Netflix Forms Third Season of Voltron: Legendary Defender

CBR

By Brandon Staley

Published Feb 23, 2017

The streaming service will release a third season of the anime revival show, along with additional Season 2 content and the original series.

Ready to form Season 3! Let's go, Voltron Force!

Netflix’s animated “Voltron: Legendary Defender” has been renewed for another season. The show, which is a revival of the ‘80s animated series “Beast King GoLion” and “Voltron: Defender of the Universe,” is produced by DreamWorks Animation and will add a third season atop the two already available on the streaming service.

The news came out of New York Toy Fair; as reported by Den of Geek, a poster at the event revealed Netflix's intent to continue on with the series. The show’s third season will also be preceded by additional season two content, the exact nature of which is unknown at this moment but will appear before Easter. The season two content is expected to be spread out through the summer.

According to the poster, the third season will consist of 13 episodes that will premiere on Netflix in September 2017. News out of New York Toy Fair also revealed that DreamWorks Animation has a 78-episode “Voltron: Legendary Defender” deal with Netflix, so that’s roughly six full seasons of connected dyna-therms for fans eager to keep their infra-cells up.

New “Voltron: Legendary Defender” figures were also on display at the event, as well as news that episodes of the original “Voltron: Defender of the Universe” series would be making their way to the streaming service. The classic run will consist of ten episodes due to premiere in March. The episodes will also include additional content, the exact nature of which was left ambiguous, though the original run of “Voltron: Defender of the Universe” was heavily edited from its source material when localized for Western audiences.

“Voltron: Defenders of the Universe” aired from September, 10 1984 until November 18, 1985 and consisted of two seasons. The show’s first season was adapted from the anime “Beast King GoLion,” while the second season was adapted from the completely unrelated “Armored Fleet Dairugger XV.” Characters, continuity and plot from both source shows were heavily edited to produce the resulting “Voltron: Defenders of the Universe,” which was created by Peter Keefe and John Teichmann.

Peter Keefe and John Teichmann licensed the material from the original shows, but had no way of translating the plot from Japanese to English. Instead, they hired writer Jameson Brewer to construct all-new plot and dialogue. The more violent scenes from “Beast King GoLion” and “Armored Fleet Dairugger XV” were also scrubbed in the localization process.

Debuting in September, the third season of “Voltron: Legendary Defender” is a production of DreamWorks Animation starring Tyler Labine as Hunk, Jeremy Shada as Lance, Bex Taylor-Klaus as Pidge, Kimberly Brooks as Allura, Rhys Darby as Coran, Josh Keaton as Shiro, Steven Yeun as Keith and Neil Kaplan as Emperor Zarkon.