Review: Suicide Squad

DC, Warner Bros., I know you’re trying. You’re trying to make movies that are the same quality as Marvel, but with your own unique flair. But, if this year is any indication, you really really really really really need to reconsider your directors and writers. Why? Because Suicide Squad is worse than Batman v. Superman. There, I said it. Let’s get to it.

We open in the most logical place for this movie, prison. Belle Reve Penitentiary, it’s one of the prisons in the DC Universe where they send the Criminally Sane. We get introduced to some of our heavy hitters, Floyd Lawton aka Deadshot, Harleen Quinzel aka Harley Quinn, Waylon Jones aka Killer Crock, and El Diablo. We flash to intelligence operative Amanda Waller, who is trying to get clearance to use these four criminals and others into a team of Black Ops disposable assets, Task Force X. More commonly known as the Suicide Squad.

Villains Unite... or whatever.

They’re kind enough to show how Deadshot and Harley were captured. Here’s a hint, the guy that caught them goes by a name that rhymes with Gnat Band. Yeah, they got Bat-flec in for two short but intense capture scenes. And while the super assassin, the insane she-clown, pyro-flinging Gangbanger and Man-lizard are impressive, the higher ups of the US Brass only agree when Waller shows off her “ace” the Enchantress. Her backstory? She’s an ancient, I’m assuming, central American goddess that has possessed an archeologist named June Moone. She can teleport, bend reality, and is only obeying Waller because Waller has her heart. I’m sure there’s no way this could backfire.

They get the green light for the project, after Enchantress steals some highly classified documents for the US. Waller, and her number 2, Rick Flag, go to Belle Reve to look over their less then willing recruits. They test out Deadshot’s skills, and… that’s about it. Things sort of hit the fan when Enchantress decides she’s done taking orders, that lasted like a day and a half, and escapes. How? She breaks her brother, Incubus, out of his prison, gets him a human body, and then uses the power that Incubus can syphon to supplement her own power. They start building a doomsday weapon. Which seems odd. She and Incubus are POed that Humans aren’t worshiping them anymore, so they’re going to wipe us out… so we still can’t worship them anymore. Dumb plan.

So Waller and Flag assemble the Suicide Squad. Their team is comprised of the four mentioned above, a swordwoman named Katana, and Captain Stupid Gimmick… I mean Boomerang. They also get a guy named Slipknot, but he’s not important. Their given all of their equipment, but are also implanted with nano-explosives that will blow their heads off if they step out of line. Which is what happens to Slipknot. See? Not important. The Squad’s mission is to extract an asset from Midway City, where the gruesome twosome is causing a ruckus. They kill a bunch of mutant monster slaves, and make their way to the tower. They reach the asset, who is in fact Waller.

While all this other stuff was going on, Joker was causing some trouble. He’s apparently way more upset then usual that Harley is in jail while he is not. He kidnaps the scientist that designed the nano-bombs, smuggles a cellphone to Harley, and tracks them down. He and his joker gang steal the extraction helicopter, shoots at the squad, grabs Harley, and then is shot down. The Squad, after picking Harley up again, to kill Incubus and Enchantress. Can this ragtag group of villains do it? We’ll see.

The good first. Unfortunately, this section is rather short. Most of the cast was well chosen. Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, and Jared Leto do a good job as Deadshot, Harley, Amanda Waller, and Joker. Same for Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje as Croc. I actually laughed more at his dialogue then anyone else’s. Joel Kinnamen as Rick Flag is okay, but not great. The effects are good. They also recreate a Joker/Harley comic cover in live action. I do enjoy when movies do stuff like that. The Joker’s background plot is kind of entertaining.  

He wears the mask like twice.
Why include it if you're not going to wear it?

Now the bad. There’s a lot of bad. The absolute worst of the bad? THE STORY. I can suspend my disbelief for a lot, but, you expect me to believe that when a pair of dark gods are destroying a major city and threatening an extinction level event that none of the legitimate superheroes show up to do something about it? No Batman? No Flash? No Wonder Woman? Were they all visiting Atlantis this week? I will admit, I don’t know the Suicide Squad as well as other comic teams, but I do know that their big thing is being COVERT. You send them in to handle situations that haven’t reached “Oh crap, front page news.” You send them in to take out minor dictators, psychos with dangerous weapons, or something like that. Or to rob heroes. That happens now and again. Also, we go pretty long stretches of time without seeing that main bad guys. I guess they weren’t doing anything interesting while the team was killing their minions? Kay. And there is no character development throughout. No growth, no one changes. They’re kind of awful human beings from beginning to end. Which, I get, they are villains. But the best villains do develop in a quality story. They try to make up for this with a bar scene towards the end, but it doesn’t nearly have the impact that I think they wanted it to. Also, pretty much out of nowhere, El Diablo becomes the emotional center by the end. So flipping weird.

They also didn’t really get the Harley/Joker relationship. At least as I know it. In all the iterations I’ve seen, yes, Harley is “addicted’ to Joker. It’s a toxic love for her. But for him, she’s a distraction. Someone he can smack around when he gets bored, or to do errands for him, or to distract Batman. He doesn’t really care if she’s around, unless it directly impacts his day to day. There’s a dark joke in one iteration. Harley gets pregnant, and she is aware enough that she knows that Joker isn’t really Dad material. She disappeared for a few months, had the kid, and left the baby with her sister or something like that. Her comment was that when she got back, he at least acted like he didn’t even notice she was gone. Does that sound like the kind of Joker I described above? I didn’t think so.

Finally, Margot Robbie is a very attractive woman. I’m not denying that. But, her costume is 100% fan service. To the ladies that read this, I’m sure there’s at least one, do you think booty shorts would be good monster fighting attire? I feel like a wedgie would be distracting.  Just saying.

Overall, I have to give this movie a D. There are some good elements but there is a heaping pile of manure on top of it. I agree with what most of the critics have said, actors top notch, everything else is no good. Were you to tell me that Suicide Squad 2 was getting a new director and writer, I would gladly see it. Rather than begrudgingly see it. What? Watching this kind of thing is what I do.  Next time, I think it’s time to do a truly great character. One that has saved the future a couple of times. The original Mutant Messiah, Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, aka Cable. 

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https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/suicide_squad_2016/#&gid=1&pid=h-132796

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 11

We’ve hit the grand finale. The end of the first season of Voltron. It’s been a quick but awesome ride. And, I’m happy to say that they are getting a second season. In fact, according to a few articles I’ve seen, they’re going to try and release it before the end of the year. Awesome. I hope that my little blurbs have gotten a few more folks to check out this awesome show.

So, the Voltron Paladins are stuck in a kind of a catch 22. If the Paladins try to keep fighting the good fight, build up their own force and then attack the Gulra on more even footing, that would leave Zarkon with plenty of time to either break Allura or kill her. Which, its implied, would destroy the Lions. Not good. They’re tied to her life force, or something. But on the other hand… rushing into the heart of an enemy strong hold with what equates to one warship and five fighters is s-t-u-p-i-d. If they’re not turned into space dust by the overwhelming force of Zarkon’s fleet, then they’re still risking Zarkon getting his claw like hands on the Legendary Defender. Also not good.

The Paladins return to the Castle, and Coran is rather upset that they are sans princess. After calming Coran, Shiro says something that should get Coran to freak out again. They’re going to storm the Gurla space castle to get Allura back. How are they going to do it? They’re going to take a note from the Deadpool Handbook. Do you know what is the one note in the Deadpool Handbook?

Improvisation! That’s my jam.

The most complex villain? Nope.
A pretty scary villain? I'd say yes.

Thanks Wade. Yeah… it’s a bad plan. But, it’s the only one they’ve got so we’re going with it. They use info gathered from all their various Gulra sources to pinpoint the Gulra’s main fleet and Zarkon’s warship. Oh, and this is a one-way trip. Why? Because Allura is the one behind their Castle-Ships ability to travel via wormhole. They had just enough power for one jump. How convenient. The Team jumps, hides the Castle-Ship in the vapors of a nearby Gas Giant, and plan to rush in and grab Allura.

On Zarkon’s capital ship, Allura meets the Head Druid Haggar and is then brought Zarkon. Rather than passively listen to Zarkon’s evil plan, she rushes Zarkon and tries to take him out. You go girl. Unfortunately, Haggar is very spry for an old gal and blasts her. It’s at this moment that the Gulra detect the Voltron Lions, and rather than be scared or concerned, Zarkon is pleased. A confident SOB, isn’t he? The team forms Voltron, flies in fully intent on a smash and grab rescue. Unfortunately, Zarkon seems to have predicted this and activates a “Solar Barrier.” It’s basically a giant forcefield that keeps them from escaping. The team tries to keep the momentum up, summons their giant Leo-Saber, and slices up a Warship. They then pull out their Shoulder Cannon and blow a few more ships into space dust. They fly towards Zarkon’s ship, and then things get weird. We get a creepy flash of Zarkon’s scarred face, and then Voltron starts seizing up, and then breaks apart into the individual lions.

Zarkon is shown with four Gulra Druids, the alien-wizards seem to funneling quintessence directly into their master. Zarkon specifically draws the Black Lion in while the other Lions fight the rest of the Gulra. Coran flies in and starts blasting, in the hopes of drawing some fire from the Paladins. Shiro can’t seem to get Black Lion to follow his commands. Zarkon makes a comment about Shiro’s connection to Black Lion is weak. Anyone else feel like this is like Alex Rodrigues commenting on a rookie baseball player’s swing. Dopers don’t get to comment, jerk! Shiro is ejected from Black, and Zarkon claims victory. Thankfully, Keith flies in, breaks the tractor beam that Zarkon is using to pull Black Lion in. Deciding he’s had enough of all this, Zarkon throws off his giant robes and pulls out his weapon of choice. The Black Bayard. Yeah, the show has hinted at this a few times, but this is the point where they’ve all but said that Zarkon was the original, or at least a previous, Black Paladin. Explains his confidence at capturing Voltron, and his confidence that he can take control of the giant mech, doesn’t it? Side note, if Allura was aware that Zarkon was a former Voltron Paladin, I think she probably should have let them know. Knowledge is power and all that.

Most of the time, my money would be on the giant robo-cat.
But, for once, my money's on the space tyrant.

Keith tries to take him on, but the years of quintessence absorbing has made Zarkon supremely powerful. And unlike the other Paladins, Zarkon’s Bayard doesn’t have one weapon mode, but several. A mace, sword, and a blaster are a few of the forms. Why do the bad guys always get the coolest weapons? While this is going on, Shiro is attacked by Haggar. Her magic’s are too much for Shiro. He’s whipped around, blasted, and gets his butt handed to him. She seems particularly sore at Shiro, shouting “I made you strong, and this is how you repay me? You could have been our greatest weapon,” as she blasts him. She then attacks him with holograms of himself. Psychological attacks, how dirty.

Meanwhile, Hunk gets aboard the ship, frees Allura, and the two run to save Shiro. The three are able to force the old witch back and get back into space. Keith and Red Lion are getting spanked by Zarkon. He is able to force the villain back with a magically summoned back cannon on Red. But Zarkon keeps coming. He’s like an evil purple energizer bunny. Also, doesn’t risking destroying Voltron’s right arm kind of ruin Zarkon’s potential plans for universal conquest? Zarkon nearly finishes off Keith, but Shiro and Black knock him back at the last second. Not so smug about your “connection” to Black Lion when you’re not getting a power boost, are Zarkon? The team flies back to the Castle, and they try to jump via wormhole. Unfortunately, the Solar Shield keeps them stuck. That is, until a Gulra soldier deactivates the barriers. Turn coat? Interesting. The team tries to jump, but at the last second, Haggar blast the wormhole with her magic. The wormhole destabilizes, the Lions are thrown from the Castle, and that’s it.

Can you see why I was concerned about this getting a second season? It just stops. No conclusion, we don’t even see the Lion’s and Castle landing on some distant planetoid(‘s). Even someone like me would have trouble thinking up a “personal” ending for a show with a finale like that. I’m sure other series have done this before, but this is a technique that Beast Wars did to great effect. If you watch the sort of sequel to the G1 Transformers you’ll notice that of the three finales, the bad guys apparently win two of them. So, if the show hadn’t been renewed for a second and later a third season, it would have ended with the bad guys being victorious. Keep the fans hooked, am I right?

As a season finale, this actually isn’t great. Why? Because it doesn’t really end. And that bugs me. But, it does work as a regular episode. Heck, when season two comes out, (I’m so excited!) I’m sure the sudden ending won’t seem so odd. We see some good reveals, like Zarkon’s status as a previous Black Paladin, and Haggar’s implied plans involving Shiro. From the way the baddy talks, Shiro was important to whatever the witch had planned. Keith gets some pretty good moments in this one. Of the six main characters, I felt that Keith got the least amount of development. Which is kind of interesting, given that he takes Shiro’s place as leader in the original series. I know, a remake doesn’t, nor shouldn’t, follow the original point for point but it’s an interesting change. Watching him fight Zarkon, despite being laughably outclassed by the evil emperor. I’m hoping that this is the first chapter of a reasonable length series. Fingers crossed, y’all. Next time, my review of Suicide Squad.

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http://darkspellmaster.tumblr.com/post/147310301765/could-keiths-knifedagger-be-the-key-to-finding

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 10

Let’s recap what’s happened thus far. Four Galaxy Garrison scrubs and a former alien POW have turned into the Paladins of the Legendary Defender, Voltron. They have destroyed like fifteen warships, hundreds of enemy fighters, protected two innocent worlds, and smashed two unholy amalgams of magic and science. My goodness they’ve covered a lot of ground in only eleven episodes, haven’t they? And we’ve only had two Robeasts. How bizarre. Which actually has worked rather well for me. The build up to each monster fight has turned what was originally a “monster of the day/week” to something much more memorable. What sort of creature could possibly top ball-in-a-cup flinging Mecha-Myzax and multiple laser eye firing Death-Gaze? We’ll have to wait and see. Let’s get to it.

You laughed in the Purple Rain
Now cry in the Purple Lightning!

We start with the Paladins sifting through Sendak’s memories. The information is incomplete, you know, because Shiro launched the alien commander into space before the download could finish. Thankfully, they’re able to combine the incomplete memories with the incomplete data from Sendak’s Warship. Two fractured pieces make a whole… or something close to it. As Pidge sifted through the information, she notices one phrase that keeps coming up throughout both. It’s a Gulra phrase that translates to the “Universal Station, Galactic Hub, or Space Base.” I like the alliteration with the third one. They have a set of coordinates, but to everyone’s shock, Coran’s scan doesn’t detect anything of note. Just a single asteroid and a pair of planets. The team decide to check it out, since what evil empire would be obsessed with empty space?  Upon arrival they discover why nothing came up. There’s a lot of technobabble, but the way I understand it, the electromagnetic fields of the two planets and asteroid mask a base on the asteroid from scans. It’s the space equivalent of building a military base into a mountain, natural forces provide additional camouflage.

They are able to sneak aboard the vessel using Green Lion’s cloak and artificial cosmic interference, disable the guards (side note, Gulra troopers are stupid), and hack the base’s database. While they’re searching through the database, a ship arrives with a fresh shipment. Hunk use a broken Gulra drone to trick the new ship into thinking everything is alright. Again, Gulra troopers are stupid. While the new ship unloads, Pidge is able to learn… very little. The ship’s mainframe only seems to have the shipment schedule. Not what is being shipped, just the drop off and pick up times. Allura, who is refusing to accept failure today, insists that they sneak aboard the docked ship and see what they are carrying. How? She’ll dress up as a Gulra Guard and just walk aboard. What’s that? I hear some of you asking, how is she going to pass for a seven-foot-tall purple solider when she’s a five foot something tan princess? Shapeshifting. Yeah, this kind of comes out of nowhere. Allura explains her species can shapeshift and they used this power in more peaceful times to help diplomatic relations. I must ask, where the flying cuss word was this power earlier? It would have been really easy to sneak aboard the Gulra ship in this first episode with this superpower. No answer? I thought so. Shiro agrees, but insists that he comes along. We have a quick “boss fight” between the two, Allura insisting that she can take care of herself while Shiro insisting that as a team they need to work together. Allura finally relents and they sneak Shiro onboard the ship in a crate. Third time, Gulra = Stupid. How have the conquered the known universe?

It's a decent disguise. Too bad her acting wasn't up to snuff.

While the Princess and Captain are busy, Pidge starts hacking a drone’s CPU for info, and Keith goes off on his own to investigate the shipment itself, and the creepy Gulra Druid that accompanied it. While onboard the ship, Shiro has another PTSD Flashback, and remembers the Gulra Drones walk in predictable pattern. Maybe having the bulk of your army be comprised of robots wasn’t the best idea. They sneak deeper into the ship. While Pidge, Hunk and Lance keep trying to hack the drone, Keith catches up with the Druid. In a room filled with canisters of quintessence, he watches the black clan druid pump the canister with purple energy, turning the yellow liquid purple. Keith shows the other three and Coran a video of what he saw. This triggered a latent “exposition protocol” in the drone Pidge was fiddling with. The robot explains that the druid was “purifying the Quintessence into the Gulra’s main fuel source. Meanwhile, Allura and Shiro take out a few more guards and start hacking. I guess Shiro’s been taking some intro to hacking alien computer systems courses with Pidge, or something.

A lot of stuff starts happening at once. Shiro’s hack was detected and the Gulra throw all their troopers at them. At the same time, Keith tries to steal the quintessence, the druid senses a disturbance and teleports and starts throwing purple lighting. What is with these guys and the color purple? This is particularly bad for Keith as, you know, the worse possible weapon to have when fighting a magic guy is a sword. Which is the only weapon he has on hand. Hard to stab somebody when they can fling lightning or fire from fifteen feet away. Pidge is able to grab Green Lion and then rush in to save Keith. This seems to kill the druid, not many organisms can survive the vacuum of space, and Keith discovers that Quintessence has remarkable healing powers. His horrible electrical burns healed in seconds after being doused in the yellow goo. On the ship, Shiro and Allura are pretty hosed. They fought through several dozen troopers and made it to the escape pod, but more troopers are banging on the cargo bay door. Realizing that they can’t both escape, Allura choses to sacrifice herself so Shiro can get away. Makes sense, one of five guys that can pilot the ultimate robot champion > princess. She holds the door with her surprising super-strength while Shiro is jettisoned in an escape pod. When Shiro reunites with the others, he decides that they’ll do the incredibly stupid thing and attack Zarkon head on to get Allura back.

This is a pretty good continuation of our final story arc. Allura’s wounds seem pretty fresh after the whole Holo-Dad killing she had to do last time. At least, that’s what I attribute Allura’s stubbornness throughout the episode. Sure, the shapeshifting power thing was kind of out of left field, but, I’ll give it to them. I’ll mention that it isn’t a… fluid transformation, like with Mystique. The transformation takes a few moments, and she first grows and then changes color. It feels more like a process then with Mystique. It was also interesting to see how Shiro and Allura interact together. The other Voltron Paladins respect Shiro and often defer to his judgement. Makes sense as he’s the most seasoned pilot/soldier and team leader. But, Allura is technically his superior, she is the Princess, after all. He’s deferred to her a number of times, but almost never in the field during a mission. Two leaders trying to figure out the power dynamic, who is the most leaderie, it is a pairing that doesn’t come up all that often. Keith’s lone gunslinger act is short, but intense. His fight with the Gulra Druid is all kinds of crazy awesome. Also, love the look of the Gulra Druids. Creepy as heck. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk don’t have all that much to do in this one, as they spend most of their time monkeying with the Gulra drone, but they get a good laugh or two. Like when Pidge backhands Lance with the Gulra drone. Don’t worry, he’s okay… and deserved it. It also sets up the season finale, where they storm the enemy castle to get the Princess back. Hopefully there won’t be a toadstool there telling them their princess is in another space castle. Bet you didn’t expect this to end on a Super Mario reference, did you?

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 9

A couple of years ago, I saw a news segment about something rather… odd. The story was about families, whom had lost loved ones, that were upset that their local phone providers were deleting old messages from said dead loved one. Some people find comfort in hearing these old messages, I guess. I personally don’t get it, but to each their own. Now, imagine if instead of just one or two recorded messages of a dead person, it was a semi-sentient AI with all of that dead person’s memories and personality. Yes, like Jor-El from the Superman movies.  Gets a little creepier with the AI, doesn’t it? Let’s get to it.

It's Sendak, on ICE.

The episode opens to Allura, still recovering healing the Balmera last time, spending some quality time with her Holo-Dad. Remember him? It is a holographic, self-aware copy of King Alfore, Allura’s dad. I’m not 100% sure why, but I find this really, really messed up. It’s like talking to an imaginary friend, except it talks back. Either way, can’t be psychologically healthy. I’m getting off task. Allura pines for her dead dad and her destroyed home world. Her game of holo-graphic pretend is interrupted by Coran, who insists that she get some more rest.

Meanwhile, Pidge runs a few tests on the “evil” crystal that the Gulra had plugged into the Castle of Lions when they invaded. Her experiments are interrupted by the others prepping to interrogate Sendak. Basically, the plan is to use the Castle’s AI memory recording technology to upload Sendak’s mind so they can peruse Sendak’s memories at their leisure. Coran is a little uncomfortable about the ethical quandaries of using his people’s technology like this, but they really don’t have any other options. There’s some technobabble, a little Keith/Lance insult fighting, and then a whole lot of waiting. Apparently encoding and decrypting the entirety of a sentient organism’s mind takes a while. Everyone starts breaking off to do other stuff, Hunk goes to eat some green space mush (shocking), Keith goes to do some training, Pidge goes to do more Crystal research, and Lance is forced to help Coran do some maintenance. Shiro stays behind. Hm… leaving a former POW alone with a former capture, I’m sure that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Then things start getting weird. Well, weird for the Castle of Lions. The food dispenser goes haywire, dousing Hunk and Pidge, who’d been walking by, in green food gunk. Lance, while cleaning a cryo-pod, gets locked inside and frozen. Coran doesn’t notice as he’s busy reminiscing and the Pod descended into its container after locking Lance in. With Keith, the Gladiator Drone he’s training with goes psycho and refuses to shut down when ordered. It tries to kill him. Things aren’t going great with Shiro, either, as he seems to be going into a pretty dark place while chatting with the Sendak-cicle.

Coran finds and frees Lance, but rules the Lance freezing an accident. This seems unlikely, especially since Holo-Dad is starting to say some creepy stuff to Allura, like luring her back into the hologram room and promising to take her home again. Which would be hard, because, you know, the planet was destroyed. Lance is stalked by malfunctioning technology. Various power failures, flashing lights, and a recording of Coran begging for help gets Lance stuck in the airlock. This can only end badly for Lance.

Yeah, I wouldn't want this purple
               cat man in my head, either.

Shiro is getting really, really, really frustrated with Sendak’s mind not cooperating. He asks it all sorts of questions, Where’s your base, where are your forces, does Zarkon have exploitable weaknesses, but the recorded memories remain silent. At least to Shiro’s questions. Shiro either starts hallucinating, or, Sendak somehow actually begins communicating with him. The entire conversation can be summed up with a Darth Vader quote, “Join me. It is your destiny!” Meanwhile, Pidge and Hunk go into Pidge’s lab and the Gulra Crystal. They’d realized that the Crystal might have something to do with the malfunctions, and try to disable it. Before they can do anything to the Crystal, the lab’s gravity is turned off and Pidge and Hunk get stuck floating in the air. At the same time, Keith is just barely escaping death by the Gladiator Drone. His evading leads him to the Airlock that Lance is locked in, mere moments before he’s launched into space. Keith gets the Gladiator to smash the door open, saves Lance, and sends the Gladiator into space.

Allura is lured into the Holo-chamber, where Holo-Dad promises to take her back home to Altea. The mice are obviously creeped out, but for once, Allura isn’t paying her rodent’s any mind. Of all the times not to notice mice. Back with Hunk and Pidge, they’re still stuck floating in space. They try to work together to get the Gravity working again, but mess it up. They are saved by Lance, Keith and Coran. Lance isn’t impressed with their “harrowing” ordeal. He thinks that floating is “not scary. That’s fun!” Back with Shiro, Sendak keeps up with the “Join me,” speech, which is really freaking Shiro out. He starts having another PTSD flashback, but is aware enough to jettison Sendak into space. Dooming someone to floating forever in the void between stars, that’s pretty hardcore. The team regroups, just in time for the Castle to jump into hyperspace.

The team realizes that the evil Gulra Crystal must have corrupted the ship’s system and Holo-Dad’s AI. The corruption has turned Holo-Dad into a Nihilist, all life is meaningless and all that jazz, and plans to reunite with Allura in the afterlife. Creepy. To do this, he’s flying them to a sun that’s about to go Supernova. Allura has no idea this is going on, as Holo-Dad keeps her in a closed off simulation of Altea. Thankfully, the “good” part of Holo-Dad breaks through, and shows Allura the truth. She snaps out of it, and the team works to slow their decent into the dying star. The Voltron Lions push the Castle away from the star, while Allura goes to deactivate her Holo-Dad’s AI. “Evil” Holo-Dad tries to stop Allura, showing her memories of her Dad during happier times. Allura is able to do the hard thing and destroys her Holo-Dad’s AI. The Good part lasts long enough to say goodbye. After things have calmed down, Allura gives them a “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” speech.

This was an interesting episode. On the one hand, I do like the idea that the events of the previous arc still have some ramifications. It helps with the series continuity. Obviously, if the bad guys hack into your base, it’ll take some time to fix things. On the other, the whole death of Holo-Dad doesn’t have the weight that I think they wanted to have. It’s hard to care about a character’s ‘death’ when this is only the second time we’ve seen him. This is kind of inevitable, given that the Castle’s been disabled for the lasts couple of episodes, but, they could have tried a little more. Like many have Allura mention “What would Father do?” during the previous story and musing about how Holo-Dad would be helpful. Or something. The humor is still spot on. And seeing just how much Sendak’s presence had on Shiro’s damaged psyche is pretty interesting. He goes to some dark places. Overall, a good episode. Not the best, but a very necessary episode. Next time, episode 10. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 8

I just want to take a second and applaud the Voltron guys with their monster delivery system. I’ve seen giant monsters appear in a TON of different ways. Interdimensional portals, radioactive mutations, crashing into a planet like a meteor, magically summoned, magically transformed via magic staff, magic grenades, and Scottish robots (Power Rangers went to some weird places) but, I can safely say that I’ve never seen monsters distributed by a casket shaped spacecraft. It’s creepy, foreboding, over the top, but not so over the top that it’s super stupid. High fives all around. Enough generic praising, let’s get to it.

Death-Gaze smells your fear.
And sees it, because, you know, thirty eyes.

Picking up again from last time, the Voltron Paladins are tensely waiting for the casket to open. Hunk prays for either an empty casket, or one filled with space candy. This would be a very different twist if Hunk’s prayers had been answered. Realizing the prayers for emptiness and sweets will most likely be in vain, they prep by drawing Voltron’s giant sword and shield combo. Lance is especially confident that they’ll be the creature if it’s like Mecha-Myzax. The casket opens and the Robeast emerges. Unfortunately, this new Robeast is pretty much nothing like Mecha-Myzax. Other than being a giant mechanical monster in the vague shape of an animal. Obviously. I can’t find an official name for this one, but given his numerous energy blasting eyes, I’ll call him Death-Gaze for simplicities sake. Why Death-Gaze? Because Laser-Lizard sounds silly. It resembles a giant man with a reptilian head, and long, thick arms. It has two main eyes on its head that swivel like a chameleon, as well as about fifteen extra eyes running along the inner part of each of its arms and one large central eye on his chest. Death-Gaze opens with an Iron-Man style chest beam blast, which shoves Voltron back. The fight is once again complicated by the fact they need to keep Death-Gaze’s blasts from the Balmera’s surface. Kind of hard to fight something when you’re constantly worried you’ll miss and hit the giant space whale/rock monster. They’re forced to split up, but Death-Gaze reveal that it can shoot more energy blasts from its additional eyes. Really hard to escape a monster that can shoot 360 degrees. They’re save by the Castle, which blasts Death-Gaze from the sky. The castle’s blast stop’s it, but only temporarily. The castle is pretty banged up from the armada fight earlier so it can’t sustain its firepower nor take a heavy hit.

Using the Castle’s attack as cover, they make a tactical retreat. Lions dive into the caves, while the Castle goes into space. Death-Gaze is too big to follow into the tunnels and its thrusters can’t lift it too far off the ground. Inside the cavern, the Paladins try to encourage the Balmeran’s but things are looking bleak. And that’s before its revealed the Balmera is dying. Too many crystals had been harvested, which are tied to its own life force, for it to survive. The Altean’s avoided such grizzly deaths of Balmeras by performing a ritual that helped recharge the creature. Equivalent exchange, for the win. The team has a few hours to evacuate the planet, but need to keep Death-Gaze busy while they get the Balmeran’s off planet. They plan to provoke and evade Death-Gaze while Shay and her people are loaded onto the Castle of Lions for Evac. Shay is unsure if the others will go along with the evac plan, but agrees to use their Balmera Whispering to ask the rest of her people. Allura plans to go planet side to help.

How I translate his snarls.

Death-Gaze is easily provoked, but not very easy to evade. The thing has got about thirty-three eyes, so yeah, it’s kind of hard to avoid it’s notice. While the Paladins dodge and weave, Allura arrives on the surface and tries to get everyone ready, but Shay lets her know that the Balmeran’s have elected to die with their world. Allura refuses to accept, and wants to try to convince everyone to leave. It’s revealed she has also has the ability to speak through the Balmera, and she uses it to convince the Balmerans to leave. Unfortunately, their escape route is destroyed by the Balmera’s death throws and Death-Gaze’s laser eyes. Can’t fix a broken escape route with speeches.

The Paladins are forced to change plans from attack and evade to destroying Death-Gaze. Which isn’t the best of plans, given how little success they’ve had even doing any damage to the darn thing. While the Paladins keep Death-Gaze busy, Allura discovers that she has the power to recharge the Balmera, hopefully saving it from collapsing. How convenient. The process could kill Allura if she isn’t strong enough, but she agrees to do it anyway to save the Balmerans. Less convenient. Meanwhile, the Lions are still having a heck of a time to stop Death-Gaze. Yellow tells Hunk to do the Bayard insert to form weapon thing that Keith did to make the sword. When Death-Gaze changes targets to the Castle, they form Voltron and have Hunk activate his Bayard weapon. It forms a shoulder mounted energy bazooka, which they use on Death-Gaze. The direct blast doesn’t help, but then Voltron reveals it’s got a pinpoint-targeting rapid fire mode. They shoot Death-Gaze, destroying most of his extra eyes. This gives Allura enough time to finish the recharge ritual, saving the Balmera. Voltron then punches Death-Gaze, finishing him off. High-fives all around. Or so they think. After the Paladins disembark from Voltron and everyone is breathing a sigh of relief, Death-Gaze gets back up, and charges another attack. It’s at this point that the now fully revitalized Balmera decides it’s had enough of this business, and encases the Robeast in crystals. Don’t mess with planet sized creatures. After the fighting, Hunk and Shay bonding over their shared fight, and Hunk vowing to stop Zarkon. It ends with Shay seeing her first sunrise. And so ends the seconds arc.

Zarkon loves his profile shots.

Arc number 2 was pretty darn good. There was a lot of build up to the battle with Death-Gaze on top of the Balmera, and it was pretty intense. I find it funny that despite all of the talk that they “Need to protect the Balmera,” and how they need to keep Death-Gaze from blasting it, that idea kid of goes out the door when the fighting begins. I know, survival trumps idealism, but then don’t talk about it so darn much. Jeeze. Death-Gaze is well designed and a good step up from Mecha-Myzaz. Why Haggar didn’t wait for the Gulra to gather enough quintessence to make two or more of these things, I’ll never know. Or, or gather enough quintessence to transform… let’s five space wolves, into an evil wolf themed Voltron. A Woltron. Or Snarltron. Or something. Idea for season 2. It was also cool to see Hunk get some character growth. The cowardly, dare I say yellow bellied, Hunk finally realizes that there’s somethings worth fighting for despite being afraid. Hopefully he won’t regress into a sniveling coward again. Or at least keep coward impulses in check. I know that it doesn’t happen in the rest of this season, but I’ve seen shows regress their characters between seasons before. I’m looking at you, Pokémon and your like 900 episodes and your main character still being an impulsive ten-year-old. Best not go down that particular road. So yeah, in summation, a good story arc, and good monster. High fives all around. Again. Next time, episode eight. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 7

Space. The Final Frontier. There are a lot of weird stuff out there among the stars. But the weirdest concept is the sentient planet. An entire world that is self-aware, feels pain, and can affect its landscape. Can you imagine if earth worked like that? I doubt fracking and deforestation would be a problem if ol’ Gaia could put her two sense in. What? I think of the planet as a female. So sue me. Let’s get to it.

We open to Team Voltron planning to liberate the Balmera, and argue about who has the most accurate laser gun sound effects. Shiro is closest, in my opinion. Their plans are complicated by the fact the Balmera is alive and feels pain, so shooting the surface is kind of a no go. It’d be like shooting any living thing, it’d end badly. They come up with a plan to draw the Gulra out of the tunnels, fight them in the sky, and then fly in and free the rest of them once the Gulra were scrap. They use specialized scanning tech to determine how many Gulra and Balmerans are in the tunnel, to make things run more smoothly. Pidge plans to fly in, while using her new camouflage tech she outfitted the Green Lion with, to drop the probs.

Such a smug grin. Always glad to see it wiped off his face.

The guys start shooting the Gulra installations. This gives them a chance to show off their weapons. Black has a special jaw blade it can use to slice things. Red had a magma cannon, for melting. And Blue has an Ice Beam, for freezing. Red and Blue use their respective beams to melt a guard tower and the freeze it in place so it won’t hurt the Balmera. Despite the damage they cause, no Gulra fly out to stop them. They’re drawn deeper, since they detected Gulra fighters deeper inside and the prisoners too. The team breaks up, Keith and Lance go to take out the fighters, while the others go in to save the prisoners. Everything is so easy, from disabling the fighter ships to freeing the prisoners, it’s obviously a trap, and yet they have no other choice but to fall into it.

Hunk frees the Balmerans, Rox (still a dick) tells them that the Gulra took Shay to the core of the Balmera. Everyone knows that this is a trap, but… heroes. They can’t not fall into a trap to save someone. Everyone is drawn in, and, shockingly, the trap is sprung. The group assumed that the Gulra were going to ambush them at the core, where they were Lion-less and unable to fight back due to the danger of damaging the Balmera. Instead, the Gulra just lock them in the core and go to steal the Lions. The Gulra prefer the direct approach. So… The Paladins are locked in the heart of a planet, the Lions are vulnerable without their paladins, and the Castle of Lions is stuck against an armada. Not a great day. But, thankfully, Shay uses her Balmera Whispering powers to get her people to give them a hand. Rox, dick, reveals that he was the one that tipped off the Gulra, but convinces the rest of the Balmerans to help the Voltron Paladins. Less of a Dick.

The heart of a living planet.

In the Heart of the Gulra Empire, Prorock assures his Emperor that they’ll have the Voltron Lions in a manner of hours, but Zarkon isn’t convinced. The alien dictator is confident that Prorock has underestimated the Lions and their Paladins. On the Balmera, a warship joins the fight, and all hope seems lost. Thankfully, the Paladins are freed thanks to the Balmerans and just barely make it back to their Lions in time. Again, those forcefields the Lions project are useless. The five robot cats smash the Gulra fighters. The Castle takes a pretty huge hit from the warship, which gives the team enough time to form Voltron for the first time in like four episodes. They’re able to smash the Gulra Warship and 97% of the fighters in one fell swoop.  Prorock is rather “embarrassed” at this failure, but Zarkon doesn’t seem more than annoyed. Back with the team, we see why. Just when the take a breath another Gulra space-casket, bearing a Robeast, crashes.

Now, normally, episodes were the ‘surprise’ is so <blanking> obvious bore me but this one is decent. The humor makes up for a lot of the predictability throughout this episode. Heroes making laser gun noises, what other show does that? Keith and Lance are always good for a few yuks. And Hunk is great, especially with his self-deprecating humor. “This has got to be a trap. There’s no way I’m that good a shot.” This episode is meant to play up the next one, which it does. I really like the design of the Robeast’s caskets. Really unique means of transportation and just really, really creepy. Next time, episode 8 and our new Robeast Battle. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 6

As much as I like this series, this is perhaps the weakest episode. It’s the closest that Voltron has to a filler episode. To those who haven’t seen that term before, a filler episode is an episode in a generally continuous serial series that are unrelated to the main plot, doesn’t significantly alter the relations between characters, and really only take up space. They do make reference to the episodes that follow, but only briefly. Let’s get to it.

Prorock, he's Sendak minus the Cybernetics.
Which automatically drops his awesomeness level by 2.

This one opens to Lance defrosting. There’s a short discussion about the difference between seconds, and the Altean’s time scale, a tick, which gets them so wrapped up that they don’t notice Lance getting out of his pod. He hits on Allura, which tells everyone that he’s right as rain. After getting some food in him, Lance compliments the mice but claims Keith did very little. Keith kind of freaks out at this, delivering one of my favorite lines of the series, “We had a bonding moment. I cradled you in my Arms!” to which Lance quickly retorts, “Nope, don’t remember. Didn’t happen.” Those goof balls. Sendak is revealed to be in a cryo-pod like Lance was, their Prisoner of War and hopefully a source of information. But Hunk “ain’t got time for that,” and insists that they go to the Balmera to free Shay and her people. Which leads into my other favorite line of this season, Pidge owning up to being female. Hunk makes a crack about “manning up” to which Pidge replies “I can’t man up. I’m a girl.” And then rambles about the difference between figures of speech and reality. It’s adorable. Everyone on the team, minus Lance, admits that they already knew that Pidge was a girl. This shift in his reality hits him hard. Poor Lance. They launch the Castle of Lions, which flies pretty well for a ship that’s been in the ground for 10,000 years, and head for the Balmara.

We then jump to darkly dreaming Zarkon and co. One of his other commanders, Prorock, insist that they send a fleet to the last known Voltron location to capture it. Haggar, on the other hand, insists that they remain where they are and finish an experimental Quintessence harvesting process. Zarkon sides with his Druid, but Prorock decides to take care of things on his own. He orders that all ships in the area keep on the lookout, and offer a reward to whoever has any information on Voltron. Hunk wants to rush to Shay and the Balmerans, but a distress beacon gets their attention. The Paladins have a “help everyone” rule, so they’re kind of required to help out. I’d argue that the fate of thousands of Balmerans is greater than the fate of a single ship’s crew, but this isn’t Star Trek, so they probably haven’t heard the “needs of the many,” line. Just saying. They land and meet some fugitive aliens. We have Rolo, the captain that Hunk is almost immediately suspicious of, Nyma a vaguely human looking alien female that Lance hits on almost immediately, and their robot Beezer, whom Pidge starts examining almost immediately. Such strong emotions all around.

Hunk starts repairing the down ship, but insists that Rolo and his crew stay outside while he works. He’s obviously suspicious, but Rolo seems cool about it. While Hunk tinkers, Rolo gives them a sob story about losing his people and his leg. It sounds like the kind of thing a guy makes up or embellishes for sympathy points. Hunk is super-impatient and obviously isn’t buying what Rolo is selling. Can’t say I blame him. Don’t trust purple aliens. That might seem color-ist, but purple aliens are usually the bad guys, just saying. While that’s going on, Lance keeps trying to impress Nyma, and is kind of too stupid to realize she’s playing him HARD. Like, I feel like if anyone of the others had been paying attention they’d have straight up told him, “Lance, she’s playing with you. Stop thinking with your d#(k.” She pushes all of his buttons to get him to take her out on a ride on Blue Lion. From implying he has to follow orders, to suggesting that she go to Keith for a ride when Lance suggest they go back. Nyma is good.

Hmm... not sure why Lance is attracted to her.
Yellow skin, weird hands, Twi'lek head thingies
All kind of detract from possible attractiveness.

Back with the Gulra, Haggar and several druids use a Gulra crystal to suck the Quintessence from a planet. Remember, Quintessence is like the lifeblood of the universe. So draining a planet of it is very, very, very bad. They pretty much kill a planet in about 15 seconds. Zarkon praises the new energy sucking method and how it’ll make capturing Voltron easier. Zarkon is clearly a “Big picture,” kind of bad guy.

Nyma keeps distracting Lance, and then calls Rolo in once she’s gotten him isolated. He gets handcuffed to a tree, and Nyma and Rolo steal the Blue Lion. The Lions put up a protective energy shield whenever their Paladin is out and about. These shields are useless. If it doesn’t stop the Lion from being moved, why the heck even bother to put it up? Also, anyone shocked the drifters turned out to be the bad guys? No. Good, I’m glad that was clear to everyone. Lance is able to contact the rest of the team, he has to stretch to get to his helmet to call them, and the other Paladins fly off to get Blue back.

Rolo contacts Prorock, and barters for the Blue Lion. They get their slate wiped clean in exchange for the Lion, plus the original posted reward. Rolo makes it sound like he’s conflicted about potentially damning the Paladins and the rest of the Universe, but get’s over it when Nyma reminds him that stealing from the Gulra carries a life sentence. Really? This kind of Empire strikes me as a “Break law = death,” sort of place. Just saying. The team catches up with them, but Rolo loses them in an asteroid belt. Keith follows through the asteroids, he and Red are the only ones fast/maneuverable enough to get through, while the others fly around. Rolo and co make it a difficult chase, but Keith proves to be the better pilot. They ground Rolo’s ship, eventually free Lance, and leave Rolo and the others on another asteroid. The episode ends with Haggar holding a vial of Quintessence before a lizard creature, promising to turn it into the strongest being in the universe. New Robeast in the House!

So yeah, this episode doesn’t really do that much. It’s pretty much just here to delay them getting back to the Balmera. I guess it does show what the Universe under the Gulra is like. Lots of thievery, plundering and just overall bad stuff. The bits with the Gulra, specifically Haggar killing a planet and then using the energy to create a new monster is kind of interesting. It sort of makes the monster, and all future monsters, a little more disturbing. If each of them is infused with the life energy of a planet… that’s pretty messed up when you think about it. So… if I had to grade this, it’s probably a C+. Not a terrible grade, but it will ruin this series 4.0 GPA. Just saying. Next, episode 7, Jail Break; Planet addition. 

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