Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 4 Review

Previously in Voltron: Legendary Defender - Shiro, who was missing for a few episodes after knocking out Zarkon at the end of Season 2, finally pops up and rejoins the team, who has already adjusted to having Keith as their new leader, and Allura taking the Blue Lion spot. Lotor finally shows up with his harem soldiers and is a rebel with a plan of his own, and is quite a match for the Voltron team. Meanwhile, Haggar, as she helps recover Zarkon, remembers her being his wife and the catalyst for the conflict thanks to her obsession with the quintessence having virtually infinite power, which explains why Voltron is so powerful.

With Shiro now back on the team, Keith feels less obligated as team leader and spends more time with the Blades of Marmorra. This causes a rift within the group, resulting with Keith leaving the team to be with the Blades, while Shiro re-assumes the position of Black Lion pilot. Later on, Pidge is reunited with her brother Matt and the two geniuses worked together to help Shiro and the others.

Zarkon's loss to Voltron is spread across the universe, causing many civilizations to revolt and form the Voltron Coalition, with the mission to liberate the rest of the universe from Galra control. The Voltron team are tasked to strengthen the coalition by performing a series of stage shows (I kid you not). The coalition then began their campaign and by the end of the season, have liberated a third of the Galra territory.

Meanwhile, Zarkon is back and orders a search and destroy operation against Lotor, now deemed a traitor to the Galra Empire. This forces Lotor to speed up his plan of re-opening the gates between dimensions, in order to mine the quintessence for his own use. This complicates things, however, when he kills one of his own harem soldiers suspected of being under Haggar's spell, causing the rest to plot to bring Lotor to Zarkon in exchange for leniency. Lotor then is forced to take drastic measures - an unholy alliance with the Voltron team.

Season 4 of Voltron: Legendary Defender has the smallest number of episodes with just 6. I suspect that extending the series to 6-7 Seasons or so is just wordplay when in actuality the episodes were divided into smaller chunks and stamping the season number with it. We've seen this practice before with Cartoon Network on their handling of Steven Universe, Uncle Grandpa, and more recently Adventure Time. It's awfully annoying, to be honest.

Word has it Shiro's return happened sooner than the staff wanted it to be due to the insistence of the top brass from either Dreamworks or Netflix. The reason is explained in the fourth episode of this season - Shiro is the most popular character of the show. This of course, resulted in re-writing the plot, that in effect not only removes Keith from the Voltron team, but also demotes him to a supporting role, pretty much crashing down all the build up that was made for him in past episodes.

I have mixed feelings for this. On the one hand, I am glad Shiro is back. He is indeed my most favorite character. But I don't want him back in the leadership position, and especially taking back the Black Lion. It makes the concept and requirements of being a Paladin of Voltron and piloting a lion virtually redundant. I'm more than ok giving Shiro a supporting role and just have him give commands in the Altean Castle.

And I do feel bad for Keith because like I said earlier, Shiro's return has him demoted to being a supporting character. So all that build up and development seemed to tantamount to nothing. I also get the impression this would make him less popular among the fanbase.

If there is a silver lining to this, there's still Operation Kuron, of which Shiro is unknowingly an agent of the Galra. So chances are Shiro's revelation about this will result in him giving the Black Lion and the position of team leader back to Keith. However, I'm no longer as hyped over that revelation because we've already seen the switch between Shiro and Keith, then a switchback, and with Operation Kuron, if that is the case, likely another switch.

There's also the matter of how grand is the war against the Galra really is. The show wants to say that 'when we say universal, we mean it'. It does open a bunch of questions that the series won't answer in terms of world-building. So as to not bore you with science stuff, let's just say that if Voltron, who is on one end of the universe, travels to the other end where Zarkon is, the time of travel between those two points is like taking a non-stop flight from New York to Australia and Zarkon didn't grow old during the whole process.

So am I to believe that all the ships featured in Voltron Legendary Defender are capable of travelling across the universe with virtually no time dilation whatsoever? In other words if Shiro and the team left Earth to travel across the universe and back, it only took them a couple of months. If they did that in the real world, when they return to Earth, hundreds, maybe even thousands of years have already passed!

Granted, even in the original Voltron series, the conflict is said to be universal. But it's mainly hyperbole and the conflict is more between Planet Arus and Planet Doom, rather than expanding through galaxies. What I'm trying to sayis I prefer less is more in terms of the scale of the Galra conflict. If the staff really wants this to be literally universal in scale, at least provide more details to maintain the claim a la Star Trek or Gundam or Macross. If that's not possible, then make it something like Gurren Lagann. The way Voltron: Legendary Defender explains it is smack right in the middle which ends up neither appealing nor interesting.

And it doesn't stop there. The whole writing pretty much suffers everywhere throughout the season. Lotor, who was shown to be incredibly cunning and tough, takes a full 180 in this one. An entire episode is made dedicated to being pure comedy, but it ends up more cringy than funny. And there isn't anything that gives Voltron a true sense of challenge or struggle. I can't help but blame the sudden return of Shiro and putting him back in the leadership position as the cause of all this.

With only 6 episodes, and a totally messed up writing, there's not much else to say other than this season is my least favorite of the bunch. All I can hope is that it's just a huge fallback for the staff and that they would work hard to make it better in the seasons to come. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give the 4th Season of Voltron: Legendary Defender, a 2 out of 5.

My Little Pony: The Movie Review

So this weekend, the theatrical film of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic made its debut in US cinemas. While it is not surprising that MLP gets a theatrical film, what I do wonder is the target audience - is the MLP movie meant for the brony community, who've watched the series since Season 1, or can those who've never seen My Litte Pony: Friendship is Magic be able to dive in and enjoy?

I wasn't sure if MLP was mainstream popular enough that they are just as recognizable as say, the Avengers or the Justice League. And of course, whether or not you need to be familiar with the series to understand the movie's plot. Given that I have stopped watching the series after Season 3, or whichever episode got Twilight Sparkle to become a princess, the movie serves as a good experiment if I would enjoy it even though I haven't watched MLP for so long, or do I really need to watch the other seasons to catch up.

It begins with Twilight making preparations for the Friendship Festival. Now I don't know if this is a yearly thing or once in a century or whatever. But regardless, every pony from all over the world are coming for the celebration. Twilight, ever the bookworm, is in charge of organizing the festival the way you'd typically expect out of her.

The preparations were halted by the arrival of of the forces of Stormking, who seeks the magic of the four princesses for world domination. With his lackey Tempest running things, three of the four princesses were captured. As the Mane 6 and Spike are the only ones that escaped Stormking's army, they head off on a journey to find the Queen of The Hippogriffs to ask for her assistance in fighting against the Stormking, and save Equestria and the other princesses.

I will admit, the very first few seconds of the film, I started to groan. It started off with a very beautiful, and I do mean beautiful, 2.5D animation sequence. What I mean is that the characters are drawn in 2D, but the way they move around and their animation sequences, are done as though it's in 3D.

But that got drowned out when the film did their own Pony-version of the pop song "We've Got The Beat" by The Go-Go's. Never have I recalled in watching the first 3 Seasons of MLP, or from all the Equestria Girls movies, did the musical numbers do an actual cover of a pop song. But the moment I heard the cover of "We've Got The Beat" playing, the first thing that popped onto my head were the Alvin and The Chipmunks films and to me, this is the direction the movie is going. And I cannot help but cringe at the whole music number. Thankfully, it was short, but it was still cringy.

With respect to Daniel Ingram, who did the song and score since the first season of MLP, the original songs are ok to listen to, but nothing memorable. Even the songs from the Disney movie "Frozen", as much as everyone has gotten sick and tired of it, still sticks to you like glue. I can still remember the songs from the earlier seasons of My Little Pony, and by extension Equestria Girls. But not so with this movie's soundtrack.

As for the overall plot, if I'm to put it bluntly, it's a rehash of the first two episodes of the MLP series, thematically speaking. What I mean is that the theme of friendship is placed centerstage again for the nth time for the next set of characters the Mane 6 encounters in the film, and the movie pretends that the Mane 6 still haven't gotten around the concept of friendship even though they've been doing it for 7 bloody years!

I get it, though. It's in order to help draw in viewers who never saw the TV series. But I still find it disappointing Meghan McCarthy and Joe Ballarini, who wrote the script, couldn't think of something a little more original. Much of the plot can be compared to the earlier Disney Princess films, as well as those from Don Bluth like All Dogs Go To Heaven. The introduction of Stormking as the antagonist does bring a bit of seriousness, but that goes away because his persona makes him somewhat of a rip-off of James Woods's version of Hades in Disney's Hercules film.

It doesn't help either that after the first few minutes, you can pretty much see how the plot goes. You also find a number the tropes that, while common and not surprising, the overall execution turns out bland. The same goes to its humor. I recall how I enjoyed the comedy featured in the earlier seasons, but I only laughed at one joke in the entire film.

That's nothing compared to the one part of the movie that really grinds my gears - the Mane 6's journey to seek help in order to defeat the Stormking, is nothing more than a MacGuffin.

I really hate to compare, but the Equestria Girls movies have far better storytelling than the MLP film, and it's from the same team. On the plus side, we are introduced to several new characters that aren't ponies. That's about it, though. As for the celebrity voices, you'd hardly even notice and, like virtually every other animated film these days, these celebrities only voice the characters for marketing purposes, rather than their actual talent for voice acting. The MLP movie isn't terrible by any means, but if you're expecting something totally epic, don't.

So to answer the question at the beginning of this review - is My Little Pony: The Movie worth seeing for someone who's not into MLP or for fans of the franchise? If you are a die-hard fan of the Mane 6, you will enjoy this film no matter what. Kids no doubt will enjoy this film too. For an ex-brony like myself, it's not a terrible film, but not something I would 'squee' at, either. As for those who've never seen it before, I'd say it's better you get the film as a video rental rather than watch it in a movie theater, then decide for yourself if you are into the franchise or not. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give My Little Pony: The Movie, a 2 out of 5.