Knights of Light PT. I and II Edits

 Knights of Lights edits found upon rewatch

While I made my main analysis of Voltron, I rewatched the show many times in order to gather evidence to support my arguments. I actually enjoyed myself a lot, because I haven't watched Voltron since January 2019, when I couldn't finish my rewatch of The Black Paladins episode, and I effectively swore off the show after that. But when I rewatched it again, I didn't mind it as much, mostly because I could finally put my finger on why it bothered me. I even enjoyed season 7 as an isolated season, even though I didn't think it was a very cohesive continuation from season 6. But during this round of rewatching, I couldn't finish season 8 at all, because, having watched Voltron now in one sequence (more than once), the errors of season 8 stood out to me even more glaringly than before, and it was painful to watch a show that was so brilliant in its storytelling completely disintegrate before my very eyes. I called it off at Knights of Lights Pt. II, because I simply couldn't take it anymore. The dialogue was horrendous. I mean, Zarkon says Keith is a good leader because of his Galra heritage. Come on! That line is the literal antithesis to the whole point of the show.

 

Then, vldunchartedregions told me to finish the season, because I may find clues to the season being edited, like I did with the Black Paladins Episode. And well, I was already feeling incredibly demoralised from watching the very inconsistent storyline, so I thought, what the heck, I already know it sucks, might as well see what they mean.

 

And boy... when I tell you I found edits immediately.

 

First edit we have is already within the first minute of the episode: 

 

[01:57]

Lance never finishes speaking here, which is very odd. Voltron usually lets the character finish their thought, or they bring it up again later. But we never hear what Lance has to say here. Dialogue was cut.

 

 [2:40]

Here, Lance's skintone is VERY inconsistent with his skintone in the previous scene. It is much darker. Furthermore, Allura's face is disproportional to her usual face structure. Her lashes are shorter and her cheek is rounder. Compare the still frames to the very first scene of this episode:

 

 

Lance also looks hella pissed, which makes me think it has something to do with the dialogue we didn't hear in the hospital bedroom. They most likely had a fight about the entity, started by Lance's doubts.

Keith's hair is shorter here than it usually is in season 8. His hairstyle here looks much closer to season 4/5 rather than season 8. Compare the stills:

 

 

[Season 5, Episode 5, Bloodlines, 04:11]

 

[Season 8, Episode 1: Launch Date, 14:45]

 

In the sunset scene, Keith's hair reaches past his collar, but in this scene, which is months after the sunset scene takes place, his hair barely touches his collar. He is also missing his extra hair tuft on his left bang, and the extra hair tuft underneath his left ear. 

 

Keith's face is also younger and softer compared to his s8 counterpart.

[Episode 8, Clear Day]

His hair is again shorter here, as well.

 

That means the whole scene was added post/mid-production, or it was reanimated. They most likely used past animation skeletons to quickly reanimate this scene, their expressions and their mouth animation. I suspect the cause is due to their seating arrangements:

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to have Lance sit next to Keith and Pidge, since he's the Red Lion, and thus the other arm? Or Coran to sit on the other side of Allura? I have a suspicion they spliced together dialogue from other scenes or the original scene, or added dialogue post-production, mostly because of what Allura says here:

 

 

Well... that's not what Lance said, is it? Lance said he didn't like using Allura, because it would be dangerous for her. But Allura is arguing as if Lance thinks no one should go. "It has to be us." instead of "It has to be me." Wouldn't it make more sense for Allura to say, "Lance, I am the only one who knows the secrets of Oriande. It has to be me." ???

 

Yes. I think it would.

 

Furthermore, Allura's face looks a bit more... masculine. She looks much more like Keith here, than she looks like herself.

 

EDIT: And look at this frame:

 [04:06]

Allura's hair continues into Lance's forehead. They didn't completely erase Allura's animation in this frame, and you can see it by Lance's hair too. parts of his hair are erased, and blend into Allura's hair. This is a very strange case of mistakes in animation. Voltron is sually very high quality when it comes to animation, which makes me think even more that this scene was NOT animated by the same animation team as the rest of the season/series.

 

Then we have this shot:

Everyone's faces here are extremely out of style. Coran's chin is much broader than usual, Allura's face is disproportional and Lance's eyes are much smaller than usual, as well as his skintone being much darker here again as well. It almost matches Allura's skintone, which it usually doesn't. Compare to this frame from the previous episode, Clear Day:

Furthermore, the way this scene is animated is out of style as well:
 

This is not Voltron's usual animation style. It is very stilted and stiff.

 

Next we have this frame of Lance:

 

umm.... who the hell is this ToT Lance has NEVER looked like this EVER in Voltron. I have no idea who the hell this is supposed to be.

 

Compare to this shot of him from Part II:

I furthermore suspect the lines, "Besides, the team will have our sharpshooter there to keep us safe." - "I knew that nickname was gonna catch on one of these days." were added and were not a part of the original scene.

 

Keith's hair here is too short again... They most likely changed his facial expression as well, considering previous facial expressions of his in front of Allura and Lance:

 

[Season 8, Episode 7: Day Forty-Seven, 14:43]

 [Season 8, Episode 8: Clear Day, 05:51]

 

Both of these times, Keith is frowning deeply. Yet here he is smiling... and these were literally the prior episode and the episode before that... 

when they all lock their bayards in, I also saw this...

[05:35]

 

okay... Hunk and Pidge match but... For some reason, in this shot Keith is wearing black armour. I found this very odd. It may have just been a mistake, or it may have been a reused shot from season 4/5, but... yeah, it's still weird. I can't figure out why they would reuse an old shot unless it was edited, but it seems a weird thing to edit.

 

EDIT: I found out where this shot is reused from. It is a reused shot from Season 5, Episode 3: Postmortem at [18:05]

[Season 5, Episode 3: Postmortem, 18:05]

 

And so is the following shot of Lance ToT

 Then I also find something else curious. As they enter the void, the camera focuses on Lance:

[05:36]

Yup, that is the Red Lion and yup that is Lance with his blue armour and his red bayard. But then, once we enter the void...
 

[05:40]

We open on Allura and zoom out from her eyes. Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on Allura as we enter the void?? why did we focus on Lance?? I'm not saying any of this was edited, I just find it an odd choice. 

EDIT: this whole sequence of Allura opening her eyes is taken straight from Season 5, Episosde 3. Compare the gifs...

 

 I mean... c'mon ToT !!!

 

Then we have this very odd exchange between Lance and Allura:

[07:37]

Ummmm, Lance, didn't we just talk about this? This was the whole purpose of coming out here. It seems very redundant for him to say this here, not to mention out of character. Once Lance is on board with something, he is on board 100%. I suspect this is what they were going to say and talk about in the hospital room, coupled with what Allura said in the conference room. Their discussion about this was spliced up and distributed across the episode. Look at how well the conversation flows when I put all their lines together:

 

Allura: "I believe we can use it."

Lamce: "Use it? I..."

Coran: "[...] This is the path of darkness."

Allura: "It is the path towards defeating Honerva."

Lance: "I don't like the idea of using [you] like this."

Allura: "Lance, [I am the only one who can face Honerva/only one who knows the secrets of Oriande.] It has to be [me]."

Lance: "It's too dangerous. Honerva is gonna use the connection to find us, to find you."

Allura: "No, this is how we are going to find her."

Wouldn't it make more sense if they had this conversation like this in the hospital room ??? It makes no sense to bring this up again here, so out of context.

 

Okay, I'm just going to point out moments that made me go hmmm... Look at this gif:

[09:00]

As you can see, Keith's eyes start to widen just as we transition away from him. This is very odd. It's almost like he was going to say something more than we heard... Why did they animate his eyes widening just to cut away? Possibly, they cut some of his dialogue here...

 

The following is not an edit, but notice how they're aligned. Red and Blue together and Yellow, Green and Pink together.

 

[10:05]

Here's a close-up of their alignment.

 

 

We clearly have Lance, Keith and Pidge forming a triangle of sorts as they fly, with Pidge next to Hunk and to Keith's right, but when they land...

 

 

[10:15-10:18]

Lance and Pidge's positions are switched from their dot positions. Everyone else stands exactly as their dots positions, except for Lance and Pidge. But look at this shot:

 

[10:27]

Now, Pidge is to Keith's left and Lance is to Keith's right. And Hunk and Allura were switched, too.

[10:34]

That means this:

[11:03]

was originally supposed to look like this:

 

 

Keith was originally going to cling onto Lance, but they switched Pidge and Lance's positions, and they switched Hunk and Allura's positions, to have Lance reach for Allura instead, and have Keith cling on to Pidge.

  

In fact, when they cling to Allura...

 Lance all of a sudden has eyelashes...??

 

And here:

Pidge's arm reaches to about Keith's waist, having her upper body almost completely submerged.

 

But then here...

 

 

[11:05]

 

It still reaches his mid-riff, almost to his chest, even though her head is almost submerged... and here:

 

[11:08]

 

Her arm is much bigger proportionally to her head. Those are not Pidge's proportions. She was most likely traced over Lance's proportions, when they switched their positions.

Keith also activates his blaster form for his bayard, when he loses hold of "Pidge's" hand:

 [11:22]

The only other paladin who has a blaster for their bayard, is Lance. This was possibly meant to emphasise Keith's connection to Lance, the same way Lance's sword form is an emphasis to Lance's connection to Keith. Thus, if Keith lost Lance, it would make more sense that he uses his gun here, right? That's certainly interesting... why would they need to switch Lance and Pidge's positions unless... it had some sort of deeper meaning that they had to cut out??? hmmm...

Then, we open on Pidge, because that's who Keith lost, right? But Pidge's astral plane contains something we've seen before...

[11:42]

 Red and Blue stars. Not only that but...

[Season 2, Episode 7: Space Mall, 15:53]

 that is the Black Lion's consciousness from season 2. Like as in, copy pasted... with a green filter.

And since we now know Lance and Pidge were supposed to be switched, that means Lance was supposed to wake up in the Black Lion's astral plane. The following gif supports this:

The animation is out of style. As you can see, they also animated her collar, her helmet and her hair when she gasps. If you've read my analysis on the Black Paladin's episode, you know that this is a telltale sign of rushed reanimation:

And to completely obliterate the "breathing heavily" excuse, compare to the previous scene of Keith who is also breathing heavily:

We were supposed to open on Lance waking up in the Black Lion's consciousness, but they reanimated him into Pidge, and spliced her audio to match.

Okay, I have to point something out here that's been bothering me...

Look at what Blaytz says about himself in relation to his Lion:

[18:41]

ummmm, sorry, but that sounds incredibly similar to what LM said about Lance being chosen by the Blue Lion:

“but really the Blue Lion is kind of like the mother Lion. She looks for potential in a new pilot. Something to nurture and foster. And I think she saw that in Lance. She saw someone who needed confirmation that they were valuable to this team. Even though they didn’t believe it in themselves.”

AND Allura said that thing about greatness to Lance:

[Season 5, Episode 3: Postmortem, 09:34]  

No one has ever overlooked Allura, because she's the literal princess and leader of the coalition. It makes no sense for Blaytz to say this to Allura, who can't relate. In fact, the one who has been overlooked this whole series is Lance. I'm not saying that anything was edited here post-production, but this is just really odd, and I had to point it out. If it was edited, it was either rewritten or this is an old audio added to the new audio.

Alfor's line also bothers the heck out of me, because it reduces Lance to a doting love-interest whose only personality trait is being in love with the hero. And the only thing I can really point to as proof, is the fact that that isn't Alfor's original voice actor, from season 1. But they haven't used him since season 1 either, so it's flimsy evidence at best. If it was edited, it was edited pre-production, as in they rewrote the line before they recorded it. I can't say whether it replaced any pre-existing dialogue, because I can't find evidence in the audio that this is the case.

Next we have this:

[19:59]

Firstly, the shot cuts just before Keith looks at the Red Lion, which could mean nothing, but given how they seem to cut out every instance of Lance and Keith together, it starts to feel suspicious. 

Secondly, Keith turns here to look at the lions, but then when we see him from behind the legs, he is just turning. This is very odd and inconsistent. Something was most likely cut in between these two shots, or they were rearranged for whatever reason.

Also notice how when Keith says, "you guys are alright," he's looking directly at Lance:

 Meaning his beaming face here:

 

Is because of, and for, Lance. Most likely, they cut Lance calling Keith's name, because just as Keith turns in the above gif, Lance's legs overlap him.

 In Part II, I spotted this:

based on how they're positioned, that means this:

[07:06]

Is Lance. But... why is his armour Green?? Look, I even made these swatches to show you they are almost exactly the same color

except the one to the right is a little bit lighter. But otherwise, they are the exact same hue. And it's not the lighting, because here:

There is a clear difference despite it being the same lighting. This may have been another case of Lance and Pidge being swapped... Lance was meant to be positioned next to Keith, here, again.

EDIT: I started thinking about this episode again, and in fact, I did miss another instance of out-of-style shot here:

[09:00-09:24]

Keith and Lance don't look like they usually do with their helmets on. You can tell mostly by their hair. Compare to these shots from part I

 

Keith's hair is much longer in the shot above, and Lance has too much space between his helmet and his head.

And then... I have to point this out here:

 

[09:37]

I didn't find this myself, this was pointed out to me by vldunchartedregions, but when I saw it for myself in this episode, I recognised it immediately. Sorry, but could they make it more obvious that the lightning spells out Lance ??? I didn't even try at all to spell it out of the lightning, like I just followed the flow of them. Also, none of the other lightnings look anything like that, so it's not a coincidence.

like... c'mon.

I have no idea what it means though, I'll let vldunchartedregions explain that one.

And we have yet another instance of Lance and Pidge switching places...

[15:32]

 

[15:42]
 

 [16:10]

And then switched again ToT

 [17:11]

and again...

[17:52]

honestly, at this point I'm starting to think the animators wanted to clue us in here. Like "hey !!!! look!!! Pidge and Lance keep switching places !!! please notice that !!!"

And here:

 Keith and Lance have switched places...

Then we have something odd happening in the dialogue. Lance asks Allura if she's okay directly:

 But then... he asks her again, but with Hunk's exact inflection, as if he's just now remembered her, like Hunk did:

I urge you to listen for yourself, because it's so baffling. Why would he sound so casual/unconcerned the second time he calls her name, right after he cradled her in his arms ????

[21:01]

I suspect that was his first, real reaction in the original cut. And originally, either Keith or Pidge is the one to ask Allura if she's okay. or that whole spiel didn't even happen in the original cut...

These are all the edits I noticed. As you can see, it is riddled with them, and most of them are about Lance's proximity to Keith and his connection to the Black Lion, as well as his relationship with Allura. I suspect in the original cut, Lance and Allura had a heated discussion about the dark entity that may or may not have led to their break up, and these episodes were going to be about Keith getting closer to Lance, somehow.

Okay, I'm just going to throw something out there. I may be very wrong and I don't exactly have foolproof evidence, but considering all the edits I also found in the next two episodes, especially The Zenith, it's not too farfetched to think that they may have added this whole sequence of them meeting the other paladins to fill in what they had to cut out. DreamWorks comissioned 78 episodes to be released on Netflix. If they had to cut out a bunch of plot, they would have to refill it with something in order to produce 78 episodes, right? Well, I think this whole episode is one of those things. I think everything they had to cut out from Uncharted Regions and The Zenith as well as this episode for that matter, was supposed to fill exactly these three episodes. That's why the last half of Season 8 makes no sense, 'cause they had to make it up on the spot, after everything was done and everyone had left. 

When I rewatched the scenes of the new paladins fighting the old paladins, I actually observed all of it to be animated out of style. But I thought to myself... that's impossible. If this whole sequence is animated out of style that means it's all new and rushed... and if it's all new and rushed, then... what the hell was the original plot?? Plotwise, Voltron is usually very coherent, but the last half of Season 8 loses it's cohesion completely. Remember again what Barlee said. Even they didn't know how it was going to end. 

 

How does a storyboard artist not know the ending of their own show?? shouldn't they have storyboarded it to send to the animation studio?? even if it was edited?? unless... they weren't even there for the storyboards or for this round of edits. Because there was neither time nor money for them to do it the "proper" way.

So, what was this episode going to be about?? well... considering what, or rather who, they cut out of the next few episodes... I think it is very likely that these episodes was going to be about saving Lotor and redeeming him. Notice how after this episode, they never really bring him up again. But of course... they had to cut all of him out because we can't redeem Lotor, he's the villain! So, we never see the original plot, and we got this mess instead. I’m convinced the scene with the old paladins was never going to be there because it retcons everything they established beforehand, and doesn’t make sense narratively. Especially Alfor’s death, because Alfor was killed by Zarkon so shouldn’t Aflor be missing?? And also what is Zarkon doing here, he wasn’t killed by Haggar ?? Voltron is usually never THIS inconsistent to the point of retconning several plotpoints. That means this was added as a last attempt to fill in the gaps of the original story that was cut out.

But again, I don't really have much more evidence of this, this is mostly just speculation.