Red Vs Blue General Discussion

the new episode was great, but it really didn't further the plot. I'm really hoping that the next set of episodes focus on the Freelancers. After a whole series and PS As and the like I really want to learn about the puppet masters; the real players and pieces behind the bickering pawns, the actual activities and goals of the Director, the motives of the Agents, and of course more action from Monty.

And if Wash pats Agent Maine on the helmet I will laugh hysterically

edited 12th Aug '11 3:32:27 PM by Geveric

Episode 9 is out:

The thing with Lopez went on for too long, but Tucker's comment about Church being a stalker was pretty funny.

Man, this season is kinda dragging for me so far; nothing has really happened yet on the Blood Gulch front, which I wouldn't mind if the humor made up for it, but the funny stuff just isn't as funny as it used to be, and now they're recycling old jokes. I would have liked it better if they just gave complete focus to the Freelancer stuff, which is at least decent so far, rather than half-assing it on the BG stuff. I liked Rv B better when it didn't take itself seriously (or at least didn't try to tell a serious story), which seems to be the case here at the expense of humor and good character interaction.

The Freelancer stuff was tolerable this week. Maybe the trick is to have 5 minutes of Red vs. Blue stuff first.

Notice how some people are noticing in this thread that the humor isn't quite what it used to be? I'm don't really care either way, but I think it raises a point. Could RvB really have gone on this long as a straight-up comedy? If not, maybe that would be for the best, maybe it would have been better off just stopping, but for better or worse, it sustained itself through a somewhat serious storyline.

I personally came along and started watching when it was all the way to Relocated or Recreation or maybe even Revelation, meaning that I did a fairly rapid Archive Binge. So I flowed right from the early comedic Blood Gulch Chronicles to the more sophisticated later "Re-" stuff, and thus there was no "Back when it was like [x]" for me. And really, I was kind of thrilled when I got to Reconstruction, precisely because it was a change of pace from the Blood Gulch Chronicles, with more characters and locations and better production values and whatnot.

When they brought Monty Oum in last season, I was amazed by his scenes because they were an even more thrilling step up and change of pace. When I heard about the fully animated Freelancer stuff coming this season, I was equally intrigued. I'm enjoying it because I like seeing something other than machinima used to bring this world to life, and I like seeing Rooster Teeth bringing their acting and writing abilities to bear on something more serious. And actually getting to see characters' faces...I like that too. RvB in general was/is a lot simpler without it, yes, but for me it began to dehumanize the main cast after a while.

I'm not saying anyone else is wrong here, and I'm certainly not trying to pick any fights. In fact, I'd really rather not spend my time arguing. I just want to sit back and enjoy the show like anyone else. Unlike most tropers, I'm not much of a critic, but I didn't feel right sitting back and not saying anything. (And yes, my posts tend to run longer than other peoples')

edited 16th Aug '11 7:25:27 PM by frog753

I came into RVB around Season 3 of the BGC. I can remember trying to download episodes back in pre-Broadband days, where you were lucky if you downloaded a 10 MB file in the four hours before your connection had to be reset. I can remember watching it at school with three-four people crammed around the one computer.

Up until Reconstruction I watched every episode the week in came out. Then I slowed down, and gave up entirely... then came back to it, gave up again, then went back again.

I'll probably watch this whole season once every episode is out. But the new series (plural) don't do what the old ones did for me, and that's have a lot of stand-alone comedy and jokes in every episode which actually made keeping up to date worthwhile.

edited 16th Aug '11 8:13:16 PM by Medicus

^^Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the "Re-" stuff as much as classic Blood Gulch, if not more; and I similarly archive binged the original series, or most of it (I think I started before the season immediately following Donut apparently getting crushed by the ship came out, whichever that was). I liked the story until now, because for the past few seasons I felt they were able to integrate the humor and character bits much better than now, where they've literally split them into two, and the funny this season is just kind of lackluster.

Plus bringing the series back to Blood Gulch in the way that they did hasn't done them any favors on that front either; it's taken, actually more like reverted the characters back to their sort-of roots with changes that just haven't done it for me, and left them no way to grow or change like they have been doing in any way other than ones we've already seen. We're now stuck waiting either for the constructs to get to the point the real crew was at, or just ditch them and see the real crew again, which would be much more preferable. So on the one hand we've got the takes-itself-completely-seriously Freelancer material, which is ok so far but is bereft of the levity that really made it work in the first place, and recycled stuff that's been tweaked in ways insufficient to make it fresh with characters that aren't even really the characters we've been following.

^^^Tolerable? Thee was really no progression besides establishing something already obvious and that Wash and North seem to have a form of comradeship. and the BG stuff was little better quite honestly. The earthquakes are still not really explained and the only real value I got from them was tucker's statement on Romance V Stalking (Which I now use in general conversation)

Honestly, I want to see more Freelancer...you know, the stuff they made the whole trailer about, the whole tag line of "before Red vs Blue?"? The real players that have worked to tie all the humor and random zaniness of the previous chapters into a refreshing impressive story DESPITE Burnie's insistence.

All I'm saying is I really hope that they veer off this memory unit stuff and start delving more into the Freelancers (What happened to Utah during equipment Training? What was Wyoming's place in the Freelancers (Woot for him being back btw)? How will Tex Raise herself from essentially a pit dog into the Queen Baddass of the Freelancers? I can still appreciate the humor that got them to where they are, but RT needs to keep up this complex story; it makes for some really entertaining conversation with my friends at college. Not to mention it's really awesome to see how a self-taught artist like Monty can really cut loose when given the resources and motivation.

Romance V Stalking?

Allison never actually died. She just moved out of town and convinced her friends to tell Leonard she was dead so he would leave her alone.

I'm putting serious thought into buying the Red vs. Blue DV Ds and I need to know if I'm insane.

I find the Memory Unit plot interesting, I just hope it goes somewhere soon. The Blood Gulch stuff in the last few episodes has felt overwhelmingly like padding, so even when it is funny I'm still left unsatisfied.

It's not that insane. I bought the Blood Gulch Chronicles DV Ds from Best Buy. Though if it wasn't for the fact that they were at a large retail store I wouldn't have considered it.

Well I just finished rewatching Blood Gulch Chronicles and Reconstruction (which I still think is my favorite season) on DVDs I rented from Netflix (I basically never buy DVDs anymore). I'd rent Recreation and Revelation too but they're not available, so I'll probably watch them online when I get around to it (never).

edited 17th Aug '11 6:19:29 PM by thatother1dude

I'm reminded that I've been hoping we'd get to see a bit of Wyoming this season. He hasn't really been on the show much since he died at the end of BGC.

well that was the lamest PSA ever

I miss when they actually used to be funny. Now that just feel forced.

I kinda agree. it felt more like an excuse to show off some pictures of the people at RT doing strange things like staring at goats. also, the length was...lacking. after this week I really want to see a full Freelancer episode involving Tex destroying Maine, Wyoming, and York. (You've had several weeks of Machinema cover Monty; deliver your kickassary unto us!)

I thought the shaking at the beginning and inverted control argument was pretty funny.

I was also disappointed there wasn't an actual episode now, but I don't get why the PSA not being long enough was a problem. 3 minutes seems pretty normal length for one of these.

I got the DV Ds after all. Watching the first season is so painful now. All the voices sound wrong, and their audio equipment was terrible.

Watching the first couple of seasons all at once (which I did when I started watching, since the show was all the way through Recreation at the time) is a little odd because a bunch of characters, most noticeably the rookies, change pretty substantially as the season progress.

On the plus side, the DVDs don't have the whole "letterboxed to cut out parts of the gaming interface and with the aiming sight in the middle of the screen" thing going on.

edited 23rd Aug '11 7:36:06 PM by SomeName

The commentary is really interesting.

Didn't they re-record the dialogue in addition to re-shooting all the scenes?

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I just watched seasons 2-5 on DVD and the aiming reticule was still there until they found that one bug that let them remove it.

I'm pretty sure most of it was not re-shot or re-recorded, but the DVDs are sort of a director's cut. The part in Season 3 with Church constantly running into You Already Changed the Past I'm pretty sure is significantly different.

edited 23rd Aug '11 10:11:16 PM by thatother1dude

The video has been re-done, not sure about the audio but I think they re-did it.