Step Voltron
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Yeah, sure, we all know the Big 3 car companies fucked up, but that’s no reason to extend the resentment to the innocent car Voltron. It really isn’t.
Over the past week some misguided friends and myself have been debating the merits of Voltrons. Automatically, when you think Voltron you think of the five lions. They come out of their elemental themed dens to bite tanks, launch missles and eat space ships before the titanic robeast emerges. The lions formed Voltron by tucking in their legs, bending their necks and being violated by the black lion’s legs or sticking their tails into his chest. He breaks out the blazing sword and cuts monster du jour in half. Go Voltron Force! Although amazingly formulaic, no one is denying the coolness of Lion Voltron - but if you bring up Vehicle Voltron, other defender of the greater universe, people call you dumb to cover their own ignorance.
I realize the reason for this perception though, as long time readers will know, I do not forgive ignorance. In 1984, Voltron, a translation of the older Japanese series Beast King Golion, debuted. Two channels in the Detroit area vied for the afternoon cartoon audience - like the auto giants over government loans. On one was the newly imported and re-cut show titled Voltron, on the other was the American made original Transformers. It was a good day for kids who didn’t realize how Reganomic deregulation was imperiling their distant economic future.
After fifty-two episodes, Lion ran out of story. Transformers kept going strong. More toys than five Lions equals more money for more new shows. It was then that a new team was introduced by importing an Americanized version of the Japanese series Armor Fleet Dairugger 15 - known as Vehicle Voltron here. Kids immediately saw it as an attempt to compete with Transformers, and a lame one. “Car Voltron be bite’ in,” they’d declare in the parlance of the time, then drop into a backspin on a piece of cardboard to vent their displeasure into break dancing. Although this was planned by Toei Animation, changing casts in a series is never appreciated, Robotech merged three series into generational sagas to mitigate this continuity breaking, but few even gave these heroes of the Near Universe a chance.
I gave it look-see and liked what I saw. Fuck a castle; they had a whole carrier to transport them to different planets, with alien terrain - and aliens. Three teams of five vehicles explored the land, seas and air of these new worlds; they often bordered the territory of an evil star empire (bad guys). Strategies were planned to save the worlds after first contact was established, much more often than not armadas were sent in. These exploration sci-fi themes grabbed my interest greatly. More than lion Voltron that patrolled one damn planet, or even Transformers that fought in rural Colorado defending power stations from hungry Decepticons. Kids like structure and predictability, whatever - I liked new shit.
The cast was pretty well rounded out among Aqua, Turbo Terrain and Strato Teams without the need for silly space mice, the only friends of the severely neglected Princess of Arus - her abandonment issues the source of blue balls for black lion’s Keith many times. Robeasts, despite a time again failed strategy, were faced too necessitating that they form a 15 piece Voltron bristling with weapons, including twin chakrams that would be joined to form their katana like blazing sword. All of the fun of Voltron with a little Star Trek tossed in.
That wasn’t cool? No? Well we’ve got a Voltron Fan Panel to air your opinions on this. Come by and get schooled.
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Reasons why I didn’t like car Voltron:
*Unlike the Lions which embodied primal, totemic forces that were being harnessed whose base recalled the mythic legends of Arthur, the cars were modernistic in their repetition of basic geometry and non-referential utilitarian design, the result of which a show that is as universal as it is alienating. (What? I have to put my overpriced college education *somewhere*)
*Less is more. Even when characters aren’t developed, when there are fewer of them, it’s easy to make them distinctive enough from each other so that at least they each can at least conform to a well recognized archetype; this leads to kids being able to connect to one or more of them; so it was with the lion pilots. When you triple that number what you get is a hodgepodge of people who can’t even serve in that capacity, I would even go so far as to say that the vehicles may as well have been autonomous drones who could trade empty one liners with each other like the onboard computers in Pole Position. Yes, that fact that there were more of them meant that they could be modular, but then, so is half the crap at IKEA. Yes, they could cover more types of terrain, but this only looks good on paper; sure if I were to randomly combine a nuclear sub, an Abram tank and a stealth jet, I would get something that seems fairly awesome, but in the end I’m still having to write stories that somehow explore all three and I think we all know what happened to Manamal.
*By becoming just another set of vehicles it ceased to have any distinctiveness as a franchise. OK, so they’re vehicles now, Just like Go Bots, Transformers, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, KITT, The cars from Pole Position, Turbo Teen, and later MASK and Centurions (who partially count), et cetera. They’re identity became another trend follower. Yes, I liked some of those other shows, certainly, I watched them all, but when you take what was different that you offered and you subsume it, why then should anyone care about *your* product any more?
So modernistic, superfluous and indistinctive; put them all together and you have a show that puts the Zune to shame.
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1. Magical machines I don’t dig so much because its getting chocolate in my peanut butter genre wise - except it’s vegemite (savory)in my chocolate (sweet) I disliked Beast Wars for similar reasons. Robots into animals?
2. Essentially agree. Vehicle voltron had a handful of main charaters with lots of side ones that served as comic relief at times, but would occasionaly get developement. It worked for GI Joe.
3. Im’ looking at Vehicle Voltron compared to Lion though. Not any of those others, though your point is valid. I wager that if car Voltron came out first it would be the same folk talking about gay lion Voltron being weird.
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1. Although I liked the second incarnation of Beast Wars (when they go back to Cybertron), I will concede your point; being already anthropomorphic, having them become borderline Disney characters does cause something to be lost. Also, having something purely mechanical emulating something entirely organic seems a fairly odd mashup.
2. Thank you. Yes, in a series you *can* develop more characters,thus have a larger central cast; 15 just seems entirely too much for my taste. I figure a good rule of thumb here would be to never have more central characters at one time than you would invite to a gaming table.
3. I apologize for broadening the scope of comparison when it didn’t really pertain to what you were discussing. You bring up a good point about precedence as an establishment of authenticity in pop culture. Actually, you may consider that for a show topic; Where in pop culture is innovation and change allowed/embraced and when is it unwelcome; what are examples of each?
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“Where in pop culture is innovation and change allowed/embraced and when is it unwelcome; what are examples of each?”
That would be a good topic, and we’re recording a Cast today too.
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