EFFORTPOST DEI and the death of Red vs Blue

@RWBY's current meta posts discussing Rooster Teeth both reminded and inspired me to work on an effortpost I had debated doing for some time. You'll need to stick with me here, as there's a bit of an introduction that's needed before we get to the nitty gritty.

INTRODUCTION

I know a significant portion of the userbase here are boomers and older, and can recall watching Red vs Blue on their old CRT computers. Some of you I'm sure were shocked to learn RvB continued on for some time - currently sitting at a total of 18 seasons. As RvB marched on and Halo transitioned from Bungie to 343i, so did the reins of RvB. Burnie Burns, RT founder and lead for RvB, passed much of the creative control over to RT employee Miles Luna for seasons 11-13. While I know many people got turned off in earlier seasons once RvB became less comedy and more story oriented, I actually enjoy these seasons - sure, it's not grand Hollywood storytelling, but the story beats were competent, the writing was strong enough, and some of the humor feels like old school RvB. What's noteworthy here is that Season 13 ends with what very much feels like a series finale, and many fans agreed that if RT had wished to stop here, they would have been happy with it.

But for some reason, RT continued on with RvB. I'm not too entirely sure why - it certainly wasn't their primary show at this point (RWBY had taken over). I think they felt devoted to continuing it. In any case, season 14 was an anthology season while RT looked for a new showrunner. Several different people wrote and directed episodes for this anthology season, including Joe Nicolosi, who became the lead for Seasons 15 and 16.

Joe's seasons were weird. I'm not too sure where he came from, but his seasons felt out of left field even for a show that was used to left field stuff. Time travel (for real, not the goofy "time travel" the characters experience early in the show), Gods, cyclops, a group of people that are like a mirrored version of the main characters. Fans found the seasons offputting, and Joe was pulled off for someone else to take the reins for Season 17 and try to correct a lot of the weird stuff. I think 17 ended up actually being ok for what it was worth.

In any case, RvB's fame had really begun to diminish. The series felt like it had lost a lot of umph, the last few seasons were zany without being really funny, and the story was nonsensical. Many at RT were clearly getting tired of RvB too. In comes Torrian Crawford.

FROM ZERO TO HERO ZERO

Torrian Crawford was an animator with Death Battle (which I never watched, but it's where you take characters from random franchises and animate them fighting, to the extreme). With the Death Battle group having been acquired by RT, Torrian somehow climbs his way to becoming the director for RvB Season 18, which he names RvB Zero. Supposedly the reason he got this gig was by presenting a way for the series to continue to RT's heads, who must have been waiting for someone to volunteer for this.

Torrian and several of the voice actors for the show begin hyping this season up online. Here's an article online about it!

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/red-vs-blue-zero-new-web-series-rooster-teeth

There's some great little nuggets in there, like how picking a diverse cast was a major priority and many of the people working on it had very little experience with the show. I'm sure our resident chuds will pick up on the diversity comments as to why it was bad.

Crawford and Nova made Rooster Teeth history with the series as the first Black showrunner and Black lead actor, respectively, in nearly two decades of Red vs. Blue, and for them, that inclusiveness carried over into the whole series, not just in terms of the people who made it, but in terms of its ability to reach a different audience.

And the first shall be the last.

Torrian and the cast harped on this diversity a lot and how great it would be for the show (hence my title).

Finally, the trailer came out. You can watch it below if you want to be wowed by the spectacle.

If you thought, "Wow, this looks like a steaming pile of shit! And I mean, a real big steaming pile of shit!" Congrats! You would be proven right. Most fans on the RvB subreddit were cautiously optimistic, but a few could already tell this was not a good sign.

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/itjtma/rvb_zero_official_trailer/

I can't tell if the main villain is supposed to sound comically evil like O'malley, or if its just cheesy writing.

They've mentioned taking inspiration from Fast & Furious, so it is supposed to be a bit hammy.

now I'm scared. I hate F&F with a passion

Rule 1 of badassery: never ever describe yourself as badass

Well, maybe they're just being negative nancies and you guys should stop attacking zero before it's even released.

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/je2t5j/can_we_stop_trashing_rvb_zero_before_its_even/

So finally, Zero releases its weekly episodes. And it sucks. Big time. Characters are awful. Plot is abysmal. Action is pants on head r-slurred. Just a mishmash of bad.

You know how sometimes with entertainment, you'll get something that was bad, and there's a sizable portion of a fanbase that'll defend it, like with the Star Wars Prequels? Zero barely even gets that. I'm not kidding when I say that the remaining fans absolutely hated it. Searching Zero on the subreddit returns posts upon posts of people trashing it. Even in a "Say something nice about Zero" thread, half the comments are backhanding it by saying things like "Well it made season 16 less shitty!"

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/kkoq68/zero_is_frustrating/

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/185k1al/so_i_finally_watched_zero/

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/15c9zma/is_rvb_zero_that_bad/

Some great comments from the above posts.

I agree that the season is very frustrating, not necessarily because it is different, but because it is bad.

I went in expecting it was just this sub being over dramatic. But no. It's really just that bad

Fun review from some dude I always saw a lot of the RvB subreddit and is probably extremely neurodivergent about the show (I mean this in a kindhearted way )

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/kqcaek/red_vs_blue_zero_a_formal_review/

In any case, Zero sucks and it sucks so bad that the fans make sure Torrian knows that his precious little baby sucks. And Torrian does not like that.

Seethe, Seethe, and more Seethe

Torrian's deleted a lot of his old tweets related to the show. It's very much a wound for him that refuses to heal and he is unable to accept that the show was not good. There are some still remaining along with posts about them on the respective subreddits.

To give some context on how long this man has continued to seethe about his show not being liked, the show came out late 2020, around the time of the Adam Kovic and Ryan Haywood sexcapades (I think it actually got pushed back a couple of weeks because of that ).

July 2021

https://old.reddit.com/r/roosterteeth/comments/ovb3f4/torrian_discusses_red_vs_blue_zero_and_the/

https://x.com/AnimatedTorrii/status/1421514851348885514

Torrian's first major tweet involving the show's criticism. The fourth and fifth paragraphs are in terms of seethe. Torrian clearly views himself as a tortured artist who does not deserved to be commented on by the unwashed masses. RT fans are sympathetic to how he's likely received undeserved threats but his ego starts to turn people more against him.

Dec 2021

https://old.reddit.com/r/roosterteeth/comments/rn49mo/torrian_crawford_goes_into_more_detail_regarding/

https://x.com/AnimatedTorrii/status/1474086770002198529

https://x.com/animatedtorrii/status/1474088690758520855

About a year after the show's release, Torrian lets it slip that he disdains past RvB and its fans. Part of the reason he changed the show was that he felt its old incarnation was too racist and sexist (which isn't really true, as RvB was actually very mild on that aspect for a mid 2000s era show). Fans on the main RT subreddit continue to get annoyed by his continued petulant whining, along with his mischaracterizations of RvB. Fans also point out that many of the original cast not wanting to be involved was also likely an indictment of how shit the show was.

May 2023

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/13valwt/torrian_deleted_this_tweet/

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/13udt51/is_he_ever_going_to_accept_the_fact_that_people/

https://old.reddit.com/r/roosterteeth/comments/13udm5p/is_he_ever_going_to_accept_that_people_didnt_like/

We are 2.5 years from the show's release and this man continues to b-word about how people did not like it. He deletes it after inciting some responses, many essentially pointing out how r-slurred he is.

I fricking love the response from one one guy like "Here's something I did in a week; what would a team & I have to do specifically"

& the backdown non-answer of "well I think that'd be a waste of your talents" lmao

You aren't supposed to actually call him out on his outrageous and blatantly hostile remarks!!!!

False equivalency

He had access to a full production team and he knows that no fans do, plus copyright issues if anyone tried that. But he'll still pull a gotcha to claim the high ground if anyone challenges him

Plus he never defined what “better” means. The four categories are not equivalent. It's gonna turn into whataboutism if he perceives anything he disagrees with.

Not worth engaging at all

LMAO, this guy is such a child. It's been almost three years, guy. Does he really have nothing better to do? Challenging fans without the resources he had — does he really need to do that to make him feel better about himself?

He lists Zero's writing, animation, music, and sound like they were something to brag about. I wonder how he thinks they stack up to those of the previous seasons (side note: sometimes I wonder if he's even seen the previous seasons). I can hazard a guess.

Zero sucked. Move on, dude.

This man hated RvB, wrote a shit script, and pumped out a terrible story with terrible characters and good production value (the one thing that wasn't him) and is absolutely seething that people didn't like it

By this point 90% of the community is absolutely sick of him and his holier than thou attitude. Torrian had long since picked up a job at Respawn Entertainment but apparently could be set off every few weeks by fans tweeting at him about how Zero sucked.

RvB's End

RT ended up releasing some joke short season with the Zero characters in late 2021. I don't know if anyone ended up watching that. Besides that, RvB remained dead in the water till an announcement in mid 2023 that it would return for a final season. Only a few days after the announcement of RT's dissolving did they announce the final season would release as a 90 minute movie in May. Somewhat fitting for the company to start and end with RvB.

As for Torrian? He recently popped up again with the announcement of RT's dissolvement.

https://old.reddit.com/r/roosterteeth/comments/1bdbxhw/rvb_zero_director_wants_to_work_on_rwby_after_rts/

Ah yes give the man who made the worst season of RvB to date the reigns of RWBY

I think he'll get a shot.