I just got the Volume 6 Blu Ray and I'm going to be watching the crew's commentary! Kerry was talking with a few others as well as Miles after chapter 1. I wrote what I found interesting or important:
Chapter 1:
They took out the blood at the White Fang Headquarters but had to add it back in later
The train station was the first new set of the season
They used Houdini for crowd shots this season
Showing what's in the bag RWBY got for Yang is planned for next season
On each boba cup lid (from the food in the background of the train station scene) has the RWBY chibi characters
Originally they planned Ilia to wear a kimono. Also a hint to seeing her again!
Kerry's mom wants him (Neptune) to be in the show more
The whole train set is a circle track
The Grimm manticore design was from an artist from the RWBY subreddit! Kerry saw it and he loved it and he contacted her to hire her.
There was an inside joke for the audio team where Dee dies it sounds like the track says "Oh Dee..."
Dee and Dudley barely graduated from their academy
There was originally going to be a closer shot of Salem in the OP but they wanted to keep the mystery about who she was
Chapter 2:
They put in some lines from the house (what Nora says) that were a response to the criticism from Volume 5 about them staying there too long
Nora was originally going to tell Blake everything she needed to know with some whiteboards on the train, but they decided to just show the house where things are explained
The footsteps in the snow were made using nulls in After Effects. They explain the process which is pretty interesting.
Oscar struggling was done in mocap
Lil Miss Malachite is an allusion for Little Miss Muffett (duh) and turns out she is the mother of the Malachite Twins
The Malachite Twins went to live in Vale and be bad guys
Jinn's hair is separated/split more than a normal character's. Same with Summer Rose
Chapter 3:
Salem's story one of the first things ever written for RWBY
They really wanted a character's story to revolve around 'happily ever after' then a few steps after that, so Salem was the perfect character for that
Originally the Lost Fable was chapter 3 and 4, but they combined them into one
The whole episode was mocapped in a single weekend
The crew has a Ruby body pillow prototype that's used during mocap
The Gods are inspired from the Gods of Greek Mythology
They want to show more natural wildlife in RWBY, but due to budget constraints it's hard
The video game Brutal Legend inspired the scene where Salem throws herself into the pool of Grimm
Originally the Gods were closer to human size but were scaled up
The story structure for the episode took inspiration from Harry Potter and Game of Thrones
Originally there was going to be more dialogue from the main cast, but they decided against it
They were originally had Salem look like her current form (well coloring wise), but decided to remove the red veins she has so she looked less spooky
The toy dog one of the children has is a Wizard of Oz reference
Jinn was meant to be an objective outside observer but also a storyteller
The children for one of Oz's reincarnations have silver eyes (confirmed)
Chapter 4:
They were excited to explore Qrow's alcoholism past it just being a joke
Hazel is the most compassionate of the villains
Salem knows how to manipulate people and has different methods for motivations for each of her lieutenants
For example she doesn't have to say that many mean things for Tyrian to take it to heart because he is so loyal
She also knows just how fearful Emerald is of her
Chapter 5:
Neo has begun to evolve her semblance, as shown in the fight
Neo wasn't originally planned to be in this Volume, but was decided when they thought of what they could do better to make Cinder's storyline better and for when Cinder gets to Atlas they thought her having a partner was cool
Brunswick Farm was another idea they had since the very beginning
The Apathy fit so well in this volume because the characters are at a low point
Blake doesn't always get the nuances of relationships and makes a misstep (when Yang and Blake talked and she told Yang she would protect her)
Chapter 6:
The Apathy came from an image of a horrifying scarecrow and they came up with the idea of a grimm that wasn't physically formidable. As well as a planet from the movie Serenity where everyone fell to sleep and died, and a short story about depression and not wanting to do anything
The Apathy work through proximity but if they see you their effect gets even worse. But you can get it jolted out of the apathy for a little while if you are startled
The artist that made the Apathy was the same one that made the Manticore
Maria is colorblind, which was evident in the episode when we learn she couldn't tell Ruby's eye color immediately
Seeing the burning Apathy, Qrow realizes that he almost let everyone get killed and now starts to hate himself (his depression changes)
Chapter 7:
Them having a restriction for how long fights could be (because fights are expensive) led to Miles thinking of a fight that had to last 60 seconds (and Tock)
Maria's weapon and use of dust was inspired from the God of War reboot as well as Marvel's Thor
Maria was originally from Volume 5 but they had to take her out because it was hard to balance out all the storylines
Originally Maria was going to have a cat, and Qrow was supposed to find her in his search for Hunstman
The Arc siblings are all a color of the rainbow, with one set of twins. Saphron is orange.
The toy Adrien is playing with is foreshadowing to the plane and the Leviathan
Chapter 8:
Only Cordovin's guards are so goofy (compared to the rest of Atlas guards), and Cordo is considered a nuisance. This was a job they thought she could do well without bothering anyone
Kerry wanted an old lady fight in the show, so he got one
The Old Lady in the Show was something Monty thought of. The boot is the foot of a giant mech. And the giant mech was originally going to be at the end of V2
Butterflies are normally not out in the winter but this is Remnant ;)
Chapter 9:
Miles likes to think of Tyrian as one of the most insightful villains. He is really good at observing people and knows how to take them apart mentally and physically
This is where they said this is the first time we see Mercury and Emerald being vulnerable to each other (I didn’t include this earlier, sorry!)
They say they’ll never confirm who the Red Haired Woman is, but they said use your brains lol
Looking up at Pyrrha and seeing the airship fly by made Jaune think of the idea to steal one
Chapter 10:
Adrian's crying is not a semblance, that's just comedy
They pitched Jaune's voice down when he says "Roger" so he can sound more serious
Originally there was going to be another episode (episode 14t) where we would see Atlas and Mantle. But they didn't want to end on that because it would require a ton of new assets because of the buildings and the people wearing different clothes
The next season will start with a bang
The Iron Giant was a reference for the mech
Chapter 11:
The mech fight was the most effects-heavy of the fights this season
Blake has always had the scar on her body since the new outfit, but it has been hard to see until her jacket comes off
Yang hitting Adam with her bike was thought of early on in the scripting process
Chapter 12:
A lot of talk about how the animations were made and such
This season had a core fight team that animated all the fights
The way Adam dies is apparently similar to how something in Nier: Automata plays out. Kerry has only played an hour of the game so he did not know that was a thing
But Nier: Automata was actually referenced for the mech fight (the mechanics of how the fight would work) since a robot was involved in the first boss fight.
Shots from the Adam and Yang fight were similar to those from Naurto, but that was also a coincidence
They called the Leviathan Levi in the script because it was easier to type
Chapter 13:
They considered Adrian being a very young baby, but later changed him to be a toddler
Gurren Laggan was another reference used for this part (haven't seen that anime but it was referenced when the mech drills the Leviathan)
They really wanted to make sure we could hear liquid in Qrow's flask
Salem is no longer willing to confine herself to a room, and is going to start being more active by creating her army of minions
Do you know if there's a master list of cast/crew members of Korra's tumblr/social media pages anywhere?
Not off the top of my head.
As far as Tumblr is concerned (from what I can remember/my own follows), there's bryankonietzko and michaeldantedimartino for the show creators; greydelisle, pjbyrne, and rufiozuko (Dante Basco) for the cast; sifu-kisu, cbheck, bill-rinaldi, wrrprimary/will-ruzicka (Will Ruzicka), fredericstewart, thebestlaurenmontgomery, monsterlings, laurenzurcher, misterunagi, angelasongmueller, and arantanchum for various crew members.
can you shine some light on the whole colin heck thing? Ive noticed on my dash that it seems like people were tearing him up
Basically, he didn't realize how the Tumblr fandom worked and made sarcastic replies to a bunch of anons because they were anons.
There were three posts in controversy, as well as conversations stemming from each -- a reblog of a Charlie Hebdo comic (which, apparently, showed Mohammed mourning the existence of his extremist followers), an ask about Mako, Bolin, and Asami's mothers' names that he answered with "Ida No and Hu Cares," and an ask about whether Korra and Asami would break up that he responded to by implying that Mako and Korra's relationship was terrible and Korra was afraid she'd lose her friendship with Mako if they ever tried getting back together.
The first earned him accusations of racism, since Charlie Hebdo was known to be pretty offensive, particularly to Muslims. He wrote a post explaining that he'd posted the comic because he wanted to support people's freedom to publish stuff without getting killed, which I don't think should have been controversial but apparently was (at least in part because he didn't take the initial reblog down).
The second earned a lot of anger both for the implied lack of interest in the characters' mothers and for... racism again, because he called the fake names he'd made up "'Asian'-ish" in his explanation of the initial joke and that was taken to be a sign of stereotyping rather than a questionable word choice.
The third was a huge mess, because shipping nonsense always is. When he tried to clear it up, he ended up implying that he thought that the only reason someone might have asked him such an ask in the first place was because they didn't like the idea of a same-sex relationship on a Nick show, which was a massive misreading of the situation and really just made things worse. He eventually said that he wasn't going to post publicly about LoK anymore, which, of course, made things even worse as the people who were happy with the ship accused the people who weren't of forcing him off Tumblr.
A bunch of people implied that he was being a big baby who over-reacted to nothing because there wasn't much in his tags, but then one of the angrier fans posted their conversation with him where it came out that the fan had called him a "disgusting person" and racist for posts 1 and 2.
I sent a message to him too, and he seemed pretty reasonable in responding to it. I'm wondering if there were more unpleasant interactions that we didn't hear about, or if there were just those couple of really bad ones, but at this point I can see why he might have been upset. =/
Did you heard the news about Zuckerman's Twitter post about a future Lok episode featuring Korrasami this year?
It's not an episode of LoK. From what I understand, he's going on some sort of internet program about writing music and talking about the final music cue. (I couldn't be any less interested, honestly -- that was probably one of his least impressive cues even ignoring the scene to which it was attached)
Wait, so one of the directors of LoK is basically feeding Mako haters and putting all the blame for Makorra's breakup on Mako? What the fuck is going on with these people?!
I have no idea. I'm inclined to go with thetonraq's theory that they got taken hostage by the shippers, because they've made very little sense since the finale. >_>;
So now Colin Heck is saying that if people thought romance was driving Mako and Korra's characters in books 3 and 4, then they weren't watching the same show he worked on... While I acknowledge that a Makorra romance might not have been the final goal, it was still a relationship that was focused on WAY more than Korrasami. Everyone I watched the show with (including more casual viewers) thought that Asami being the last focus when Korra spent like two minutes with her all season was very weird.
Romance wasn't driving Mako and Korra's characters, though. That's basically the whole point of their separation from the Makorra shipper perspective -- they needed to work on themselves outside of the context of romance so they'd be in a better position to try again.
His problem is that he fails to recognize how much thematic potential existed in the concept of trying again (up to the last two minutes of the show!), not in saying romance wasn't a motivating factor for Korra or Mako after Book 2.
(I will say, though, that I have no idea how anyone could think that Mako's awkwardness wasn't the result of lingering feelings, because seriously. That's less about romance as a motivation and more about trying to set those feelings aside, though)
But, yeah, it seems like the only ones who are happy with the final scene are the shippers and the progressive-leaning media. On a narrative level, it makes very little sense to put that much focus on Asami.
No, you got my quote right. It's just really irritating because I blurted something out because I was really happy and surprised and it's become this bickering angry thing amongst people and now I feel like I can't be happy about the show I worked on. LOTS of things change during the animatic stage. That's the stage in which you make your changes, so for them to decide to include a hand hold is not unlikely. This whole thing has just been a reminder I really shouldn't be talking. (shuts up now)
I wasn't saying that it was unlikely? All I was saying is that, as you said, at some point, the ending was different, then went on from there to speculate about when that might have changed based on other potentially-related tidbits of information (which I was under the impression you had no more knowledge of than anyone in the fandom).
I'm sorry that things turned out the way they did for you. Unfortunately, everything surrounding Korrasami has been so toxic for so long in this fandom that there was no way that scene would be taken well, and so it was pretty much inevitable that knowing that the show almost didn't make that choice would end up turning into a lightning-rod for anger. =/
Personally, I like the idea that it was a last-minute change, because it allows me to compartmentalize out that final scene instead of allowing the negativity to touch my love of the rest of the show. >_>; I love you guys and want to respect you, and I felt that the show would have been a masterpiece if the ending you described was the one that made it to air.
What is the disappointing thing Studio Mir said about Korra? I apologize if it’s been posted here recently but I can’t find it.
They made a wrap-up video for Korra, and one of the questions that the staff was asked was "what do you think about Korra." Several of them were kind of conflicted about her and didn't think she was very nice. =/
