Key points from the Let’s Voltron interview with Lauren Montgomery & Joaquim Dos Santos
LM & JDS don’t really know Altean time (like ticks, quintants, decaphoebs, etc.) and all that lore was made up by individual writers.
They don’t remember their initial pitch to Andrea Romano.
There were always plans for 78 episodes–no more or less.
Netflix played around with the season episode counts but it “never affected production.” At one point they wanted to have Voltron release one episode every two weeks, but LMJDS shot it down because it was “too much like network TV.”
“Our bible was about as loose as you’ll find,” JDS said. They also add in later that they specifically kept things out of the show’s bible so they could sneak it passed the higher ups later on.
Characters arcs were adjusted as they went and while they knew Zarkon would be the main antagonist of arc 1 (s1-2) and Lotor for arc 2 (s3-6), they had no idea what arc 3 (s7-8) would be like until later on.
Shiro’s arc was originally meant just to set up Keith’s arc while still not feeling like an expendable character (because he was slated to die early on like in Go Lion). Keith & Shiro’s arcs intertwined more closely after they were told they must keep Shiro in the show to sell toys of him.
JDS pitched a flashback for Shiro’s childhood that showed him with his family at a young age but it became “not as important to tell” as other aspects of his life, and LM added that his backstory felt “repetitive” against all the other characters (familial) backstories.
Matt’s voice actor was often not available so they had to write him out of a lot of episodes and replace him with Sam.
They had to work in lion upgrades from the toys into the show and also had nothing to do with the elemental lion symbols used in all the marketing (official website, toys, apparel, etc.) and actually disliked them and tried to re-design them but marketing didn’t use the re-designs.
A lot of things like Altean science were kept abstract because they felt as though explaining it explicitly would “take the magic away.”
Ezor and Zethrid were allowed to be together because they were not “front and center” characters nor were they the ones that the higher ups were “hanging the franchise on.”
The original Shiro/Adam scene had them in their apartment (later changed to Galaxy Garrison lounge) as explicit boyfriends (later changed to flight partners) but the higher ups would not let it pass so they had to change a lot of aspects about the scene but tried to keep as much of the original staging as they could.
It wasn’t until “Shera was in development” that the higher ups came back and said they could revisit the scene, but Adam had already been killed off at that point, so they had to choose whether or not they wanted to have the scene be more explicit or keep it platonic, knowing Adam was dead.
They didn’t want to bring Adam back for the finale epilogue wedding scene because it would be a “far jump” that would open up “too many questions” about how Adam survived the crash.
In the original storyline, Veronica was going to return with the rebels and Adam would’ve been with her and he and Shiro would’ve reunited.
LM said that Allura’s sacrifice only restored planets that were killed before their time should’ve been up, like Altea, and that her powers did not apply to souls because it would’ve been “too godlike.”
LM & JDS wanted to walk away at one point but they felt bad for the crew so they stayed on the project.
“Maybe someday someone will fix our mess up.” -LM
They confirmed there were never any options for a “happy ending” and JDS said while he “hates to burst any bubbles…there is no alternate cut of Voltron.”
They avoided social media due to the backlash of season 8.
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