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Rating:  -
Got this one for my husband but he now has my son hooked to it too!
Rating:  -
This review is mainly aimed at people who, like me, watched Voltron as a kid, thought it was the greatest thing ever, and are interested in watching it again just to see if it holds up. It is *not* aimed at hardcore anime fans, who will probably think I'm stupid, unenlightened, etc.
To those in my "target" audience thinking about watching Voltron again, let me just tell you--don't. Let your happy memories live on, unspoiled, for all eternity. Because if you watch it, you will be sorely disappointed.
I just finished watching the first disc, and I will not be watching the others, because now, with 20+ more years of . . . life, I guess, now Voltron just seems to me like one long, extended ad for toys. Every time I hear them say "we need all five lions to form Voltron!", which they do, over . . . and over . . . and over again, I see little 10 year old Jimmy (which is not my name) running to Mom saying, "Mom! I need all *five* lions to form Voltron! I'll *die* if I can't make Voltron!" What makes it especially crazy-driving is that it's not only the good guys, or "space explorers" saying we need *all five* lions blah blah, but the Evil King and his Witch also repeatedly blather on about all five lions--they REALLY want to hammer this message home to Jimmy.
In addition to my little Jimmy scenario, there are so many problems with the actual cartoons, I don't know whether to laugh or to be sad. First, the plot is just awful, bordering on non-sensical. The action sequences are repetitive, and also make no sense. The characters are . . . cartoonish. The dialogue might be the worst aspect of all, if it weren't for the music, which is so bad that it makes me want to drive metal spikes through my ears.
Now, before you go thinking I'm some kind of cynical old hater (which may be true, but doesn't mean I'm wrong about Voltron's general suckiness), let me just say that this is Act III of my nostalgic tour of 80's anime, and previous Acts were much better than this drivel.
Act I was Robotech, and much to my surprise, Robotech held up astonishingly well. Robotech is so good, on so many levels, that even by my tired old man standards, it's still awesome. It's possible that I think better of it now than I did as a kid, that's how impressed I am.
The thing about Robotech is that there are some themes in Robotech that are clearly meant for adults, and that were simply beyond my processing capacity as a snotty kid. For example, the whole Rick-Lisa-MinMei triangle was incredibly annoying all those years ago--back then I wanted them to get to the battles already!--but now it's . . . well, it's kind of touching and sad. Also, the fact that soft-power (i.e. culture and the arts) plays such a central role in the defeat of the overwhelming hard-power (5 million ships!) in the 1st Zentradi invasion . . . Seriously, there are planners at the Defense Department who should be required to watch Robotech for this reason alone.
Sure, there are problems with Robotech. Some of the action sequences are repetitive, but not to the extent of Voltron, where there's just so much filler, I think I've worn out the fast forward button. Some (OK, all) of the music is 80's cheesy, but there's more variety in the music, so it's not quite as bad. But overall, the Good in Robotech greatly outweighs the Bad.
Act II was "Inhumanoids". Long story short, it's meh. M-E-H, meh. I'm not horrified that I watched it again, but I'm not dying for more.
Anyway, this is long enough already, so let me just reiterate that if you are in my specific target group for this review, my strong advice to you is to let sleeping dogs lie. Don't go tainting your happy memories of Voltron, like I did. You'll be sorry if you do!
Rating: -
If you are thinking about buying this DVD, YOU SHOULD. If you loved 80s cartoons as much as I did (yes, I grew up on the 80s), then Voltron is the number one DVD collection that you HAVE to own. The packaging is beautiful and the insert includes a synopsis of each episode. The episodes are just as I remember them! I watched the entire first season in about 2 days. I couldn't get enough. I can't wait to get Seasons 2 and 3.
Rating:  -
I was so excited to see Voltron coming to DVD. It was far and away my favorite show as a kid back in the 80's and I couldn't wait to see them again. Unfortunatly the novelty wore off before the first episode was even over. I know its a kids show but the voice acting is horribly annoying, they re-use the same animation sequences over and over, and the plot, well, its ahh...really ...really ...stupid. Advise to rent disk one before buying the whole set(s). Make sure you still enjoy it as an adult. Oh yeah, Thundercats is the same story, not as cool as you remember.
Rating: -
Very satisfied,very good audio and video quality and most important of all is, my kids and my wife love it. Packaging is very nice, a must have for all voltron fans.
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