Short Run of the Centipede Express/Destroy the Giant Cannon

Short Run of the Centipede Express

Thank the gods.  An episode that isn't filler.  This one introduces another planet in Zarkon's grasp, another race, gives us a little more background on Arus and its former allies, and has the team basically doing a commando raid on an enemy installation.  You can't go wrong with commando raids.

We open, not on Arus or on Doom, but in space.  An asteroid field, and stars--and one star becomes the Centipede Express.  Coran narrates the fact that Doom has placed asteroids surrounding the planet Mora, where they apparently have some sort of secret weapon.  The team decides to observe the secret weapon.  They launch in the lions.

Lotor is sipping on the blood wine and scheming against his father.  And fantasizing about Allura.  Then he receives a communicaton from Zarkon and Haggar.  They warn him not to trust the slaves too much and sabotage.  Then a guard comes and tells Lotor the slaves refuse to work.  Lotor totally kills the messenger.

We cut to an arena (clearly that's one of the first things the doom empire builds when establishing a base somewhere) where some slaves are tied to stakes.  THe rest of the Moran populace watch from the stands as one of the blue eye-bally robeasts enters the arena and licks a poor slave tied and left lying on the ground. 

One of the Morans stands up and begins chanting about freedom.  The rest of the crowd takes up the chant and the robeast is upset.  Lotor is ready to charge into the stands with his sword, but his officers physically restrain him and convince him to finish the weapon, first.

Meanwhile, Voltron is approaching the planet, and see the Centipede Express en route.  Keith decides that Voltron would be too obvious.  Allura suggests she and Lance take the green lion--Keith insists on going instead of Allura.  They detach the green lion head and make a covert landing.

Keith and Lance observe the palace (again designed by H.R. Giger), and see the weapon under construction.  They decide they need to destroy it--but are caught by two guards.  That's okay, the guards aren't much of a match for them.  They take the guard's uniforms, and then see a pair of guards having a "juice break."  Really.  He pulls out a flask and says "Yum, vitamins."  I'm not kidding.

The slave who started the riot in the arena comes across the two guards Keith and Lance have subdued.  Lotor finds him and almost kills him, but the slave convinces him that there are intruders.  Keith and Lance set explosives on the weapon.  The bomb timers are apparently being jammed.  Just then, the slave leads four guards to them, who begin yelling and shooting.  Lotor and the slave take a look at the bombs.

The slave tells Lotor his name is Harem.  He explains to otor that he didn't want the weapon destroyed because it's completion is the only way his people would earn their freedom.  Lotor forces him to drink a "truth serum."  Harem reveals that he wants to test fire the weapon to win his people's freedom.  As he leaves Lotor's chamber, Lance tackles him.  He and Keith confront him and reveal that they're from the from Voltron Force.  He explains that Arus betrayed his planet.  Mora sent a force to fight Zarkon, but Voltron was "somewhere else" while Zarkon conquered Mora.

Yeah, WEP kinda messes up the chronology.  In Golion, this was Daibazaal's original assault on Altea.  Here they make it sound like it occured at some recent time.

Harem summons the guards and the chase is on again.  Keith and Lance make it back to the green lion head.  The team is wondering what's taking them so long just as they return.  Keith tells them about the super-weapon.

Lotor appears overlooking his troops, announcing the completion of the gun.  The team debates strategy.  Keith is counting on Harem the angry slave, and they take the head-on approach.

Lotor is pacing, waiting for Zarkon and Haggar to appear.  He is told that Voltron is approaching.  He decides to test the gun on Volts--but without harming the princess.  Harem is seated in the cannon's con trol room.  Lotor tells him to fire.  Harem hears Keiths words from before . . . and he shifts his target to the Centipede Express.  The cannon blasts passes Voltron and glances off the Centipede Express, causing Zarkon and Haggar to tumble across the floor.  Harem then traverses the gun to point directly into Lotor's palace and fires point-blank, dstroying it.  Lotor escapes in the batplane and makes a rendezvous with the Centipede, just as the Centipede crashes.

Harem turns the gun on the train, but it turns into a robeast that fires on Voltron, and then the cannon.  The cannon begins to explode around Harem.  Voltron drop kicks the centipede in the head, then hits it with the spinning laser blades and the electro sabre.  Finally, we get the to blazing sword, and Voltron burrows his way through the centipede lengthwise.

Zarkon, Haggar, and Lotor all apparently escape the exploding centipede in the batplane.

The team entrusts Harem and the now-free Morans with the cannon, and look forward to cooperating with Mora against planet Doom.

Destroy the Giant Cannon

The Galra Galaxy Express actually has a steam-whistle sound effect.  Trains are kind of a popular thing among Japanese hobbyists. 

In castle control, they are suspicious of what's going on around Mura due to meteorites that have reached Altea from the destruction of a Muran asteroid.  They decide to investigate.

Sincline is again plotting.  Daibazaal and Honerva caution him against intelligence leaks.  Good advice.  And he does totally kill the guard who tells him that prisoners have escaped.  Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention during Voltron that Sincline appears over the arena as a giant hologram.  The guards manage to convine Sincline not to wade into the crowd with his sword by explaining that they can't finish the weapon if they're dead.

We don't get the launch sequence we had in Voltron--Golion just leaves Altea.  As if WEP were making up for time left by cut scenes . . .

Fala is the one who suggests detaching green lion's head.  So, how do they switch lions and stuff while Golion's combined and hanging around in space?  Are there like ladders in tubes running all through Golion?

Oh, yeah, that juice break the two guards go on?  It's booze.  Just in case you hadn't figured it out on your own. 

This time, they don't have problems with the bomb's timer. Kurogane is just slow.  And the sound effects of the guards' weapons are clearly projectile weapons.  You even hear ricochets.

The slave's name is Hallem.  Mora and Harem, Mura and Hallem.  WEP stayed pretty close to the original names.  And the "truth serum" Sincline offers Hallem is really blood wine made from Murans.  Fresh squeezed?

Hallem's history lesson makes a little more sense here.  When Daibazaal attacked Altea, Hallem's older brother and father died when Mura sent forces to assist Altea.  Apparently those SR-71-lloking planes were no match for the Galra fighters.  Hallem is angry that Golion didn't revive to support their fight.  Kogane starts to explain to him that Golion couldn't have revived then, but he's cut off by Hallem calling for the guards.

Hallem actually cracks his knuckles before taking to the cannon controls. 

Som why does Sincline dock with/land on the Galactic Train as it's plummeting out of control to the planet's surface?  Also, the dialogue between Kogane and Sincline during the fight with the Galactic Train seems to imply that Sincline is actually piloting the mecha.  This isn't named, like the majority of deathblack or mechablack beastmen.  Maybe it's not technically a beastman, and just some kind of mecha?