#her alien design reminds me of like og star trek aliens

[sol1056]

five anons on the MFE pilots

 Opinions on the... very heavy emphasis on the new characters introduced in VLD s7?

...this business with introducing the GG cadets, paired with the possibility that they might attempt a spinoff with them reminds me of how they handled Voltron Force, the series previous. Not sure how familiar you are with it, but it also featured new cadets alongside the OG cast, posed them as "the next gen", and were originally supposed to be the stars of their own series entirely. Obviously the execs didn't like that very much in the end, and morphed the project into a direct DotU continuation, dropping two out of five pilots and putting the original team back in (and it shows somewhat in the writing) but it's interesting how convergent evolution might happen in the end with DW.

I suspect this is why every new Gundam series starts with its own premise, world, and characters: because you get attached to certain protagonists, and (especially in well-written, character-driven stories) those protagonists become what propels you through the story. My guess would be it’s less the execs’ personal preference (or else they wouldn’t have greenlit the spinoff in the first place), and more their recognition of audience disinterest. 

This is not to say you can’t do a spin-off, but you need to look at the franchises that managed it successfully. When Star Wars kicked off again with TFA, we got a full introduction to the new characters --- and then old faces reappeared, but they were now in support roles. The original cast all had solid closure in the original trilogy, which made their appearances (among others) in the new movie feel like passing the baton to the next generation. 

Korra followed the same template, with the previous generation making appearances, but not dominating. (I haven’t seen any of Boruto, but from what I’ve caught, it seems the story keeps circling back to the first generation cast.) Even Star Trek found ways to bring in its original cast to its first television spin-off (I mean, literally ‘next generation’). 

There’s something to unpack in the way these stories successfully shifted the audience’s loyalties to the new generation of characters. In particular, that none introduced the new generation until the first one had full closure -- and having done so, then the first generation remained part of the world, but not in the forefront. I never saw VF, but if they tried to jump-start a new story without even recognizing the original cast, I’d mark that down as the biggest error. 

I'm wondering if they're going to try and use the new cadet characters as the pitch characters for Vehicle Voltron... doubtful, but the thought makes me giggle.

Okay, I take that back. Introducing the MFE pilots in the first iteration -- before the first story has wrapped -- is a much larger error. It’s premature, and it comes across almost as impatience for the (current) story to be done. 

It’d be one thing if the MFE pilots were simply background voices, not even given full names, or even names at all. Let them be easter eggs, for audiences to look back and find their earliest appearance, unremarked-upon (as someone already has, looking back to the pilot to find one of them, iirc). 

That note of impatience --- right as the main protagonists’ stories should be coming to closure --- is destructive. It’s hard to root for new protagonists when they’re simultaneously stealing screen-time from the very characters and conflicts we’ve been invested in for 60+ episodes so far. I would not be surprised if that dislike is hard to overcome, if DW were to introduce a spin-off.

Did DW know about the MFE pilots? How much screentime they were gonna get and ... made [the paladins] look like incompetent children? Did they know or did they see the final product & were ???? EPs clearly don't care for VLD’s story, as it’s not their story, [and they] broke it to get what they wanted, then proceeded to kick the pieces aside to make room for MFE pilots who were clearly the team they wanted so they can get spinoff greenlit & tell their own story. But DW?

It’s an open question, because it requires knowing how much oversight VLD’s really gotten. My understanding is that a pitch is often rather glossy. The EPs may never even seen reason to mention Adam would later die in a pointless battle. That battle, and the new pilots, were probably introduced with little more than, “and then the paladins get to earth and rejoin their old classmates, who’ve graduated into being fighter pilots, and will be Voltron’s support forces just like the rebels were at the end of S4.” 

That parallel is accurate, at least in the broad strokes. In the particulars, it’s wildly off, since we only got first names for maybe three or four rebels? Seeing how many bit the dust in S4′s finale, that could’ve been an immensely more powerful two-parter had we been given reason to care about any of them. 

I kept wondering why are we spending SO much time with the MFE pilots (& GG), 1/3 of the season! With them acting more competent than the (orange clad) Voltron team who just y'know, had been fighting (and winning) a war in space for years. And they STILL all felt flat, unlike our team where they all got us hooked instantly. Now we know the EPs vision of VLD was this team, and they’re willing to ruin VLD so they can get their own team off the ground in a new series. With terrible writing, of course.

Seeing the paladins --- with or without their lions --- put back in cadet orange felt like a slap. Seeing Allura in cadet orange was outright being punched. The woman whose father designed the damn castle, and Coran as the man whose grandfather built the damn thing, and they’re both in cadet orange? 

The Garrison’s leaders should’ve been on their knees thanking the Alteans for lending their knowledge and technology to Earth’s cause, not treating then like random aliens who tagged along. The Blades may be a badly-used sub-plot, but at least Kolivan had the respect to bow when he met the princess. Out of respect for her family --- and her loss --- if nothing else. 

Beyond that, the entire point of coming home --- in terms of story structure --- is to show how much the characters have (theoretically) grown, now that they’re nearing the end of their story. Putting all the focus on new characters stole the current characters’ thunder, and removed too many of their chances to shine. 

What should’ve been a triumphant return home became more of a case of the protagonists getting put in their place. The point of a story is to show how the protagonists outgrow their original world --- and their original concepts of themselves as the scaredy-cat, the too-young nerd, the insecure wannabe, the angry loner, the broken soldier. Their progression through a story is their path of becoming stronger and better. Not to end by sliding back into their original spots as if the intervening six seasons had taught them nothing. 

#vld #voltron #analysis #characters #sol thinks about stuff