Well, a good deal of explanation is in order I suppose.
Everyone under the sun has heard of Red vs. Blue, widely credited as it is for making the art of machinima not only popular, but commercially successful. Rooster Teeth Productions has spread to other games outside the Halo-verse in an effort to find the next smash hit (though many have been funded by developers as promotional material or are simply not as well-conceived and entertaining).
But just as it is true everyone has heard of Red vs. Blue it is equally true not all of us have seen it. A few years ago in college I had a particularly game obsessed friend that was hooked on everything gaming related, including the stupidest parody videos you'd ever seen. We all have at least one friend (or acquaintance) like this, someone who encourages you to check out a different video/site/blog every week and after the first couple you realize they will look at (and presumably enjoy) EVERYTHING no matter how bad it is.
This was why I never watched Red vs. Blue.
It has nothing to do with Halo. I own all three games, I enjoy it because it's simplistically fun and a lot of people at the school had it too, making LAN parties easy to form. (Aside: they weren't fratboys. I hate that broad generalization that all Halo players are fratboys, we didn't even have frats at my school! Simplicity in entertainment does not automatically equal stupidity in the consumer, intelligent people still enjoy Asteroids after all). The games are fun, if not deep, but I never wanted Halo to be anything more than a game. I was dreading what Red vs. Blue could do wrong (so very many things) and that kept me from watching any of it. It couldn't possibly be good, or funny. In my defense there are a few simple facts that supported my theory:
1. Machinima is quite rarely funny and I particularly dislike it, so it was already a form of media I do not gravitate towards.
2. Video game parodies are typically bad, with stupid or unfunny humor. It's as though Uwe Boll produced every video game parody ever made in between his professional B-Movie directorial career.
Based on those two facts please understand why I thought Red vs. Blue was not worth my time. Thankfully, I got bored a few days ago and started aimlessly reading Wikipedia articles for lack of a better activity. I stumbled on the Red vs. Blue page and realized I had time to watch a couple of shorts (too much time, as will become abundantly clear) so I hopped on over to YouTube and started it up.
The Halo graphics immediately gave me a nice tinge of nostalgia (still my favorite game of the series, stuck to the shooter roots with minor adjustments that improved, then later overwhelmed, the genre) and I was sucked in by memories of playing multiplayer enough to watch the first few. I'm glad I did, Red vs. Blue is absolutely worth the time. Within the afternoon I had watched over seventy episodes and only stopped because I had to be somewhere.
It's not terribly difficult to explain what makes Red vs. Blue good, but there are a lot of factors. First and foremost, it really has nothing to do with Halo at all, the whole concept is the ridiculous premise of two teams of different colors fighting a "war" with one another in which a flag is the ultimate prize. For most of the show the major joke is that if this were really how wars were fought, it would be completely ridiculous. It remains funny even as the show continues on and starts to shed the gaming jokes in favor of other humor and a much more developed plot (more on that later). In fact, the evolution of the humor is so well paced you don't even notice when you have transitioned from laughing at the "what if it weren't a game" joke to the "totally incompetent people" joke.
Speaking of which, let's touch on those eccentric members of our cast. Obviously there are two teams, Reds and Blues, who fight perpetually in a box canyon (Blood Gulch) for no other reason than the omnipotent Command says they should. Command's inspiring orders include "try to do better" and "beat the (other color)s." The two teams are represented by several extremely idiotic members (one of the best arguments for Red vs. Blue is which of the morons is the least moronic, not easy to answer) who spend more time debating the particulars of their mission than actually accomplishing anything.
For the Reds there is Sarge, the leader, whose primary trait is his constant determination to defeat the Blues even when other, more pressing matters present themselves. He also likes to find excuses to kill/maim/insult Grif, who tries to do as little as possible while complaining as much as he can. Simmons is the kiss-ass, always backing up Sarge's plans even when they make no sense (at least until later in the series). Finally, Donut is the increasingly effeminate and stupid new recruit, also completely useless.
The Blues consist of Church, the sniper with incredibly horrible aim and perhaps the most competent and honorable (when it is convenient for him) of all the characters. His friend Tucker is the sexist, female obsessed dope who also possesses occasional moments of courage and clarity. They are joined early on by Caboose, the franchise's best character, who is so ridiculous and idiotic that he cannot be described. Caboose only gets funnier as the episodes progress and at times he alone carries the show just by being himself. He's as good a character as you are going to find out there and has so many great one-liners I can't pick just one. That, and many of the jokes require context and set-up lines that seems to be the show's specialty. Really the writing is very very good, even though about midway through the first 100 episodes (which could be called the first complete story arc) the show drags a bit, but it picks up wonderfully after that.
Aside from the two opposing teams we run abreast of the Freelancers (mercenary soldiers that work for cash or favors), one of whom happens to be Church's ex-girlfriend Tex. She becomes a pivotal figure in the story along with her Freelancer brethren and the accompanying AI implants each Freelancer has. It turns out that the Freelancers are much more than they claim to be, and that is where the show takes a sharp turn away from gags to a story-driven comedy-drama... and becomes something truly memorable.
I'll detail more of the plot in a spoiler section later, as promised, but for now I have to touch on a topic that gets frequent mention in my reviews: the Cerebus Syndrome. Simply put, it is the stage where a comic or series moves away from it's one-shot or nonsense humor to a plot that, while still amusing, centers more on drama and climactic events. The Cerebus Syndrome is the creator's attempt to flesh out a character more completely, giving him, her, or them more life and personality in an attempt to become something more than a throwaway gag reel. The syndrome is named for the Cerebus comic that pioneered the transition (according to WebSnark, I take zero credit for the term) and many comics try to pull it off with varying levels of success. Ctrl+Alt+Del is a good example of a failed (or at least poor) transition, but comics like Order of the Stick did a fantastic job with it. Red vs. Blue not only completes the transition successfully, but almost seamlessly. I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment where it had completed the shift, but I realized it had happened. That is the mark of a very good story, when it can hide it's own transition from nonsense to nonsense with a purpose and story to tell.
The only way to really appreciate what Rooster Teeth did with Red vs. Blue is to discuss the plot, so spoilers ahoy!
In the end, like anything else, not everyone is going to find Red vs. Blue funny, but I bet most people will. The writing is good, the voice-acting is generally well done, and if neither of those grab you then the creativity of the show's production will at the very least garner your respect. The earliest episodes are done with one character acting as a "cameraman" with his first-person perspective telling the story. Considering other, equally cool, methods used to manipulate the limitations of the earlier episodes before construction sets were available (think how they made Junior look smaller than everyone else) there has to be at least cursory appreciate for how the show was made. For whatever reason, you have to appreciate how many things Red vs. Blue does so well. It's popular for a good reason and one of the few things I have ever felt lived up to the hype of it's fanbase. Having said all this, and giving the show my heartiest recommendation, I have to address the people who won't like it for one specific reason: because it is Halo.
The gaming community has, with the increasing coverage now given to games in academia and the media, started down a slippery slope. It's a trend similar to the direction which webcomics are taking and it is worth mentioning here. We have become, like the literary critics before us, prone to a level of elitism when it comes to games. In literary studies, students are lectured on the difference between literature and Literature, the capitalized version being the canonized works by the greatest authors in our history. Those who are in the canon are studied by, vaunted by, and support/are supported by the elitist class of those whose very profession is the written word. These men whose works are in the canon serve to represent the pinnacle of our creative literary minds, they are held aloft as the perfection to which all other works must be compared, even though the canon happens to be picked and populated by old white males almost exclusively.
The same thing has happened with webcomics and gaming. Webcomics are still widely disregarded as trivial distractions by comparison to the comic books and funnies that have existed for far longer. That they exist on the internet and not in a print form (but for the collections of the more popular ones) has led to them being disparaged by comic snobs. I called them elitists before, but they exist in every realm and especially in gaming. It has never been more apparent than the recent backlash against the Halo franchise and because of that backlash and the little group of "superior" gamers that won't acknowledge Halo as an important and, indeed, significant moment in game development people won't like Red vs. Blue because of what it uses as a platform.
The absurdity of the argument should be readily apparent. It's entirely one thing to not like something because you don't like the story or characters or jokes (and yes, it's perfectly fine to say you DON'T like Red vs. Blue for those very reasons) but it is a waste of breath and energy to berate something because that which it parodies falls into the category of "simple fun." Halo didn't reinvent the wheel or do anything complex, it was a simplistic shoot-em-up that, because the core mechanics were so polished, succeeded and inherited a rabid (and as annoying and wrong as the detractors) fanbase. Elitism and snobbery has become fashionable, creating the same disgusting clique of followers as the ridiculous console fanboys that have been berated for their blind claim that THEIR console is the best. It has kept the XBox stalwarts from enjoying God of War, the PlayStation followers from giving Fable a chance, to say nothing of the insistence on calling the Wii a baby's toy.
What this digressive rant is trying to say (and I swear I really do have a point) is that we need to open up. We have become culturally so determined to follow a group or product, to belong to a community even if it means shutting out other avenues we might enjoy, that many of us are missing out on some of the best games, videos, comics, and experiences to come along in a while. My point is, don't do what I did. Don't discount Red vs. Blue because it is machinima and you don't like it. You're really going to miss out. And, in the broader scope of things, don't fall into a clique just because you like that hive mind mentality and be aware enough to recognize it when it starts to creep in. It goes beyond our simple pleasures and likes or dislikes, open-mindedness to all things might actually make the world a better place.
*Steps down from soap box*
I apologize if anyone felt I ruined the review with my stream of thought on the topic, but given the medium used to produce Red vs. Blue it seemed like an opportunity I couldn't pass up. In the interest of staying true to this column, go and watch Red vs. Blue. Give it twenty or so episodes and see if you laugh. Don't worry, they are only five to eight minutes long and won't take up too much time. Do be careful though, you might get as sucked in as I was.
You can see the videos officially at www.roosterteeth.com but they can also be found on YouTube (I found they played a bit better for me there too). I hope you find it to your liking and, as always, thanks for reading.
Mega Tokyo is still coming, I promise. And I'll try to limit the off-topic commentary next time.
Everyone under the sun has heard of Red vs. Blue, widely credited as it is for making the art of machinima not only popular, but commercially successful. Rooster Teeth Productions has spread to other games outside the Halo-verse in an effort to find the next smash hit (though many have been funded by developers as promotional material or are simply not as well-conceived and entertaining).
But just as it is true everyone has heard of Red vs. Blue it is equally true not all of us have seen it. A few years ago in college I had a particularly game obsessed friend that was hooked on everything gaming related, including the stupidest parody videos you'd ever seen. We all have at least one friend (or acquaintance) like this, someone who encourages you to check out a different video/site/blog every week and after the first couple you realize they will look at (and presumably enjoy) EVERYTHING no matter how bad it is.
This was why I never watched Red vs. Blue.
It has nothing to do with Halo. I own all three games, I enjoy it because it's simplistically fun and a lot of people at the school had it too, making LAN parties easy to form. (Aside: they weren't fratboys. I hate that broad generalization that all Halo players are fratboys, we didn't even have frats at my school! Simplicity in entertainment does not automatically equal stupidity in the consumer, intelligent people still enjoy Asteroids after all). The games are fun, if not deep, but I never wanted Halo to be anything more than a game. I was dreading what Red vs. Blue could do wrong (so very many things) and that kept me from watching any of it. It couldn't possibly be good, or funny. In my defense there are a few simple facts that supported my theory:
1. Machinima is quite rarely funny and I particularly dislike it, so it was already a form of media I do not gravitate towards.
2. Video game parodies are typically bad, with stupid or unfunny humor. It's as though Uwe Boll produced every video game parody ever made in between his professional B-Movie directorial career.
Based on those two facts please understand why I thought Red vs. Blue was not worth my time. Thankfully, I got bored a few days ago and started aimlessly reading Wikipedia articles for lack of a better activity. I stumbled on the Red vs. Blue page and realized I had time to watch a couple of shorts (too much time, as will become abundantly clear) so I hopped on over to YouTube and started it up.
The Halo graphics immediately gave me a nice tinge of nostalgia (still my favorite game of the series, stuck to the shooter roots with minor adjustments that improved, then later overwhelmed, the genre) and I was sucked in by memories of playing multiplayer enough to watch the first few. I'm glad I did, Red vs. Blue is absolutely worth the time. Within the afternoon I had watched over seventy episodes and only stopped because I had to be somewhere.
It's not terribly difficult to explain what makes Red vs. Blue good, but there are a lot of factors. First and foremost, it really has nothing to do with Halo at all, the whole concept is the ridiculous premise of two teams of different colors fighting a "war" with one another in which a flag is the ultimate prize. For most of the show the major joke is that if this were really how wars were fought, it would be completely ridiculous. It remains funny even as the show continues on and starts to shed the gaming jokes in favor of other humor and a much more developed plot (more on that later). In fact, the evolution of the humor is so well paced you don't even notice when you have transitioned from laughing at the "what if it weren't a game" joke to the "totally incompetent people" joke.
Speaking of which, let's touch on those eccentric members of our cast. Obviously there are two teams, Reds and Blues, who fight perpetually in a box canyon (Blood Gulch) for no other reason than the omnipotent Command says they should. Command's inspiring orders include "try to do better" and "beat the (other color)s." The two teams are represented by several extremely idiotic members (one of the best arguments for Red vs. Blue is which of the morons is the least moronic, not easy to answer) who spend more time debating the particulars of their mission than actually accomplishing anything.
For the Reds there is Sarge, the leader, whose primary trait is his constant determination to defeat the Blues even when other, more pressing matters present themselves. He also likes to find excuses to kill/maim/insult Grif, who tries to do as little as possible while complaining as much as he can. Simmons is the kiss-ass, always backing up Sarge's plans even when they make no sense (at least until later in the series). Finally, Donut is the increasingly effeminate and stupid new recruit, also completely useless.
The Blues consist of Church, the sniper with incredibly horrible aim and perhaps the most competent and honorable (when it is convenient for him) of all the characters. His friend Tucker is the sexist, female obsessed dope who also possesses occasional moments of courage and clarity. They are joined early on by Caboose, the franchise's best character, who is so ridiculous and idiotic that he cannot be described. Caboose only gets funnier as the episodes progress and at times he alone carries the show just by being himself. He's as good a character as you are going to find out there and has so many great one-liners I can't pick just one. That, and many of the jokes require context and set-up lines that seems to be the show's specialty. Really the writing is very very good, even though about midway through the first 100 episodes (which could be called the first complete story arc) the show drags a bit, but it picks up wonderfully after that.
Aside from the two opposing teams we run abreast of the Freelancers (mercenary soldiers that work for cash or favors), one of whom happens to be Church's ex-girlfriend Tex. She becomes a pivotal figure in the story along with her Freelancer brethren and the accompanying AI implants each Freelancer has. It turns out that the Freelancers are much more than they claim to be, and that is where the show takes a sharp turn away from gags to a story-driven comedy-drama... and becomes something truly memorable.
I'll detail more of the plot in a spoiler section later, as promised, but for now I have to touch on a topic that gets frequent mention in my reviews: the Cerebus Syndrome. Simply put, it is the stage where a comic or series moves away from it's one-shot or nonsense humor to a plot that, while still amusing, centers more on drama and climactic events. The Cerebus Syndrome is the creator's attempt to flesh out a character more completely, giving him, her, or them more life and personality in an attempt to become something more than a throwaway gag reel. The syndrome is named for the Cerebus comic that pioneered the transition (according to WebSnark, I take zero credit for the term) and many comics try to pull it off with varying levels of success. Ctrl+Alt+Del is a good example of a failed (or at least poor) transition, but comics like Order of the Stick did a fantastic job with it. Red vs. Blue not only completes the transition successfully, but almost seamlessly. I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment where it had completed the shift, but I realized it had happened. That is the mark of a very good story, when it can hide it's own transition from nonsense to nonsense with a purpose and story to tell.
The only way to really appreciate what Rooster Teeth did with Red vs. Blue is to discuss the plot, so spoilers ahoy!
Alright, so we soon learn about the Freelancer AI program and discover that O'Malley is a malicious AI bent on destroying the world that can possess the suits of the characters. All well and good while still being funny, it didn't need to make sense then because Church had died, come back as a ghost, possessed a robot, and the show just moved forward without even bothering to say, "Oh, well this is why that makes sense." Once that absurdity got tossed in anything else seems like fair game.
But it was the way which Rooster Teeth took all the absurdity, all the goofiness and seemingly inexplicable happenings and somehow made it make sense in a science fiction story to be proud of. It turns out the AIs are all broken parts of the tortured AI "brain" of one intelligence, fragmented so more Freelancers could get the benefit of an AI implant (very cool concept). The problem of course is the moral implications and the fact that some fragments are, well, evil. But then they drop a huge bomb by pointing out, "Hey, ghosts aren't real you know, so how else do you explain Church's existence unless he is that first AI before it was fragmented?"
The reason it works is precisely because of the way the show evolved. We accept Church is a ghost because anything goes in the story, so when a plausible reason for him NOT being a ghost is given and it makes PERFECT sense in the context given... that's just wonderful execution. It also helps that after the original 100 episode story the newer episodes have better production and voice-acting that really allows Rooster Teeth to do much more than they could before.
Now, the whole thing is far from perfect. Sarge apparently meets Church as a ghost too, which hasn't been explained, as does Tex. And you have the issue of time travel and continuity being pretty much mishandled (though probably for humor's sake rather than through incompetence) so it doesn't hang together perfectly even though I said as much before, but it still works. It's very funny, it's very intriguing, and it raises all kinds of speculation about other plots like the aliens and their role in saving their race which haven't been addressed yet. But the overarching lesson here is that not only can you take something ridiculous and make it tell a story, you can make it tell a really good story if you have talented enough writers and compelling enough characters.
But it was the way which Rooster Teeth took all the absurdity, all the goofiness and seemingly inexplicable happenings and somehow made it make sense in a science fiction story to be proud of. It turns out the AIs are all broken parts of the tortured AI "brain" of one intelligence, fragmented so more Freelancers could get the benefit of an AI implant (very cool concept). The problem of course is the moral implications and the fact that some fragments are, well, evil. But then they drop a huge bomb by pointing out, "Hey, ghosts aren't real you know, so how else do you explain Church's existence unless he is that first AI before it was fragmented?"
The reason it works is precisely because of the way the show evolved. We accept Church is a ghost because anything goes in the story, so when a plausible reason for him NOT being a ghost is given and it makes PERFECT sense in the context given... that's just wonderful execution. It also helps that after the original 100 episode story the newer episodes have better production and voice-acting that really allows Rooster Teeth to do much more than they could before.
Now, the whole thing is far from perfect. Sarge apparently meets Church as a ghost too, which hasn't been explained, as does Tex. And you have the issue of time travel and continuity being pretty much mishandled (though probably for humor's sake rather than through incompetence) so it doesn't hang together perfectly even though I said as much before, but it still works. It's very funny, it's very intriguing, and it raises all kinds of speculation about other plots like the aliens and their role in saving their race which haven't been addressed yet. But the overarching lesson here is that not only can you take something ridiculous and make it tell a story, you can make it tell a really good story if you have talented enough writers and compelling enough characters.
In the end, like anything else, not everyone is going to find Red vs. Blue funny, but I bet most people will. The writing is good, the voice-acting is generally well done, and if neither of those grab you then the creativity of the show's production will at the very least garner your respect. The earliest episodes are done with one character acting as a "cameraman" with his first-person perspective telling the story. Considering other, equally cool, methods used to manipulate the limitations of the earlier episodes before construction sets were available (think how they made Junior look smaller than everyone else) there has to be at least cursory appreciate for how the show was made. For whatever reason, you have to appreciate how many things Red vs. Blue does so well. It's popular for a good reason and one of the few things I have ever felt lived up to the hype of it's fanbase. Having said all this, and giving the show my heartiest recommendation, I have to address the people who won't like it for one specific reason: because it is Halo.
The gaming community has, with the increasing coverage now given to games in academia and the media, started down a slippery slope. It's a trend similar to the direction which webcomics are taking and it is worth mentioning here. We have become, like the literary critics before us, prone to a level of elitism when it comes to games. In literary studies, students are lectured on the difference between literature and Literature, the capitalized version being the canonized works by the greatest authors in our history. Those who are in the canon are studied by, vaunted by, and support/are supported by the elitist class of those whose very profession is the written word. These men whose works are in the canon serve to represent the pinnacle of our creative literary minds, they are held aloft as the perfection to which all other works must be compared, even though the canon happens to be picked and populated by old white males almost exclusively.
The same thing has happened with webcomics and gaming. Webcomics are still widely disregarded as trivial distractions by comparison to the comic books and funnies that have existed for far longer. That they exist on the internet and not in a print form (but for the collections of the more popular ones) has led to them being disparaged by comic snobs. I called them elitists before, but they exist in every realm and especially in gaming. It has never been more apparent than the recent backlash against the Halo franchise and because of that backlash and the little group of "superior" gamers that won't acknowledge Halo as an important and, indeed, significant moment in game development people won't like Red vs. Blue because of what it uses as a platform.
The absurdity of the argument should be readily apparent. It's entirely one thing to not like something because you don't like the story or characters or jokes (and yes, it's perfectly fine to say you DON'T like Red vs. Blue for those very reasons) but it is a waste of breath and energy to berate something because that which it parodies falls into the category of "simple fun." Halo didn't reinvent the wheel or do anything complex, it was a simplistic shoot-em-up that, because the core mechanics were so polished, succeeded and inherited a rabid (and as annoying and wrong as the detractors) fanbase. Elitism and snobbery has become fashionable, creating the same disgusting clique of followers as the ridiculous console fanboys that have been berated for their blind claim that THEIR console is the best. It has kept the XBox stalwarts from enjoying God of War, the PlayStation followers from giving Fable a chance, to say nothing of the insistence on calling the Wii a baby's toy.
What this digressive rant is trying to say (and I swear I really do have a point) is that we need to open up. We have become culturally so determined to follow a group or product, to belong to a community even if it means shutting out other avenues we might enjoy, that many of us are missing out on some of the best games, videos, comics, and experiences to come along in a while. My point is, don't do what I did. Don't discount Red vs. Blue because it is machinima and you don't like it. You're really going to miss out. And, in the broader scope of things, don't fall into a clique just because you like that hive mind mentality and be aware enough to recognize it when it starts to creep in. It goes beyond our simple pleasures and likes or dislikes, open-mindedness to all things might actually make the world a better place.
*Steps down from soap box*
I apologize if anyone felt I ruined the review with my stream of thought on the topic, but given the medium used to produce Red vs. Blue it seemed like an opportunity I couldn't pass up. In the interest of staying true to this column, go and watch Red vs. Blue. Give it twenty or so episodes and see if you laugh. Don't worry, they are only five to eight minutes long and won't take up too much time. Do be careful though, you might get as sucked in as I was.
You can see the videos officially at www.roosterteeth.com but they can also be found on YouTube (I found they played a bit better for me there too). I hope you find it to your liking and, as always, thanks for reading.
Mega Tokyo is still coming, I promise. And I'll try to limit the off-topic commentary next time.
