This Friday, Netflix will release all 11 episodes -- including a double-length premiere -- of DreamWorks Voltron Legendary Defender , a reimagining of the classic animated series. Leading up to that, I had the chance to speak with showrunners Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, who previously worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, and a slew of other animated series.

During our chat, we talked about how they adapted Voltron for a new generation, writing serialized stories for Netflix, the show's Avatar/Korra influences, and the potential for Season 2...

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Still image from Voltron Legendary Defender

“ We've gone for that highly serialized vibe.

Yeah, for sure. First and foremost, our goal that we had to reach with this show was to basically make a good show that would get a whole new generation into Voltron. And then we, as fans of the original, added a second part to the goal, which was to also make something that we felt was very true to the original -- not 100-percent, but had the heart and the essence of the original in it.Yeah, for us, it's the first time that we've both officially been showrunners. We've worked just under the top people for awhile, so it's been a big learning experience for is. There's obviously the back and forth you have to do on an executive level to get story ideas across and compromise in certain areas, so that's been an interesting learning experience.As far as the Netflix thing, we're still waiting to see, when the show comes out and how it's received and really how people watch it. It's the first time we'll be in a situation where people can watch all of the episodes, the first season, in one shot. We're so used to that rhythm of weekly drops and waiting until the end of the season for this big culmination. We're really excited to see how people view this thing.Yeah, definitely. Knowing that these episodes were essentially going to play back to back, we didn't have to worry quite as much about making each episode stand completely separate and alone and making sure everyone understood the story at the beginning of each episode. Obviously, we still want to make the show something that people can enjoy at any point in the series, but it definitely takes away the pain and anguish of trying to recap everything in one episode. We don't have to deal with that.Yeah, Netflix has definitely been the opposite of our experience from past shows in the sense that they are actually encouraging the serialization, and DreamWorks has gotten behind that as well. And the standard sort of model on past shows that we've been on is, if the show's air out of order, you totally have to be able to follow it as well. So we've gone for that highly serialized vibe. You know, there are still one-offs and standalone episodes, but they fit into a much bigger picture. That's been a huge, exciting element for us as storytellers.

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Still image from Voltron Legendary Defender

“ I think there's something to be said for a bad guy that is just purely evil, but I always appreciate when there's a level of complexity to the villain.

Still image from Voltron Legendary Defender

“ Voltron is comprised of these very primary colors, and to lose that would be losing one of the pillars of what made it so memorable.

Voltron Legendary Defender showrunners Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos

“ There's just something magical that happens when you hear that right voice and you're looking at the character design; you just know it works.

Still image from Voltron Legendary Defender

“ It's really bringing an authentic, genuine sense of creating something that you'd ultimately want to watch yourself in a show.

Still image from Voltron Legendary Defender

For sure, yeah. Definitely, throughout this series, we want to touch on every character. So, they're not going to get the focus in every single episode, but overall, yeah. We definitely explore each and every one of our characters, and that was really one of our biggest goals, was to make them a lot more deep and have a lot more to them than we ultimately realized the original show had. You know, as kids we watch it and just kind of fill in the gaps, but as adults we go back, and we noticed that a lot of the characters just kind of felt a little flat or close to the other characters. Like, there were a lot of similar personalities on the old show, and so we definitely wanted to make each of these characters stand out.Yeah, and we also wanted to make sure that the characters evolved throughout the series, so the characters that we end up with by the end of this thing are going to be different from the characters that we started out with.I think we've tried to make the stakes feel a lot more real. I think the original Voltron was kind of a product of its time, and there was a fear of putting anything too real or intense in a children's show. Everything was kind of diluted and very easy and clean and safe, and we just want to, not necessarily make something super crazy or traumatizing for kids, but definitely bring in some of the real drama and stakes back into the story so that these characters do make decisions that have consequences, that will ultimately last throughout the show.And, you know, I think there's something to be said for a bad guy that is just purely evil, but I always appreciate when there's a level of complexity to the villain. So if you look at some of the more popular villains out there, somebody like Darth Vader or Magneto, you know, there's this aspect of their character that you kind of relate to, and you understand why they might have made those decisions. I think we've tried to bring that into this show as well. As the series progresses and you get more filled in on the backstory, you'll kind of see two points of view. You won't necessarily agree with the decision to go evil, but there might be some relatable aspects there. Whereas in the previous version, Zarkon and the bad guys, they were just bad guys.You know, we were lucky. We'd worked on shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Korra, which in and of themselves paid a lot of homages to anime. And knowing that this show was originally an anime made in Japan, we definitely wanted to keep a lot of that aesthetic. We didn't want to take this and make it a fully Americanized version. We wanted it to be an homage. I think it's just something that we enjoy the look of, because having grown up watching anime, it's something that's very familiar to us, and we've enjoyed a lot of those stories, a lot of those characters. So just keeping this in that vein was definitely something we wanted to do.And how colorful it was too, you know? Voltron is comprised of these very primary colors, and to lose that would be losing one of the pillars of what made it so memorable.I mean, it's awesome. Yeah, there's definitely a level of comfort there, and we sort of like to think of ourselves as one giant studio, because we've been working with each other for so long now. But yeah, I think this was a bit liberating, because you can tell the character designs are a little bit more playful and fun and stretched out, and their proportions are a little bit more kinda wacky. So that just lends itself to a little bit more of a relaxed feel when you're designing a character or designing the props. You've got that latitude to push them to these funnier, crazier places.Whereas with Korra and with Avatar, they felt very figurative and almost kind of real-world -- which was great for those shows, but I think this allows for just a little bit more fun and a little bit more leniency in terms of design.Yeah, for sure. I think ultimately when you've got to cast something, you kind of already have an idea of what you want the character to sound like in your head. You have their voice, you have their personality. So from then on, I think with Joaquim and me, it's just a matter of listening and, when you hear that voice, it's something that just kind of clicks, like you know it's there. That's just kind of what we followed when it came to them bringing auditions to us and having actors come in and play the parts.There is that weird thing that, you know, I'd always hear about before we got into animation and entertainment work, like people have that "it" factor. It really does happen. You know, with Bex, we listened to a couple people afterward, because we kind of had to, just to make sure we'd covered all the bases. But in our heads we knew she was Pidge as soon as we heard her. She just had that "it" factor.For me, it's really bringing an authentic, genuine sense of creating something that you'd ultimately want to watch yourself in a show. So we're not trying to -- you know, we obviously want this thing to sell a million toys, we want it to do gangbusters on all front, but at the end of the day we wanted to make something that felt authentic to us and felt genuine to us, and really trysting in your gut when you're creating something. You know, you can have a ton of outside influence here, especially with something like this that's like a product-driven show, and you have to fight for what you believe in. Mike and Bryan did that numerous times on both Avatar and Korra. For me, that was something that I really looked up to.That's really what it is. I guess just to expand upon it, what Bryan and Mike did was they assembled a really incredible crew of people who ultimately don't want glory for themselves; they just want to make the best show they can. They're just hungry and inspired and interested in making a really great show, and that's what we've tried to do here. We just brought all the people along with us that really have no other goal than just making the best show and doing the best work they can. And we feel really blessed to have that, because with any other crew on this show, things could have been very different.Yeah, and, you know, it's tough because, again, we're working with a show that's basically got a lot behind it in terms of toys and merchandising and stuff, and if you have a crew that solely thinking about those elements, you potentially run the risk of making a show that's kind of soulless. But we've got a crew here that really is just excited about telling awesome stories and creating awesome worlds. It's just surrounding yourself with that kind of environment, those kinds of people.For sure. Yeah, man. I mean, we're moving and we're moving and we're moving on doing this until our legs fall off, basically. As far as officially picking stuff up, I don't know where the company stands on that, but we're always thinking of where the story is going to evolve to.

Dreamworks Voltron Legendary Defender debuts Friday, June 10th on Netflix.Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter and MaxNicholson on IGN.