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It may be a testament to the power of creativity or an indictment of our dwindling attention spans that the title of longest-running American sci-fi series now belongs to a bunch of guys who started out just cracking wise with each other while playing Halo. With 12 seasons under their belt and more to come, Red vs. Blue has taken a stripped-down approach to animation and an irreverent sense of humor and turned it into a long-running web video juggernaut. At this point, the question has to be: is it still any good?
Season 12 picks up right where Season 11 left off. The misfits of the Red and Blue teams have crash-landed on the planet Chorus and have been caught up in an armed rebellion. They’ve been split up, hunted by mercenaries, and hailed as military geniuses by noble rebels who got some really bad information. Now they’ve got a new list of problems: to find their missing friends, escape a civil war, and do it all without getting everyone killed.
Where Season 11 deliberately evoked the show’s initial run by sticking to basic machinima techniques and filming everything in multiplayer sessions of Halo games, Season 12 reintroduces the more fluid CG animation that had been used to great effect in later chapters. While the throwback season had its charms, the series as a whole has evolved quite a bit past those early years, and it’s much more enjoyable to watch the creative team find new ways to integrate the two approaches. The pace picks up, the action gets bigger, and even the dialogue feels snappier when the characters aren’t limited to a small number of in-game poses and movements.
That freedom helps the story pick up some momentum as well. Season 12 acts as the second part of the Chorus trilogy, and, as expected, it features quite a bit more in terms of character development and plot movement. The early going relies more heavily on the comedy, especially watching perennial screw-ups Griff (Geoff Ramsey) and Caboose (Joel Heyman) try to train their own squads of even more inept rebel soldiers. The more dramatic heavy lifting comes from bad-ass Freelancer Carolina (Jen Brown) and the artificial intelligence Epsilon/Church (Burnie Burns), who return after being absent last season to shed some light on the true nature of the Chorus civil war.
Some of the drawbacks inherent in the machinima technique do remain, however. Newcomers are advised to peruse YouTube to catch up on as many earlier seasons as possible (seasons 1-11 are all available in their entirety). It will help connect voices to characters who are only visually differentiated by the color of their armor and provide context for the numerous call-backs and inside jokes.
Even with those caveats, the answer to the earlier question is that, yes, even after a decade, Red vs. Blue remains an entertaining and well-crafted show. Now that they’ve gotten the nostalgia out of their system, the team at Rooster Teeth is making great progress toward completing the current trilogy and adding another highly enjoyable chapter of wisecracking adventure to their long-running saga.
Blu-ray Review:
Red vs. Blue: Season 12 offers another great package on Blu-ray, including the entire season as either a single movie or individual episodes—all taking advantage of improved high-definition video game graphics. Special features include a blooper reel, character PSAs and journal entries, and a selection of making-of featurettes. Most are good for a quick laugh, and the featurettes offer a nice primer on both the series and the different animation techniques they use.
