Introduction
Red vs Blue starts like the very first project of Rooster Teeth (a production company from Texas, USA) in 2003.
Now, is currently the longest running American web-series in history, with over 300 episodes and 10 years on air. It is also the first web series at the Internet.
Everybody get in the Warthog, we're leaving to Blood Gulch! And then to the future, and then again to Blood Gulch, and to Valhalla, and then to Chorus... and then paralell universes... You know what? Just get in the Warthog please (that does it looks more like a puma, don't you think?)
Let's start from the beginning... Have you ever wondered why are we here? No, I don't mean at this existence but here on the computer reading, it's ok tho, if you wanna go the existencialist way it's entirely your business. Need to talk 'bout it? Fine, fine, I'll take that as a no (if you need to, you can call to 555-VICK).
Kind of like this starts the travesy of the Red and Blue teams, talking nonsense meanwhile their existence gets complicated more and more, because that's the whole point at this tale that works sorta like a parody at Halo games where everything happens by misunderstandings... or accidents.
STOP, SIDE NOTE: Knock Knock... Who is it? Spoilers! It is impossible to talk about Red vs Blue without making some spoilers, so if you are the kind of people who wants to watch the series with all its surprises unveiled, I recommend you to not keep reading. If you don't mind, go happily on and remember why are we here. Really this series can be highly enjoyed either you ate a spoiler or not because its surprising factor ain't the Plot Twists but how the story develops them.
PD: Also if you watch the series, you can skip directly to the Review part!
But... what kind of premise gets so complicated? Our main protagonists are Blue Team whose integrants are Church his facto leader who is a misantropist to the bone, his second-in-command a joker obssesed woth chicks called Tucker, and the idiotic-yet-adorable-rookie Caboose; and the Red Team conformated by his commander (and possibly redneck) Sarge, his second-in-command with self-steem issues Simmons, Lopez the robot who only speaks a horrid spanish, the lazy but yet oportunist soldier Grif, and the pink-armored rookie Donut (who keeps saying it's light-ish red, not pink).
Their dinamics are to try killing eachother in a strepitous and failed way because they are fighting a Civil War in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere with a really stupid Capture the Flag game and obviosly in a traditional red-vs-blue teams way. This time, literally than ever. Meanwhile, new characters appear as Shiela (a parlant tank), Texas (a mercenary), Doc (a really useless doctor), O'Malley (a psycho AI), among others that the more they interact with our Teams, the more they tangle the plot giving us surprising discoverings at each arc, and also at their five miniseries.
Red vs Blue is conformed by a total of six, being them:
• The Blood Gulch Chronicles: the story of Red and Blue teams in their civil war against eachother and their experiences at Blood Gulch Canyon; this being seasons 1 to 5.
• The Recollection: where it's shown character's lives once they were departed from Blood Gluch and relocated at diverse bases around earth, where they start to meet on first hand what it is exactly Freelancer's figures and which is actually their mission; this being the thematic seasons 6 (Reconstruction), 7 (Recreation), and 8 (Revelation).
• Project Freelancer: composed by flashbacks that tells the entire story of Freelancers and why that project was an entire failure, parallel to the actuality events where they focus on stopping the last arc's villain (The Meta), this time once for all for it is threatening with destroying everything on its way, at seasons 9 and 10.
• The Chorus Trilogy: the last ended up arc, here is where out main characters get involved by accident at other civil war when they blow up and crash the ship that supposedly would take them back home and falling inside a planet named Chorus where two bountyhunters (Locus and Felix) fight eachother the control of the planet for taking it to its total destruction at seasons 11 to 13.
• Anthology: More than an arc itself, it's a loose-ends way to tie up some plot holes between seasons and miniseries to understand better what we would encounter at season 15. They are all disconnected stories which explain the origin of many events, and even if some of them are just comical fillers to make the season less serious and monotone some chapters like The Musical are just too hilarious to not to enjoy them. Anthology occupies just season 14, being by now the shorter arc without counting all the five miniseries.
• Season 15 (For now without name): For now airing at sundays, it follows the story of our teams 10 months later season 13. Unusually, the main character is reporter who is on a "Hunt for the Truth" due to many terrorist attacks made by some guys who proclaim themselves being the actual Reds and Blues against the UNSC threatening with destroy Chorus on its way.
Also the five miniseries:
• Out of Mind: Between seasons 4 and 5, the plot centers on Tex and its search for Freelancer Wyoming.
• Recovery One: Directly tied to Out of Mind and after season 5, it is a prelude of Reconstruction (season 6) for it follows the story of a recovery agent whose code name is Recovery One.
• Relocated: Direct sequel of Reconstruction where they just show the lives and do's of Red Team after being relocated while the events of seasons 6 and 7.
• MIA (Missing In Action): Inside season 9, it follows the stories of the teams looking for Grif meanwhile they are at Epsilon's Memory Unit.
• Where There’s a Will There’s a Wall: It's the shortest miniseries with only three episodes between seasons 9 and 10 at some point after Lopez's reconstruction. It doesn't deals directly with any plot of the series as justs follows a bunch of weird eventualities within teams after Sarge finds a strange wall.
Actually, the series are still on emision with season 15 currently airing every sunday's morning on their YouTube Official Channel called Red vs Blue.
Review
Now, knowing all this I can make a proper review beginning with the next question: What does make Red vs Blue so special?
I am not gonna lie, the first arc, The Blood Gulch Chronicles is pretty boring when you compare it with the best arc on the series Project Freelancer (the third one), because while at the first (specially seasons one and two) t is shown the absurd vivencies of the main characters meanwhile they talk about stupid crap, insult eachother, and some other ones appear just to thicken the plot, at third the quantity of action, new characters, stories, and of course, stupidity, it's way higher than at The Blood Gulch Chronicles and The Recollection, although in some way less than in Chorus which is a more complex story in some other ways for it not being related to the three last arcs.
Speaking about the animation, Red vs Blue has an advantage which is working directly with the game engines of Halo: Combat Evolved's multiplayer and all posterior games, making "coincidences" between a change of engine with major plot events like the time travel at season 3 where they change to Halo 2 and Marathon's engine. This makes the life easier for the Rooster Teeth fellas because that way they don't have to draw and design frame by frame from zero to our favorite characters. This doesn't means it is all singing and dancing; the team puts so much effort they even look bugs and glitches to make the filming of almost 90% on the series, but as themselves said, it's easier to sit and play at the computer or consoles to then mix the audio than make all this whole universe from the nowhere.
The music is also amazing. I just can't say anything bad about it, not even picky. I just have to praise how good it is and the well worked every single piece is, not just to make an ambient for the situations, but to tie events or characters between them and also describe them like they were speaking by themselves. The music on Red vs Blue since its second season, and specially since sixth is just superb; it tells you all the story in such a hidden sucesion and you just tie unconsciously!
But that ain't what makes this series special. Which truly makes it special are its characters and how they get through the plot- The story and everyone involved in it are what makes Red vs Blue such a wonderfull and funny-as-heck series to watch.
To The Blood Gulch Chronicles arc, since even Anthology's arc, every plot, every fourth-wall break, and even the way the Red and Blue teams treats eachother is exceptional. It isn't specially predictable in some aspects, because no one expects Tex actually being a girl (Samus Aran's best style), much less her being Church's psycho girlfriend, as much as is beyond almost everyone's imagination that really Agent Carolina is no more no less than the daughter of the Proyect Freelancer's Director just by seeing that their iris is exactly the same. They are so many things on it's favor that it would be impossible to mention just one.
Its characters, plot twists and rounds, and over all the references to earlier episodes (like Andersmith soldier) are what makes Red vs Blue a really interesting piece of art to watch if you are dedicated enought to see seasons 1 to 2 without giving up and then go on to season 6 without asking yourself too much what the heck is going on. Every single question at this series has an answer, being at miniseries or earlier seasons (like, for example, if Church and Tex are really ghosts) everything has its reason to be, and the things that doesn't seem to, I know for sure they will.
But not everything is perfect and its weak spot are the first five seasons, particularly the very first three, because Red vs Blue started as a simple project based on a silly discussion at a Halo game night about if the Warthog looked actually as a pig, or more like a puma. Rooster Teeth didn't even existed by then, and they never imagined that once having their own page this would collapse all their servers the day they released the second season. That firsts seasons are just as the characters itself say, everything was talking and wandering around because the hot spot was at its humor and the characters expression abillities just with their voices and some body language that the animation team could gave them even with the graphic limitations.
Rating
Generally speaking, here's my rating of Red vs Blue:
• Main Plot: 7/10
• Plot Development: 10/10
• Charachters: 9.5/10
• Voice Acting: 8/10
• Directing: 8.5/10
• Total: 9/10
Agree? Insanity? Tell me what you think in the comments!
And please forgive some mispelling and grammar errors! Remember English ain't my main language (and also I have Dyslexia and Dysgraphia, LOL), but if you have some feedback, advices and/or tips for me to improve my english skills, please pleeeeease I would really appreciate them!
-Nina