Even though the Major Spoilers Crew didn’t care very much for the Transformers 2 movie, giant robots are still a big deal for H’wood. Those of us who were around in 1984 and 1985 remember the tiger-shaped robots that connected to form Voltron. And for those of us who liked Voltron then, the news that a live action Voltron movie should have us jumping around like the boy down the street who got his hands on sugar for the first time.
Atlas Entertainment, the group behind Get Smart, are producing the film that hasn’t found a studio yet. Word is Warner Bros. is hot to trot on Robotech or some other giant robot franchise to counter Paramount’s Transformers hit. While it seems Hollywood is keen on robots, I wonder how many of you are interested in Voltron?
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I’m wondering how they’ll market this since a live action Voltron is fairly indistinguishable from Power Rangers (Super Sentai in Japan), although that might not be an issue much longer since it looks like Disney won’t be continuing the franchise after this season.
I remember people calling PR a Voltron ripoff until I learned the Japanese Super Sentai series predated it by a decade.
I think their 5-10 years too late.
@crood; Well, they do have a common ancestor. Gatchaman.
Yes, but Gatchaman has an actual visual difference from Sentai/Power Ranger and Voltron. Other than exposed faces, how can Voltron visually differentiate itself from Sentai? Heck, even the uniform colors are the Sentai standard (red, blue, pink, green, and yellow). The only variation is that only green and yellow pilot color coordinated lions (The Third Dimension rectified that part).
I’m merely talking about marketing the franchise to a generation that’s only ever seen Power Rangers. Do they embrace the similarity or try to distance themselves (e.g abandon the Sentai-like uniforms and color coded lions).
Last I heard, they were going to have this taker place on a post-Apocalyptic Earth, with the Lions being long-hidden alien artifacts or something that a group of soldiers discover.
So if that’s what they’re going with, hey, that sure separates it from “Power Rangers” or “Gatchaman”, but is it a GOOD idea?
The plot has nothing to do with it. I’m talking about the visual of 5 people in multi-colored uniforms piloting 5 colored vehicles that merge into a giant fighting robots. Now try to market that to a generation of Power Rangers fans.
By the way, the current PR season takes place on a post-Apocalyptic Earth.