The fifth season of Voltron: Legendary Defender from DreamWorks Animation is practically upon us! With Season Five releasing tomorrow, March 2nd, on Netflix, ComicBook.com caught up with Voltron EP Joaquim Dos Santos and co-EP Lauren Montgomery to chat about what fans can expect — and whether there’s an end in sight.
While Dos Santos and Montgomery took the time to answer a couple questions about exactly how they planned out Voltron‘s big serialized story, and whether that’s really changed from back when they first began, you’ll notice a conspicuous absence of anything even approaching a spoiler for the upcoming season here. That’s because there’ll be a second part to this interview diving into all the juicy details next week, so look forward to that.
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ComicBook.com: You’ve said before that there’s a big serialized story in the background here. But what was the goal when this season first started shaping up, where there certain story beats you knew you wanted to hit from the start?
Joaquim Dos Santos: We knew we definitely wanted to drive that gray area, with Lotor for a while and to see what his dynamics were within the team, and how he affects Voltron and how the shift in power in the Galra Empire takes shape.
Lauren Montgomery: When we approached the season, obviously we didn’t know that these were going to be smaller seasons when we went into making this show. So when we were looking at it, we were just looking at this large Lotor arc, and we knew, obviously, that we wanted to bring Lotor in; we wanted him to be in a really different villain from Zarkon, and have more layers to what motivates him. And to see the different sides of that, how that plays out. This is Lotor as a villain, this is Lotor as possibly an ally, and just seeing how those things play out. That’s pretty much what we knew going into it, and then a lot of the rest of it took shape as the episodes were being written.
What can fans of the series expect to see in Season Five?
Joaquim: I think continuing the theme that we left off at the tail end of the previous season. Seeing where things shake out with Lotor, that’s our biggest driving story point.
Lauren: And I think that a lot of these episodes are steps towards that outcome. Is Lotor going to be an ally? How is that going to play out? Can they build that trust? All that stuff, steps being taken toward whether or not the Galra can work with our paladins.
Joaquim: I think from a bigger perspective — and this is something we wanted to just play with, and stuff we’ve peppered into, and been fortunate to be a part of on other shows — is what constitutes a good guy and what constitutes a villain. Is there some moral ambiguity there, in between, and I think Lotor represents that really, really well.
Is there an end in sight for Voltron? How much more of that serialized story is there to tell?
Joaquim: There’s definitely an end in sight. You know we knew we wanted to wrap this thing up. Exactly how many episodes that that happens in, I don’t know if we’re at liberty to say just yet, but we definitely considered an ending as we went into this show. We didn’t want to leave it on a big, open-ended — you know, not knowing what happens to everybody.
Lauren: Yeah, we like to think that when it’s over, you’ll know it, sort of story-wise.
Joaquim: Yeah.
Lauren: We’ll make it pretty clear.
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Voltron: Legendary Defender Season Five debuts tomorrow, March 2nd, on Netflix. The first four seasons are available now.
