Hacker Cinema
Voltron
Film
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber
A live-action adaptation that stays true to the heart and the spirit of Voltron while introducing an entirely new generation of pilots.
2 positive4 neutralfrom 6 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
6 comments on Hacker News
About "10% of each episode is dedicated to them jumping into their voltron vehicles": it's the story as old as capitalism and it's the same reason you have those long transformations in Sailor Moon, to give an actual example, but it applies to all off the mill series in anime, western and 'western' cartoons too.
The TV time is sold as slots (usually ~30m for animation), you can't buy some arbitrary amount of time - you buy the slot, you need a serious amount of money for the prime time slots;
a TV show requires money (big amounts of money) for the every second produced;
so it's the easiest way to lower amount of money spent per episode - animate once, show multiple times.
For some reason the first half of Voltron season 1 is missing on Netflix. They produced the show. Confusing.
I think author is somewhat correct. You are going to keep me around in a couple of ways:
- Stuff I like enough to watch 20 seasons of. - New original content (that doesn't keep getting cancelled) - Good old nostalgia and world building eg Star Wars, Marvel, GoT.
Netflix doesn't really have any of these or it's inconsistent. And even the good original shows tend to have logical endings.
Personally I like the resurrected 80s cartoons Voltron, He-Man. I'd start my subscription again for season 2 of the 2011 Thundercats reboot and reboots of all the other 80s and 90s cartoons.
Culture doesn't need any kind of "official" export. If it is good, it gets discovered, now more than ever in social media. I didn't grow up watching Atom Boy, Voltron, and Robotech because the Japanese government invested in exporting it. Those were pulled into the US by some distributor in the Midwest who discovered them by accident, and decided to have them translated and show on US television.
A lot of KPop and Anime was exported to the US by fans, who free of charge as a labor of love, did translation and distribution. In the 70s, 80s, even 90s, a lot of this happened by an underground distribution network, people would make copies and trade.
Indeed, I grew up in the 70s and 80s watching lots of Hong Kong Kung-fu films, eg Shaw Bros, Golden Harvest, etc. There didn't need to be a "strategic reason" for HK canto films to have atrociously bad translation and dubbing slapped on them and marked to Americans. It was done because someone noticed that Americans loved watching these things.
You're making excuses for the fact that domestic mainland Chinese art is suffering a crisis of creativity caused by the crushing censorship of the state. People only make "safe" art in China. If you make any art that criticizes the establishment, or tells history in a way other than they want it to be seen, you may find yourself punished.
Ask Ai Weiwei. This is not a conducive environment for artistic expression.
Enjoyment of it does rely a tiny bit on knowing the general tropes of "giant robot" anime as it does deconstruct a lot of those.
If you have seen even a few episodes of Robotech/Macross/Gundam that's plenty. Even a bit of Voltron or having seen the movie "Iron Giant" may do.
That being said, if you are familiar with the general idea of "Only this one average/milquetoast/nerdy teenager can save the world for contrived plot reasons" it should still be enjoyable as that's where it dials the deconstruction knob up to 11 the most.
The article viewpoints are probably right, Netflix and Amazon need a few more hits that people trust.
The Office was a big fallback show and Netflix needs a few of those of their own. Stranger Things probably fits that.
The Witcher might change things for quality on Netflix.
Netflix shows have high production quality in terms of cinematography, lighting, sound, color, sets, on location etc. Writing and big draw actors aren't there just yet, though they have a bunch of that going and started that way with House of Cards. Stranger Things was new actors except a couple like Winona Ryder, the writing was better and it was successful. Maniac and Sabrina are also pretty good in this area. Bojack Horseman has a cult following. Dark is amazing. Black Mirror was a great acquisition. I Am Mother was pretty good and premiering Annihilation was a steal. Russian Doll was excellent. Animation like Death, Love & Robots, Voltron, Castlevania and more are solid. Those are all the model to go for. What is missing in most shows is writing and casting/actors draw to make a staple series that becomes a fallback like the article mentions.
> Consumers turn to a trusted source when they don’t know what to watch on their streaming service
> Subscriptions like Netflix and Amazon Prime offer plenty of critically-acclaimed, award-winning content. But the thing is, viewers have to pick which movies and series they’ll watch, and observers say many are getting burned out from all that decision-making.
Now with The Witcher the writing is based on a really solid book series, they have a big name actor Henry Cavill that has read the series and it looks great. It could be their Game of Thrones.
Amazon is also trying this with Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time.
These shows if they are done right, will get rewatched for a long time and draws in the mega fans that are influencers.
Netflix is doing pretty good with stand up comedy, maybe even the leader now. They paid Dave Chappelle and will forever be thanked for that by comedy content consumers.
Netflix and Amazon need some big hits like the coming epics, and they need some good staple shows like the Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99 (Netflix should have bought this), Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more. When they have that they equal the content competition that has that trusted good quality. They need a few more of these always watchable fallbacks.
They are both still chasing HBO, HBO is still the top in consistently good content and shows.
Personally I love the competition, some real funding and creator freedom is being unleashed, some are big hits, some are average and some not so good, but I like the amount of content and like the vibe of where Netflix is headed. Their new intro splash where the N goes into color bands is even great, matches their really colorful catalog.