| Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles | |
|---|---|
Red vs. Blue official promotional image |
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| Game(s) | Halo: Reach Halo trilogy Halo 3: ODST Marathon Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Comic science fiction/Black comedy |
| Running time | Five minutes per episode (average) |
| Created by | Burnie Burns Matt Hullum Geoff Ramsey Gustavo Sorola Jason Saldaña |
| Directed by | Burnie Burns Matt Hullum |
| Voices | Burnie Burns Jordan Burns Yomary Cruz Joel Heyman Rebecca Frasier Dan Godwin Matt Hullum Geoff Ramsey Ed Robertson Jason Saldaña Gustavo Sorola Nathan Zellner Kathleen Zuelch |
| Release(s) | April 1, 2003 – June 28, 2007 (original run) June 16, 2006 – present (Other series) |
| Format(s) | DivX, WMV, QuickTime, DVD, Flash |
| Number of episodes | The Blood Gulch Chronicles: 100 Out of Mind: 5 Recovery One: 4 Reconstruction: 19 Relocated: 4 Recreation: 19 Revelation: 20 Season 9 : 20 Other special videos |
| Website http://roosterteeth.com/ |
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Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions[1] and distributed through the Internet and on DVD. The story centers on two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon (Blood Gulch), in a parody of first-person shooter (FPS) games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its Internet premiere on April 1, 2003. The fifth season of the original Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles series ended with episode 100, released on June 28, 2007. Three mini-series—Out of Mind, Recovery One, and Relocated—and the three-part Recollection Trilogy containing the full-length Reconstruction, Recreation and Revelation series (Seasons 6-8) have extended the plot. Season 9 premiered on June 14, 2011.[2]
Red vs. Blue emerged from Burnie Burns' voice-over-enhanced gameplay videos of Bungie Studios' FPS video game Halo: Combat Evolved. The series is primarily produced using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the multiplayer modes of Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 Halo 3 and Halo Reach on the Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Minute sections of the series were also achieved using the Microsoft PC version of the same game.
Red vs. Blue has been generally well-received within the machinima community as well as among film critics. Praised for its originality, the series has won four awards at film festivals held by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. It has been credited with bringing new popularity to machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form. Graham Leggat, former director of communications for Lincoln Center's film society, described Red vs. Blue as "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett".[3] While special videos continue to be released online, the completed series is also available on DVD, making the series one of the first commercially released and successful machinima products. Rooster Teeth has created videos, some under commission from Microsoft, for special events, and Red vs. Blue content is included with the Legendary Edition of Halo 3.
Contents |
Red vs. Blue centers on the Red and Blue Teams, two groups of soldiers engaged in a supposed civil war. Originally, each team occupies a small base in a box canyon known as Blood Gulch. According to Simmons, one of the Red Team soldiers, each team's base exists only in response to the other team's base. It is later revealed that there is no actual civil war; both the Red and Blue armies are under the same command, Project Freelancer, and only exist as training simulations for Freelancer Agents. Although both teams generally dislike each other and have standing orders to defeat their opponents and capture their flag, neither team is usually motivated to fight the other.
The Red vs. Blue storyline so far spans nine full-length seasons and three mini-series. Rooster Teeth periodically releases self-referential public service announcements (PSAs) and holiday-themed videos, which are generally unrelated to the main storyline. In these videos, however, the members of both teams claim to be from Red vs. Blue.
Although the visual background of Red vs. Blue is primarily taken from the Halo series, Rooster Teeth consciously limits connections to the Halo fictional universe. A special video made for E3 2003 portrays Master Chief, the protagonist of the Halo series, as a larger-than-life member of the army, and the Red vs. Blue trailer and first episode establish that the series is set between the events of the first two games. Beyond these references, the storyline is independent, a decision that, according to Burns, is intended to increase accessibility to those unfamiliar with the games. For example, even though the season 4 and season 5 casts include characters from the alien Covenant Elite race, Rooster Teeth never portrays those characters in their original Halo context.[4] Beginning with season six Reconstruction the series begins to follow Halo more closely. It is established that Reconstruction onwards takes place one year after Halo 3 and several characters indirectly reference Smart AI, the Human-Covenant War, and Forerunners. Also at several points it is noted that Project Freelancer is under the jurisdiction of the UNSC.
Red vs. Blue features characters whose personalities are skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. Character interaction and dialogue, rather than action, drive the story.[5] The series has centered on eleven main characters. Other characters, both team-affiliated and unaffiliated, human and non-human, have played significant roles throughout the story. Notable new characters are The Freelancers (mostly shown in the Season 9 flashbacks) The Director, The Chairman, Carolina, Tex, Wash, Maine (aka Meta), York, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and C.T. (Connecticut). The A.I.s are also important characters: Alpha, Delta, Omega, Gamma, Epsilon, Theta, Sigma, and Xi.
Initially, the Red Team consists of Grif (Geoff Ramsey, under the credit of Geoff Fink); Simmons (Gustavo Sorola); rookie Donut (Dan Godwin); their leader, Sarge (Matt Hullum); and a robot engineer, Lopez (Burnie Burns). The Blue Team consists of Tucker (Jason Saldaña), rookie Caboose (Joel Heyman), de facto leader Church (Burns), and an artificially intelligent tank named Sheila (Yomary Cruz); prior to the events of the series, the Blues were led by the late Captain Butch Flowers (Ed Robertson). Church is killed in friendly fire by Caboose, and reappears as a ghost after mercenary Tex (Kathleen Zuelch) is called in to replace him. It is established that Tex comes from an experimental super-soldier program, which paired freelancer soldiers, code-named by U.S. states, with artificial intelligence programs. After Tex is killed in combat, her AI, O'Malley (various),[6] transfers to and possesses Caboose.[7] Three months later, neutral medic Doc (Hullum) arrives, taking commands from both teams due to a lack of resources. The Blues take Donut hostage, and negotiate his release in exchange for robot bodies, constructed by Sarge, that the ghosts of Church and Tex can possess. O'Malley soon transfers to Doc, kidnaps Lopez, and escapes Blood Gulch through a teleporter.
The Red and Blue Teams join forces to pursue O'Malley,[8] eventually confronting him just before a bomb built by Sarge into Church's robot body detonates. The soldiers wake up in a wasteland, and (wrongly) conclude the force of the blast sent them into the future. Church, however, travels a thousand years into the past. Living the events leading up to the explosion over and over, Church attempts to alter the timeline and avert the disaster, with every failure sending him back to the past once more. He also accidentally causes several of the problems seen in the earlier seasons, such as causing Sheila to malfunction and kill him, causing Sheila and Lopez's rebellion, and killing Captain Flowers. He eventually abandons his plans, and manages to join the others in the supposed future. The teams gather at O’Malley’s new fortress, and plan to plant the sentient time bomb, Andy (Nathan Zellner). Instead, O’Malley is defeated (temporarily) by an Alien creature.[9] As the Red Team discovers the continued existence of Blood Gulch, the Alien leads Tucker, Caboose and Andy on a sacred quest, but the alien is killed. His murderer, Wyoming[10] (Hullum), is also part of the super-soldier program, prompting Tex to pursue him with the help of fellow test subject York (Sean Duggan) and his AI, Delta (Mark Bellman). York is soon killed as well. It is revealed that Wyoming has an armor enhancement which allows him to alter time,[11] which caused Church to travel into the past to begin with. The Blues, Andy, and Tex eventually return to Blood Gulch, and Tucker becomes ill; Church calls Doc, whom O'Malley still controls, for help. Doc diagnoses Tucker with male pregnancy, caused through parasitic symbiosis with the Alien. Tucker gives birth off-screen[10] to an alien child, Junior (Saldaña).[11] O’Malley leaves Doc.[10]
A ship crashes into the gulch,[10] carrying Grif's sibling, Sister (Rebecca Frasier), who is assigned to the Blue Team. Both teams are soon ambushed by Wyoming, Lopez and O’Malley, who now possesses the reanimated corpse of Captain Flowers. They reveal their joint plot to steal Junior, the prophesied ruler of the alien race, in order to raise and control an army of alien creatures. In the ensuing battle, Wyoming and Flowers are killed. Tex, however, sees the possibility of rule over the aliens as a method to end the war, and convinces O’Malley to possess her once more. She takes Junior, and leaves in the ship. The Reds, however, have planted Andy on-board, and the ship explodes on their command.[11][12]
Agent Washington (Shannon McCormick) retrieves Delta from York's body,[13] and has an encounter with a new enemy, a rogue freelancer known as "the Meta", who is killing freelancer agents for their AI and abilities. After Tex's ship crashes into an outpost named Valhalla, the Meta arrives and captures her, Omega, and Gamma as well as Tex's cloaking mechanism and Wyoming's temporal distortion unit, while later killing everyone in the valley except for one Red. Command has Washington gather the Blues to counter the Meta's growing threat, with the Reds getting embroiled in the plot soon after. Following an encounter with the Meta, Delta is captured. Washington resolves to bring the teams to Freelancer Command in order to retrieve the Alpha, the original AI from which all of the Freelancer AIs were derived. Inside the AI storage facility, Washington reveals that Church is in fact the Alpha, based on the mind of Project Freelancer's director, and not a ghost as originally thought. Washington and Church trigger an electromagnetic pulse which destroys all of the Meta's AIs, including Church and Tex. Sarge, Simmons, Grif and Caboose escape with the Epsilon AI before the pulse destroys it, as it is needed as evidence of Project Freelancer's crimes. However, because the Reds deleted all files related to the Blues from the UNSC database, Caboose and the Epsilon AI were never located, and Washington was imprisoned as a result.
The Reds settle into the new base awarded to them in Valhalla when Lopez and Donut arrive. Donut finds Caboose, who has been trying to fix the Epsilon unit, and tells him Tucker is in peril. Caboose sets out to rescue him, with Sarge and Grif following, while Simmons, Lopez and Donut remain behind. After reaching Tucker at a desert dig site, Caboose finds a forerunner monitor which he uploads Epsilon into. Epsilon acts as a back-up of Alpha, having Church's voice and personality but no memory of any of the events that have happened throughout the series. Meanwhile, Simmons, Donut and Lopez come under attack from the Meta. Washington arrives as the Reds in Valhalla attempt to escape, killing Donut while demanding Epsilon from Simmons, revealing that he is now working alongside the Meta in order to return the Epsilon unit in exchange for his freedom.
Doc is sent to Valhalla, at Simmons' request, to give the Meta a medical examination. Sarge and Grif manage to rescue Simmons, but Doc is left behind. Church leads the teams to a Freelancer storage facility run by a computer identical to Sheila. Church releases a copy of Tex from himself into an unused robot body made specifically for her. Tex then proceeds to effortlessly beat the Reds, Tucker, and Epsilon before Sheila and Caboose force her into armor lockup. Tex researches her past to discover who she truly is and leaves for another Freelancer facility with Church. The Reds search Freelancer's database and discover that the events of Blood Gulch Chronicles were one of many simulated scenarios used to train Freelancers and was in fact simply a training exercise gone terribly wrong. Tex sets a trap for Washington and the Meta to interrogate them and find the Director. She then proceeds to fight Washington and the Meta using explosives and weapons she had planted beforehand. The fight ends with the Meta stabbing Tex in the face with the capture unit, trapping her. He then uses her to regain some of his armor abilities and betrays Washington who is saved by the arrival of the Reds and Blues in a dropship which hits the Meta. They work together to try and save the capture unit, but Maine comes out of snowbank and attacks. After defeating Washington, the Reds, and the Blues, Sarge attaches the Warthog's towhook to the Meta's armor while Grif and Simmons push the Warthog over a cliff, to his demise. Church goes into the capture unit after Tex, but it shuts down before he can return, trapping him. As the UNSC arrive to clean up the scene, Washington fakes his death and joins the Blues while the Reds escape in a stolen transport. Inside the capture unit, Church relives a version of his memories of his time in Blood Gulch in the hope that Tex will find him there.
The ninth season depicts two independent plots -- one in machinima style using the Halo: Reach engine, following Epsilon Church after the finale of Revelation, and another, an entirely CGI-rendered storyline chronologically preceding the Blood Gulch Chronicles, involving events under Project Freelancer, several years in the past.
In the capture unit, Church attempts to straighten things out with the members of Red Team, as he discovers they aren't behaving the way he remembers them. They start to resume their normal personalities after he leaves. Church finds out that Caboose has called command and tries to find out which Freelancer will be sent, hoping that it is Tex. Church then realizes that the Memory Unit that he is stuck in is malfunctioning, thus causing earthquake-like tremors in the canyon. Tex arrives and kills Lopez, who had kidnapped and disguised himself as Simmons to investigate the tremors. While fixing the tank, Tex reveals to Church that she is aware of her origins, and that the world is a simulation, but does not know why the Director brought her back.
In the past, sibling operatives North and South Dakota steal a data file from a cryogenics facility. South is discovered and is unable to stop the alarm from being activated, and the two are forced to fight their way to the extraction point. Upon arriving they are surrounded, but are rescued by another Freelancer, codenamed Carolina. During the fight North is severely injured, but their dropship arrives and they make their escape. They are followed by enemy fighters, and North is forced to manually use his shield enhancement to save the ship from incoming missiles. Upon reaching the rendezvous, the flagship Mother of Invention destroys the attackers. The Director later debriefs North, South and Carolina and updates their ranks on a board. South is moved down for having alerted the enemy and making the next mission harder. Later, agent Washington talks to C.T., after she failed her mission, insisting that it wasn't her fault. She says that he is just making excuses and that the Director has the rank board set up to divide the Freelancers, based on failure and success rates. Soon after, Washington and North discover that a new agent is sparring in a 3 vs. 1 match against agents Maine, Wyoming and York.
Watching the match with the other freelancers, they observe as the new agent — revealed to be codenamed Texas, an apparently reserved name — easily defeats her opponents in two melee rounds. The next set of rounds involve guns loaded with paralyzing "lockdown paint". After six more rounds of defeat Wyoming and Maine secretly switch to live ammunition, and open fire on Tex. York attempts to help Tex fend them off, but is repeatedly pummeled by her. Just before Tex completely manages to paralyze Maine, he throws a live grenade at her, which lands next to York. Tex unloads her paintgun on York to protect him from the blast, and the medical crews are called in. The other Freelancers rush down onto the training floor, but the Director quickly arrives and berates them for interfering. To Washington's surprise, the Director refuses to punish Wyoming and Maine, instead praising them for showing "ingenuity and adaptability", claiming that the real enemy will not fight by the rules.
In the briefing for the next mission, the Director explains that it is a two team plan with one going into an insurrectionist-held skyscraper to find an item referred to as the "sarcophagus" while the other team steals the keycode to open it. Team A consists of Washington, Carolina, Maine, and a recently recovered York and Team B is made up of North, C.T. and Wyoming.
During the break-in, York inadvertently activates an alarm. After the others find the Sarcophagus, while at the same time Maine acquires his signature weapon, Carolina uses Maine as a counterweight to send it to the roof with a window washing platform. Carolina and Washington rendezvous with York on the roof, only to run into Tex who is covering their tracks by setting what appears to be a bomb. They are then confronted by the Insurrectionist forces, who demand the "bomb" be disarmed. The device is revealed to be a transmitter for the Mother of Invention's main gun to achieve a lock. The weapon is fired, causing the building to start collapsing. Tex uses a jetpack that fell from a guard to knock the Sarcophagus off the roof and flies after it, and the other freelancers are forced to jump off the edge. They attempt to maneuver the falling sarcophagus into a dropship, but are disrupted by Insurrectionist gunships. Tex manages to propel the sarcophagus and Washington into the dropship, and then jumps out. Carolina and York are saved by Maine who has stolen a jeep, and they head down a highway to assist Team B.
With Team B pinned down by the enemy, York, Carolina and Maine are forced to intercept the briefcase containing the password, with Maine attacking the official carrying the briefcase. Tex calls down a drop-pod containing a rocket launcher and motorcycle, and she sets along the highway towards the others, fighting off Insurrectionist pursuers. Three Insurrectionist soldiers using jetpacks battle York, Carolina and Maine to get back the briefcase, and Maine is shot by a sniper then repeatedly shot in the throat and then hit by a truck which throws him off the highway. The last soldier gets the briefcase back, and Carolina tries to get to him before Tex. Carolina finally manages to defeat the soldier, but Tex gets to the briefcase before she can, and is congratulated by the Director. Carolina is then taken away by York and the rest of the team (except Maine). Later, the Director and the Counselor are seen talking to a confused Delta while the Sarcophagus is put somewhere safe. North and York have a conversation while South views the ranks. York asks if they are the "good guys" and North reassures him so, although admitting he too is doubtful. At a short view of the ranks, Texas is 1, Carolina is 2, York is 3, Maine is 4, Washington is 5, North is 6, and South and Wyoming are off the board. Meanwhile, C.T. has a conversation with what appears to be an Insurrectionist, which is quickly ended by Washington.
Back in the capture unit Tex returns, before being convinced she is in a fake world kills Lopez (disguised as Simmons.) Before dying Lopez claims the earthquakes they've been experiencing were from the unit dying, with Simmons explaining it to the rest of the Reds after discovering what Lopez was using the equipment for. Sarge believes the earthquakes can only be stopped by blowing up the planet's core, and orders gives the Reds jobs for the plan: Sarge builds the drill, Donut finds the spot to drill, and Grif builds a bomb. Grif antagonizes Tex and the blues enough to make Tex build a bomb with the Blue's robot kit. The bomb turns out to be Andy. Sarge shows the Reds the drill he made while an invisible Tex puts Andy in the middle of them, who then begins ticking. After the bomb turns out to be a dud the Reds and Blues both contemplate the coming end. Church talks to Tex about the purpose of each iteration of his existence. Finally, he comes to the conclusion that to be at peace, he must say three certain words. Tex suspects that he wants to say "I love you," but instead he says "I forget you," choosing to let go of her memory and finally coming to peace with himself.
Back in the past, Carolina is approached by the Director, who gives her a task, the exact nature of which is concealed from the viewer. The Director warns her that it is very dangerous and far exceeds what is expected of her. Carolina remains absolute in her decision, stating that after all the Director gave her, she wants to be able to do something in return.
Back in the capture unit, the sky starts tearing up and revealing a large figure of Caboose. Church realizes that the tremors weren't from the capture unit dying, they were from a rescue mission to get Church back. Sarge approaches Caboose in the sky and order him to extract Church out. Church is alarmed at this and yells that he wishes to stay, as he finally is "at peace." Church is pulled out anyway and is in his "ghost" form. Caboose and Sarge explain that they had to fight through entire military bases and armies to get to him. The remainder of the Blood Gulch group is engaged in a firefight to hold the army off. To calm Church down, Caboose mentions that "she" helped them find him and needed him. Church initially assumes this is the "real Tex" before Caboose corrects him, saying that it is a "new lady." A door opens, revealing Agent Carolina, who is apparently both still alive and in what seems to be a delusional state of mind. Carolina refers to Epsilon-Church as the Alpha, and requests his help in finding and killing the Director.
| Series or season | Start date | End date | Episode numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 1 | April 1, 2003 | September 28, 2003 | 1–19 |
| The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 2 | January 3, 2004 | June 11, 2004 | 20–38 |
| The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 3 | October 12, 2004 | May 18, 2005 | 39–57 |
| The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 4 | August 29, 2005 | April 1, 2006 | 58–77 |
| Out of Mind | June 16, 2006 | September 4, 2006 | 1–5 |
| The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 5 | October 2, 2006 | June 28, 2007 | 78–100 |
| Recovery One | October 28, 2007 | December 7, 2007 | 1-4 |
| Reconstruction season 6 | April 5, 2008 | October 30, 2008 | 1–19 |
| Relocated | February 9, 2009 | March 9, 2009 | 1–4 |
| Recreation season 7 | June 15, 2009 | October 26, 2009 | 1–19 |
| Revelation season 8 | April 1, 2010 | September 13, 2010 | 1–20 |
| Red vs. Blue: Season 9 | June 14, 2011 | November 14, 2011 | 1-20 |
| MIA | November 13, 2011 | December 17, 2011 | 1-6 |
| Red vs. Blue: Season 10 | 2012 |
Red vs. Blue emerged from Burnie Burns's voiceover-enhanced gameplay videos that he created for a website called drunkgamers.com, which was run by Geoff Fink (later Geoff Ramsey) and Gustavo Sorola. Having played Halo: Combat Evolved extensively, the drunkgamers crew discussed one day whether the Warthog, an automobile in the game, looks like a puma. This discussion, re-created in episode 2, was "the spark for the whole series".[14] Seeing potential for a full story, Burns created a trailer for Red vs. Blue, but it was largely ignored, and, for unrelated reasons, drunkgamers soon closed. Four months later, Computer Gaming World contacted Ramsey for permission to include a different drunkgamers video in a CD to be distributed with the magazine. Ramsey granted permission, but he and Burns felt that they needed a website to take advantage of the exposure from Computer Gaming World. They therefore resurrected Red vs. Blue and re-released the trailer to coincide with the Computer Gaming World issue. The first episode proper was released on April 1, 2003.[15]
Rooster Teeth was initially unaware of the broader machinima movement. In 2004, Co-producer Matt Hullum stated in an interview with GameSpy, "When we first started Red vs. Blue we thought we were completely original. We never imagined that there were other people out there using video games to make movies, much less that it was a new art form with a hard to pronounce name and an official organization."[16]
The nature of Red vs. Blue was different from Burns's initial expectation. A partial character introduction released between the original trailer and the first episode featured extensive action and violence, set to Limp Bizkit's song "Break Stuff". However, as work continued, the focus shifted to situation comedy rather than the heavy action initially implied.[17] Although the series parodies video games, Ramsey noted, "We try not to make it too much of an inside joke. And I think we use more bureaucracy and military humor than anything else, which everybody working in an office can identify with."[18] Rooster Teeth has stated that Red vs. Blue was influenced by Homestar Runner,[19] Penny Arcade,[4] and possibly Mystery Science Theater 3000.[18]
Rooster Teeth initially envisioned Red vs. Blue to be short, but the series grew beyond their expectations. Burns and Ramsey had preconceived a list of jokes for which they allocated six to eight episodes. By episode 8, however, they realized that the series had fleshed out more than expected; they had covered only about one third of their original list.[20] Later in season 1, Burns estimated a series of 22 episodes; however, driven by the series' popularity, he realized that there was more potential story than could be covered in that length,[21] and was able to conceive an extension of the season 1 plot. The whole production team eventually quit their jobs and began to work full-time on the series; to generate revenue they created an online store to sell T-shirts.
On June 16, 2006 Burns announced a five-part mini-series, Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, which chronicles the adventures of the mercenary Tex after her disappearance in season 4. The mini-series premiered exclusively on the Xbox Live Marketplace,[22] but Rooster Teeth later made it available on their official site.[23]
The original series, The Blood Gulch Chronicles, ended on June 28, 2007, with the release of episode 100. On April 4, 2008, Burns announced a new series, Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction,[24] the group's first Halo 3 series. Several voice actors returned in Reconstruction,[25] which ran from April 5 to October 30, 2008. Rooster Teeth announced plans for new Red vs. Blue series, each separated by a few weeks' break. The first mini-series, Relocated, ran from February 9 to March 9, 2009. A second series, Recreation, began on June 15, 2009 and ended on October 26, 2009.
During a Late Nite Jenga Jam podcast, Burnie Burns officially confirmed that the working title of the eighth Red vs. Blue series was "Red vs. Blue: Resolution".[26] The title was later finalised as "Revelation".[27] The series started on April 1, 2010. The first four episodes were previewed at PAX East in March.[28]
On April 1, 2010 the premiere of Revelation, so many people visited the site that not only did their own site crash but Blip.tv (which hosts Rooster Teeth's videos) crashed as well.[29]
On March 19, 2011 Geoff Ramsey was interviewed for This Spartan Life on Halo Waypoint and said, later this year Season 9 of Red vs. Blue would be released.
On March 28, 2011 Rooster Teeth presented the first trailer for Season 9 of Red vs Blue which aird on June 14, 2011. This season will show events before The Blood Gulch Chronicles.[30]
On November 14, 2011 Season 9 concluded.
The writing process for the series has changed over time. Early in season 1, Burns wrote the episode scripts from week to week, with minimal planning in advance;[4] major plot events were conceived shortly before they were filmed.[31] For the second season, Matt Hullum became a main writer.[32] A rough plot outline is now written before a season begins, although the actual content of an individual episode is still decided on a more short-term basis.[33] Because Red vs. Blue is loosely based on the Halo universe, Rooster Teeth encountered some difficulties when trying to synchronize events in the series with the release of Halo 2.[34]
Except for a few scenes created with the Marathon Trilogy and the PC version of Halo, Red vs. Blue is mostly filmed with interconnected Xbox consoles. As the series title suggests, the videos are largely set in the Halo map Blood Gulch and its Halo 2 counterpart, Coagulation. However, some episodes have been filmed on other maps, including Sidewinder and Hang 'Em High from Halo and Zanzibar and Waterworks from Halo 2. One special video used the public Beta of Halo 3 as a special introduction video. Within a multiplayer game session of any of the games used for filming, the people controlling the avatars "puppet" their characters, moving them around, firing weapons, and performing other actions as dictated by the script, and in synchronization with the episode's dialogue, which is recorded ahead of time.[35]
The "cameraman" is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer. To work around in-game limitations, bugs and post-production techniques are exploited to achieve desired visual effects. In particular, Adobe Premiere Pro is used to edit the audio and video together, impose letterboxing to hide the camera player's head-up display, add the titles and fade-to-black screens, and create some visual effects that cannot be accomplished in-game.[36]
Trocadero provides the music for Red vs. Blue, which did not feature any originally. According to a journal entry on Rooster Teeth's official site, Nico Audy-Rowland, Trocadero's bandleader, was introduced to the series and enjoyed it enough to submit a song about it. Burns liked the piece and requested more;[37] he stated in the season 1 DVD audio commentary tracks that the music added a "whole new element to the series".[38] To create other sound effects, Burns used Foley artistry, in some cases to replace cinematically awkward counterparts from the game engine.[39]
Red vs. Blue attracted interest immediately; the first episode had 20,000 downloads within a day.[40] Shortly after episode 2, Bungie Studios contacted Rooster Teeth. Although the crew had feared that any contact would be to force an end to the project, Bungie enjoyed the videos and was supportive;[41] one staff member called the production "kind of brilliant".[42] A deal was arranged to ensure that the series could continue to use Bungie's game properties[3] without license fees.[42] Red vs. Blue continued to attract more attention, and, by April 2004, Kevin J. Delaney of The Wall Street Journal estimated that weekly viewership was between 650,000 and 1,000,000.[3] In a 2006 interview, Strange Company founder Hugh Hancock called the series probably "the most successful machinima productions [sic]" and estimated that it was generating almost US$200,000 annually.[43] Red vs. Blue content was also included with a premium "Legendary" edition of Halo 3.[44]
Red vs. Blue was widely acclaimed within the machinima industry. The first season won awards for Best Picture, Best Independent Machinima Film, and Best Writing at the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences' 2003 Machinima Film Festival.[45] Two years later, at the 2005 festival, the third season won an award for Best Independent Machinima and was nominated for five others.[46] At the 2006 Machinima Festival, the series was nominated for awards in voice acting and writing, but won neither.[47]
Among film critics, the response was generally positive. Darren Waters of BBC News Online called Red vs. Blue "riotously funny" and "reminiscent of the anarchic energy of South Park".[21] Reviewing the three season DVDs for Cinema Strikes Back, Charlie Prince wrote, "Red vs. Blue is hysterical in large part because all the characters are morons, and so the seemingly intense conflict with the opposing base doesn't exactly work the way you'd think it would."[48] Leggat described the series as "[p]art locker-room humor, part Beckett-like absurdist tragicomedy, part wicked vivisection of game culture and sci-fi action films and games".[49] Ed Halter of The Village Voice dismissed the humor as shallow and described the first season as "Clerks-meets-Star Wars".[50] Leggat defended the humor, arguing, "The literary analog is absurdist drama."[3]
Another common criticism of Red vs. Blue was that its season 3 plot was too far-fetched and out-of-character. Charlie Prince wrote, "By the third season, however, the Red vs. Blue idea seems to be running out of steam.... It's not funny so much as just odd."[48] Writing for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Wilma Jandoc agreed that the first part of "season 3... throws the teams into a ridiculous situation and has limited member interactions, leading to a lack of witty dialogue".[5] In an about.com review of the season 4 DVD, writer Eric Qualls thought that season 3 was "a little too long, and too complicated, and the jokes were a bit too far apart".[51] Nevertheless, both Prince and Jandoc were optimistic that the series would improve, and Qualls stated that the fourth season had "returned to the series' roots" as "some of the funniest stuff you’ll ever see".[51]
Rooster Teeth Productions has created special Red vs. Blue videos for various events. For example, Microsoft has commissioned Red vs. Blue videos for Xbox demo kiosks found in game stores and for a developer conference.[52] Barenaked Ladies has also commissioned videos for their concerts.[3] Other videos have been specifically created for gaming magazines, including Electronic Gaming Monthly and Computer Gaming World; gaming conventions, including E3 and the Penny Arcade Expo; and the Sundance Film Festival.
Red vs. Blue has also received praise from soldiers stationed in the Middle East. An August 2005 blog entry by Kimi Matsuzaki of 1UP.com displays photographs of soldiers holding various weapons, as well as copies of the first and second season Red vs. Blue DVDs.[53] Geoff Ramsey later stated in an interview, "We get a lot of merchandise and DVDs out to Iraq and get a lot of great e-mails back."[18]
Red vs. Blue has been acknowledged by Xbox Live through Grifball, a game variant which is featured on the Halo 3 multiplayer; Grifball being a reference to one of the characters on the show. The notability and impact of Red vs. Blue extends to video games outside the Halo series as well. The developers of the Xbox 360 video game Gears of War, Epic Games, made a reference to a Red vs. Blue gag through an in-game achievement called, "Is it a spider?"; the award is earned for tagging opponents with grenades. Another reference to the series appears on Bungie's website. On a player’s Halo 3 profile screen the description of a kill or death with a flag is “Right next to the headlight fluid”.[54] In Halo 3 itself, the second campaign scenario features a Red vs. Blue skit, wherein two cast members voice over a soldier attempting to bypass a locked door. Different skits are seen on each difficulty level. In Halo: Reach, Dr. Halsey's office contains a data-file detailing the UNSC's "reaction" to the films. In the expansion pack for Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, there is an achievement called "Chupathingy," when killing a Chupacabra.
Red vs. Blue is widely credited with attracting public attention to machinima. Although examples had existed since the 1990s, Clive Thompson credited Red vs. Blue as "the first to break out of the underground".[55] Tavares, Gil, and Roque called it machinima's "first big success",[56] and Paul Marino noted that "the series proved so popular that it not only transcended the typical gamer, it also claimed fans outside the gaming world".[57] In 2005, Thompson wrote that "Microsoft has been so strangely solicitous that when it was developing the sequel to Halo last year, the designers actually inserted a special command—a joystick button that makes a soldier lower his weapon—designed solely to make it easier for Rooster Teeth to do dialogue".[42] The series has inspired other machinima productions, including The Codex.[58]
In machinima, Red vs. Blue has been mentioned as the most successful example of the trend toward serial distribution. According to Hugh Hancock, this format allows for gradual improvement as a result of viewer feedback, and gives viewers a reason to return for future videos. Hancock argues that this model was necessary for Red vs. Blue's success: "Sunday night is Red vs. Blue night, just as (in the UK) Thursday used to be Buffy. Had RvB released their films as single downloads of an hour and a half, they'd have had nowhere near the success they currently enjoy."[59]
| Public | Sponsor | DVD |
|---|---|---|
| Seasons 1–4 | ||
| 320×240 or 360×240 |
640×480 or 720×480 |
640×480 |
| Out of Mind-Season 5 | ||
| 640×360 | 640×360 | 1280×720 |
| Reconstruction-Revelation | ||
| 640×360 | 640×360 | 1280×720 |
| Season 9 and after | ||
| 640×360 | 1280×720 | 1280×720 |
Videos are typically available in QuickTime (QT) and Windows Media Video (WMV) formats. All released episodes of the latest season are freely available from the official site. A few episodes from the previous seasons are available from a rolling archive; each week, the videos are rotated to the next set. This setup is intended to help to control bandwidth costs;[60] as of September 2005, the official Rooster Teeth website was serving 400 terabytes of data monthly.[61] However, nearly all freely released episodes of Red vs. Blue are also available from websites such as Machinima.com, Archive.org, FilePlanet, and Google Video. From the Xbox Live Marketplace, Out of Mind is available as a free download, and some Red vs. Blue episodes can be purchased for 80 Microsoft Points each.[62] Episodes are also available to be streamed via Halo Waypoint.
Members of the official website can gain sponsor status for a fee of US$10 every six months. Sponsors can access videos a few days before the general public release, download higher-resolution versions of the episodes, and access special content released only to sponsors. For example, during season 5, Rooster Teeth began to release directors' commentary to sponsors for download. Additionally, while the public archive is limited to rotating sets of videos, sponsors can access content from previous seasons at any time.[63]
Episodes are released in different resolutions; higher resolutions are reserved for sponsors. Beginning with the Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind mini-series, Rooster Teeth began to film and edit video in 720p high-definition,[64] and to release episodes in widescreen format, instead of hiding the game HUD through the letterboxing seen in full-screen releases. On the January 8, 2007, release of episode 87, Matt Hullum announced that videos would be viewable in Macromedia Flash format. He stated that the change allowed Rooster Teeth to release public videos in a higher resolution "while keeping the file size low", and that the entire video archive would be updated. Code to embed the Flash video on other websites was also distributed.[65] In a site journal entry, Burns clarified that downloadable versions would continue to be released, but after their Flash counterparts.
Although it is distributed serially over the Internet, Red vs. Blue is also one of the first commercially released products made using machinima, as opposed to a product merely containing machinima. DVDs of the eight completed seasons are sold through Rooster Teeth's official website, as well as at most EB Games, GameStop and Hot Topic stores in the United States.[66] For the DVDs, the episodes of the main storyline are edited together to play continuously as a full-length film. Because the episodes as individually released often contain dialogue that continues into or past the fade to black at the end of the video, Rooster Teeth either removes that dialogue entirely or films extra footage to replace the original fade to black.[67] On April 1, 2008, Rooster Teeth released a box set of all five seasons, including a DVD of new bonus content. In 2010, a remastered box set of the first five seasons was released, with the seasons 1 - 4 completely reshot, featuring a proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the highly letterboxed look of the original episodes, and a much higher resolution.
A third version of the season is further edited for time for showing at the Lincoln Center and at other film festivals. In a 2005 interview, Burns noted that the first season, normally 75 minutes in length, was cut to 55 minutes for these venues, with an entire episode omitted.[68] Burns stated in a website news post that the 135-minute season 3 DVD version had to be shortened to "a watchable-in-a-theater runtime of 100 minutes".[69]
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