Voltron Middle Universe (lost unmade adaptation of animated series; dates unknown): Difference between revisions

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{{InfoboxLost
|title=<center>Voltron Middle Universe</center>
|image=Middle Universe Voltron.jpg
|imagecaption=The Defender that never was...
|status=<span style="color:red;">'''Lost'''</span>
}}
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWWmlp9qWr0|320x240|right|The kind of thing we might have seen...|frame}}
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWWmlp9qWr0|320x240|right|The kind of thing we might have seen...|frame}}
[[File:Middle_Universe_Voltron.jpg|thumb|215px|The Defender That Never Was...]]
One of the great, or infamous, depending on the fan's standpoint, anime adaptations of the past thirty years has been the enduring re-edit of ''Beast King Golion'' into the iconic ''Voltron, Defender Of The Universe'', a series far more popular abroad than Golion ever was in Japan. Among many other firsts, it virtually created the combining giant mecha plot in America. At times notorious for its censorship (nearly every character who died in Golion was 'saved' in Voltron through often awkward bits of dubbed dialogue), the series not only showed all 52 re-edited episodes of Golion, but contracted out to Toei for 20 more golion styled animations. When combined with the episodes of Vehicle Voltron (itself a re-dub of another anime, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, with dubbed-over connections between the series), this led to 125 episodes, followed by an original animation special allowing both Voltrons and their teams to actually meet on-screen.
One of the great, or infamous, depending on the fan's standpoint, anime adaptations of the past thirty years has been the enduring re-edit of ''Beast King Golion'' into the iconic ''Voltron, Defender Of The Universe'', a series far more popular abroad than Golion ever was in Japan. Among many other firsts, it virtually created the combining giant mecha plot in America. At times notorious for its censorship (nearly every character who died in Golion was 'saved' in Voltron through often awkward bits of dubbed dialogue), the series not only showed all 52 re-edited episodes of Golion, but contracted out to Toei for 20 more golion styled animations. When combined with the episodes of Vehicle Voltron (itself a re-dub of another anime, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, with dubbed-over connections between the series), this led to 125 episodes, followed by an original animation special allowing both Voltrons and their teams to actually meet on-screen.



Revision as of 02:13, 27 May 2017

Middle Universe Voltron.jpg

The Defender that never was...

Status: Lost

The kind of thing we might have seen...

One of the great, or infamous, depending on the fan's standpoint, anime adaptations of the past thirty years has been the enduring re-edit of Beast King Golion into the iconic Voltron, Defender Of The Universe, a series far more popular abroad than Golion ever was in Japan. Among many other firsts, it virtually created the combining giant mecha plot in America. At times notorious for its censorship (nearly every character who died in Golion was 'saved' in Voltron through often awkward bits of dubbed dialogue), the series not only showed all 52 re-edited episodes of Golion, but contracted out to Toei for 20 more golion styled animations. When combined with the episodes of Vehicle Voltron (itself a re-dub of another anime, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, with dubbed-over connections between the series), this led to 125 episodes, followed by an original animation special allowing both Voltrons and their teams to actually meet on-screen.

But Voltron was to have been a trilogy, with the Vehicles being Voltron 1, Defender Of The Near Universe, and the Lions being Voltron 3, Defender Of The Far Universe. A third series, featuring Voltron Of The Middle Universe, was to have been made, but the stellar success of the Lions combined with the middling success of the Vehicles quickly caused a shift in the focus of World Events Productions that scuttled these plans.

What might have been & what might exist

A third Japanese anime series, Lightspeed Electroid Albegas, also from Toei, was optioned to become the basis for this idea. It featured three robots who combined into one gigantic one. It is unknown what connection the heroes or villains of Albegas would have had to the other two teams, presuming the pattern from Lion and Vehicle Voltron was kept to (Both teams answered to Galaxy Garrison on Earth ; Pidge of the Lion Force was the twin brother of Chip from the Vehicle Force ; Zarkon, the villain of Lions, was very technically a vassal of the Drule Empire from Vehicles ). In keeping with a differing warrior theme, if Lion Voltron resembled a Knight, and Vehicle Voltron a Samurai, this third series would have kept with the look of Albegas' mecha as a Gladiator. Before the planned adaptation was cancelled, Matchbox, a holder of the Voltron toy license, produced Voltron 2, called a Gladiator and described as being the Defender Of The Middle Universe. Bumper video exists of Lion and Vehicle being described as Far and Near Defenders, but this footage contains talk of the Middle Universe only by implication, not by any direct reference or footage.

Original Voltron series writer Marc Handler stated that he started working on the adaptation of Albegas into Voltron, but he had not yet been assigned to do so. WEP never officially started commissioning the adaptation. Handler has not released any details of that work.[1]

But one of the most disappointing things about this is that the original anime version of lightspeed electroid albegas is so incredibly rare that almost no DVDs of it have resurfaced and the last point of interest of this lost anime list is that lion voltron originally was not going to be beast king golion  but a different anime called mirai robo daltanious. The original Japanese dub of it is quite rare but its still popular in Asia and Italy.

References

  1. [1]Let's Voltron podcast episode 9: Original Series Writer Marc Handler (Part 1)