When it comes to original series, Netflix has been pretty bold. They bankrolled House of Cards, a hit political drama starring Kevin Spacey as the worst president that the American public deserved to have in office, prison show Orange is the new Black and the best series about drugs since Ray Liotta began narrating his life story in Goodfellas by the name of Narcos. And also some Adam Sandler films, but hey, you can be brain damaged and still afford a Netflix subscription.
But their next big exclusive? An animated series. And not just any old cartoon either. We’re talking about the return of one of the most beloved animated properties to ever feature gigantic robots engaging in a brouhaha since Gurren Lagann demanded to know just who the hell it was. Netflix has 22 episodes that will air June 10, as the show prepares to modernise itself for a new audience while retaining enough nostalgia to bring older fans in for the action. And also fixing the mess that the original series was. Here’s the first trailer:
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: Legendary Defender.
Remember, the Voltron that you may have seen back in the 1980s, was cobbled together from the original Japanese anime Beast King GoLion, heavily censoring out some fantastic violence and creating numerous plot holes. A problem that executive producers Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery wanted to fix.
“The nostalgia for the original show is what has carried it through to this point,” Dos Santos said to Entertainment Weekly. “We rewatched the original, and went back and watched GoLion. Although the imagery is the same, there are some pretty different themes in the [GoLion] stories,” Montgomery added.
It almost hews a little closer to Game of Thrones. There’s some crazy stuff that happens, and it’s pretty dark. But it also had higher stakes as far as drama. So we cherry-picked those while trying to keep some of the fun lightheartedness of what Voltron was for us as kids.
Top notch animation from the team behind The Legend of Korra, giant lion robots and solid voice talent that includes Tyler Labine, Josh Keaton, Jeremy Shada,Neil Kaplan, Cree Summer, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Kimberly Brooks, Rhys Darby and Steven Yeun? I’m sold.
Last Updated: May 12, 2016
