Blogging these last few episodes has been exhausting, just let me say that. Whew. Golion was just one in a long line of Toei's annual throwaway series meant to sell toys for a few seasons. Still, the Japanese knew how to tell a compelling story to make the toys more appealing.
Final Victory
The lions, with Keith's narration, are making the final push against the newly laserfied Castle Doom. Sven and Romelle are moving in on the castle with the help of the mice. The lions are making little headway against the lasers. On Arus, Coran and Bandor are watching things in castle control. Bandor has apparently forgotten that the castle he's standing in is now a spaceship. They lift off.
The team is still under heavy fire. Allura thinks of all the people who've been hurt in the long war against Zarkon. Then they reform the big guy. Lotor is angry at Voltron's audacity. He yells "Laser snakes!" Voltron opens up with just about every weapon he's got, taking out laser snakes by the dozens. Romelle, Sven, the resistance and the mice are taking out the ground troops. Mechamouse even gets a sniper. Then Lotor orders the laser snakes to fire on them. Sven covers Romelle from a blast, and bandages her wound. Then they laugh at each other. Huh?
Coran is approaching Doom in the Flying Fortress at, um, Mach 7. He deploys a massive "undercarriage" weapon. Voltron, meanwhile, forms the blazing sword and plunges in. The laser snakes try wrapping themselves around Voltron, but that just gets them sworded. The remaining laser snakes suddenly merge into to giant laser snakes, which wrap around Voltron and hold him steady for Lotor's megablasters.
The resistance fighters are watching; Sven says only a miracle could save them--and then the Flying Fortress appears and wipes out the snakes. Keith and Coran agree to fight side by side. The Fortress takes up its positiong and both it and Voltron open fire on castle Doom with everything they have. There's a lot of exploding, and even Lotor's flagship is destroyed inside its hangar. There's a montage of explosions. The castle is in flames, and Lotor in his throne room looks out at the wreckage. Even the throne room is wreck.
Castel Doom is now a skeletal spire. Voltron and the castle land and explains that the leaders of Doom are going to force a surrender from Lotor. In the shambles of the throne room, the Doom council is doing just that. Lotor starts killing members, and then Mogor and his own troops appear to try and arrest him. That doesn't turn out so well for them all. Lotor singlehandedly kills them all--of course, there all dimwitted robots.
Sven and Romelle have the freed slaves accepting the surrender of the Doom troopers. Sven demands Lotor's location from several. He learns Lotors is in the throne room. Romelle tries to dissuade him from going after him. He tells her why he's going (for her), and she gives him a dagger. He runs into the ruined castle as Bandor and the team find Romelle. She tells them where Sven has gone.
Sven enters the throne room and shoots Lotor with an energy pistol. Of course, it's just a statue or something of Lotor that crumbles as he laughs. Then Lotor has Sven at laser swordpoint. Sven drops the pistol. Romelle, Bandor, Coran, and the team enter the throne room, but he's got Sven hostage. The team can't act for fear the Lotor will harm Sven. Lots takes him up the stairs to his throne, and then an elevator tube comes down and the throne dais goes up the ruined castle to a chamber with some sort of super weapon. Lotor comes over the PA and tells them to exchange Voltron for Sven. The crowd of slaves doesn't like this, but the team gives in for Sven's sake. The mice chirp their defiance.
Lotor activates the weapon, which begins melting Voltron down. Lotor taunts Allura as the mice fly past her in the mousemeccha. The team reacts as their individual lions are heated to red--er, pink hot. Hunk wants to rush Lotor, but Keith stops him for Sven's sake. Allura prays that the mice succeed.
The mechamouse comes up behind Lotor and fires needles at him. Sven lunges with Romelle's dagger as Lotor draws his sword. The two struggle, the dagger hits the weapons console causing it to explode, and they tumble out of the castle. Allura says "They fell into the water." We get a shot from the frog episode of Lotor fleeing underwater in his flagship, vowing to rebuild planet doom.
Voltron is now on a pedastal on Arus, with cheering crowds gathered at his feet. The Arusians wonder where the team is. Coran asks the mice where they are. He ells them that they're taking a nap in the country. Which, indeed, is where the team is, laying in a meadow, looking up at the clouds. Pidge speculates that they'll be sent on Galaxy Garrison assignment elsewhere.
We then cut to the Explorer, and see the Vehicle Voltron Force. Chip has a letter from Pidge, explaining that, basically, the war with Zarkon is over.
Burn Galra Castle
We get a quick recap of the battle with Daibazaal and ol' Dai's death. Then we get a shot of the enhanced Castle Galra. The team is occupied with fighting the castle. The mice and the resistance fighters are rescuing the slaves from Demon Castle. The mice helpfully place a rope to help the Ryou and the resistance climb.
In castle control, Alor is hopeful of Golion's chances, but Raible is less so. He luanches the castle to Galra. Raible speculates that if they fail now, Galra will simply return more powerful.
Back on Galra, Fala remembers all the people she's lost at the hands of Galra, then they form Golion to Formation V. Mechanisms brimming with confidence, y'know.
The battle progresses much the same as in Voltron, but with more graphic shots of the ground battle--and mechamouse makes a Galra soldier's head explode. Oh, and the laser snakes kill most of the resistance fighters besides Ryou and Amue (with the snakes firing on Demon Castle in an effort to get at them).
This episode does do a good job of showing the fortunes of battle shift back and forth, with the arrival of the Mecha Fortress being the final turn in Golion's favor--at least until Sincline gets Ryou as a hostage. Also, as the Fortress positions itself beside Golion, we get the same Apollo launch sound effects. There's an added shot of some hoopy looking Galra envoys or whoever getting annihilated by energy blasts throw a wall.
Interestingly, the shots of the barrage annihilating the castle and the final view of the ruined, skeletal castle are separated by commercial breaks, implying that they got hammered much longer. The Voltron version just cut directly from one shot to the other.
The directors challenging Sincline goes much as in Voltron, (and about as successfully for them), but we get to see a little more swordswailing from Sincline.
The final dialogue between Ryou and Amue is more ambiguous than in Voltron. They don't quite get all mushy. Unless you consider Amue giving Ryou what is basically her anti-rape blade mushy.
As Ryou runs into Galra castle, he's dodging from cover to cover, and yet YELLING for Sincline the whole time. I guess he doesn't care if they know he's coming, he's just worried about snipers or something.
When Mechamouse launches needles at Sincline, they actually hit him in the eye. When Ryou stabs him with Romelle's knife, he actually sinks it in up to the hilt. When Sincline responds by swinging somewhat blindly with his sword, he actually gives him a pretty serious wound. When they fall out of the castle spire, they hit the ground. Solid ground. No goddamned water, Voltron!!!! Ryou struggles up for his last words and says "I did it, bro!' Then he dies, and Amue is distressed.
And then we get pretty much the same ending as Voltron, without the mention of or cut to Vehicle Voltron.
Whew. 52 episodes. It's been a fun ride. I may make fun of lion voltron a bit, and I may make no secret that vehicle voltron is my favorite, but I still love this series. One of my friends is currently a high school english teacher. He also was one of the kids with whom I played Voltron at recess almost every day in 3rd grade (he was usually Keith, I ended up as Lance or Lotor. And sometimes Sven). He said that the stories you find compelling earliest in life are among those that stay with you--and for us, it just so happened to be Voltron. Personally, I think that despite the muzzling job WEP had to perform to satisfy American censors, and the editing they had to do to make it seem like it belonged with Dairugger, even the edited parts of Golion sank into our little 8-year-old brains.
Anyway, I'm really excited to start with Dairugger next!
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