Review: Netflix’s VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER Awesomely Honors The Original Series
If you’ve seen the trailers for DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming Netflix series Voltron: Legendary Defender, then you know how great this series looks. When I saw the first footage at WonderCon earlier this year, I seriously got goosebumps because of how excited I was to see it.
I recently had the opportunity to watch the first hour-long episode titled “The Rise of Voltron,” and it offers us the origin story of how the Voltron team comes together and ends up being the defender of the universe.
I am a huge fan of the original 1980s series. That was one of my favorite cartoons to watch when I was a kid, so this new series had a lot of expectations to live up to. I am extremely happy to say that this show is freakin’ rad! They took everything we loved about the original series and awesomely upgraded it. In all sincerity, I believe that Voltron: Legendary Defender is even better that the original series. I know many of you might be screaming “blasphemy!” to that statement, but just wait until you see this show for yourself.
The series features some pretty great action-packed sequences, a good amount of amusing humor, and it’s spectacularly animated. They had a very talented team of artists working on this, and the high quality of work that went into developing it is evident in the final product.
The series was developed by executive producers Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, who have previously worked on several animated projects such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hulk VS, Planet Hulk, The Legend of Korra, Justice League, Avengers: EMH, and more. These are two incredibly talented individuals and they bring their talent and major fandom to this project. You can tell they are fans of the original series and that they wanted to honor and respect it.
The series has a very modern anime style to it — not just in the visuals, but in the storytelling and character development as well. It’s full of fun, wacky, and charming anime mannerisms. At the same time, the show is loaded with extreme badassery. I had a blast watching the first episode, and when it ended I was sad I couldn’t watch the rest of it.
The series features the voice talents of Kimberly Brooks as Princess Allura, Rhys Darby as Coran, Josh Keaton as Shiro (the Black Lion), Tyler Labine as Hunk (the Yellow Lion), Jeremy Shada as Lance (the Blue Lion), Bex Taylor-Klaus as Pidge (the Green Lion), and Steven Yeun as Keith (the Red Lion).
Five unsuspecting teenagers, transported from Earth into the middle of a sprawling intergalactic war, become pilots for five robotic lions in the battle to protect the universe from evil. Only through the true power of teamwork can they unite to form the mighty warrior known as Voltron.
Witness the rebirth of the legend with this ambitious reimagining of the fan-favorite science-fiction saga, promising galaxies worth of action, comedy, and adventure, as good battles evil in an intergalactic war ten thousand years in the making.
The first season of Voltron: Legendary Defender will drop on Netflix on June 10, 2016.