Reviews

This show is so bad, I couldn't watch the first episode all of the way through because it's nothing but clichés. It first opens up with a Star Wars space battle rip-off where a group of astronauts are trying to relieve some artifact in low-Earth orbit. The show later shifts its focus on the main character, Max (and this is where the crap hits the fan). He's a cookie-cutter high school student who's a drifter because him and his mom are constantly move from town to town. The scene then switches to commercial for looks like the Transpacific Partnership, starring the corrupt businessman cliché, who also uses the villainous red keyboard hologram cliché. On his first day of his new high school, Max encounters one-dimensional bullies, a generic love interest, and an outcast best friend. When saving this new friend from the bullies, they begin to pick on him, causing him to flee. This chase scene causes him to develop powers that turn on and off at the most inconvenient times, but comes in handy when defeating the bullies. He later wakes up in an infirmary of a secret organization his uncle is a part of, who explains that his father created all of it, making him a legacy.

That's all I remember from it before I deleted it from my Netflix queue. It's so uninspired that I wouldn't doubt the writers were either complete hacks, or were just lazy and decided to take ideas from other franchises.

This show is also loosely based off of the original Max Steel from 2000, which I'm now interested in checking out to compare it to this. That was made before the reboot fad became a fad, and from what I read of the description, it sounds decently original. However, some people have said its a rip-off of Action Man, but I'll have to see that comparison for myself.

Before I explain, you should know I was born in 94, so Lion Voltron was before my time.

I was 2/3rds of the way through the first episode of the 80's Voltron, trying to enjoy it, but I stopped watching because I couldn't find anything I liked about it. If you expect your audience to like your show, you have to make a compelling first episode, otherwise you'll lose half of them (and that's the realist truth there is). Ironically, everything that I hated about the 80's version made me love the 2017 version even more.

For starters, the characters' personalities are well developed from the get-go, but they expand as the series progresses. In the 80's version, everyone has a 2 dimensional, clichéd, and lacking personality.

The voices are WAY better and MORE realistic in this version. In the 80's version, the voices for the paladins are just bland. Keith in this version sounds more determined, while in the 80's version, he sounds like a stereotypical boy scout who points out the obvious every time he opens his mouth. Bex Taylor-Claus voicing Pidge was an interesting choice, and she portrays the character well. In the 80's version, Pidge literally sounds like Jar-Jar Binks, and that immediately made me cringe (seriously, why didn't they make him sound like a human being?). While Hunk is quite whiny and cowardly in this version, it's not at all annoying, and there's times where he rightfully-so can be taken seriously (like when he was rescuing the Balmaran people). In the 80's version, he just sounds like a stereotypical tough guy from New York City. Because of all of the hell Shiro went through before joining the Voltron force, he rightfully-so has developed a commanding-sounding presence in his voice, whereas in the 80's version, he just sounded like a random foreigner. While Lance is loud, a little annoying, and talkative in the version, he's more interesting to listen to than his 80's counterpart that was just boring. I should also mention the supporting cast too. Allura having a British accent in this version is kind of clichéd, but its not overly clichéd, because she has a developed character. While I'm not a huge fan of Cree Summer's voice acting, I like the dark presence she has in her voice when playing Haggar. Zarkon sounds more menacing (which is what I like about Neil Kaplan as a voice actor) than he did in the 80's version.

Speaking of Zarkon, I only two things I don't like about him is his character design is unrecognizable from his 80's counterpart, and he commands a gigantic ship instead of a castle. However, I think that was created intentionally. Perhaps in the 3rd season, his red suit will be removed and he'll resemble his 80's counterpart more, and he'll command from a distant castle instead of a ship.

The animation is much more sleeker, colorful, and fluid, while the animation of the first episode of the 80's version was dreary and quite stiff. While this version is considered an anime, at least it portrays itself as it's own thing, compared to the 80's version where the animation style in a lot of 80's cartoons looked very similar to each other (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Spiderman and his Amazing Friends, etc).

The new look of the lions and Voltron are awesome. Sure the transformation sequence is like Power Rangers where they expect RoBeasts or the Galra to wait a minute or two for the robot to transform (Keith happens to mention this as (I guess) a forth wall reference towards the end of the second season).

I also love how it combines magic and science, making it more of a science-fantasy-action than a science-fiction-action show.

The story alone of this version will make you binge-watch this show because it's so compelling, doesn't fall flat, and makes you come back for more. The pacing of each episode plays at a regular speed. The first episode of 80's version does the opposite.

It just amazes me how many years after a (in my opinion, shitty) make-or-break episode of 80's show was made, someone comes along and makes an adaptation that's actually worth watching. I know that the fan base of any franchise is what makes or breaks a franchise, and no doubt the biggest part of that were the toy sales of Voltron action figures. As far as storytelling goes, I'm sure fans of the toys who hated the 80's version of the show wrote fan-fiction to make up for the shitty writing on the show. That would explain how this show is WAY better than what created it many years ago.

Hell, if this version had existed back in the 80's instead, Voltron would be a much stronger franchise now more than ever.

I'll admit it wasn't terrible, but the first episode gradually got worse as it progressed. I'm not going to go over specifics, but here are the problems I have with the "Supergirl" so far:

1) Melissa Benoist:

Since was one of the few actresses who was looked at for the role, even though she doesn't have a creditable filmography, it was most-likely because she's blonde. She clearly didn't do that great of a job playing "Kara Danvers" (even though the actual alias of Kara Zor-El is Linda Lee Danvers) or as Supergirl. While her clumsiness and being a typical office intern is a decent disguise at first, it doesn't last long when she decides to show off her powers to the guy at the office who tries to ask her out on a date. It would've made more sense if the two had chemistry for a good 4-5 episodes, he soon develops suspicions of her alter-ego, causing him to figure out that she is Supergirl. On top of that, she treats her "heroism" almost like a game and doesn't understand the weight of her role as a heroine. She also doesn't bother to get superheroine training (so she would know how to be one and use her powers effectively) and throws together a crappy costume and claims that makes her Supergirl (instead of having her costume come with her in her pod). Any superhero(ine) would have trained themselves, or got training from a master, and she gets defeated multiple times as a result. Clearly she wasn't a good choice.

2) The rest of the characters are out of character:

While Allura seemed okay, Jimmy Olsen isn't nerdy like he is the comics (and he's a photographer for the Daily Planet, not an art director for some company that doesn't have any relation to the comics), and Kat Grant is a narcissist who now supposedly owns her own media company. Superman only makes a cameo, and you'd think he would've shown up when he heard Kara had saved the people on the plane. The rest of the other characters have no back story, and seem like they're just thrown into the episode so the writers could add more characters.

3) The show barely follows the comics:

It seems like the people who made the show decided to simply plaster Supegirl's name on it, and acted like they knew the character. Just like the 1998 Godzilla movie, they were more interested in the title, not the character. I don't know what kind of drugs they were on to think it would be a good idea for Fred and Edna Danvers (who are now named "Jeremiah" and "Eliza") to only have a cameo, and instead have some made up sister named Alex has a lot of screen time. I also don't know why there's supposedly some secret government organization that deals with alien invasions. The writers could only be on cocaine if they thought that was good idea.

4) It's "fun" and "light-hearted", instead of being epic and deep:

Regardless of what your opinion about Man of Steel is, the people who made that movie portrayed Clark Kent/Superman as a powerful god-like being. Nowhere is there an understanding of that in Kara's character, or in the episode itself. If that was included in the episode, and Kara had to make several hard choices in the episode, she would understand her role as a superheroine, because of the emotional weight it bares on her, and it would make her character more likable. It would also make the show more grounded instead of flimsy and quickly thrown together.

I'm not here to promote anything, but these reasons and more are why I immediately thought of making my own version so I can improve it. I'm not one of those people who rant about a show or movie, and then allow the idiots and Hollywood continue to run rampant. As a member of the audience, I'm entitled to stand up to Hollywood if they're going to act lazy, greedy, or careless. If anyone who wants to help me make my own version, click on my name and message me.

I honestly thought this was going to be better than Twilight, but it unfortunately turns out the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Surprisingly, there's even some similarities between the two (Stefan and Edward look and act alike, there's a love triangle that's supposed to happen, it mixes "vampire" stories with high school "drama", the "vampires" barely even act like such, many girls from the high school think Stefan "is so dreamy!", and Stefan and Elena were dating during the first few episodes even though they knew very little about each other).

The only reason I watched the first 10 episodes of this garbage is because my friend got me thinking of giving it a chance. After the first episode, I was concerned about any hope I had this show. From what was already established, the main female lead, Alena, is only interested in the male lead, Stefan, because of how studly he looks. Because of this, she, in a really dumb way, gives him permission to stalk her. Two underlying problems with this episode is not only is he not nocturnal (like real vampires are), but he also passes himself off as a teenager still in high school (despite being a 160 year old "vampire"). The more episodes I watched, the more problems began to occur. Alena and Stefan start dating at the end of the second episode, and have sex literally in the next episode (which is disgusting to watch because of how bad of a "couple" they are). I think by the 5th episode, Alena decides to break up with Stefan because she doesn't feel safe being a part of his world. That unfortunately doesn't last long, due to the two inconsistently agreeing to stay away from each other, but then crawling back to one another a few scenes later. Meanwhile, Stefan epically fails at practically every attempt to stop his evil, and full of himself, brother, Damon, from biting, attacking, and killing innocent people (the only time you can even call Damon a real vampire). Really, despite everything that Damon does, Stefan could easily kill him, but there are several times where he decides to let him live. There's even times where other characters try to kill him, and Stefan ruins it by letting him live! If Damon was finally put down, a lot of the problems would be solved! There's actually a part in one of the episodes, where Stefan was able to steal the ring Damon needs in order to survive in the sunlight (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense), but rather than allowing Damon to burn in the sunlight a few hours later, he obediently gives it back. I also remember a part where Stefan is shot pretty badly with a wood bullet, and Damon saves him, telling him "the only person who would enjoy killing you is me!". Although that's quite cynical (I'll admit), throughout the series, he makes all these statements of him being able to kill him, but doesn't go through with doing so. (Speaking of wood bullets, should I also mention that's their only weakness in this show? Holy water is "drinkable", garlic is "edible", crosses are "decorative", and mirrors "show their reflection". What kind of vampires are these?) So when the brothers aren't hating each other and having sissy fights, they act brotherly and decide to chill with one another (completely oxymoronic).

Those 3 idiots make the show bad enough, but (just to add in some more insanity) there's plenty of other terrible characters as well. Practically most of the other (20-30-something year old) "teenagers" do is fall asleep in class, then go to parties where there's drinking involved. I'll admit that Alena's brother, Jeremy, eventually becomes a character I can admire because of his observations on a girl he's interested in, but has a boyfriend who doesn't respect her. The only problem I have with Alena's friend, Bonnie, is she insisted that Alena and Stefan to be together during the first two episodes. She later also becomes a decent character, and learning about her background as a witch seemed interesting. Alena's ex-boyfriend Matt was also decent because he cared about his sister, Vicki, not getting hurt. All of the other girls are just annoying bimbos, and all of the guys come off as arrogant. Besides Bonnie's grandmother, the parents or legal guardians are rarely ever around, or even do anything that makes them good role models for their children to follow.

On top of all of that, the acting is somewhat better than Twilight's (but still falls short), the subplots are more decent than the general plot (which is surprisingly ironic), the writing is pretty-much terrible, and Damon and Stefan, along with other "vampires" in this series, are an insult to real vampires. They don't go to high school, they don't go out in the sunlight or daytime, they don't date humans, they don't cry or get emotional over a recent break-up, they don't brood just to make themselves look dark and cool, and they don't purposely look like cute bad boys. They're dark, predator-like creatures who feast on human blood, operate in the shadows, and maintain a sense of power.

In spite of it all, there's actually two funny things about this:

1) I created a meme on Open Office that says at the top "These are vampires", and it shows pictures of Blade from Marvel Comics, Selene from Underworld, and Bela Lugosi's Dracula. In the middle, it says "These are practically pretty boys" and shows Stefan and Damon. The bottom tells you to know the difference.

2) I had a dream last night where Selene was standing on a rooftop with a sniper rifle, full of wood bullets, and head-shots both Stefan and Damon. (Greatest happy ending of my life.)

In conclusion, please tell anyone you know not to watch this show. They'll completely regret it.