The Stolen Lion/Stolen Blue Lion

The Stolen Lion
Blue lion is chasing red lion through the skies over the Castle of Lions.  Wow, this is a fresh new opening.  Pidge thinks the training is too hard for the princess.  Blue lion fires at red with a left-shoulder mounted missile launcher.  Red lion fires back with a tail-laser.  Blue lion uses its claws as rockets.  After dodging every one of the princess' missiles, red lion forms its lion blade and throws it like a Frisbee, knocking blue lion into a nosedive.  The rest of the team get into their lions and go after her, but it doesn't look like they're going to make it . . .

. . . When a mysterious gray ship catches her with a tractor beam and smarms at the team "Thank you for your help.  Such as it was."  The team and the stranger get out of their ships.  And . . . Nanny.

***Blaugh***

The stranger introduces himself as Prince Bokar as Sennack.  Looking for a princess to marry.  Yeah, this Disney bullshit is so much better than Vehicle Voltron . . .

Lance and Bokar get into a fist fight.  Lance has a really weird kiai.  Ultimately, Lance gets his butt kicked.

Allura (well, and the rest of the team rushing up to confront Bokar) end the fight.  Bokar is about to leave when Allura invites him to be friends.  And a guest.  And Lance questions his princely credentials.  And he fights like a space pirate.

Nanny makes her space casserole.  And kicks Lance for slouching.  Apparently, her space casserole is . . . a turkey.  The mice run off with weird, spherical drumstick looking things.  They are clearly space-drumsticks.  Nanny takes off after them, and Lance trips her.

We now cut to Castle Doom.  Vultures circle.  Haggar laughs.  In her crystal ball, she sees the team eating with Bokar, the young man she so carefully trained.

That night, the blue cat peers in through the skylight and freaks out the space mice.  Bokar says something weird about Allura protecting mice from a cat.  Lance says something awesome about protecting the royal silverware.

And space cobras slither through the air ducts into Lance's room.  Fortunately Lance keeps a sword under his bed, and he starts hacking his way through the snakes by the dozens.  The rest of the team answers his cries, and have to fight through snakes outside Lance's door.  Bokar comes running up and immediately looks shifty.

They're all in the control room, accusing Bokar of, um, being a binger of snakes.  Oh, but drop you suspicions, 'cuz we're going to make Bokar the pilot of blue lion.  As Bokar contemplates the key, his arm twitches.  Lance shoots the twitch, and snakes fall out.  (Oh, yeah, and Nanny gets in the way.  Why DIDN'T you shoot her first, Lance?!)

Bokar takes Allura into blue lion and dumps her on the cockpit floor.  Luckily, Cheddar was along for the ride.  Bokar calls Haggar and apprises her of the situation.

The team launches and plunges into the lake after blue lion.  Bokar is having trouble starting it.  King Deus ex Alfor speaks through the viewscreen and explains that no bad guy will fly a Voltron lion.  Then he sees the rest of the team approaching.  He forces Allura into the chair and knocks Cheddar unconscious.  Evil jerk, beating up space mice!

Keith convinces Allura to just go along with Bokar.  As they're all airborne, Yurak's Rooster Frigate appears.  Bokar forces Allura to fire blue lion's backpack missiles at red lion.  Lance knocks her down with the same "lion blade as frisbee" attack.  Bokar responds by turning into Trogdor--er, a cobrobeast.  Allura channels Ripley, opens the top hatch, and Cobrokar is sucked out.  Yurak supersizes him with the magnification ray, and the team forms Voltron.

Bokar twirls his sickle.  Voltron fires beams out of the arm lion mouths.  Bokar launches beams from . .  somewhere.  Voltron launches the cross from his chestplate and shatter the sickle blade, which promptly regrows.  They form blazing sword, trade a few blows with Bokar, and shake up Pidge.  Red lion shoots Bokar in the face with fire, then they cut him in half.  Yurak vows to one day defeat Voltron.

Allura sits in her thrown, and Lance makes fun of Nanny for being taking in by Bokar's handsome face.  Hey Lance, isn't that a shootin' offense.  Allura says something vague about falling in love some day or something.

Stolen Blue Lion

Kurogane's treatment of the princess is much more condescending here.  "An attack like that couldn't take out a sheep!"  Although he would have no regrets if she killed him.  Blue lion can fire a near-Macross volume of missiles.

Oh, Hys.  You're so shrill.  And irrelevant.

The prince this time couldn't stand to see the weak bullied.  That's what he says.  He leaps out of his ship to total villain-introduction music and chuckles sinisterly.  And his teeth gleam.  He introduces himself as Bambara from Orion.  Orion was an ally of Altea during Raimon's reign.

And Hys gets all class-conscious.

Kurogane and Bambara get into their fist fight.  Bambara finishes the fight by doing some power-up move.  He also stands on Kurogane's throat until Fala breaks it up.

So what I'm getting out of this is that royaly is basically a bunch of pricks.

Bambara's about to leave when Raible starts talking him into joining Golion.  Fala thinks he will "better draw out the power" of Golion.  Interesting.  She invokes her father's authority to officially turn blue lion over to him.  Hmm.  This could end badly.

Oh, gods.  Hys is fawning all over Bambara.  Hold on, the barf bucket's too far from the computer . . .

Whew.  We cut to Galra just in time.  Honerva is pleased with the progress.  This plan shows an interesting development in their "monster of the week" plotting.  The first two beastman were just a frontal attack.  Those didn't work.  The third one was destroyed, but assassinated one of the member of Golion first.  The fourth one was an ambush to draw out a weakened Golion team.  This time, they infiltrate the castle with a saboteur/kidknapper.  Who turns out to be a beastman.

When the cobras attack Kurogane, the rest of the team apparently carries knives in their pajamas.  And Kurogane initially blames Raible of setting another test for them.  Wha-!!!  Raible doesn't know anything about it.  Raible orders Bambara to board blue lion and start training.  That's when Fala gives him the key and Kurogane sees the snake up his sleeve.  The rest of the team really think he's lost it--until they see the snake.

Events follow in pretty much the same fashion: Bambara can't get blue lion started and the good, dead, king tells him he can't control blue lion because his heart is wicked.  Fala says his soul must be in the lion.  Bambara thinks the key is a fake.

Kogane convinces Fala to do as Bambara says while they figure out what to do--they can't afford to let Bambara kill her.

So, when Fala opens the hatch and blows Bambara out, how does Platt stay in the cockpit?

Bambara's voice doesn't change much while in snake form.  Something else I like about the Japanese voice performances.

The combination music is still the theme song--without lyrics, but not the usual instrumental version.  I think.

Bambara actually says "Come at me, Golion!"

The guns in the lion mouths are called the Laser Magnum.  Golion also uses the cross beam and space cutter.  And Kogane's almost got the Juyoken cry down.  While Golion is holding off Bambara's sickle attack, Kurogane switches the sword to Suzuishi, who doesn't know what's going on, so he can blast Bambara in the eyes.

Meanwhile, in the throneroom, Kurogane tells everyone "I told you so."  Fala explains that her father's spirit dwells in each of the lions, and that she will defend her kingdom by her own hand.  Much better as an ending than some vague romantic allusion . . .