The Deadly Flowers
Arus. In space. With pink things floating down to the planet from outerspace. And the Invid Flower of Life takes roo--er, no. Other pink flowers. Of death. They take root in the desert. And Peter Cullen narrates the opening for the first time. The Arusians are overjoyed at this miracle. The mice (disease vectors if I ever saw one!) bring Allura flowers. she proceeds to dance around her room like a 5-year-old.
And then Zarkon is upset that they've sent flowers to another planet. But this is no bouquet. These are evil flowers. On Arus, people start keeling over from the flowers. The mice run back to their mouse hole and decontaminate themselves with a watering can. Allura orders Coran to contact Dr. Gorma, who says the flower disease can only be cured by flowers from planet Lira.
Lance returns from burning all the flowers. The team expains to him that they need to ge to planet Lira--but, naturally, it's protected by a magnetic field. Blue lion, however, can somehow circumvent the magnetic field. We don't get to hear exactly how, because then Allura passes out. Lance takes off in blue lion,
Lira looks more like a gas giant from orbit. Oh well. Lance has already landed, and uses the blue lion's tail as a periscope. But, in a palace thing that looks an awful lot like an Invid hive, Lotor is hanging out with the king of Lira. They watch blue lion land and Lotor gets all excited. He sends troops to capture who he thinks is the princess.
Lance lands, climbs a mountain and eats "honey" from some sort of rock basin. Then guys with arrows ambush him, let by a girl. She explains that the roses of Lira are the source of all their livelihood and only their supreme ruler can give anyone permission to use the roses. Then the Doom snowmobiles from the last episode appear and take Lance before Lotor.
Lotor is upset he got Lance instead of Allura. He backhands him onto one of the flying snowmobiles. The girl explains that he is here because the princess is ill. Lance cuts his bonds on the front grill of the snowmobile, and a sword fight ensues. Lance has Lotor up against a wall, and then he gets his sword stuck on a magnetic rock. Lotor knocks him into the river, and then sends troops to blow up blue lion.
The king here apparently has his own troops that look a lot like Lotor's brand of Doomites. They even have similar uniforms. Doomite mercenaries? The king tries to haggle with Lotor--that doesn't go so well for the king. Lotor gets both the medicine, the gold, and destroys all of the flowers. And . . . doesn't kill the king.
Lance returns to blue lion, and discovers that the pool he's in is full of flowers. Then Lotors troops start blowing up the flowers with WWI era German hand grenades. Farla (the girl introduced earlier) confronts the Doom troops, but they throw her into the pool and "stun" her archers. Lance rescues Farla and she gives him seeds to the Roses of Lira.
Lotor's fleet attacks the Castle of Lions. He delivers an ultimatum to the castle. They launch the three remaining lions against him. Lotor launches the new robeast against them. Four arms, and we've still got the services of the good Robeast designer. The three lions try to attack him with their lion blades. It doesn't go so well.
Allura gets out of bet to help them, actually tossing Nanny aside. Desparation makes you strong. The team is bombarding the robeast with everything they've got as Allura joins them in the red lion. The robeast bombards red lion, then tosses black lion around. And I'm not even going to mention Nanny's stupid dialogue.
Lance reappears and knocks Keith free. They form Voltron. Voltron forms spinning laser blades and actually mouths the words. Huh? They then use their stingra missiles and the electro saber to further tenderize the beast, and then cook it with the blazing sword. Lotor's fleet withdraws. He explains to Zarkon that he has a lifetime supply of Lira's flowers to keep Zarkon alive in perpetuity, and got all his gold back.
The team poses on the castle balcony as the newly-healed Arusians clap, and Allura smooches Lance. And the mice kiss Pidge. Lance vows to replant the seeds on Lira, and Allura offers to join him. The two fly blue lion--did they take turns? Or did Lance insist on driving the whole way?
Phantom Space Flowers
We open with the pink flower . . . seeds? Spores? Tryffid transportation modules? Whatever they are, they land on Altea with an explanation by the narrator, as in Voltron. When the space mice bring the flowers to Fala, they're accompanied by their theme song. Which sounds like Wizard of Oz Munchkins on an acid trip.
There's a painting or a portrait in Fala's room. Is that a royal ancestor's portrait? Or something she snipped out of Tiger Beat?
Fala is the one who orders Raible to have Dr. Gior bring the sick to the castle. And the problem is that the flower's pollen causes a severe allergic reaction. That can only be counteracted by flowers from Amazon. And, luckily, the orbits between Amazon and Altea are close at this moment, and Fala thinks maybe Amazon's magnetism would be mitigated by . . . *GAK*.
Yeah. Same as in Voltron.
That blue lion tale periscope is cool.
The king of planet Amazon is King Amazon. Actually, that might be a titular thing. Like Bob, the archduke of Buckingham gets called "Buckingham" in official documents.
Jeez, some animators should try actually rock clombing once in a while. It'd make sequences like Kurogane scaling the mountain look a little less generic. Still, it's not as bad as some of the old Sunbow GI Joe episodes.
When he is apprehended for stealing amazonian honey, Kurogane doesn't react to the fact that Galra red army soldiers pick him up. Come to think of it, maybe they haven't seen this Galra ethnicity outside of Sincline. Their uniforms are much different from the gray and black Lego Castle
The amazonian girl's name is Aimee.
The blue guys working for King Amazon even have the same color scheme in their uniforms as Sincline's solders, red for officers, dark blue/black for gun fodder. Maybe, since Amazon is apparently a client kingdom, these guys belong to a different Galra army? Like the Amazonian Green Army, similar to Sadak's Black Army and Sincline's Red Army? Oh, and this is the first episode where the red army is actually named.
Pink flower peftals juxtaposed with violence is sooo Japanese. That whole macho sakura petal thing.
Okay, so why exactly does Aimee die? The Galra soldiers backhand her into the water, and then shoot all of her men. But she crawls out of the water on her own, gets her arm bandaged by Kurogane, and . . . kicks off? Does she die of grief? Hypothermia? Did Kurogane put the bandage on too tight?
I do like the way Sincline's flagship looks distinct from the rest of his fleet, but all of the ships still share a general layout.
Sincline's words on seeing the three remainng lions, that Voltron is so much scrap/Golion is a lump of iron, are almost identical between both versions.
The beastman's name is Deathbeetle. Makes sense, since he's obviously beetle-esque. Not as awesome a name as Killwrestler.
When I was a kid, I relaly liked the fact that black lion and red lion both scratch the beastman on the chest and form an x. Whenever we played Voltron in the playground, I wanted to do that with every robeast we fought.
We form Golion to the blue lion themesong. I wonder if these songs were ever released? There was a Golion toyline (which is why WEP and Matchbox licensed these shows in the first place).
WHY DOES GOLION'S MOUTH MOVE?!?!
The laser magnum attack is called, but it's animated more like a one-handed grand fire.
Daibazaal is upset that Sincline attacked Amazon without his permission. The resolution is the same as in Voltron. And the sequence on the castle balcony with the adoring Alteans is the same as in Voltron. However--apparently I misremembered this, but when I was a kid, I thought Allura/Fala never went back to her Disney Enchanted Kingdom dress after she became blue lion's pilot, that she only went between the Golion uniform and her pink jumpsuit. Clearly, I was wrong, 'cuz she's welcoming Disney visitors--er, Altean citizens in all of her royal finery.
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