Alright boys, time to suit up.
Shiro: Defenders of the universe, huh? It's got a nice ring to it.
An Earth mission to the moon Kerberos goes awry when aliens intervene. One year later, a group of rookie space academy students and one dropout look into a mysterious meteor crash, and signals pointing to something called "Voltron".
Tropes:
- Activation Sequence: After the new Paladins awaken Allura and Coran, the castle begins reactivating, as different sections power themselves up and the lights come on.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: To keep Voltron from falling into the hands of the Galra Empire, the Lions that form it were hidden across the galaxy save for the Black Lion, which was sealed in the castle so that it can only be released if it is reunited with the other four.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Coran mentions days whereas throughout the rest of the series he uses Altean units of time.
- This, along with years being mentioned could be due to the fact that days and years are relative terms for any given celestial body.
- Everyone Meets Everyone: And everyone meets their lions!
- Falling into His Arms: Allura is caught by Lance after her 10,000 years of cyro-sleep much to his delight.
- Five-Episode Pilot: At 1 hour and 8 minutes, this debut episode is technically three episodes strung together.
- Free-Sample Plot Coupon: The quest to unite the five Lions is made easier by the fact that the gang already found the Blue Lion on Earth, and the Black Lion is sealed in the Castle of Lions.
- Gilligan Cut: While Pidge and Shiro land on a peaceful planet who's natives are eager to show them to the Green Lion, Pidge wonders if Hunk and Lance are having as easy a time. Cut to the two of them screaming their heads off as Galra forces are on the planet the Yellow Lion is on, too.
- Instant Expert: Subverted, it takes some time for everyone to figure out their Lions and when they do form Voltron, its combat is extremely straight forward and blunt compared to the abilities the team will discover later.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Lance, Pidge and Hunk start screaming this when they notice Keith was going to drive their vehicle over a cliff. Keith responds with a nonchalant "Yep" as he speeds up.
- Hunk also says this to Lance when the other tells him he'll be dropped down to where the Yellow Lion was.
- Say My Name: Lance yells Hunk's name when a missile fired at the cave the Hunk was in hits and collapses the entrance.
- Seen It All: Unfazed by the creature beckoning Pidge and Shiro to get on its boat, Shiro replies that he'd been locked up by aliens for a year so this was nothing.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: This is how Keith gets rid of Galra soldiers that try to attack him in the bay where the Red Lion is. Red waits until Keith also gets thrown out before finally deciding to help him out.
