RJ Writing Ink

Red vs. Blue: Restoration Review

August 3rd, 2016- an episode of one of my favorite web series, Screwattack’s DEATH BATTLE!, aired a crossover episode with another popular web series, Rooster Teeth’s Red vs. Blue. That episode, which pitted Agent Carolina against The Meta, was my first introduction to Red vs. Blue. Curious, I spent the next few months binge-watching most of the series. By the time I finished the rest, I was a firm fan of Rooster Teeth and Red vs. Blue. And since the (then) current season was written as an anthology, I had to wait patiently for the next one to continue the story. In hindsight, though, I had joined the fandom when the show was starting to enter its decline. The next few seasons felt like the show had declined in quality, culminating in 2020’s Red vs. Blue: Zero. That season proved so unpopular it all but killed the show almost overnight. 

Fast forward to Summer 2023, and Rooster Teeth made a significant announcement. The next season of RvB, Red vs. Blue: Restoration, would mark the end of the show. Then, in March 2024, came the news that Rooster Teeth would cease operations in May. This meant that the final season, now transformed into the show’s first and only movie, would not just be the finale to Red vs. Blue. It would be the last project Rooster Teeth would ever produce. As a fan, this was a moment of mixed emotions. While Rooster Teeth’s other IPs sought new homes, the show that birthed the company would be the one to close its doors. The question that loomed was: would it be a fitting end?

The short answer is yes. While not perfect, Red vs. Blue: Restoration is a satisfying send-off to the long-running series and the company it helped to create.

OH NO, THE META IS BACK!

After (mostly) surviving the events of Season 13, the Reds and Blues return to doing what they do best: living in opposing bases and arguing with each other. However, everything changes when they get messages from their late AI comrade, Epsilon, AKA Church. Church fragmented himself to power Tucker’s new suit to ensure the Reds and Blues could make it out of the war on Chorus. The problem is that this led to the return of Sigma, AKA the AI fragment that created their greatest enemy, The Meta. With Tucker turned into a new Meta, the Reds, and Caboose, the only Blue left, have to team up for one last fight to save their friend before he destroys everything.

Even if this wasn’t the final project released by Rooster Teeth, Red vs. Blue: Restoration had to face an uphill battle. The mixed and negative reception to the Shisno Trilogy and Zero had significantly damaged the once-popular show’s reputation. Restoration would be Rooster Teeth’s last chance for the show that gave it life to stick the landing. Thankfully, the film had a secret weapon. Series creator and lead writer, Burnie Burns, returned to write the film, and it showed. The writing was tighter and did a better job of mixing comedy with drama than the post-anthology seasons did, and the characters felt more in line with what fans knew and loved. 

In addition, despite its modest runtime of 80 minutes, Burns filled the film with enough callbacks and easter eggs for longtime fans to drool over. Not to mention that it’s not afraid to call itself out on how old and played out the show has become. They do say being able to laugh at yourself shows humility. However, even that humility might have had its limits, given how the film handles the show’s later Seasons.

Restoration De-Canonized Seasons 15 of RvB Onwards

Like I said before, Seasons 15 onwards of Red vs. Blue did some serious damage to the show’s reputation, with Zero being the worst offender. Burns’ solution, while one of the best aspects of the entire film, is also the most controversial: he makes them non-canon. Everything from the Shisno Trilogy and Zero gets retconned into being simulations run by Church in his final moments. And I’m calling this controversial for a reason. On the one hand, it retcons the seasons that arguably had the weakest stories from the canon and absolves the show of them. On the other hand, it feels disrespectful to those who worked on them. Not to mention, it erases the character development that multiple characters underwent, such as Doc and Donut. 

Speaking of which…

Not an Equally Balanced Use of the Cast

Let’s cut to the chase: not all of the Reds and Blues get equal treatment in the film. That should be expected to an extent given Restoration’s runtime. However, the fact that a few members barely get any screen time felt like a missed opportunity to me. Considering how this is the series finale, potentially the final time we’ll ever see these characters, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

And, spoiler alert, only some people will make it out of the finale alive. I won’t say who, but at least one character dies partway through in a pretty badass scene, and another is revealed to have not survived the fight aboard Hargrove’s ship. They only appear as hallucinations, as Agent Washington has. 

The bottom line: those who go into Red vs Blue: Restoration expecting moments on par with the Reds, Blues, and Freelancers fighting an army of Tex’s, you might be disappointed. There is plenty of action, but no big stand like the one in Season 10.

Red vs. Blue: Restoration Was the Finale Fans, and Rooster Teeth, Needed

I will be honest here—Red vs. Blue: Restoration is not a flawless film or finale. The runtime could’ve been longer, and they could’ve included more of the original cast at several points. And despite my best efforts, I can’t fully embrace the new person voicing Caboose. Joel Heyman just played the character too perfectly!

But when has Red vs Blue ever been about perfection?

From the moment the first video went up 21 years ago, Red vs Blue made it clear it wasn’t about some badass heroes like Master Chief. It was about many idiots trying their best to stay above water. It just so happened that they started dealing with way more serious stuff somewhere along the way. And no matter how dark things got, they always tried to stay true to their comedic roots. They were imperfect idiots and proud of it, and they stuck true to who they were and what fans grew to love them for. 

The finale is far from as epic as what we got with the Chorus Trilogy, and it might not be as emotional as the end of the Freelancer Saga. Both could’ve easily ended Red vs Blue. But how intimate it feels makes Red vs Blue: Restoration work. It’s not just a finale. It’s a way for the show and the people who made it to thank the fans for the last twenty-one years of their lives. It’s a way for Rooster Teeth to thank everyone for providing awesome content for the last twenty-one years. And even though Red vs Blue and Rooster Teeth might be over, everyone, from the fans to those who worked there, will still have the memories. Heck, if RWBY and DEATH BATTLE! continue, they’ll keep Rooster Teeth’s legacy going for a little bit longer. But for Red vs Blue, this is goodbye for now. You never know if we may see them again one day, after all. And while the show may have never answered the question of “why we’re here,” does that matter now? The journey was more than worth it!

Buenas Noches, Cockbites. Buenas Noches. 

I Give Red vs Blue: Restoration a 4/5

A Fan’s Review of Each Season of Red vs. Blue

April 1st, 2003- a group of six guys, Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldana, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, embarked on a journey. They uploaded a video online, a creation made using footage from the hit game Halo: Combat Evolved. This video, a tale about a group of silly soldiers in a pointless war over a box canyon, marked the beginning of a web series that would stand the test of time-Red vs. Blue. From this humble start, a digital empire emerged, one that would leave an indelible mark on the early days of the Internet-Rooster Teeth. 

Red vs. Blue started as this silly, nonsensical parody of fps games, sci-fi concepts, and what it’s like in the army. As time passed, though, it became more than just this silly story where everyone preferred to talk trash and say dumb things rather than fight. It became this big epic involving corrupt organizations, people who went through horrific, traumatic events, and how even a group of idiots who started off hating each other could come together to do impossible things. An`

d for a long time, it was pretty good! But, eventually, all good things must end, and Rooster Teeth, the company that Red vs Blue helped create, shuts down on May 15th. But before it does, it’s only fitting that the show that started Rooster Teeth be the one to see it off with one final adventure. 

I’m RJ Writing Ink, and in honor of the final chapter of Red vs. Blue, I’ll review each arc of the popular web series. This will lead up to my review for the grand finale, Red vs. Blue: Restoration. Now, get ready for a trip down Blood Gulch Avenue.

Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles

When I started watching Red vs. Blue, I didn’t start with the first season. I didn’t watch the first five seasons until  later , so that gave me a different perspective on what would come to be known as the “Blood Gulch Chronicles.”

My assessment: it was as silly, stupid, and wild as everyone said, and it all started with three lines:

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“You ever wonder why we’re here?”

As someone who didn’t find Red vs Blue, or even Rooster Teeth, until the 2010s, it felt weird going back and seeing how the show started. The first two seasons  were  pretty rough, and it’s clear that the show and actors were still trying to figure out what their characters were like. Once they found their footing by season three, though, the entire story went hard with the comedy. The banter between the Reds and Blues as they fought evil AI, aliens, rogue Freelancers, and what was likely a parody of the typcial lobby for an FPS game was funny. The people at Rooster Teeth were writing what they knew they’d like and what the audience would like, and it paid off. Bungie itself took notice of their efforts and let them collaborate with them on some fun promotional videos. And they even let the cast make cameos in the Halo Games proper. It’s good for a bunch of random guys from Texas.

Recollection Trilogy

For reasons I will get into later, this is where I chose to jump into Red vs Blue. It meant that I watched the series out of order, but considering the jump the series made around this time, I have no regrets. 

The Recollection trilogy was when Red vs. Blue underwent Cerberus syndrome. That’s another way of describing when a silly and lighthearted series starts getting darker, edgier, and more serious. With the introduction of The Meta, Agent Washington, and the revelations about Project Freelancer and how it affected the events at Blood Gulch, the whole series retroactively got a lot darker.

Despite how dark the series got, it always seemed to maintain its comedic roots and focus on the characters that drove it. It knew when to balance the serious things, like trauma and the pain of not being able to let go of the people you’ve lost, with its signature humor. Even better, the characters got some serious development that fleshed them out into something beyond the jokes first introduced. 

Season 8, in particular, was a watershed moment for the series and Rooster Teeth. Thanks to their bringing on a talented animator named Monty Oum, Red vs. Blue was no longer bound by the limits of in-game engines. They could make their fights as epic as possible, and the result was cinematic. It set a new standard for what web animation was capable of doing. 

Especially this moment. It was legendary. 

Project Freelancer Saga

This saga might as well be called the “Monty Oum” saga, because while the present-day moments continued to be filmed using Halo: Reach and Halo 3, the flashbacks were pure animation. And all of it has the hallmarks of what made Monty one of the big names in web animation at the time. The detail for the time, the energetic, fast-paced music, and the frenetic action sequences. All of these would become Monty Oum’s hallmarks, ones he would carry over when he left Red vs. Blue afterwards to make Rooster Teeth’s first original IP, RWBY.

Storywise, the saga’s divided into two parts. The things Monty helped animate served as a prequel to Red vs. Blue, telling the story of the Agents that the Reds and Blues would encounter throughout the series. Most importantly, it would show how the Director’s obsession with his late wife would not only doom the project, but lead to the suffering and death of almost everyone involved in it. It was one thing to hear how bad things got with Project Freelancer, but seeing it firsthand makes everything that happened in Blood Gulch a lot more messed up. 

If the prequel sequences were about how Project Freelancer tore itself apart, though, then the parts that took place in the present-day showed how people started to recover from them. Even after learning they were used as lab rats by the Freelancers, the Reds and Blues bore no ill will and were smart enough to know it would be better to walk away. Church, in particular, learned to finally let go of his obsession with Tex, something the Director could never do. And through all of it, Rooster Teeth was trying to send a message. That for all the high-tech equipment and elite training the Freelancers got, they still lost to the Reds and Blues, because they had the one thing they never did: faith in each other.

The Chorus Trilogy

As great as the Recollection Trilogy and Freelancer Saga are, I consider The Chorus trilogy to be Red vs. Blue’s magnum opus for several reasons.

Firstly, we have the story. Despite season eleven seemingly returning the Reds and Blues to their early days where they stood around arguing, it was dropping hints that something bigger was going seemingly returning the Reds and Blues to their early days where they stood around arguing, dropping hints that something bigger was going on. By the end of the season, the Reds and Blues had gone from fighting in a fake war to fighting in an actual war with real stakes. And as the two proceeding seasons demonstrated, not everyone they knew would make it out alive.

Secondly, we have all the new blood coming onto the show. By the time Season 11 came out, Red vs. Blue, and by extension, Rooster Teeth, had been going on for ten years. They’d grown from being a handful of writers, animators, and actors into an entire studio. And a lot of this new talent ended up coming on to play roles on Red vs. Blue. It should also be noted that many new and returning actors would pull double to work on RWBY. That’s impressive for a studio that was still growing.

The Chorus Trilogy could have been a great place for Rooster Teeth to end the series. It would’ve ended everything on a high note. But Rooster Teeth chose to continue it, for better or worse-Emphasis on the “worse” aspect.

Anthology Season 14

This is the season when I got introduced to Rooster Teeth, and that was due to their collaboration with DEATH BATTLE!, which still operated under Screwattack at the time. After the whirlwind of events that was the Chorus Trilogy, Rooster Teeth must have wanted to take a breather. The result was that this was an anthology season where the studio let writers and animators tell their own stories. The results varied in terms of tone, setting, and even style.

I liked this series for several reasons. Several stories fleshed out the backstories of the Reds and Blues and other characters, which I always enjoy. The rest of it was just the people behind the show having fun and enjoying themselves. Looking back on it now, this was when Rooster Teeth was at the height of its power and popularity. 

Then things started to go downhill.

The Shisno Trilogy

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this trilogy. At first, I was thrilled to get to join in as the Reds and Blues went on their next big adventure. And for a time, it did seem good. The addition of the Blues and Reds not only served as an interesting, if predictable, twist, but showed us a dark mirror of what the Reds and Blues could have turned into. 

Then…things started to…odd. Odder than usual.

The next two seasons they had that whole story with time travel and those ancient gods, which seemed so out of left-field looking back. In addition, throughout much of the trilogy, characters like Tucker and Sarge seemed to backpedal on the important lessons they learned in seasons past. And that cyclops they fought was cringe!

The trilogy did some things right, at least. It helped give us closure over Church’s final death and helped Donut finally grow a spine. As a whole, though, it felt like the writing had really declined.

Red vs. Blue: Zero

I’m going to come out and say it: I barely even watched this season. 

On paper, RvB Zero sounded like a good idea. Turning the show into something similar to an action movie would be cool. However, almost everything about Zero wound up being a misfire. The characters were under-developed, the plot almost nonexistent, and the characters we had come to know and love were barely present. And when they were, they weren’t as cool as we’d come to know them.

The Shisno Trilogy had done a lot to damage the reputation of Red vs. Blue, but after Zero, most of the fans (myself included) agreed the show had jumped the shark. It got so bad that Rooster Teeth announced that they would not continue its storyline in future seasons, but the damage was already done.

Sadly, there wouldn’t be any future seasons. COVID made sure of that. 

Every Story Needs an Ending

Fans went three years without hearing any major news about Red vs. Blue. For my part, I had already lost interest in them, so it didn’t even matter. Or, that’s what I told myself. When I heard in 2023 that the next season of RvB would be its last, I wanted to see if it could still end on a high note. Then came the news of Rooster Teeth shutting down earlier this year. That meant that Red vs. Blue wasn’t just ending. It would also be the one to drop the curtain on the company it helped to build. It felt poetic.

I’ve spent most of the week leading up to the release of Restoration, rewatching the series wherever I can, and…and I wish I had found it sooner. I wish I had joined the fandom in its heyday instead of when it was starting to decline. I wish I could’ve gone to RTX at least once. Even so, I’m still grateful that I found the series when I did. Thanks to it, I made some good memories for myself. And now, I’m ready for one last ride with Rooster Teeth.