Due to being an abridged parody, this article assumes you've already seen Breaking Bad, and will contain unmarked spoilers for events in that show. You Have Been Warned.
Walter White is just your average man with his wonderful wife Skylar and son Walter Jr. when someone crashes their car into his house, his former chemistry student Jesse Pinkman who delivers the unfortunate news of Walt having cancer to the man himself before telling Walter his plan to help get money for his cancer: selling meth.
Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware is an Garry's Mod improv roleplay Machinima by WayneRadioTV and the Radio TV Solutions crew, in a similar vein to their previous series Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware, being a mostly improvised and far more humorous retelling of Breaking Bad using Garry's Mod. It was streamed on December 16th, 2023, with an edited down version planned to be released sometime in the near future.
Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware contains examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In Breaking Bad, the Aryan Brotherhood were... well, Neo-Nazis. In Breaking Bad VR, they're just a gang of unruly clowns instead, although they're still dangerous enemies to Walter and Jesse.
- Walter White himself is both more kind and openly affectionate to Jesse, often referring to him as his son, and due to the truncated nature of the stream doesn't commit many of his more questionable acts in the original show, not being responsible to Jane's death with Jesse even pointing out he never met her when he claims to have watched her die and there being no indication of him having poisoned Brock.
- Adapted Out: Marie Schrader is only mentioned by Hank and never appears onscreen. Consequently, Hank is now Walter's direct brother rather than brother-in-law.
- Alien Geometries: Due to quirks in the map, the tunnel from Albuquerque to the outside only works correctly about half the time. Sometimes going through it takes people under the map, and at least twice, the car is shot back into Albuquerque at high speed.
- Ambiguously Gay: Walter admits that he doesn't find his wife hot (although he does love her), awkwardly talks up a guy at a party, and asks Saul if he's gay.
- Amoral Attorney: Saul Goodman, naturally. Walt and Jesse go to see him during the first hour of the stream, and he returns for part of the final hour.
- An Ice Person: Jesse is one of these, as he is shown to have "ice magic." This is what he's advertised as when he's sold into Todd's circus.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: When Jesse kills Gale, it is one of the rare times the perspective shifts from Walt's point of view.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: Apparently meth can be mined from a massive crystal jutting out from the ground.
- Big, Bulky Bomb: The bomb that Walt puts on Hector's wheelchair is a bundle of giant sticks of dynamite.
- The Cameo: Dr. Coomer makes a brief appearance at the Diner while Jesse shows Walt a video on his phone, making an order in the background.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Jack's circus is called Uncle Jack's Evil Circus.
- Character Signature Song: In this universe, every character has their own ringtone specific to them, and their own radio station that plays songs about them.
- Combined Energy Attack: Walt utilizes a Spirit Bomb powered by the energies of the people of Albuquerque to take down the circus.
- The Comically Serious: What little comedy is derived from RTVS's version of Gus Fring comes from two sources: one, that he is audibly played by Baaulp, one of the goofier members of the cast who "cannot voice-act to save his life;" and two, that he remains a reasonably serious portrayal of Gus despite all of reality around him being thoroughly out to lunch.Gus: THE HANK SCHRADER HAS FOUND OUR SPECIAL METH CHICKENS! WALTER WHITE, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?! WE ARE GOING TO MEXICO, NOW!
- Compressed Adaptation: BBVRAI takes around sixty hours of TV, comprised of five seasons and sixty two episodes, and compresses it all into a five-hour stream.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Hank's Lame Last Words:Hank: You're the stupidest guy I've ever met... and you're stupid!
- Demoted to Extra: Skyler's presence is downplayed as most of Walt's life outside of the meth trade is truncated to his relationship with Hank, to the point that she is a literal cardboard cutout. In the original, she was a much bigger presence who acted as a major obstacle to Walt's practices, trying to keep his business secret from her.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Various characters meet their ends differently here than in the original show, with some varying way more than others.
- In Breaking Bad, Gus killed Victor by slicing his throat with a box cutter and letting him bleed out. In BBVRAI, he stabs him various times with a combat knife.
- In the aftermath of the Aryan Brotherhood being gunned down by Walt's machine gun, Jesse strangles Todd with his handcuffs before breaking his neck. In BBVRAI, Jesse uses his ice magic to kill him instead.
- Walt ends up bleeding out from a bullet wound he sustained from the machine turret he used to execute the Aryan Brotherhood. Here, while he still ends up bleeding out from gunshot wounds, he sustains a lot more than just one from both the clowns as he's charging up the Blue Sky Bomb and from Jesse after the fact shooting him with various different weapons.
- Dramatic Irony: Hank constantly asserts two things: How much he loves his brother Walt and how much he hates those in the drugs business. Walt, on the other hand, recently joined the trade of cooking and selling meth. Needless to say, he's rather pissed when he figures it out.
- Dull Surprise: Walt Jr.'s voice rarely ever goes above a semi-disinterested tone, even when Skyler accuses Walter of fucking Hank.
- The Dying Walk: The stream ends with Walter walking into Jack's meth lab after destroying the circus with the Blue Sky Bomb, admiring the equipment as he dies.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Chuck appears in a clip from Better Call Saul played on an in-universe television and as a walking corpse attacking Saul with electricity.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Saul is confronted by the ghost of his brother Chuck in the desert, who chases him off with electric powers. He is never seen again.
- Flanderization: For comedy and Adaptation Distillation purposes, just about every character gets at least a minor dose of it.
- Walt himself, despite being a lot more caring to Jesse specifically, also seems not to care very much about anyone else. A standout moment is his final confrontation with Mike- in the show, Walt shoots Mike in a moment of passion and immediately expresses guilt and horror for fatally wounding Mike, and it shakes him for a while afterwards. In this version, Walt shoots Mike and then goes to look for more ammo, calms down just long enough to give a whining, victim-blaming non-apology to the man he's murdered, and then (when he's certain nobody is looking) immediately absorbs Mike's memories of his connections in prison so he can have them assassinated, before promptly stealing his car and driving home while laughing about what a good day he's having.
- Gale in the TV show was an Ambiguously Gay Lovable Nerd who had some hints towards crushing on Walt and was too submissive for his own good. As played by Log, he's a strikingly idiotic Camp Gay who spends what little screentime he has practically licking Walt's boots a la the Blue Gnome. Gus outright calls him a cuck.
- Poor Skyler and Walt Jr. are reduced to literal cardboard cutouts. Skyler describes everything she's doing in a cheery Machine Monotone, whereas Jr. spends nearly the entire plot sounding nothing more than bored and disaffected.
- Hypocritical Humor: Walter speeds down the road in his car in order to stop Jesse from killing someone... then proceeds to run over said person splattering them further down the road.
- Knight of Cerebus: Gus Fring. Compared to the rest of the cast, who at least have some level of goofiness in their portrayals, Gus is played almost completely as he was in the original series.
- Magic Music: A few characters, most notably Hector, use the Wowozela (a.k.a. the Black Mesa Sweet Voice) to communicate.
- Mythology Gag: Todd (as portrayed by Scorpy) is a PlayStation 3 fanboy with poor voice quality who clearly isn't all there in the head, referencing Scorpy's previous role as Benrey.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for Laughs. Skyler, who has been talking in a chipper yet robotic demeanor the entire time, breaks down into realistically upset tears when she thinks she's figured out why Hank is missing:
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Chuck's corpse delivers one right before he chases Saul away with blasts of electricity.Chuck: HEY, JIMMY! REMEMBER ELECTROMAGNETISM? WELL, YOU BETTER GROUND YOURSELF!
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
- How Walter gets rid of Crazy-8: by exploding the RV, and the immediate area, to the point where Jesse momentarily is ignited as well.
- Hector blowing up Gus with a ton of rapid-fire explosions, that last far beyond him actually dying. And then Gus walks out and explodes one last time for good measure
- The Circus executes Hank with a flurry of gunfire, rather than just a single headshot from Jack.
- Jesse also ends up shooting Walt with various different weapons, from a pistol to a shotgun to a rifle and then finally a blast of electric magic.
- And then in the credits, armed soldiers raid Jack's lab and proceed to still blast Walter's corpse.
- Running Gag:
- Jesse getting so excited or high that he begins to run, jump and sound like Super Mario 64.
- A Breaking Bad poster randomly waddling around in the background or into the scene.
- Mike beating up Walter.
- Walt going into the crafting animation from Dead Rising 2 whenever he cooks meth or builds something.
- The Stinger: Two of them.
- The first one immediately after the ending montage has Jesse run up to Walt, who is still (barely) alive to show him the trailer for Half-Life 2 VR but the AI is Self-Aware on his phone, followed by the actual trailer for HL2VRAI.
- The second one, after The End graphic, which is a short clip of Dean Norris congratulating Wayne and RTVS on breaking bad and the trailer, before telling Wayne that he's finished for not including Benrey in the trailer.
- Shout-Out:
- The intro has the camera zoom around the map, showing various important locations, before zooming into Walt's face.
- The hhgregg mascot shows up in the hospital waiting room
- The fog inside the tunnel that hides the barrier between the city map and the desert map is attributed to the Pale.
- When Gus Fring is first introduced, he is given a title card and ranking a la No More Heroes.
- Walt saves Jesse and defeats Uncle Jack's Evil Circus by getting all of Albequerque to charge a Spirit Bomb.
- Stylistic Suck: Unlike its predecessor, BBVR doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's in Gmod. Characters are constantly appearing, disappearing, summoning objects from thin air, hurtling about bonelessly, and in general making full use of Gmod's plethora of
Good Bad Bugs for comedy. - Take That!: The Aryan Brotherhood are portrayed as a bunch of clowns in this adaptation as a none-too-subtle jab at neo-Nazis.
- Taking You with Me: Like in the series, Walt gives Hector a bomb that he uses to blow himself and Gus to bits. This time, however, Walt is in the same room as Hector and Gus, though he is unharmed in the explosion.
- Third-Person Person: Skyler's dialogue is mostly rendered as if Holly is reading off the stage directions verbatim.
- Tranquil Fury:Gus: Did you know Hector Salamanca killed my husband? I just thought that was interesting.
- Villainous Harlequin: Uncle Jack's Evil Circus, a campground of clowns located just outside Albuquerque, fulfill the role that the Aryan Brotherhood did in the show (albeit in a more comical way).
I see meth of blue, Walter of White
Better Call Saul, on AMC tonight
And I think to myself
What a Breaking Bad world
Better Call Saul, on AMC tonight
And I think to myself
What a Breaking Bad world
