Rooster Teeth Productions turns 21 today, which means the company is finally old enough to drink! Oddly fitting for a studio that began with a bunch of drunk guys acting out comedy skits in a video game. And I imagine many will be needing that drink right about now, as the company will be shutting down in a little over a month, with their last major release being the final season of Red vs. Blue, subtitled “Restoration”. We’ll be reviewing that for sure when it comes out, but this site has been covering Rooster Teeth shows for several years now, so we’re not about to just let RT go out without looking back at some significant moments in RVB history. But because we don’t have time to cover EVERY SEASON, we’re going to try and pick out the parts that touch on as much of it as possible. So, while this may seem like an odd place to start, we’re kicking this look back off when the show was already more than a decade into its run with Season 14 (which was incidentally the first show I was assigned to cover for this site) the one that put aside the regular ongoing story to have a bunch of different stories. Some canon, some not, all made by talented people from within RT and outside of it who loved the show, its characters, and the impact it had.
To set the context at where things were at the time, this season came out in 2016, during the period RT Animation was probably at its peak. RVB had just finished the fan favorite Chorus Trilogy of its eleventh through thirteenth seasons, which ended on such a high that it was up in the air where the show could possibly go next. It had also made the hand-off to RWBY as the flagship show of the company, which was about to start its fourth Volume. And with the success of the short-lived X-Ray and Vav, the company took more swings at 2D animation with the premiere of Camp Camp, which would go on to have a solid run of five seasons. Despite the tragic loss of RWBY creator Monty Oum the previous year, RT still seemed to be a hub of cutting edge web content and hot IPs during a time when the streaming landscape was still being formed. As such, it’s no surprise they were able to gather up some of the top internet creatives of the time to help make short stories for the anthology. Well…it was pretty much just Freddy Wong from Rocket Jump, some of the Game Grumps, and “Ready Player One” author Ernest Cline, but those were big gets at the time. The rest were made by groups within the company like Funhaus and Death Battle, as well as several being done by individuals like Barbara Dunkleman and Shannon McCormick.
Most of the season’s episodes are stand alone, all given an Twilight Zone-esque intro by the chatty V.I.C., and covering every era of the show up until that point with every Halo game available to film in, but plenty elect to use their own style. The season starts with a repurposed short for a botched RVB animated series, but uses it to set the tone for how these shorts have free reign to go wherever they like. “The Brick Gulch Chronicles” goes for a stop motion, evoking the then-recent “The Lego Movie” and blending it with the usual Blood Gulch humor. “The #1 Movie in the Galaxy: 3” and “Immersion: The Warthog Flip” are mostly live action, while the Death Battle episode “Meta vs Carolina: Dawn of Awesome” is fully animated to homage the best parts of when Monty Oum animated Seasons 8-10. Likewise, “Caboose’s Guide to Making Friends” gives a storybook style lesson by the blue baby hater himself, while the trilogy of episodes “Club”, “Call”, and “Consequences” are also animated, but in a much more energetic and neon colored style, focusing on a prequel story involving Locus and Felix, the two mercenary villains from the Chorus Trilogy. Also, there was a musical and a rap battle, which I have now legally mentioned.
But naturally, as an RVB season, there were plenty of episodes that embraced the show’s medium of Machinima, with plenty taking place across the show’s timeline. Every existing game from Halo 1 to Halo 4 got used to some capacity, although 4 was definitely used least considering they were hot off doing three full seasons of it. The first three parter, “From Stumbled Beginnings”, “Fifty Shades of Red”, and “Why They’re Here” were jokingly referred to as a “prequel trilogy” that explored the Blood Gulch gang’s origins in further detail than ever. “Orange is the New Red” and “Invaders from Another Mother” follow a separate team of Reds who end up on their own weird adventure, as does “Grey vs. Gray”. “Head Cannon” further expands O’Malley’s travels through everyone’s minds in the Season 5 finale, while “Fight the Good Fight” and “Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue” explore the untapped period between Season 5 and Reconstruction. “Get Bent”, the lone Halo: Reach entry, explores another of Epsilon’s simulations where things go all Rule 63.
But my favorite out of all of these by a wide margin was “The Triplets” and “The ‘Mission’”, following The Triplets, three previously unheard of blue armored Freelancers whose incompetence gets them stranded on a deserted outpost across from some red armored Insurrectionists. Ohio, Iowa, and Idaho seem to be Project Freelancer’s worst, and so are given a “special mission” on a frozen planet, though it becomes clear they’ve been abandoned. Having no reason to live, the group then starts an ongoing fight with the other team, creating an eerily similar set up to the Blue vs Red battles of the simulation troopers. It’s actually a headcanon of mine that the “Mission” they were sent on was actually to lay the groundwork for the sim troopers that would then be seen first properly formed in Season 15, but I digress. The reason this is my favorite story of this season and among my favorites for the entire series is because it cuts directly to the core of what Red vs. Blue is about. Not just simply asking “You ever wonder why we’re here?”, but creating the reason and meaning for you being here when the given answers no longer make sense. Some are driven to fight against other groups by those above them, but others choose to fight when they have nothing left to guide them. It’s why I think this series has endured, beyond the jokes and awesomely animated fights.
The final story, “Red vs. Blue vs. Rooster Teeth”, mainly acts as a fun way to get the actors to interact directly with their characters (and is also the longest episode of the series!), but for the purposes here, it’s notable in reminding me of something. This couldn’t be done now. Not just because the company is a month away from shutting down, but also because a lot of the people involved with the show and company at the time are gone, as well as many of the resources and much of clout having severely diminished. I won’t go down a whole list, but whether it’s because of poor conduct or because they felt they had to leave, plenty are scattered to the winds. This season could’ve made a great 20th anniversary story to look back on everything that came before, but considering where things were at last year when they got to the 20th, it’s probably good they did it when they had the chance. Season 14 will always be remembered for many things: A mixed bag of good and okay, the first project by future showrunner Joe Nicolosi, the only RVB season with episodes written and directed by women, but I’ll remember it as Rooster Teeth taking a second to appreciate the view when they were at the top of their game.
Happy Birthday, Rooster Teeth. Have a drink on me.