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.
So.
-They throw away the Bible, the single most important tool of storytelling because it’s what freelance writers use to make their episodes coherent with the rest (and, by law, about half the episodes of a TV show have to be written by freelance writers). Thus ensuring that about half the show would be liable to contradict the rest in both plot and characterization.
-They claim that they did it so they could sneak stuff past the higher ups. I remember one old interview that said that the higher ups were surprised by Adam’s death because they had assumed that he would eject safely out of the plane. When we think of “sneaking crap past the censors” we tend to attribute a positive meaning to it, but in this case, I can’t help but see it as “sneak our fuck ups past the teachers.” This feeling is further reinforced by the fact that, were it not for said higher ups, Shiro would have died in S2.
-They had no plans whatsoever for the final 1/3 of the show. Consequently, they never planned any real arc for either the characters or the plot, because you can’t plan an arc when you have no idea where you want to take it to.
- ”Characters arcs were adjusted as they went” is the most euphemistic way of referring to sudden 180° turns in characterization I’ve ever seen. Sure does explains all the many, many dropped threads and asspulls.
-How very interesting that, say, Pidge’s backstory is SO important that we must be repeatedly told about and shown everything up to her dog, but Shiro’s backstory is completely dropped, to the point that he might as well have popped out of thin air, because it’s “not as important.”
-You know what actually takes the magic away? Making it cheap by turning it into a Deus Ex Machina. Allura’s powers were never explained, which means that they were just a convenient excuse to cheat their way out of whatever corner they wrote themselves into.
-Ezor would literally be dead if the EEEEEEEEBIL higher ups had not forced them to bring her back.
-She-Ra has been in development for almost three years. The timeline doesn’t add up, because almost three years ago ago was absolutely early enough in the process that they could have easily revisited the scene.
-Since when do they care about questions? They never bothered to take ten freaking seconds to establish in canon that Shiro is cured from the disease, deciding that interviews were totally good enough to explain mayor plot points. If you go by what you actually see in the show, where they say that Shiro is sick and only has a short time left then they completely drop the subject and never bring it up again, Shiro “left the battle behind” because his disease finally caught up with him. Don’t even get me started on Kuron or I’ll be here all night.
-I don’t believe for a second that the reason they didn’t walk away was concern for the crew. JDS and LM don’t even work for DW anymore and the show has been over for months, yet they keep giving interview after interview after interview. They just don’t want to give up their control.
-I look forward to whatever conspiracy people will inevitably come up with to insist that JDS and LM totally would have given us a satisfying happy ending if DW had not thwarted them.
-Again, they keep contradicting themselves. Previous interviews was “Voltron was always meant to be a show for little children” but then we have “Voltron was never going to have a happy ending.” One of the other points that are not mentioned here is that they supposedly wanted to tell Shiro’s backstory, but couldn’t, because there just wasn’t enough time (in 78 episodes, where every single other Paladin got theirs and Pidge’s in particular went deep into trivial details, and there apparently was enough time for tons of filler and for episodes focused entirely on OCs). But in a previous interview, they said that if they had more time, they’d make more episodes about the MFE pilots.
Sorry to piggyback off of JG, but -
First, is it true that Donya from Hypable was a mod for the interview? If so, it just proves the EPs needed a “friend” because she is one of their biggest fans in the geek journalism circuit. So the EPs couldn’t even do this interview without someone in their “circle of trust.”
Second, really, Let’s Voltron? Don’t give these two a microphone.
Third, like JG, I’m calling -
Bullshit.
She-Ra began production in April 2016 - so Adam’s scene could have been changed if She-Ra was “in production.” VLD Season 2 was going through ADR in October 2016. Season 5 wasn’t finished until April 2017. Season 7 wasn’t nailed down until at least August 2017 or even later, and Season 8 wasn’t completed until October 2018 - three months before Season 8 dropped and only a month before She-Ra premiered. In a month’s time, the EPs could add an epilogue, but MORE THAN A YEAR OUT, they couldn’t figure out how to save Adam? Are you freaking kidding me!?
Btw - just want to put this here - Adam is He-Man’s real name.
Also, who decided to kill Adam off, making it impossible for him to be brought back in any capacity? The EPs. They didn’t have to kill Adam. As JG said, the execs were supposedly surprised that Adam died, so why couldn’t Adam - boyfriend or flight partner - live and be that connection to Shiro’s past? Instead, the EPs junked a family flashback, kill Shiro’s only potential family, and even decided, “Let’s make him gay and write that terrible trope into our story. And let’s blame the higher ups for not letting us make Adam gay to begin with, though obviously She-Ra‘s EP fought harder than we did for rep - and succeed on some level.”
Also, that’s means the supposedly heart-felt plea of “we’re working on gay rep” was bullshit from NYCC 2017 panel, too.
Shiro’s “death” - Let me explain this in a Marvel metaphor, so the EPs will understand. If you are killing a character, then you deem him expendable. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts there. And if you set-up that character up as Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger, then you can’t make Bucky Barnes Cap in the sequel. It’s not gonna fly with your viewers. And if you thought it would - never mind. You already proved your incompetence, JDS & LM.
What the EPs actually said was regarding the time elements: “The lore was set up by competent writers - and then they left.”
As JG said, Ezor and Zethrid were only together because of backlash. Even the storyboard artist admitted Ezor was killed.
So who did DreamWorks hang the franchise on? Shiro? Keith? I’d like to know. And if it is Shiro - I’m guessing there is more Voltron on the way.
“Too godlike.” DOESN’T MATTER cuz yet again, it’s not in the story. Seriously. We have no idea what happened after all realities restarted other than Altea and Daibaazal came back. Anything else is up to the viewer’s interpretation. And Elsa created Olaf. ALLURA CAN BE WHATEVER GODDESS HER VIEWERS DEEM. Plus - Allura and Lotor are in the stars/space, appearing like a goddess and god. But that wasn’t “too godlike,” apparently.
…wait. So in LM’s mind, all the planets are empty? Creepy…
The EPs couldn’t walk away. One word. Contract. (It’s like they think we’re all children who don’t have jobs of own and similar deals.) And they didn’t consider walking away. You know how I know? Cuz half the team leaders left - HEAD WRITER, THE ONLY FEMALE WRITER (technically, half the writing staff left). THREE DIRECTORS. Who did they feel bad for who was left? The artists they have never mentioned at all? I think they spoke about Ryu, the supervising producer, once. Even the intern on Tumblr said she met JDS once in the hallway. The situation is akin to a c-suite where the COO, CFO, CMO, and CCO left, but the CEO didn’t cuz he felt bad for that coordinator in marketing.
“Hate to burst anyone’s bubble - but I deleted any files the second before I walked out the door. Otherwise I could have been sued for copyright infringement due to the inclusion of Roy, which I left out of the bible so the higher-ups didn’t know I was setting them up for a lawsuit. Toodles!”
JDS & LM avoided social media cuz Marketing told them to. They were off the month following Season 7, and they did the NYCC panel. That’s it. They didn’t give another interview after SDCC until after their contract was done with DW. They didn’t even do after-panel interviews for NYCC.
Even Marketing didn’t want credit for their stuff, hence the call-out that the production team made the trailer. And btw - I have more faith in Marketing now cuz they said, “Nah, we aren’t using your designs.” Though…I do wonder if that’s what the redesigned Black Paladin insignia was. And also - since when does Marketing make content for the show? They take content from the show. They wouldn’t have been the ones making those paladin logos unless the EPs were supposed to and someone in the higher office gave the CMO the O.K. to do so - because the EPs weren’t doing their jobs.
Considering the bible is the foundation of your story, I see why the series went off the rails. Incompetence abounds with these two.
TL;DR:
“Maybe someday someone will fix our mess up.”
Understatement and GOD I HOPE SO.
When VLD ended, my take was somewhere, someone was taking notes to use VLD as an example of how not to write long-form multi-season television. With each new interview from these two clowns, I’m betting there’s someone out there organizing a syllabus for Fire Your Client If They Do This, and possibly also one with JDS and LM as poster children for a class on how to recognize control-issue micromanager personalities before you hire them.
I bet that was one fascinating end-of-series post-mortem over at DreamWorks.
