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calliecat93 · 4 years

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Top 5 Dislikes of Red vs Blue: Season 1

(Top 5 Likes)

So back a few months ago, in the lead up to RWBY Volume 7, I did a Top Likes/Dislikes list for all six volumes. I also did this for RvB Seasons 16 and 17, so… why not do it for the other fifteen? Especially with RvB18 on the way? Not only gives me an excuse to rewatch everything, but I get to have some fun~ So I will be covering RvB seasons 1-13 and 15. S14’s is gonna be a little bit different. But anyways, we’re gonna begin with the one that started it all, Season One~

Honestly though, critiquing Season One is hard. Mainly because this was a season made when RT was just a back bedroom with mainly Burnie and Geoff doing the machinima. We’re a long way away from RWBY-level quality. In the Blood Gulch Era, it was just a bunch of friends making dumb stuff. Quality dumb stuff, but dumb nonetheless. So the five Dislikes are honestly minor and I don’t even really consider them bad. If anything, they show how far the show has come. So take the Dislikes list with a grain of salt, ut I needed to do it for the necessity of the list. So then, let’s get started~

#5. Not Fully Fleshed Out Characters

This is on the bottom because it’s really not that big a deal. The characters are kinda just somewhat exaggerated versions of the people that Burnie cast. They certianly have character, but aside from really Matt with Sarge, it’s just the cast playing exaggerated versions of themselves. It does kinda stand out because here, the characters don’t really have any defining personality traits or roles. We know a few things like Simmons being a kissass to Sarge, Grif is more out of shape, Caboose is a little dim-witted compared to the other Blues, etc. But when you look at all the future seasons, the lack of fleshing out is very noticeable. Especially for characters who are nothing like they were here, like Donut. I mean I don’t think he spouted even one innuendo here, it’s weeeeird.

Like I said though, this isn’t that big of a deal. The characters still have character and are still funny, it’s just clear that they hadn’t been fully developed. It’s a first season of what was originally meant to be a comedic miniseries and is very forgivable in that regard. It’s honestly fun to rewatch this season and then say Chorus and see how far the characterizations have come. Still, it is a tad noticeable and I needed five picks, so I’m gonna put it here. But again, it’s honestly fine. As is our Number FOur pick…

#4. The Voice Acting

These guys, aside from like… two or three of them, were not actors. They hadn’t done a bunch of material like they have now either, so this is again very forgivable. But it does make the voice acting lover in me kinda cringe when I hear it. You can tell that they’re trying, but as I said, this was still in the early days when no one really knew what they were doing. The one who did the best were either already actors (Joel, Yomary) or had more of a character to play with (Burnie, Matt). Everyone else, as I said, was pretty much given an exaggerated version of themselves and I think it kinda shows in the voice acting. They were all okay, but compared to their later performances and when they are given more characterization, this was not their best work.

But again, this is not that big of a deal. This was the early days and as I said, you can tell that they were trying. I think ti honestly adds tot he charm of early RvB. A bunch of friends making dumb stuff with a video game. I mean Gus outright recording his lines over the phone while living in Puerto Rico, he and the others were clearly dedicated to this thing. It’s not the stuff of legends, but given the tone of Blood Gulch, it works. It’s a dislike because like I said, it annoys my voice acting loving self and it’s weaker to their later performances. But still, it’s very enjoyable… even if some of the voices some chose are kinda jarring. Speaking of…

#3. Sarge’s Voice/Not Fully Fleshed Out Character

This one is super nitpicky, but it bothers me! We all know Sage and his overly exaggerated Southern accent, right? Well… in this one, he is much, much more subdued. Like I said, the characters weren’t fully fleshed out and so Sarge isn’t quite the same as we know him now. The voice reflects this. Here, Matt plays him like a stereotypical Nasty Drill Sargeant. IDK why, but the voice just… bugs me. I guess it’s just because I’m so used tot he current one, but it jarred me so much I had to check if Matt had been the one doing the voice in Season One. Sure enough…

Yeah, this one is very nitpicky and again reflects how I don’t feel the characters were very well fleshed out. I mean even comedic wise, Sarge didn’t really stand out and was really just there to give Grif a hard time. Even his hatred of Blue isn’t really there. Fortunately, this would be fixed in Season 2. Every time I look back at this though, it just takes me out for a minute cause ‘OMG this is not the Sarge I’m used too!’. So a nitpick, but a dislike nonetheless. But hey the fact that this is a minor issue speaks of how much I enjoy this season, haha!

#2. The Afterlife Scene

OH GOD THIS SCENE! IT CONFUSED ME ALMOST AS MUCH AS THE S3 TIME TRAVEL SCENES DID! ALMOST!

So… Blood Gulch is very weird. I mean it had Ghost Church, is this a surprise? But that wasn’t even the weirdest part of this season or even the entirety of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. No, that honor goes to this scene where, after Caboose shot Sarge when Church was possessing him, Sarge found himself in the afterlife. Church and Shelia are also there. Now, fortunately, Sarge comes back via Grif using CPR… on a bullet wound… yeah… but God this scene was the first time the show made me go ‘WTF am I even watching?!’ especially since unlike Chruch’s ghost thing, it never comes up again. Church having been an AI the whole time didn’t help.

Now I know it kinda got explained later as part of Recovery Mode, but it still leaves a lot of questions. Why was Church there? He got kicked out of Sarge’s body when he got shot. Maybe he went back in hopes of making it work? IDK. But maybe we can just say that since Church was possessing Sarge, he left some kind of trace and the Recovery Mode picked up on it. Cool… then why was Shelia there? Sarge wasn’t even at the canyon when Shelia was unleashed. Did Recovery Mode pick up on that from Church too since it was so recent? I guess that makes sense? And yeah I know that when they wrote this Church wasn’t intended to be an AI so maybe it really was the afterlife, but that’s no longer a possibility, so… AAAAHHHH!!!

Yeah… this is why I don’t try to think through Blood Gulch stuff too much. Doing so does nothing except make my brain hurt when I try to go over how it makes sense in canon. Don’t get me wrong, the scene was funny especially with Grif and Simmons trying to revive Sarge. Kinda feel bad for Grif for getting scolded when he just saved Sarge’s life, but it’s Sarge. Of course, he would. I also like the more muted colors int he afterlife and the weird wavy effects with the scenes in the world of the living. It’s a funny scene, just one that hurts my head whenever I try to make sense of it. Stupid me and my stupid need for logic…

#1. The Audio

This was by far the biggest thing I noticed, including back when I started this back in 2017. The audio is… not good. I think this might help explain some of the amateur voice actings because half the time, the filter effect distracts you from the performance. Now I actually do like them using the filter since it makes sense that they’d use mics int heir helmets to talk, but I think that they tuned it up a little too much here. The whole reason they did this was to hide the fact that people like Gus, Jason, and all the guys in California had to record their lines over the phone. It’s one of the better decisions that they made, but like I said, in this season it is super distracting.

The only thing maybe worse is the mixing when it comes to explosions. There are a lot of explosion effects in this due to all the guns, grenades, and tanks. They are loud. Really loud. Like I remember watching the scene where Church dies. I was watching it on my laptop with headphones and I had the volume at a fairly modest time. The explosion noise made me jump. It can sometimes also overpower the voice acting like I think there were a few times I couldn’t fully make out what the Reds were saying when Shelia was firing at the end. Add that tot he voice filter and… yeah.

The audio wasn’t bad. Like I could tell what characters were saying. The effect was just distracting though and clearly they needed some work on audio mixing. Which they, fortunately, did by the next season. I think Burnie even mentioned how annoyed he got at the constant complaints about the filter int he Season 2 commentary, but hey he listened! Still, for Season One, it was by far the thing that annoyed me most and while I know it’s because they didn’t have quality equipment, it still distracts me when I rewatch. So it’s going to be my Top Dislike for Season One.

Final Thoughts

As I have tried to make clear, I don’t view any of these as major issues. Heck aside from Audio, IDK if I’d even say I disliked them. Thrown off by them sure, but not outright dislike. It honestly helped the show I think. It’s certainly mature and kinda crappy work, but it added to the charm and appeal to the show. It’s why they still use stuff like and photoshops, it’s endearing. Even with the improved production quality and while they have maintained a lot of what made RvB such a fun series, the original seasons still have this unique charm that despite how stupid it is, you just wanna tune into it over and over again. So these may be Dislikes, but they’re ones to be proud of. But hey I’ve still got plenty of Likes to talk about, so stay tuned for that~

#rvb #rvb reviews #top likes/dislikes

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