The Halo franchise is owned by Xbox Game Studios
Today we’ll be taking our first detour into non-official fan works as opposed to licensed material, though Red vs Blue is definitely something that fits in the gray area of which we’ll see more of the further we get into this retrospective. In any case, it’s no surprise that Halo generated a lot of fan made content considering how successful it was at release and how much Microsoft and Bungie pushed it as THE NEXT BIG THING, and Red vs Blue in particular is inalterably tied into the franchise and I’d say is more than a little responsible for having such an enduring presence in the industry. Its place in entertainment history is definitely secured, but does the show itself still hold up to this day? Let’s find out as we look at the first season!!
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Red vs Blue and all the images you see in this retrospective are owned by Rooster Teeth
Red vs Blue is a Machinima series (i.e. a narrative show using gameplay footage) created by Rooster Teeth depicting two teams who are fighting for control of a dirt canyon of no particular significance and was created using the Halo games. On Red Team we have the delusional yet slightly competent Sarge, the lazy yet somewhat sensible Griff, the genuinely smart Simmons who’s also a total brown nose for Sarge, and the new recruit Donut who ends up getting pink armor because this was made back when something like that was considered hilarious. On Blue Team we have interim team leader Church who’s a HUGE jerk but kind of the main character of the series, the fun yet ALSO lazy Tucker, and the very ignorant Caboose who’d be like if Ed from Ed, Edd, n Eddy grew up to join Space Force. Throughout the first season we learn more about the teams as well as get introduced to secondary characters like Lopez the Red team’s robot mechanic, Sheila the Blue Team’s talking tank, and Tex the freelancer hired by the Blue Team with a checkered past that ties directly to Church’s. Compared to where the series will end up going on later seasons, the first is fairly self-contained and can be broken down into three primary arcs; Donut getting the Blue Team’s flag, Tex getting Blue Team’s flag back, and Tex going after Red Team’s flag, but for the most part the actual plot is secondary to the characters’ personalities bouncing off of each other in a ludicrous combat situation; kind of like what Archer would eventually do with the spy genre a decade later. Needless to say that with all the silly situations, potty mouths, and it being a cool VIDEO GAME thing, I was pretty obsessed with this show when I was a teenager, but there were a lot of things I liked when I was a teenager that don’t hold up now, so is this one of them?
The Reviewers Unite 