Spoilersahead if you’re not caught up with Season 6 ofVoltron.
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to watch Season 6 of Netflix’sVoltron Legendary Defenderin its entirety, because it might just be the best season yet. Not only does the seven-episode run advance the overall story beyond the conflict between the Paladins and Zarkon, it further develops characters on both an individual and relationship basis. Season 6 introduced new characters, mind-bending realities, alien worlds, all-new drama-infused conflicts, and all-out action. But there were also a lot of subtleties to the storytelling and production process that may have escaped even sharp-eyed viewers. And both the dedicatedVoltronfaithful and newcomers to the series alike might have some questions about just what they saw on screen this season.
To that end, we bring you the second part of our chat with showrunnersJoaquim Dos SantosandLauren Montgomery; if you missed the first part or want a spoiler-free catch-up before Season 6,check it out here. (If you are caught up with Season 6 and want to share your thoughts, feel free to do so with ourseason reviewandfinale explainerarticles.) In thisspoilerychat, we talked about freeing up the storytelling space and allowing for more artistic expression in this season, along with more specific plot points like the origin of Keith’s wolf, the newly introduced creatures, the Lotor arc (and whether or not his Sincline ship will be available in toy form; fingers crossed), the D&D-inspired episode, and Easter eggs. There’s a lot of good stuff here, so let’s get to it!
Season 6 feels like the first season that really has room to breathe beyond the conflict with Zarkon. How much freedom did tying off that storyline grant you?
Joaquim Dos Santos: I think Lotor in general was sort of a breath of fresh air, just seeing that conflict through a very different lens. It wasn’t black-and-white like it was with the Paladins and Zarkon, there was a bit of gray area there. That alone as a storytelling element has just been a breath of fresh air and allowed us to stretch our legs a bit.
Lauren Montgomery: Yeah, for sure, taking Zarkon out of the equation did actually free us up a little bit. Early on, we had these ideas of certain episodes we entered into the storyline but when we looked at it we found that, “Does this really fit if Zarkon is constantly pursuing them? Where are they finding the time to do this?” Having this nice moment where things have kind of settled down, they’re actually working towards peace now and they don’t have this person constantly pursuing them, it does allow for the team to kind of breathe a moment. We did take advantage of that and just have a little fun with the characters while we could, because nothing ever stays the same for long. We knew we were going to ramp things up again.
Areas like the Quantum Abyss and episodes like “Monsters & Mana” really let the artists and writers let their talent shine. How gratifying was that for you and your team?
Dos Santos: It’s incredibly gratifying. In particular, with the Quantum Abyss, we had been looking forward to, early on, telling some backstory for some of the characters. That was a story high point for us and we were really eagerly anticipating that. We had to kind of shift some things around due to scheduling, so when we finally got to the point, both from a visual perspective and a story perspective, I know the Quantum Abyss was kind of exciting for everybody, story and art. I think it’s a testament to the show itself. When you look at even the way the designers here just handle like what the representation of a planet is, it’s not always just a circle; we’re always trying to push things in a different direction.
Montgomery: “Monsters & Mana” was just kind of a huge love letter to all of the video games, tabletop games, and just the fun elements that we love about that stuff. We pulled a ton of references, we sent it over to our designers, we let the designers kind of be influenced by that and have fun with it and come up with these crazy character designs for not only the alter egos of our Paladins but also populating that world. It was a ton of fun. Just seeing the designs come back from overseas and seeing what they’d come up with, it was just a breath of fresh air for everyone to be able to do something that was out of the norm for the series. It was invigorating.
Dos Santos: We kept saying to each other during the edit of that episode in particular, “Let’s make this show! This show seems really fun, let’s keep making this show.” It was time for us to geek out and have fun with the stuff.
Montgomery: The director Steve In Chang Ahn really went to the ends of the Earth to bring that episode home.
Quick question: Do you have creature names for the space whales or the teleporting wolf? And was the wolf inspired at all by the weird Wolf Keith fan-fiction out there?
Dos Santos: It wasn’t! I hate to say it, but sometimes we’re just like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Keith had a wolf?”
Montgomery: It’s kind of that, more for Joaquim, that boy fantasy of like Snake-Eyes had a wolf.
Dos Santos: Timber, yeah.
Montgomery: And even in theMetal Geargame most recently where you can have your dog companion.
Dos Santos: D-Dog, yeah.
Montgomery: And, you know, having an animal companion likePrincess Mononokehas always been a cool thing. This show is just us putting a lot of the cool things in it. So Keith got a dog. [laughs]
Dos Santos: Visually, I think it was inspired a little bit byOkami, the shadow version of the wolf fromOkami.
Montgomery: I think the space whales were probably just called…
Both: Space whales, yeah. [laughs]
Montgomery: I’m sure someone out there can come up with a much better name for them.
Dos Santos: Well, we didn’t need them. Like the Balmera needed a name because they were so story-centric, but the space whales…
Montgomery: There just wasn’t a need.
Dos Santos: Yeah.
Montgomery: The dog will have a name! But we don’t want to spoil it for you.
Sometimes it’s funny to try to figure out what came first: The fan-fic or the canon.
Dos Santos: Oh, we get it. I think, honestly, that speaks to the fact that, ultimately at the end of the day, we’re fans ourselves. So when those lines get blurred … we saw fan-fic come out of Keith unwrapping his knife in Season 1 and, before we revealed it to have the Blade of Marmora symbol, somebody had done it with the Galra symbol on there. We were like, “Oh man! They totally understand us!” We’re all really the same people.
Which fight sequence was more difficult to bring to life: Keith vs Clone Shiro or the Paladins vs Lotor’s RoBeast?
Dos Santos: They were tough. I mean, that Keith/Shiro episode in general was a monster, just because we dealt with technical issues on the backend, from an episodic place.
Montgomery: Generally I tend to hand the “Most Difficult” ribbon to the things that have the most moving pieces, and that would be Lotor vs all of the Paladins, but Owen Sullivan is the storyboard artist who handled that Keith vs Shiro fight and he really hit it out of the park.
Dos Santos: What you see on screen is what was storyboarded first time out. We had one pass of notes, but the notes were like, “You did a great job, Owen! Keep going!”
Montgomery: Not to take away at all from he did, because it’s not an easy task, especially with something as large as that where there are so many different levels and keeping all that stuff straight and just the sheer destruction of the facility…
Dos Santos: And making sure it still felt personal. At the end of the day, you can have all the fight you want, but if you don’t care about the characters themselves the struggles they’re going through … he hit it on all cylinders.
That’s a hard question because we dealt with struggles from different ends, so I’d have to agree with Lauren: The more moving parts, the harder.
Is it fair to say there was someAkirainspiration for that fight?
Dos Santos: Yeah, I think there was that. I will say, in my heart of hearts, again going back to like, “Hey, let’s put a wolf in because wolves are awesome,” there was a big sort ofEmpire Strikes Backinfluence, when you think about Luke and Darth Vader fighting at the Bespin facility. All that stuff is in there. When you’re boarding, when you’re writing, all the way down the line, you’re a product of your influences. We put all that stuff in there.
Will I be able to buy the Sincline ships that transform into Lotor’s RoBeast?
Montgomery: [laughs] I actually don’t know the answer to that question. I would love to. I also would like to buy the Sincline ships and transform them, but we’ll probably have to find out at the same time if that actually happens.
Dos Santos: We’re officially in the same target time frame as you guys are in terms of knowing when that’s going to drop.
How excited were you to reveal that they do transform?
Montgomery: It was awesome. Ultimately, we had to draw the big guy first and then we had to work backwards to get the others. It was really exciting to finally be able to unveil this awesome design that we were really, really proud of. Christine Bian had put a ton of work into this friggin’ sweet tail … that was really what we were waiting for the whole time.
What’s in been like to see Lotor’s introduction, re-imagination, and ultimately alienating his allies?
Dos Santos: The initial idea behind this incarnation of Lotor was that you wanted to be able to look back on everything he said and see that there was a hint of truth to everything; every manipulation that he had, there was a hint of truth there. Maybe he snaps at the end, but when he’s pleading with Allura, if she had said, “Alright, let’s do this,” I believe he would have been like, “Okay, great! This is working out. Plan’s coming together.”
Montgomery: Lotor is a product of his upbringing and he grew up in the Galra Empire, so his method for going about things may not be as beautiful and peaceful as the Alteans, but his intentions were true. The funny thing is, had Allura reacted differently, it could have been an extremely different ending. But emotions were high and what Lotor did was unacceptable to her, so…
Dos Santos: But in the real world, you best believe that unions were made of much more despicable people with people who were probably good people, so there is a version, I’m sure, where it worked out between the two of them. Ultimately, he’s a super tragic character.
What sorts of conflicts and resolutions can we expect in Season 7 should the Voltron team make it back to Earth?
Montgomery: Yeah, you got it right. Pidge clearly says at the end of that episode, “My dad has a plan and we’re going home.” So we know they’re definitely on their way home; we don’t know exactly how long it’s going to take them to get there. We know they’re currently in the solar system of Daibazal and Altea, and that’s a pretty far way away. They don’t have the castle to wormhole them with, so don’t expect it to be an immediate arrival, but it’ll definitely be an interesting journey.
More of a road trip?
Dos Santos: I think wormholes are a big indication that it’ll take longer than the usual trip.
Any Easter eggs that you can tease or point viewers towards?
Dos Santos: We have like a million of them in the D&D episode alone.
Montgomery: Yeah, the D&D episode is literally just like an episode full of Easter eggs from every RPG, from PlayStation, Nintendo, etc. There is one pan-up of the patrons in the tavern that is kind of a funny caricature of a lot of the crew members. Dos Santos: Even on the bigger level, if you sort of took the weird, base, creepy version of what Lotor was in the original series and how he was obsessed with Allura, I think even that is its own kind of Easter egg. He genuinely in this version, I don’t want to say the “right” version of that storyline… We did our version of that. We didn’t trash that Lotor completely because you may see …
Dos Santos: The throughline, yeah.
Montgomery: A version of that guy exists in this story.
Dos Santos: We made sense of it and didn’t just make him a full-on creeper dude who was obsessed.
Montgomery: Probably the biggest Easter egg, I don’t know if we refer to it by name, but Lotor’s ship is called the Sincline, which is actually what Lotor’s name was inBeast King GoLion.
