Voltron
Trilogy
There's plenty of evidence
that shows that Voltron was originally supposed to be a Trilogy. If
you watch the Lion Force or Vehicle Team pilot segments on the Media
Blasters DVD's, you can see that there were intents to bundle three
robot cartoons together. Watching them, though, shows that the idea
of the Voltron Trilogy changed a couple times before they were paired
down to a duo.
In one combination, Voltron
would have been Dairugger XV (Vehicle Team), Daltanius, and Albegas,
but when a GoLion episode was shipped instead of Daltanius, Albegas
was swapped out for GoLion. Dairugger XV was always intended to be
"Voltron I" according to the various "Voltron Trilogy"
pilot segments that were recently published on the Media Blasters
DVD's. But what ever became of Daltanius?
Daltanius is rumored to have
been cobbled together into a Voltron pilot episode that was supposedly
aired in California and Hawaii, but if you watch the footage (easily
obtainable on Youtube today), it looks dated compared to the Voltron
we know today. It's easy to understand why this robot were dropped.
Had the animation style been closer to GoLion, Daltanius as a robot
design would have complimented the Dairugger XV/GoLion duo nicely.
But when the GoLion series
took off as "Voltron III", the Matchbox toylines hit the
shelves, and there was Albegas branded as "Voltron II" (along
side Dairugger XV as "Voltron I"). The numerical names for
the Lions and Vehicles were consistent with the pilot segments, but
it was apparent that Daltanius was swapped out in favor of Albegas.
According to an interview with Marc Handler on Anime World Order,
an episode of Albegas had been written for the Voltron series, but
as we all know, reduced popularity of the Vehicle Team led World Events
to order a second season of the Lions from Toei instead of moving
forward with Albegas. Thus, Albegas as Voltron II was lost.
Today the Voltron website acknowledges
Albegas as the intended "Voltron II", which is consistent
with the Matchbox toy line releases. If you watch the Vehicle Team episodes,
you can almost see the plot lines where Voltron II would have been woven
in: references to the Terra Base (possible the homeworld of Voltron
II), the failed experiments to reproduce Voltron based on the work of
the late Dr. Loring (an easy tie-in). All that would be missing are
the names of the new characters and the relationship between the Derringer
and the Drules. Perhaps one of the three Gladiator pilots would have
been related to another of the Voltron Force charcters. What would have
been is either locked in the minds of Marc Handler & Peter Keefe,
or was never really finalized. The rest is fair game for fan fiction
writers.
