Voltron
III: Origins
By now, we all know what
happened. World Events lined up Dairugger XV, Daltanious, and Albegas
(in that order) to be localized as "Voltron," and to kick
things off, WEP requested, "the one with the lion," and
Golion got shipped instead of Daltanious. This of course ended up
being the best mistake for everyone involved!
When you watch the pilot
trailer to Voltron, you can see that Daltanious was still in position
for the #2 slot, but if you look closely at the footage for Voltron
III, you can see a mysterious black robotic hand forming a sword before
the lion robot comes sweeping out of the sky. Golion had booted Albegas
from the #3 slot. As for how Daltanious got swapped for Albegas in
the #2 slot by the time the toys came out...? Who knows.
There are a few differences
between the first Lion pilot episode and the finished series. The
most notable is that the main setting is known as Planet Nim instead
of Planet Arus. The next is that Castle Doom had another name in the
pilot, that being "Darkstone Castle." We only learn this
via on-screen text. Throughout the remainder of the series, "Castle
Doom" is used instead. Well, except for Episode 52, where Keith
uses the original name. So, forget what I was saying.
We also all know that the
series was adapted from Beast King Golion, but without the added footage
from Dairugger XV, we would not have gotten Voltron as we know it
today. Why? Because there was no concept of a Galaxy Alliance in Golion.
Even though the additions were minimal, they altered the story in
a way that made the Voltron universe bigger than it would have been
without it.
Of course, it was the Lion
Force that won the day. Whenever we think of "Voltron" we
think of the five robot lions and nothing else. I'm not exactly mad
about this. Granted, I don't fall into "the other Voltron sucked"
camp, but if it weren't for the Lion Force's staying power, we wouldn't
still be talking about Voltron today as a pop culture icon. Had Toei
sent Daltanius as requested, there's no telling how things would have
turned out, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been the same.
