Voltron Season 7 Episode 8 Review: The Last Stand Part 2
This Voltron Legendary Defender review contains spoilers.
Voltron Season 7 Episode 8
No beach episode for you, Voltron fans!
It may seem cruel for pretty much all of Earth to get annihilated (or just taken over, we’ll have to see) but it just raises the stakes for our team. They aren’t just coming back to fight off a Galra cruiser or two. They have to free the entire world!
It quite literally hits home because their families are in danger. Lance’s family is seemingly okay, same for Pidge, but what about Hunk? Did his family make it in with Lance’s? What about Shiro? What about… Adam? Was that him in one of the first fighter waves? We’ll have to see. If Adam is dead… Well, that’ll be a discussion if it happens.
In all this we also finally get a piece of Voltron’s world building we’ve been missing. How the Galra enslave worlds. If Earth is any example? They just rush in and wipe out any defenses and immediately start taking over. No questions asked. It paints an even darker picture of the Galra empire than we had ever considered. Maybe because they think the Voltron lions are here they’re harsher? Perhaps they do try and force planets to join up before sending out the waves of destruction? Whatever the case, it was great to finally get an idea of how the Galra operate in their universe dominating conquests.
Throughout this whole episode I couldn’t get out of my head the parallels to Robotech, an 80’s anime series the showrunners are huge fans of. The comparisons to the Zentradi bombardment in that series, where a sizeable chunk of Earth is wiped out, are numerous. The refusal by the Earth government to take the threat seriously, their only hope previously lost in space and presumed dead, and even a big cannon to try and fire at the enemy. All we need now is a pop idol singing to the Galra!
I’m in no way claiming this is a rip off of Robotech’s plot but we can see the influence of that series is still strong. Robotech was a seminal work that heavily inspired the kind of storytelling that Voltron is now taking full advantage of. If you want to see the genesis of how Voltron tells its stories, check out Robotech on Netflix. You’ll notice even more parallels as you go.
Another strong element here is what I’ll refer to as the B Team of the Galaxy Garrison. Lead by Veroncia (I love her), this team doesn’t get much time but each line says so much. We instantly grasp their personalities and you already want to see more of them. New pilots for a Vehicle Team Voltron spinoff? I’d be all for it. Or hell, Veronica could take over Yellow Lion! I don’t think Hunk would mind.
While this two parter has done a lot of great work to demonstrate the capability of Voltron to work without its main characters, I’ll be glad to see our team again. Seeing their reaction to all this destruction will be heart breaking but can also bring us even more thrilling adventures.
Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Follow him on Twitter! He also runs a Robotech podcast if you want to learn more about that series!
