Voltron Force or Thundercats? Yes, Please.

I did just say I was going to take some time away.  So here I am the next day with a new post.  Actually, I'm not watching anything while I post, I just wanted to share some thoughts on Voltron Force.  If you don't know, it's Nickolodeon's (and WEP's) new Voltron series.

First things first--I like it.  I enjoy watching it.  It's fun.

I don't know what the target audience (y'know, the kids it's actually marketed towards), but the majority of Voltron fans who are my age seem to revile it.  Hate it.  Despise it.  Everyone's entitled to their own opinions.  Despite what many prolific forum posters may believe, fandom doesn't need to come to a consensus.  I prefer Vehicle Voltron and Dairugger to Lion Voltron and Golion.  But I'll still watch both.  I like Southern Cross the most out of all three Robotech segments.  It doesn't really bother me much that my favorite happens to be most fans favorite target for derision.  Whatever.

Most of the Voltron Force-hate seems to come from 3 basic opinions.

1) It contradicts the original series.
2) It doesn't match how *they* would have done a Voltron sequel.
3) It's not the new Thundercats.

One of my friends, an English teacher, and one of the guys with whom I would play Voltron at recess in third grade, admitted that he still has a hankerin' for Voltron.  He says it's often the earliest stories to which we are exposed that stay with us the longest.  So, yeah, I can understand how someone whose first impression of Voltron is so strong that suddenly seeing Allura's neice, and seeing the planet Balto without an explanation of how it's not destroyed ('cuz it done blowed up in the original series) or if this is Balto 2, and why do all of the Drule soldiers now look like Yurak, and whatever--I can see how that might rankle you.

My post-Voltron anime maturation was fostered by the likes of Leiji Matsumoto, so I don't tend to get terribly hung up on continuity.  Try to make all of the Captain Harlock series and OVA's make sense together.  No, wait, don't.  I don't want to get sued for manslaughter by the family of the guy who tries and spontaneously combusts.  It's not possible.  Does that make Yamato and Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 not worth watching?  Well, it might for some.  Probably the same guys who can't stand Voltron Force because, well, it pretty much takes the general continuity of Voltron and runs with it.

So it's not your idea of what a new Voltron should be.  I've got my own ideas (I might post them here some day.  We'll see).  I tend not to take that kind of thing personally.  I happen to think this light, breezy, action-adventure take on it is pretty entertaining.

And so we come to the third form of Voltron Force rejection.  Maybe that's it's biggest flaw, coming out the same year as the new Thundercats.  Personally, I love both (much like I love both Macross and Robotech, Macekre ranting trolls aside).  Thundercats is a much more . . . invested take on the series.  They're very carefully weaving their own continuity, and man, the designs are gorgeous.  Voltron Force just isn't the same kind of series.  There are similarities--mainly because the production staffs are probably the same age and have a lot of the same influences--but Voltron Force plays fast and loose with the genre, while Thundercats practically bathes in it.  Voltron Force is balancing on the line between episodic and following an overall arc.  Thundercats is thoroughly arc-oriented.  Oh, and--samoflange, anyone?  Thundercats is a lot more generous with its easter eggs for longtime fans.  Though Voltron Force tosses out a few--a commander named Cossack, and, for us Gatchaman fans, a planet of Science Ninjas!

Y'know, let's look at Balto for a second, as a contrast between Voltron Force and Thundercats.  Balto is Pidge's home planet, full of Science Ninjas.  How does a society where everyone is a ninja work?  How did it get to be that way?  What kind of government do they have?

None of that is important to Voltron Force.  A planet full of Science Ninjas--who've all turned into ZOMBIES--is just awesome.  Just go with it.

I can see how that would grate on some fans.  Ugh.  Stupid, dumbed-down kids' stuff.  Some of us will just chuckle--heh, zombie science ninjas--and play along.  Again, whatever.

Thundercats is far more concerned with world-building, and tying that into storytelling.  We've got hints of the great past between the animal races of Third Earth and Mumm-ra, how the Thundercats may have gotten to the top of the food chain, and how they believe they got there.  And inter-species racism is a pretty major theme.  So, yeah, they get into much heavier, more thought-provoking stuff.

Why do the two takes have to be mutually exclusive?  Or, again, you may like the more serious one, and you're just not that entertained by the one that just tries to be awesome.   For the final time, whatever.