And I'll Form ... The Head!

I found this review of the Voltron movie script and, my God, it sounds absolutely terrible! The cool thing about Voltron (or at least the Golion version of Voltron, as opposed to vehicular Voltron) was the way it blended fantasy and sci-fi. But this review of the script makes it sound like it’s been made over into just another generic, humdrum, post-apocalyptic drab-fest.

I understand that the cheesier elements would have to be removed. I’m not an advocate of slavish devotion to source material; Harry Potter fans who cry foul when quidditch matches are ever so slightly changed between book and film adaptation strike me as being more than just a little zealous. But from the sound of it, the writer of the Voltron screenplay has simply taken Escape from New York and added giant robots to it.

The guy who reviewed the screenplay absolutely wet himself over it, declaring it to be the best thing since sliced Robeast. But I was a little sceptical, given that in the span of one sentence he used the words “dope” and “whack” in a completely non-ironic manner. That sets off alarm bells in itself.

But then we’re treated to the “hardcoring” of all the characters. The leader of the Voltron force, Keith, was always a stalwart, highly ethical guy; the prototypical leader, along the lines of Cyclops from X-Men. Being that I always related to that kind of uptight character, he was my favourite, but most people preferred Lance, the smart-alec ladies’ man who had as much animosity with Keith as he did respect and friendship.

But in this script Keith is some sort of badass mamajamma, sporting all manner of tattoos and ill-manners. And Lance is played as nothing more than comic relief. The setting has been moved from the alien planet of Arus to an Earth that’s been invaded by an alien force, and all the main characters are the survivors of this event. The reviewer makes constant comparisons to the Mad Max movies.

Essentially all of the fantastical elements have been stripped from the script, replaced instead with pessimism and “gritty realism”. It reminds me a great deal of Batman Begins, a movie that, while I enjoyed it, leaned far too heavily on establishing everything as “real”, and completely jettisoned any of the more fun or theatrical elements of the Batman character.

Grant Morrison wrote that “Only a bitter little adolescent boy could confuse realism with pessimism”. There have been a number of genre adaptations that have made this mistake (or at the very least there have been a lot of aborted adapted screenplays that have) and from the sounds of it this Voltron script is a prime example of it.

Not that I really mind that much. I was of course curious when the news was announced that a live action Voltron movie was in the works; it was a property that I really enjoyed as a kid. Does it surprise me that, from the sounds of it, they’re on the path of completely fucking it up? No, not really. Does it disappoint me? Sure. I think a Voltron movie that made some real attempt to capture the spirit of the original series would make for some great entertainment. But I don’t care so much that I can muster any sense of outrage.

I still reserve that for Batman & Robin.