Reddit AMA Recap: Red vs Blue Producers

 

Producers of Red vs Blue Season 15 came by to take part in a Reddit AMA sesh where the gang answered questions related to this season AND what we can expect for the rest of the season. Check out some highlights below:

On recurring themes like relationships between the characters and whether its intentional to revisit those from previous seasons:

Joe Nicolosi: It’s intentional(ish). There are definitely certain themes in the show that come back again and again and I wanted this season to hark back ones that felt relevant to the theme. I wasn’t thinking about those seasons in particular as much as what parts of the whole of RvB fit in the picture I was seeing in my mind. Man, I think this answer is coming off as real pretentious. Too late!

Why, despite being teased, the Freelancers never showed up and whether or not the Mercs are canon

Miles: The main reason for including the Freelancers in the announcement trailer was to try and solidify the idea that Season 14 was not strictly taking place in the current-day timeline. It was also one of the few opportunities I ever had to write for those characters, so it was something I really wanted to do.

There were originally two Freelancer-related arcs that we wanted to do, one for Four-Seven-Niner and one for York (as well as a horror episode involving some Charon Industry folks). Unfortunately, between the production schedule for RWBY4 and the fact that animation is REALLY expensive, we weren’t able to do all of them alongside everything else we wanted to do. One of the main reasons we went with the MERCS trilogy was because of how radically different it was from anything we’d ever done before AND because we knew we’d never have another opportunity to do something like it again in RvB. There’s always the possibility of revisiting Freelancer stories and characters, but the incredibly unique style of the MERCS episodes meant we only had one shot at making them, and we all really wanted to do something different. And fuck yeah, those Merc stories are cannon.

Will we find out what happened to Siris?

I hope so! I’ve got a big story there. Just depends on whether or not we’ll ever be able to make it happen.

Thanks! -Miles

On the biggest unexpected challenge for Joe in writing for Season 15.

I’ve always worked as a one-man-band before this season. So I would always do my own writing and directing and also visual effects and animation on everything I make.

On RvB, the process of talking the teams through my ideas and visual gags so they come out just right has been like learning how to walk for the first time. I’ve never had to communicate visual ideas verbally so much and struggled at first to resist the desire to open up After Effects and do it myself. The teams here are really awesome, and I finally think (sp) I’ve got the hang of now.-Joe

The hardest character to write for:

Caboose and Donut are still the two characters I think are most difficult to write for. Donut got easier for me when I started viewing him a little more like Tobias from Arrested Development. Caboose is ALWAYS hard. He’s not just the happy-go-lucky idiot, he’s also envious, murderous, a technical genius, etc. Dude has a lot going on.

Favorite scenes to machinimate

For this season in particular, probably all the little bits in Episode 5 where the Reds and Blues are retelling their time away from everything. It was the first time this season stepping back into their shoes, and having Joe’s fantastic writing to drive their actions really made it a blast to do. -Josh

This season for me it has to be either when Temple is talking to Jax and Dylan about his past or when you first see Grif talking to the Simmons volleyball.

Favorite of all time, it’s a tie between three. The fighting in the capital during RvB12 when Kimball is ambushed, when Caboose enters the portal and talks to Santa in RvB13, and the entire Sarge episode from RvB14.-Kyle

Question from Reddit User “YourEyesDown”

Miles – you said at one point in season 13 that the final confrontation with Felix was meant to be the group taking him down, but with the arc putting Felix as a narrative foil to Tucker, was there ever a time you considered having a one on one alien keysword fight between them during writing/development stages?

In Season 12 I gave them a one on one “sword fight”, but it was really just Felix toying with Tucker, and Tucker winning by doing what he and his friends do best: Standing around and talking.

In Season 13, I set up a misdirect during Tucker and Felix’s final confrontation where it looked like the sword fight was actually going to happen, but Felix immediately kicks the shit out of Tucker… because that fight wasn’t what was important. That “fight” just baited.

To me, the reason the Reds and Blues are always able to overcome impossible odds is that they are literally teammates. They are greater than the sum of their parts. They can’t always win if they try and do things on their own; it’s their ability to lean on one another that leads them to victory.

Because Tucker and Felix were such rivals, though, I made sure to give Tucker the last laugh :)-Miles

On whether the show’s 15th season will be a mult-season arc:

 

The story of the Blues and Reds will end this season. I really love the idea of telling complete stories in single seasons. There was some talk earlier in the year about breaking the current arc into two, but I like it like this. You get a full story in a season, like Buffy.-JN

On the possibility of Red vs Blue in 4k being produced.

Maybe? Probably not. Personally, I’m not that into 4K. It slows the process down like mad and it’s hard to see a difference in the final picture. Videogames have a much higher level of detail than film cameras, I tend to blur most RvB scenes in color correction anyway.-JN

On the increase in pop culture references despite Burnie saying this franchise shouldn’t have them.

This seems to pop up in comments a lot. Glad to get a chance to talk about it.

There are two reasons why this season has more Movie and TV references.

The first is that the events of Season 15 are being seen through the figurative and sometimes literal lenses of Jax’s movie obsessed character. All the movie reference are his fault.

That’s the bullshit reason. The real reason is those jokes (like the Force Awakens ending, or the Next Gen parody) are huge part of my sense of humor and voice as a filmmaker. My favorite movies are the Hot Shots, Airplanes, and Hot Fuzzes of the world, and aspire to direct stories as funny and awesome as them. I’m fully away that’s not what RvB has been in the past, but I didn’t set out to write a season as Miles or Burnie would. I set out to write a story as funny and awesome as I could, using all my strengths as a filmmaker.

Would the producers change any episodes from the past?

You know, I don’t think I’d change anything. Even the parts of Red vs Blue that might could be seen as contradictory (Grif giving Sarge CPR in the Blood Gulch Chronicles) have been more like opportunities to explore a side of the character that might normally be hidden.-JN

Miles and Joe’s  favorite RvB moments ever.

Church’s monologue from the end of Season 5. The Blood Gulch Chronicles will always be my favorite story arc, because it managed to say something incredibly poignant by disguising it all as comedy, and I think that’s one of the most impressive things you can do as a storyteller.-Miles

Sarge’s reaction to finding out they were Sim Troopers at the end of Season 8. That was a big part of a premise for this current season.-JN

Favorites for THIS season:

Episode 6 when Grif quits and the camera holds on Simmons. I can almost see through his helmet. -Also when Temple says “Revenge is a dish best served frozen.” –Also Lopez flying through space. This was a bucket list accomplishment for me.-JN

Dylan’s phone call with her husband. That scene gives you so much insight into what her life is like and really made me grow to love her even more.-Miles

On the show’s increasingly darker presentation

I feel like the show’s got to grow in new ways to stay fresh while keeping the core intact. There’s been a lot of violence in RvB and sometimes that violence can come off as pretty cartoony, even just because Halo doesn’t have any blood splatter. I wanted a few scenes this season to have a strong visual impact so I added some unconventional blood stuff.-JN

On the decision to make Temple a main bad guy

So there’s this quote in Raiders of the Lost Arc, where Belloq says to Indiana Jones “I am but a shadowy version of you. It would take a nudge to make you like me. To push you from the light.” which was the first inspiration for the Blues and Reds. I wanted Temple to be a shadowy version of one of our heroes, not the smartest or most powerful villain. Very motivated to be evil.-JN

The hardest part of producing a series with so much history and what the producers do to keep the series fresh

The hardest part is remembering everything. I have a notably bad memory and need to lean on Miles and Kyle to remind me of certain details that slip through the cracks. I hope to keep the show fresh by bringing my personal voice to the tone (AKA making things slightly more cinematic, jumping between serious and silly). -JN

OtakuMecha asks: 

In S14, we saw Caboose and Donut weren’t originally planned to go to Blood Gulch and only got assigned there because of Vic’s malfunction.

How does this dovetail with what we are told in S15 about Blood Gulch’s teams being based on the Desert Gulch scenario?

Well in theory, prior to VIC’s malfunction PFL had managed to assemble a Buckey, Gene, Biff, and Surge equivalent and Flowers was there to oversee the operation. The two teams may not have been identical, but a lot of those perfect counterparts were there.

Aaaaand if you think about it, things were going pretty well… until Flowers died and VIC’s malfunction caused Caboose to be sent instead of another Freelancer… and then Caboose killed Church… effectively ruining the “perfect plan”. Maybe had Caboose and Donut not been there, the two teams would still be in a stalemate…-Miles

To read more of the Reddit AMA session, check it out here. Red vs Blue streams new episodes every Sunday night only on RoosterTeeth.com.