearly didn’t want anything to do with him, Mera explaining why Atlana did that to her boy, and that he needs to step up and be King. Which is weird, since that implies either no one is in charge of Atlantis right now, or Orm aka Ocean Master is. Either scenario doesn’t lend itself to the idea of guards being posted around the ancient relic. Just saying. Barry and his backstory about trying to help his falsely convicted father, he was framed for murdering Barry’s mom, also has this problem, but to a lesser extent. I can see a father telling off his kid for putting too much effort in a lost cause more than I can see a guy telling a strange woman about his mommy issues. And on a similar note, there’s a lot of telling not showing. We’re told things are getting worse. We’re told Superman’s death has people shaken up. We’re told that some characters are having specific issues. But there’s little showing. Other than the opening montage, and a short bit with Lois Lane and Martha Kent sprinkled in the action, we see very little turmoil. There’s a bit where Diana claims that Bruce had been baiting her to get angry, using her lingering grief over WWI era love interest Steven Trevor’s death, so she’ll step up and lead… but I didn’t get that at all in context. I just thought Bruce was feeling like an ass.

Overall, this is D list movie. A good cast and okay effects cannot ever make up for a lackluster script, the vast majority of the CGI and Motion Capture being dog poo, and just being dull. Seriously, in the climax, Batman separates from the group in the Batmobile to draw off the Parademons. The others save him and point out that a suicide run isn’t the way to lead a team. And it’s only then that I realized that it WAS a suicide run. At no point was I fearful for Batman’s survival, or the least bit concerned that someone might get hurt or die. I just thought he was going to draw off the Parademons and then dip, you know, because Batman. I hope we get more DC movies, I really do, but they NEED to change SOMETHING. One out and out good film, several okay movies, and whatever Suicide Squad and Justice League end up being remembered as, is not a winning line up. All I’m saying.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/15967091
Twitter: @BasicSuperhero

https://www.warnerbros.com/justice-league
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(comics)
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dccu/images/1/17/Parademon_JL.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171008222323

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 27

It's a game of Wolves and Bobcats. It's like cat and mouse but both animals have a chance at winning.

Sorry this took a while; my day job has me working 14-hour days right now. Since December 3^rd I’ve been up at 4 am to get to work by 5, and mostly haven’t left until 6 or 7. I hope you can understand that, when one has at best two hours of free time in a day, that pleasure projects like their blog suffer. Got to love Christmas time. As such, I haven’t gotten Justice League ready yet. I know, I’m terrible. The good news is that I should have seen it, written it up and posted it by Sunday or Tuesday of this week. Fingers crossed. Until then, let’s enjoy a little more Voltron.

How does he get all that hair in his helmet?

Okay, so when we last left the Voltron Paladins, not only had they been able to drive off Prince Lotor and his forces, but they were also able to slap a tracer onto his ship and are now tracking them down. The group warp to the latest location of Lotor’s ship, but at about an hour’s distance away. They want to fly in and hopefully surprise him. Hunk is the first one to point out that going in guns blazing might not be the best idea. Why? Well, he and Pidge are the only two pilots that don’t need to make any adjustments. Both Keith and Lance are flying two completely different Lions at this point, and Allura is just learning to pilot period. When 3/5ths of your team isn’t use to the machine they’re in, odds are not in your favor. But, Keith disagrees. He seems to be under the impression that if they can take out Lotor, then anything is worth the risk. Which, I can kind of get, cutting down another Gulra leader so soon after the last one might cripple the empire beyond recovery. But, on the other hand, Lotor isn’t one to go down easily.

Case in point, Lotor and his crew were able to detect the Lions tailing them, and is already planning a counter measure. Rather than attack the group with the main warship and risk damaging it, Lotor opts to take his own personal vehicle to deter the Paladins while his ship preps for a warp. He flies out to meet them. Keith, seeing Lotor’s ship, orders a charge. And things pretty much immediately start going haywire. Black Lion is too slow, both in movement speed and reaction time, for Keith’s liking, Red Lion is too fast, with too sensitive controls for Lance to operate effectively, and Allura is pretty much pressing buttons and pulling levers at random. Lotor easily out maneuvers everyone, and smacks the lions around for a while, while the team flounders. The Paladins try to form Voltron, but the disharmony between the Paladins and their Lion’s kind of makes that impossible. Unfortunately, Lotor notices this and decides to capitalize on it.

He flies off, trying to lead the Paladins to the planet Thayseriks. Thayseriks has a completely uninhabitable terrain, an atmosphere of 90% poison gases that are difficult to see through, and a weird magnetic field that makes tracking difficult. Lotor, who knew all of this, prepped his ship for the conditions and used the unique conditions of Thayseriks to his advantage. The Paladins follow, and are easily split up thanks to the death planet’s atmosphere and Lotor’s piloting.

Keith and Lance end up in ear shot of each other, while the other three are scattered. As per usual, Keith and Lance start fighting. I feel like I should make some sort of crass comment about the two of them getting a room, but that’s beneath me. The arguing finally stops when Keith actually listens to Lance, hell having finally frozen over, and realizing that his leadership qualities haven’t really been up to snuff today. They decide to regroup with the others.

Outside the planet’s atmosphere, Lotor’s generals have called in their closest fleet as back up. The main reason why they’re still sitting things out, though, is that Thayseriks’ atmosphere is REALLY unstable in places, as in massive explosions can be caused if the wrong pocket of gas is ignited. So, the four Half-Gulra elect to wait for an opportune moment to strike.

First days are hard enough without laser fire or death threats.

The Paladins have been able to regroup by this point, but they’re still dealing with a highly maneuverable enemy on hostile ground. Lotor continues to outfly them despite their best efforts, tricks them into firing their weapons, causes a massive explosion to separate them again, and ultimately targets the weakest link, Allura. The princess has got a lot of skill, but she’s still only been a Paladin for like two days, so that designation is kind of understandable. Allura is able to shake off Lotor, but is clearly on her last frayed nerve by the time she finds cover.

Keith and Lance end up finding each other, again, fight again, and Lance motivates Keith to do better, again. There’s a fair amount of rinse and repeat with these two. Meanwhile, Hunk and Pidge link up again. Hunk asks the obvious question of their tech guru, can she do something to level the playing field. Unfortunately, the single worst place to ask for tech modifications is when a psycho alien is liable to leap out of nowhere and pepper your ship with holes. Yeah, Pidge is good, but her hands are pretty much tied right now.

Allura, having hidden out in a crevice on the planet’s surface, is trying desperately to get Blue to work with her. She tries to use the Lance approach, which comes across as her hitting on the giant robot, but I guess Blue isn’t impressed. She ultimately swallows her pride and flat out begs Blue to help her out, which causes the mecha-cat to finally sync with its new pilot. Just in time for Lotor to find them. Allura flies off. Thankfully, bonding with Blue let her access the Lion’s more advanced arsenal, namely its sonic weaponry. Using the big sonic blaster as a sonar device, Allura is finally able to outfly Lotor. She leads him into a pocket of the explosive gas, then circles around and uses Blue’s Freezing cannon to coat his ship’s left wing in ice. Lotor bails, just in time for his fleet to arrive.

Victory is Voltron's, for now.

The Paladins are able to meet up. They form Voltron, summon the Leo Saber, and smash the heck out of the bulk of Lotor’s minions. They elect to allow Lotor to escape, so that they can prep and train for another fight. Unfortunately, Lotor has a similar plan. He puts it best, the Paladins bringing Voltron back again isn’t a problem, it’s “an opportunity.” How sinister.

This episode does a lot with a relatively simple premise. The team spends most of the episode flying around an alien planet that is forcing them to adjust to their new roles. Keith gets several painful examples of his lone wolf, shoot first ask questions later, mentality not working when he’s coordinating a team. Lance is forced to repeatedly, and loudly, both berate his teammate (which he’s used to and enjoys) and add moral support when he can (which is new to him and he doesn’t enjoy as much). Allura has the worst of it, as she has to do inn an episode what the others took most of two seasons to accomplish, learning to fly and bonding with her beast. It’s a tall order, but she’s able to figure it out. I get the sense that Lotor is little more hands on then his father was. Don’t get me wrong, Zarkon wasn’t above getting his hands dirty, but that was typically when his goal was within sight. Otherwise, he seemed content with sending warships and soldiers to do the day to day battling. Lotor, on the other hand, decided to be the distraction rather than leave the job to anyone else. Granted, he probably had the best small fighter piloting skills of any of his minions, but nobody said he HAD to fight the Paladins. He’s an incredibly clever fighter, perfectly willing to force the paladins to fight the environment as much as himself. His plan might have worked too, if Keith, Lance and Allura hadn’t worked out their personal issues in such a timely manner. Just saying. The next time we visit the Paladins, things get weird… weirder. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/15888549
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero