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STUDIO: New Video Group
MSRP: $19.95
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Commentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Documentaries
• Interviews
• Outtakes
• Bonus Videos
The Pitch
Agent Washington has to defeat The Meta.
The Humans
Burnie Burns, Geoff Fink, Joel Heyman, Matt Hullum and Jack Lee
The Nutshell
The first five seasons of Red vs. Blue presented a definitive version of Blood Gulch. The teams battled each other with great vigor, as they tried to reclaim the map for their respective side. Season 6 starts with a lot of the main characters taking a step back, as Agent Washington rises to the forefront. Agent Washington had previously starred in a one-shot mini-series that I remembered watching XBOX Live. His introduction signals the push to a season-long storyarc, as the Reds and Blues band together against a common enemy.
CAPTCHA ODST edition.
The Lowdown
Red vs. Blue – Reconstruction serves as an interesting revamp to a franchise that should’ve seemingly ended with the Season 5 finale. Naturally, the showrunners had a ton of fun and decided to make one trip back to the well. Taking a character from a mini-series that ran around the same time as Season 5, they decided to shift momentum. A mysterious disease is spreading throughout the land and a mysterious stranger has told Agent Washington to find a band of soldiers. Together with his new friends, Agent Washington will bring them before the entity known as the Meta.
I’ve never pretended to be a big fan of Halo, but I admire Rooster Teeth’s attempt at building a better world than Bungie. Their characters have defined personalities, but they’re all just a step above the random soldiers filling in the background of a game. You’ve got the gruff military type, the dimwit and the usual flunkies. Nothing’s new about the characters, even when you consider the shocker about a beloved favorite. In the games, they only exist to die. In the series, they only exist to further the jokes about their video game universe.
The push to a slightly more serious Red vs. Blue seems odd, when most of the characters post-revamp are almost identical to their pre-revamp identities. While a tighter focus on an objective based storyline should help the series, it’s hindered by the fact that the characters never develop. This fact is made more evident by how the DVD releases tend to edit all of the episodes together in a feature-length narrative. Serial narratives allow a lot of flaws in storytelling to hide behind the shadow of time. When you have to see everything laid out, you realize that maybe the Rooster Teeth guys didn’t have enough material to push the guys into a new era.
The A/V Quality picked up with this release, as the creative talent started dipping into the Halo 3 well with its XBOX 360 graphics. The Dolby 2.0 Stereo track handles the dialogue well, as most of the action is various comm-link commentary and background action. The special features are plentiful and the new bonus short actually sports seemingly better visuals than the feature. Still, if you’ve seen a Red vs. Blue disc…you’ve seen what you’re going to get. Halo fans will enjoy the jokes and the love letter to their beloved game franchise. Non-fans will find themselves shrugging.
Different paint job, different weapons, same second-ran storyline.
The Package
The
DVD
comes
with the usual supplements for a Red vs. Blue release. There’s a ton of Pixar style outtakes and you get some deleted scenes. There’s even some bonus videos and a few humorous PSAs to round out the package. The biggest draw is the Halo Legends style animated short that shows what the Red vs. Blue guys would be like if they got the full Bungie royal treatment. There are laughs to be had with the usual crew and this disc doesn’t disappoint. I’d recommend a purchase to all hardcore Halo gamers out there.