From days of earlier this week, from the Los Angeles, California area of the universe and the YouTube region of the internet, comes an opening scene of an entertainment property of potentially legendary proportions. The original web series and/or feature film of Voltron: The End. (Editor’s aside: All children of the early ‘80s reading really appreciated the construct of this first paragraph.)
Diggnation and Tottally Rad Show co-host Alex Albrecht conceived of and directed the three-minute and 51-second live-action, rebooted iteration of Voltron: Defenders of the Universe. The original anime television series about a super robot with a mission to defend the galaxy from evil whose whole is more powerful than the sum of its lions aired on syndication in the United Sates from September 1984 through November 1985.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Albrecht has a dream to bring back the series with a dark sci-fi spin. After watching the short teaser, I hope that dream comes true.
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Timothy Omundson (who you may know from TV’s Psych or the internet’s The Booth at the End) plays the Commander of the Red Lion who’s suffered through massive head trauma caused by an unidentified “accident” that leaves him with very little time to live. The money shot comes at the end when the camera pans over his busted up ship with a visage that will make any Voltron fan smile.
I caught up with Albrecht over e-mail to ask him how the short got made and if he has aspirations to turn it into a web series or major motion picture by essentially pulling a Kevin Tancharoen.
TF: This Voltron: The End video is awesome! How’d it come to be?
AA: Well I’m a HUGE Voltron fan from when I was a kid and I was looking for something to shoot after I finished my first short Neverland. I’d always heard rumblings of a Voltron movie and was disappointed when it never happened, so this initially was my idea for the opening scene of the live action Voltron movie I’d like to make. Then once it was written, I knew my buddy Tim (Timothy Omundson from Psych) would be perfect for it! I asked, he said yes, then we shot it. With, of course, the production design magic of Greg Aronowitz, the man literally made me a three foot red lion for the last shot…epic!
TF: Are you hoping someone from World Events Productions and/or Classic Media (the companies that own the rights to Voltron) will see the short and then tap you to make an entire whole live-action series?
AA: You know this started out as just a short something fun I could make to show people what I can do behind the camera, but as it came together we all had the same thought “why couldn’t this be a series?!” So I think at this point there could be a series in there somewhere. And it seems like people are interested in the gritty Battlestar Sci-Fi aesthetic, I think Voltron could do well with a live action series.
I think so, too. Check out the video above or here and tell Hollywood how much you’d love to see an unanimated King Zarkon get taken out by five robotic lions.
