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Voltron Headed For The Big Screen 283

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thank-god-its-the-lion-voltron dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following the success of the Transformers movie, Hollywood is preparing to make another live-action film featuring giant robots from the 1980s: 'Voltron: Defender of the Universe'. The script, by Justin Marks, is described as '...a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico. Five ragtag survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders.' Let's go, Voltron force!"
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Voltron Headed For The Big Screen More

Voltron Headed For The Big Screen

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  • Original (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bibz ( 849958 ) <seb2004@@@hotmail...com> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @08:34AM (#20202447)
    My god, I can't believed that I found the PowerRangers original when they came out... It's the "same" thing as Voltron!

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @09:22AM (#20202729)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by petsounds ( 593538 )
        Actually, no. Voltron took a huge influence from the anime series Gatchaman which ran in the early 1970s. It was the first anime to feature team dynamics, and set up many standard elements of later anime shows. It was produced by Tatsunoko Studios, who also did such early series as Speed Racer and Astro Boy. It was (and still is) a hugely loved series by the Japanese. Gatchaman was later brought to the States in Americanized, no-violence form as "G-Force: Battle of the Planets." Incidentally, Gatchaman i

    • Re:Original (Score:5, Funny)

      by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @10:02AM (#20203009) Journal
      I used to watch Voltron when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I had the toy robot that you could assemble / dissemble etc.

      Around the age of 11 or so the Power Rangers became "huge". Being a young, impressionable kid with no free will I watched it after school with my friends even though I thought it was "total crap". Anyway at that time I had completely forgotten about Voltron yet I KNEW that it was a rip-off of something that I used to watch as a young(er) child.

      I remember absolutely loving Voltron and for years I tried to figure out what that cartoon I used to watch as a kid with the cat-like vehicles that could assemble into one. Every person I described it to, in hopes that they would remember, could only think of "power rangers!" to which I'd respond "no definitely NOT the power rangers ... it was a cartoon!" and they'd just think "err... transformers ? :\"

      It was actually thanks to this /. article that I've discovered ... it was Voltron! :) ... and now, thanks to another poster, I know why the Power Rangers was so similar. Some days it pays it to slack on work and just hang out on /.

      Shit my boss is calling me ... oh well, he'll understand when I tell him "it was Voltron!"

      • Re:Original (Score:4, Funny)

        by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @12:11PM (#20203857) Homepage

        Some days it pays it to slack on work and just hang out on /. Shit my boss is calling me ... oh well, he'll understand when I tell him "it was Voltron!"
        Oddest response to "You're fired, you lazy sonofabitch!" ever...

      • Around the age of 11 or so the Power Rangers became "huge". Being a young, impressionable kid with no free will I watched it after school with my friends even though I thought it was "total crap". Anyway at that time I had completely forgotten about Voltron yet I KNEW that it was a rip-off of something that I used to watch as a young(er) child.

        At the risk of being ridiculously pedantic:

        Power Rangers is not, technically, a rip-off of Voltron. If anything, it's the other way around, but even then "rip-of

    • Re:Original (Score:4, Funny)

      by elh_inny ( 557966 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @11:40AM (#20203641) Homepage Journal
      I highly recommend seeing the Robot Chicken remake:
      http://youtube.com/watch?v=OGNCWxWTGFg [youtube.com]
    • Kids, kids, kids; Voltron/Go-Lion, Power Rangers/Super-Sentai, Robotech: the New Generation/Genesis Climber MOSPEADA; they're all ripping off Science Ninja Team Gatchaman! [wikipedia.org] Tetsunoko came up with the multi-colored-team-of-five (Leader, Hothead, Big-guy, Hot &/or Dangerous Chick, Kid) with unique-vehicles/mechs-that-combine-&/or-dock way back in the 70's and it's been endlessly copied ever since.

      Even Cowboy Bebop follows the Gatchaman Mold, merely omitting the Leader.

  • I believe I'm not alone to still own both Transformers and Voltron toys from the 80's, but somehow Voltron doesn't do me as much as Transformers does.

    I don't know how to explain it, but does anyone feel the same? Or do you think Voltron has a stronger, more emotional and deeper storyline?
    • As an adult, not so much. :(

      The reason is simple. When I sit down to watch the original, I can clearly tell where GoLion was hacked up and spliced with Dairugger XV to give us the story we have. Amazingly, no one is ever killed in an attack. Funny, I thought that guys head just got ripped off? Oh lookie, killer mutant frogs...good thing those are actually just little robots! :\

      Voltron.com had mention of GoLion getting a subtitled, uncut release here in the states this summer, but I've seen no signs of i
      • Speaking of hacked-up hacked-together Japanese anime, I'd love to see Macross or even US-version Robotech on the big screen in live-action, if it were done right anyway. Sadly, I doubt it would be given the proper treatment, and since it's giant transforming mechs it would be called a Transformers ripoff by the clueless masses.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zakezuke ( 229119 )

      I believe I'm not alone to still own both Transformers and Voltron toys from the 80's, but somehow Voltron doesn't do me as much as Transformers does.

      I don't know how to explain it, but does anyone feel the same? Or do you think Voltron has a stronger, more emotional and deeper storyline?

      It's hard to tell as Lion Voltron was a somewhat bastardized version of Hyakujuu Oo GoLion, a series that doesn't seem to exist in a dubbed DVD form. Even worse, the English version, they after a main character died (The prince), they rewrote another 10 or 16 episodes.

      Reviewing "Transformers" I can't say there was really a deep emotional storyline in the English version, but rather it seemed to be a vehicle to sell toys. Voltron is however a better example as an obvious attempt to adapt a short lived che

    • For me, when I first saw it during my early teens, it was the crappy voice acting (the same voice actor for Pidge being used for the Princess' maidens in waiting, with obvious pitch shifting used, resulting in most of them sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks), rewrites (kill all you want, they're just robots after all!), and resulting plot manglings due to said rewrites.

      Then there was the crappy sound effects (nothing could beat the transformer sound effect), and the spectacular soundtrack (oooh, Casioton

  • Good old Holywood (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hine_uk ( 783556 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @08:42AM (#20202495)
    ...a film does well and they start looking for the next easy cashin. Think back to how the recent comic adaptions were kick started by the likes of Xmen, one does well and all of a sudden there is a bandwagon trundling down the hill.

    Now a giant robot film has done well so the bandwagon looks for the next passenger it can send down. Personally I think voltron will tank. Hardly anyone knows what it is and it lacked that 'cool' factor when I was a kid growing up, even my father knew what transformers were then and wanted to see the film now. But Voltron?

    Its over reaching and says straight to dvd.

    I know I know, flamebait, troll, whatever you want but this is just my opinion from the UK, in the US it might be different.

    • Re:Good old Holywood (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @08:53AM (#20202575) Journal
      A comic (whos name I cannot recall now) commented on the amazing popularity of March of the Penguins a couple of years ago. He pointed out that this was a turning point for Hollywood, to see a well-shot documentary with a solid actor doing narration and a storyline to hold the piece together. He felt that with the commercial success of this documentary we would see many more like it in the coming years. Not other documentaries, of course, but lots of penguin movies.

      • Re:Good old Holywood (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @10:45AM (#20203265) Homepage
        <offtopic>
        Actually, "March of the Penguins" was not a Hollywood documentary, but a French production. What's more, having seen both the original French version and the English
        translation, I have to say that all Hollywood did to the movie, by adding the narration of Morgan Freeman, was to destroy one great and original aspect of the film. You see, the French version doesn't have a narrator, but voices for Mother, Father and Baby penguin. It sounds very silly doesn't it? Well, apparently it was very hard to make it good enough, so that it doesn't sound silly, and the translated versions followed the easy route of narration. Now in the original French version, the voice over was done brilliantly so that it does not sound like a "animals are talking" kids movie, but rather an alternate and more "personal" narration that added more feeling to the movie.
        </offtopic>

        On the current topic, I always thought it would be very hard to make a good live action Transformers movie. They pulled it off very well. But Voltron? Come on! From the far-fetched Transformers we are going to ridiculous lion headed fighters (or even worse, lionhead-limbed when combined as Voltron). If you want giant mecha, do Macross or something...

    • Re:Good old Holywood (Score:5, Funny)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @09:06AM (#20202635)
      Gabe and Tycho saw it coming the whole time. Here's 2 approriate comics

      Part 1 [penny-arcade.com]
      Part 2 [penny-arcade.com]
    • As long as they don't find the Voltron parts buried on the ocean floor, preserved in the SUB-FREEZING depths of the OCEAN.

      P.S. If you're reading this, Mr. Bay, I implore you to consider that at least some of your audience has education beyond the 3Rs... or you know, common sense...
    • I think your point is valid. I used to love watching Voltron, but frankly, now that I've seen it twenty years later, it's basically cliché-ridden dreck. Nostalgia doesn't do me any good here. It's quite irritating and predictable.

      I probably said the same thing of Transformers, but I think the recent movie was an improvement on the original. It's decent except that I wish the movie wasn't sponsored by GM.
      • I never liked Voltron. It was dreck to me from day one. But Robotech was spectacular beyond imagination. I remember the first time I tuned into it, and was bowled over by their rich presentation of robot-centric techno-futurism, complete with action, drama and an intriguing backstory. It was like Battlestar Galactica meets Transformers meets Top Gun. Had the best of everything, including some of the best hero moments.

        I would LOVE to see Robotech done as a live-action bigscreen movie.

        And then I would like to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Then why the hell did SIN CITY, a movie that did far betterthan the tripe that was Transformers not spark a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac movie?

      Hollywood only makes movies that do not require hard thinking. Honestly it's so bad lately that I cant wait for the Star wars episodes to start being remade. Oh and a remake of stripes, They already are doing an urban remake of caddy shack.

      This summer is full of cartoons trned into movies and movie remakes. yet anything that would have any risk because it's a new
      • Well, Sin City did well enough to get 300 produced, which also must have made a ton of cash.

        Maybe there's enough money floating around to tempt someone into doing a Frank Miller style Batman movie... drool...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by G-funk ( 22712 )
          Fuck that, if they're going to continue recycling the same old franchises I choose Frank Miller's Robocop over Batman every time.

  • just stop (Score:4, Interesting)

    by radarsat1 ( 786772 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @08:42AM (#20202505) Homepage
    I,Robot, Transformers, all the comic book movies lately.. ... When is the movie industry going stop pissing all over my childhood?

    One would hope that they at least write a decent script this time.
    From the summary though, I doubt it.

    Sorry to be a downer. I just find that this trend of ransacking all our 80's childhood memories is starting to get on my nerves. It feels like they've just made some kind of list, with $$ next to each item, and they will continue down that list until the $$ gets lower than the expenses of creating CG effects. (And the latter is constantly getting lower.)

    They don't pick these movies to make based on good scripts, good ideas, or good director/writers, they are just knocking them down one after the other because people will go see something they have good memories of. They're completely taking advantage of everyone's misplaced hope that the next one will be better, because "that was sooo awesome when I was a kid." (Perhaps they have the right to do so... you can only vote with your wallet.) I went to see Transformers hoping it would be something decent, but these movies are constantly disappointing. (X-Men wasn't bad to be completely honest..)

    I think, this time around, at the very least I'll wait and heed the reviews instead of going to see it on opening day. (The hard part is finding a reviewer that usually agrees with you.)

    • Re:just stop (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @09:36AM (#20202831) Journal
      They don't pick these movies to make based on good scripts, good ideas, or good director/writers, they are just knocking them down one after the other because people will go see something they have good memories of. They're completely taking advantage of everyone's misplaced hope that the next one will be better, because "that was sooo awesome when I was a kid."

      If one single person feels obligated to pay his/her hard earned cash on a movie for that reason alone and then feels "duped" afterwards then they got what they had coming.

      Come on, seriously! I realize it's cliche on /. to bash big money but it's not like they're employing slave labour to produce these films or robbing money right out of people's wallets at gun point. You're talking as if they're exploiting a group of people and forcing them to do something against their will. They're bloody movies! If you don't like them don't go see them. It's really as simple as that.

      Honestly, for a crowd who is so vocal about free speech and copyright law I get the feeling that the same group of people, if given the power, would strip the rights of anyone to make movies based on anything that they feel close to. It's like, they just can't do right. No matter what. Even though Transformers was a huge success you just can't escape the bitching and whining and, in this case, total exagerated teenage drama queen hyperbole about evil corporation raping some childhood memory and forcing you to consume it "mwuhahahahahaha we're rolling in money and it's all at the expense of some Joe Blow's precious childhood interpretation of a corny and cheesy cartoon who's sole purpose was to sell a line of toy's and make massive amounts of money anyway..."

      But then, I supposed it really is the "geek" thing to do. To quote Kevin Smith / Ben Affleck "The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another".

      / rant

      • Honestly, for a crowd who is so vocal about free speech and copyright law I get the feeling that the same group of people, if given the power, would strip the rights of anyone to make movies based on anything that they feel close to. It's like, they just can't do right. No matter what. Even though Transformers was a huge success you just can't escape the bitching and whining and, in this case, total exagerated teenage drama queen hyperbole about evil corporation raping some childhood memory and forcing you to consume it "mwuhahahahahaha we're rolling in money and it's all at the expense of some Joe Blow's precious childhood interpretation of a corny and cheesy cartoon who's sole purpose was to sell a line of toy's and make massive amounts of money anyway..."

        Just because you are for free speech and copyright reform doesn't mean you have to patronize others who enjoy present freedoms. Like with the new transformers movie... you don't have to buy tickets or even enjoy someone else enjoying their freedoms.

        I personally don't care. I'm neither upset nor excited about the transformers flick. It's been 20 years since it was new. If they want to do a Voltron flick, great. It can't be any worse than the series.

    • And after they ransack our 80s memories, they'll pillage our 90s memories. I'd love to see a Starblazers or Robotech movie though.
    • Just think in 10 years you'll be able to see a 'live action' pokemon movie. The best crap is yet in our future I'm afraid.

    • I,Robot, Transformers, all the comic book movies lately.. ... When is the movie industry going stop pissing all over my childhood?
      Cinderella, Snow White, all the classic Grimm tales... I'd say never. Pissing on your childhood is what pays the bills.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chris_Jefferson ( 581445 )

      I,Robot, Transformers, all the comic book movies lately.. ... When is the movie industry going stop pissing all over my childhood?

      When people stop paying money to see the films.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DeepHurtn! ( 773713 )
      I sympathize with you. I really do. (I mean, have you seen the poster for the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie??? [iwatchstuff.com]) But it's worth keeping in mind that all of our precious 80s childhood memories are memories of consumer-culture commodities to begin with. All the Transformer shows, comics, and so forth were *really* just ads for the toys. You're losing perspective if you think they were not exploitative cashgrabs to begin with. These endless remakes (err, reimaginings or whatever they're called these d
    • As long as they leave RoboTech [wikipedia.org] alone I could care less.
      With the way Harmony Gold treats its long forgotten franchise,
      it's not really likely any ways.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aafiske ( 243836 )
      You could always, you know, not go?

      'You're ruining my childhood memories! Here's $11.50, can I have a jumbo popcorn with that too?'

    • I specifically did not see transformers because the previews made look like a joke. A caricature of an action robo-fi movie.

      The clip that made the decision for me was shown on "The Tonight Show." It was about a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan having communications difficulty, and using a cell phone belonging to a hovel-dwelling family, he attempts to contact CIC only to be thwarted by Indian telephone operators with some over-the-top complaint. The scene was edited like a Conan O'Brian sketch, but after a

  • Form blazing sword (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by deniable ( 76198 )
    Anyone want to bet what the last move in the final fight will be.

    For some reason I always liked the vehicle force better. Planet Drool were a more competent enemy than Doom.

    I was home one afternoon and caught the Power Rangers. I swear they were using Volton toys in that show. It sure looked like it.
    • The funny thing is, it's actually the other way around. The first Super Sentai (the live-action rubber-suit series that has provided the grist for all the Power Rangers incarnations) predates GoLions (the Japanese name for the Voltron lion series) cartoon by several years. If anything, it's GoLions that was the "ripoff" (if you can call "Hey, let's use the sentai formula in animation instead of live action) of Sentai. (So was Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets, for that matter.)
  • The original Voltron is a Japanese TV Series.Not a Film.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086824/ [imdb.com]

  • For some reason... (Score:4, Funny)

    by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @09:06AM (#20202645) Homepage Journal
    ...I can't get this sequence from ReBoot [youtube.com] out of my mind when reading the story...
  • Spoiler alert: At the end of the movie, Voltron defeats the Ro-beast using the Blazing Sword.

  • What's next??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ctrl-Z ( 28806 ) <tim&timcoleman,com> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @09:33AM (#20202799) Homepage Journal
    What could possibly follow up a Voltron movie? Thundercats?
  • A lot of you are complaining that they are basically strip mining our childhood and taking these awesome shows and turning them into mediocre movies with big-budget special effects. Well, yea, they are, but I don't think its completely their own fault. We're blaming them for not having decent story lines, but lets think about this for a second. Do you *remember* the story lines these shows used to have? We grew up in a different time back then. Personally, I think it was because we were better at havin
  • How about some Tranzor Z?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tmortn ( 630092 )
      Dottie Fire 1....

      Tranzor Z will be the porno version of Voltron.... that show was hysterical
  • Hollywood will take it upon them selves to create a feature length version of
    Battling Seizure Robots [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Barny ( 103770 )
      Well, they couldn't fuck it up any worse than they did transformers movie, still trying to work out WHY they had so many actual actors in it...
  • I'd watch it if it were Voltes V [wikipedia.org] they were making. It's the first anime I saw that featured vehicles "volting" into each other to form a larger robot. Not to mention I kinda dig the sappy underlying story.
  • ...but fuck Voltron. Where is my Centurions [wikipedia.org] movie?! That one has been overdue for years now!
  • Okay, since no one else has done it yet...

    "I saw it!! It's a lion!! It's huge!!"

  • The Man Who Just... Wasn't (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SpaceToast ( 974230 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @11:53AM (#20203733) Homepage Journal

    Marks on imdb.com [imdb.com]:

    Writer:

    • Voltron (2008) (announced)
    • Masters of the Universe (2009) (pre-production) (screenplay)
    • Unbroken (2003)
    • The Stranger (2003)
    • Fast Forward (2002)

    Producer:

    • Unbroken (2003) (producer)
    • Risk/Reward (2003) (associate producer)
    • The Stranger (2003) (producer)
    • Fast Forward (2002) (producer)

    Miscellaneous Crew:

    • Saved! (2004) (assistant: Sandy Stern)
    • Family Secret (2000) (assistant to director)

    Editorial Department:

    • Family Secret (2000) (assistant editor)

    Basically, Marks self-produced a couple of indy shorts early in the decade, then there's a big gap where he fell off the radar. Hard to say if he was script doctoring, working the business side of the industry, or just had enough money to bum around Hollywood bugging people to read his screenplays. Suddenly he reappears screenwriting two big (the studios hope) franchise relaunches.

    I have to wish him all the luck personally, but resumés like this don't fill me with confidence about the final product.

  • Has anyone else noticed how they use these 3 terms completely interchangably?
    It's really annoying.

  • Up next Go-Bots the Musical (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grapeape ( 137008 ) <mpope7.kc@rr@com> on Sunday August 12, 2007 @12:28PM (#20203991) Homepage
    If Hollywood really has to go after also ran robot properties to create movies why cant they at least go after something semi-repectable like Getter Robo G or Mazinger rather than one of the shows that tried to rip them off?

  • What we really need is the Patlabor 2 movie (Score:3, Interesting)

    by monopole ( 44023 ) on Sunday August 12, 2007 @12:39PM (#20204091)

    One of the best Anime films ever made. In this cereberal political triller, a series of carefully calibrated terrorist attacks with possible military links pushes the civilian goverment of Japan to the verge of collapse. As the Self Defense Forces take to the streets of Tokoyo a small group of police desparately atempt to unravel the secret behind the attacks before a military takeover and near certian American intervention. Made well before 9/11 this film has remarkable resonance today. Giant Robot Alert: Strangely enough there are giant robots (well thought out rescue and crowd control robots, as well as a praticularly neat traffic control robot) at the beginning and end of the movie (if you really don't like robots, just jump ahead to the third chapter, it won't take away from the plot). The robots function in the same manner as the witches in Macbeth: as plot devices which move along the story (what Hitchcock would call a McGuffin), and just as Macbeth is not a story about Witches, this is not a story about robots. If you like Patlabor 2 you may also enjoy Patlabor 1 and Patlabor WXIII.
  • Voltron: The Third Dimension [tv.com] was a sequel to the cartoon and rendered 3D CG, but it was really bad. Is the movie going to be crappy like this one? Here is the introduction on YouTube [youtube.com].
  • Voltron.com [voltron.com]'s make section has Justin Mark's memory flashback about the cartoon and mentions briefly about the movie. Also, there's the pilot episode too to watch online!
  • This film was announced 2 years ago. It's been a work in progress for a while and was planned to be theaters next summer.

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