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I figure that there are going to be three main audiences for Rooster Teeth Productions’ long-running satirical series, Red vs. Blue: those who are already in the know, those who’ve played the Halo series of games but haven’t watched this series, and those who haven’t got the faintest idea of what’s going on. Though the show is already in its eleventh season, most readers will fall into this last group, so allow me do a quick recap of this unique approach to animation, often referred to as machinima.
Red vs. Blue is set in the world of Microsoft’s Halo video games—a first-person-shooter series that lets players take on the role of heavily-armored Spartan soldiers who spend most of their time blasting the heck out of various aliens and each other. Rooster Teeth films their episodes inside the game before editing it all together and dubbing in dialogue over the scenes.
Season 11 kicks off a new storyline, in which various members of the Red and Blue teams find themselves stranded in an empty canyon (otherwise known as the Exile multiplayer map from Halo 4) after their spaceship crashes. Awaiting rescue, they get to work on building shelters, trying to repair their communication equipment, and squabbling about literally everything under the sun.
Rooster Teeth has been producing this series for a decade now, and the formula remains largely unchanged. Filmed using the Halo 4 game engine, this version looks sharper than ever, but animation enthusiasts unfamiliar with the style will find the action severely lacking. For a series based on a hyper-adrenalized video game, there’s surprisingly little actual gunplay in Red vs. Blue. That said, though, the team at Rooster Teeth has gotten quite good at staging scenes and choosing camera shots under the obvious limitations of the technique.
As always, the draw comes from the snarky humor and fast-paced dialogue that permeate each scene. The cultural references include video games, military culture, science fiction, film, television, and anything else the guys feel like riffing on. It’s definitely on the PG-13 side when it comes to language, but it’s still far tamer than what you’d probably hear in the average Halo multiplayer session.
The Blu-ray assembles all 19 webisodes into a 120-minute feature film, which isn’t really the ideal way to view it. The early going is extremely talky, and while it’s entertaining and funny enough, it takes a long time until something resembling a plot kicks in. Even then, you should be aware that Red vs. Blue spreads story out over multiple seasons, and this one ends on a cliffhanger just as it’s getting interesting.
Rooster Teeth’s flagship production has always been an odd beast, but it’s a treat to see how far they’ve developed it. Undoubtedly, it will be most rewarding for those in the gaming community, but others can get in on the fun, too. In its own way, it’s the perfect celebration of what always made video games in general—and the Halo series in particular—so much fun: just a bunch of guys hanging out, acting like idiots and occasionally saving the world with a well-placed machine gun blast.
Blu-ray Review:
Besides the treat of seeing the web series in glorious high-def, the Blu-ray includes a number of special features that fall into two categories. On the fun side of things, there are deleted scenes, outtakes, a trailer, and a trio of short advertisements—the best of which is Blockbuster, a fake movie trailer starring one of the denser members of the Red team.
On the informative side, there’s a short behind-the-scenes clip and a commentary track with members of the Rooster Teeth crew. For those interested in how a series like this is constructed, the commentary offers plenty of know-how and a good sense of humor to boot.
