#cuz even the allurance shippers got shafted

[skaylanphear]

I guess I’m not surprised? Voltron thoughts and spoilers.

Review for season 7: Eh?

Honestly, I don’t understand how Voltron can be so well-written one season and so poorly written the next. I think season 7 was worse than season 4. I haven’t yet watched a season where I was concocting my review before I was finished watching, but I was honestly waiting for it to end by the time I was halfway through. 

I didn’t know I could be bored through an entire season. 

Like, I was literally just waiting for the end, hoping for something amazing to happen. I was literally like “wow, maybe all the paladins will die and then they won’t have to be subjected to poor writing like this anymore.” 

I just... I don’t get it. Season’s 5 and 6 were great. So what is this pile of shit? 

The first half is basically filler episodes full of stupid idiotic antics and literal fun-poking at Lance that is never addressed. I mean, he was literally called dumb over and over and over again and it was never addressed again. I mean, he was hardly in the season, frankly. 

Keith was... Keith was an asshole. I mean, Lance is generally annoying, but this hit whole new levels of annoying, and Keith was an asshole to him the whole time even when Lance was being nice to him and trying his best. 

Hunk’s arc... wasn’t an arc at all. They gave us a snippet of character recognition in the beginning and then a start to some kind of arc that was eventually not realized for Hunk on a personal level because it was taken over by these overly elaborate battles that I couldn’t even tell you about despite the fact that I just watched it. 

Pidge was... there. Though her father got the most airtime out of everyone. 

Allura was also around, but her character got nothing aside from some shoehorned in crush she now has on Lance? Despite the fact that he’s been basically useless the entire season and done nothing to change her opinion of him? Despite the fact that Allura is just as exasperated as Keith is with Lance most of the time? 

I mean, I love Lance. I love how he started and I love what he could be, but he’s annoying as fuck due to lack of development and it makes no sense that Allura would have feelings for him now. I’m down for some Allurance if it’s written well, but this was exactly what I was afraid of--Allurance being poorly written, Allura magically developing feelings for Lance, and Lance being the “nice guy” who somehow gets the girl despite that making no logical sense. 

And I am still baffled over why Keith was such an asshole to Lance the whole time. That bullshit about how Lance better not miss his shots, as if Keith and Lance didn’t fight back to back through season three. It’s bullshit and an insult to both their characters. 

And don’t even get me started on the Adam and Shiro thing. We didn’t even get to meet Adam before he fucking died, so thank you Voltron for doing as all media does and killing off your LGBT rep, and in record time too, btw. Instead of getting, at the very least, half an episode dedicated to their story, we got a whole bunch of Shallura stuff that doesn’t even make any sense because Allura likes Lance now? For some reason? 

The only moment that stands out to me was when Hunk and Keith had their little heart to heart, but even that seemed forced because it was like the writers were just “oh, Hunk needs a moment because we don’t know how to write his character so we’ll just shove this stuff in here about his parents despite the fact that it’ll never go anywhere.” 

Oh yeah, and the other moment I remember--when the Atlas somehow magically turned into a giant fucking robot. Because I literally said, out loud, “well that’s fucking stupid.” The hell? Humans aren’t alteans. The Atlas was inspired by altean tech, but it was not made using alchemy. It was created by humans, who have no magical inklings. Are you telling me the power of Shiro and the castle-ship crystal just... transformed it? Because, again, that’s fucking stupid. Also, the Atlas’ design is... not good. And it looks really, really dumb as a robot. 

But moving on. What the hell was up with Acxa? So she... changed sides, alright, and has a crush on Keith? I still don’t think that’s the case since she showed up at his Dad’s grave at the end, but it’s still poorly put together. 

A lot of which just comes down to how poorly written this season was. I mean... the writers literally did... just about everything you’re NOT supposed to do. 

There was no emotional weight because none of the characters interacted in a personal manner, aside from Keith and Hunk for two seconds and then Keith being an asshole, again, when they were stranded in space. We see Lance’s family, but we don’t meet them. The only one we do meet is Veronica and since we didn’t learn anything about her and Lance’s relationship or history, I literally couldn’t care less about her. Keith’s mom fucking leaves, which she said she would never do, which undos that nice little character bit. Hunk never actually rescues his family, they’re just... free as a result of... fighting? Pidge is just there, whatever, we hardly see her interact with her mom. Allura and Coran do basically nothing. There’s no one there to welcome Shiro back. Shiro, who got to fight Sendak and, yet again, take spotlight from what could have been an epic moment for another character before, again, being rescued by Keith. 

And then, we get half a season introducing us to characters we don’t know, doing stuff we don’t care about, making plots and battle plans far more complicated than they have to be just to show off these character that I don’t care about. The only new character I cared about seeing--because he had a personal connection to one of the main characters--died two minutes after being introduced in a fight that meant nothing. RIP Adam. 

I literally don’t care about any of the new pilots and they took up, like, a third of the season. They were cool at first until their pointless airtime quickly came to overlap that which could have been used to develop the characters we already love. 

The entire season was plot driven instead if character driven, because the main characters hardly felt like they were in it. Much like when the paladins were piloting the lions while being held prisoner, their minds and bodies felt like they were separated. We watched their bodies, but we didn’t get a whole lot else. 

AND THEN the end was filled with fucking mcguffins that were downright laughable. Sendak is killed by Keith, because apparently Keith and Shiro get to do everything cool, and then some random-ass robot with no ties to the season shows up. Oh, it’a Haggar? Okay. But we don’t know anything about it? Alright. More powerful than anything yet faced despite the fact that the battle against Lotor’s giant robot was way more intense? Sure thing. So now we’ve got two giant robots, again. Only for some stupid-ass third one to show up that is so huge you can’t take it seriously. It comes in and basically does nothing, before our paladins make a sacrifice that, really, doesn’t even matter because there’s no emotional investment in what they’re doing. They might die? Well maybe that would be more exciting than the last bore-fest I just spent 6 hours watching. 

It’s like they don’t know how to develop their characters, so they’ve just decided to stop and instead shove as many giant robots into our faces as possible. And try and distract us with love stories that have no weight because they have no development, rhyme, or reason. 

It’s the worst season I’ve watched yet. I was ready to go back to bed halfway through. I kept waiting for something, anything, character-wise to happen and instead all we got were a bunch of dumb robot fights that didn’t mean anything. 

The reason the fight with Lotor was so weighted was because of his and Allura’s background and his past. The reason the fight between Shiro and Keith was so weighted was because of their history. 

We got none of that. Veronica almost died, like, twice and I was like “whatever” because I know nothing about her and I’ve barely seen Lance around anyway. 

And I still do not understand why Keith was such a fucking asshole? It’s so out of character! I don’t... Ugh!

And all the queerbaiting from all the different sources from creators to Netflix, only to leave us high and dry on everything. If someone were watching this show without the assistance of things the creators have said, no one would realize Adam and Shiro were an item. It wasn’t explicit. They could have been best friends or brothers or literally anything. 

I just... I don’t understand how it could be so poorly executed. No wonder they want to finish Voltron this year--get it over with if this is what we have to look forward to. Lance and Allura can get married despite having little to nothing in common and having no development within their relationship. Throw Keith and Acxa together because that’s even better than Lance and Allura. The most they have in common is a knack for saving one another, let alone any personal interests. 

And don’t even bother with Lance’s family. We don’t know them, so they might as well not exist. Let’s make Commander Holt and Pidge’s family the main characters--they’re clearly the most important family unit aside from Keith and Shiro. Keith and Shiro, who do the same thing every single season. If I was a Sheith shipper, I’d be pretty bored at this point, personally. They have as little development as everyone else. 

Literally everything about it was either underdeveloped, boring, filler, mcguffin, or other characters that literally no one cares about. The high ranked lady dies? I don’t care, she was annoying the whole time, why are we dedicating so much time to her death? 

And why the hell was the entire season based around defending Earth? The paladins defend planets all the fucking time. I get that it’s Earth and we’re supposed to feel personally connected, but I didn’t see settings that would illicit an emotional response. We hardly saw any of the humans that were captured. It might as well have been another planet. Yeah, I wanted Earth to be attacked, but I didn’t want the entire season to be focused on defending it. That’s just... 

It’s everything I’ve said above, that’s what it is. 

They said a lot of people would be leaving the show after this season, as if something huge would happen that would make the fandom angry and cause people to leave. 

But that’s not why people will leave the show. They’ll leave it because it was poorly written, made promises it couldn’t keep, and kept the characters going in circles or even going out of character for no defensible reason.   

And that’s not something to be toting around as though to be proud of it. As if you made some hard decision that was going to anger your fans. You think ships are going to break up your fanbase? If you wrote them well, that wouldn’t happen. If you wrote a good story, people would stick around for that no matter the ships. Ships aren’t the problem here and they’re definitely not what’s going to have people leaving the show. 

What’s going to have people leaving the show is that this whole season was horrible on every level, ships aside.     

What a waste.