I met the dudes at Rooster Teeth once. They were all surprisingly down to Earth and very cool folks. This was in the beginning when Red VS. Blue was catching on and earning a fanbase. This was at a local convention a bunch of years ago, so hopefully the dudes behind the series have remained cool and down to Earth, I don’t know if any of that juicy Microsoft money has changed them.
While the animation has remained somewhat primitive, Rooster Teeth’s chops as filmmakers have gotten better. While the action is often intense, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, with wire-fu antics placed onto already computer-generated characters sporting Spartan armor from the Halo series.
Halo, for those who don’t know, is a long-running franchise for Microsoft’s Xbox console. Starting with Halo: Combat Evolved and more recently, with the impossibly overrated Halo 4, Red VS. Blue began as a webseries about a group of soldiers on one of the levels (Blood Gulch) who questioned what they were doing with their lives of constant conflict with one-another. The plot was simple, funny and remains a great example of Machinima.
As the Red VS. Blue series progressed, the narrative took on a more serious and dense tone. Out were the funny antics of Caboose, Sarge and Grif. Instead, viewers followed the exploits of Texas, Carolina and the Dakota siblings (North being my favorite) against The Director, a mysterious and shady governmental figure acting within the UNSC’s Spartan program.
You have to understand, nothing that exists or happens in the Red VS. Blue series means a damn thing to the real Halo-verse. They exist as separate entities with common themes and concepts. Not a bad thing, but to assume the absurdity and somewhat misguided antics on display in Red VS. Blue could ever mean anything to the game’s universe is silly.
The series is good, overall, but as a diehard Halo fan, Season Ten just takes everything into dramatic territory that the series probably shouldn’t have ever ventured into. Rooster Teeth seems to need reminding that they exist to make folks laugh using video game tropes and Machinima. Not to plod into overwrought narratives starring characters with little to no bearing on the universe we, as fans, care about.
To enjoy Red VS. Blue as its own entity is perhaps the best way to enjoy it. While the series is highly stylized and makes use of that horrific brand of crash-cut editing that MTV seems to champion, overall, the series has genuine laughs, though a majority of the voice work could use some tweaking. Classic characters like Caboose, Sarge, Grif and Doc are pitch-perfect, but newer folks like Carolina and Texas are weak.
I always enjoy seeing levels from the other Halo games make it into the mix. Seeing Zanzibar, for example, used onscreen is nice, as its perhaps the most visually arresting map Halo fans have ever enjoyed. Sandy beaches, a sea wall and a wind power facility (complete with a wind turbine) are all places frantic firefights have erupted, but used here, are great digital sets.
Overall, though Season Ten of Red VS. Blue wraps up a lot of the “Freelancer Saga,” it doesn’t do a great job of catering to longtime Red VS. Blue fans. The direction and fight choreography is a tad on the boring side, the narrative is entirely too dramatic with no real payoff and the characters aren’t quite varied enough to keep straight. The original crew all have defined, comical personalities, but the new bunch of folks, the Freelancers themselves, are weak.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Special videos, trailers, commentary and outtakes.
"Red Vs. Blue Season 10" is on sale November 6, 2012 and is not rated. Animation. Directed by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum. Written by Burnie Burns, Miles Luna, Matt Hullum and Joel Heyman. Starring Burnie Burns, Elijah Wood, Jen Brown, Joel Heyman.
No comments:
Post a Comment