Give Me Your Princess
Mighty subtle titling there, WEP. We open on a view of Castle Doom, and lodged in front of the castle is Lotor's battle fortress. He addresses his troops, both the gray, ridge-headed soldiers we've come to expect, and we see his personal army for the first time. They all look more like him than the other Doomites. and wear different (classier) uniforms.
On Arus, Allura sneaks into the black lion. 'Cuz some day she may have to lead, and, y'know, they wouldn't let her if she asked. This very same strategy got me in all kinds of trouble. Lotor's fortress approaches Arus. The team launches after some hasseling between the princess and the rest of the team. Lotor's fortress splits into three cylinder-sections and one, um, mushroom of DOOM. All four components launch waves of standard fighters. The rest of the team joins the princess, Keith in the blue lion (even though the launch sequence shows him going into black lion).
Allura puts up a valiant effort to lead, first ramming a fighter head-on, then trying to use the black bazooka, but the lion's controls lock up. Keith says "We need Voltron!" The team starts the formation, but Lotor, in the Batplane, shoots down the black lion. He orders his forces to capture the blue lion, and presumably the Princess. Keith orders the others to cover Allura while he charges Lotor. Lotor's plane can apparently launch missiles from the same fixture as the beam weapon (animation error?) The team pulls Allura back and Keith drives off Lotor.
Lotor returns to his fortress and consoles himself with his cotery of bellydancers. My girlfriend (who performs professionally as a bellydancer, but doesn't dance to the Golion music like our other friend) once asked me if I was dating her so I could be more like Lotor. I said that theory would have had merit had I done any of the pursuing that started our relationship. Still. Lotor's got some style. Long hair, swords, hordes of minions, hangs out with bellydancers . . . I could totally get along with him. Hanging out with the Voltron force would be so weird, on the other hand.
Anyway. Back in castle control, the team gets all dramatic over Allura running off in black lion. Keith says "Sven never would have done this" and sends her into an emo spiral. That is, a downward one. Later, while Keith is monitoring Lotor's fortress, he wonders if he was too hard on her.
That night, Lotor is trying to see through the windowless castle (do they have shudders?) He shoots down some trees to clear his view, but he still can't see the princess. Zarkon calls and checks on him. He assures his father and Haggar that Arus will soon be in their hands.
Allura agonizes over current events, either dreaming or hallucinating about failing fatally. The space mice try to cheer her up with pratfalls, but that's not enough to keep Allura from doing something rash. This isn't helped by her overhearing the team wishing Sven were back. She opens a shield to look at Lotor's fortress, then imagines her people perishing in flames. Suddenly she's in blue lion.
The team runs to castle control, looking for her. Coran assures them he didn't send them away, and for once Nanny tells them to go do their jobs! Then get in the lions and dive into the lake.
Lotor is sitting in his throne room (sans bellydancers) when the blue lion arrives, tearing through the outer wall of the mushroom segment. Fortunately, his fortress has lion-capturing pincers that grab and tase the blue lion until Allura falls out. Lotor tries to kiss her before she regains consciousness, but agrees to serve him (ahem) if he spares Arus.
The team then approaches in the lions, but Lotor brandishes his sword (which is now a pink lightsabre thing). The team dismounts and approachs Lotor on foot, surrendering. Keith is about to hand Lotor the keys when Coran launches smoke missiles. Keith takes a sword blow, but fires a few covering shots to clear the path for the princess back to her lion. The rest of the team launches, and Lotor relaunches and recombines his fortress, bragging about his "laser ray" the whole time.
Keith, injured (again) urges them to form Voltron, but the laser ray knocks black lion off course. Allura disables the fortress momentarily, and they form Voltron--some of the footage is from the Golion opening sequence. Lotor's fortress is in flames. He runs to his batplane just as Voltron blazingly swords the fortress.
The team returns to castle control, with Allura supporting the injured Keith. Allura is ready to drop out of the team, but Keith assures her that someday, she will pilot black lion. The rest of the team chime in with their support. She's so happy she cries.
Oh, yeah. There's no robeast in this episode. One of the few. And--Lotor's subordinates all have vocodered voices, probably to make them seem more robotic even though they look more like living humanoids than the ogther Doom soldiers.
Overcome the Phantom of Shirogane
Again with Sincline addressing his troops. I do like the blue uniforms and Prussian-style helmets worn by Sincline's red army. Also, I didn't mention this during Voltron, but there are two animation models used for Sincline. One has a more round, youthful-looking face. The other has more facial details and craggier nose. Another friend of mine likes to refer to episodes with the craggier model as Lotor's "bad face days." This is one of them (yes, lots of my friends still watch Voltron. Weirdos attract other weirdos).
When Fala pirates the black lion, we get unique views of the lion shuttle.
Sincline refers to the three cylinder sections of his fortress as the control towers. When the Galra fighters attack, we see a few shots of manned castle turrets followed by explosions of unmanned turrets--these weren't cut in Voltron.
The lions use magma missiles (red), gatling missiles (yellow), and black bazooka (black, but failed). Kurogane comes to Fala's rescue with the missile launcher on red lion's back, which he calls the Jet Arrow. And blue lion's water attack is called the Water Rod. Do you ever wonder if maybe the mechanical designers included this gimmick on the off-chance toy designers wanted an excuse for the toys to function as squirt guns?
When the weapons retract into the castle, Coran says "Good. Self-defense operation complete. We can hold our own for now." So the fact that the castle (which often has lit windows at night) is windowsless when Sincline tries his peeping is part of its defensive posture.
When he's hanging out with the bellydancers, he decapitates one who spills wine on his leg. Oh, and all of his dancers are blondes. One thing I disagree with him on, but, whatever (the blondes, not the decapitation).
Hys calls the team "barbarians from Earth." Huh.
Kogane's internal dialogue is that he wants her to surpass Shirogane and become truly strong.
Sincline's standard troops wear the blue uniforms, but he has (a) lieutenant(s) in a red variant of the uniform.
Fala's internal monologue during her dream seems to impy that there's more to flying the lions than, y'know, just flying, that there's some spiritual or "inner strength" aspect to it.
That really annoying missile sound effect from the belt missiles of the first beastman is used for the smoke missiles here, and it's timed much better.
The fortress is called "Blockgod." Very interesting. It's also pretty manuverable for being a giant, cylinderical . . . thing.
When Golion combines, the song is the blue lion theme.
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