Lina calling Wash "David" once, to his face, in Season 15: A great moment. Lina calling Wash "David" repeatedly, when he isn't present, to people that don't know him as anything but "Washington", in the following seasons: I feel like everyone missed the point in S15.
She did actually use his name once in s16 too but its still always very occasionally and in v emotionally charged scenes, not like. All the time.
The only times wash has been called his name in a less emotionally charged scene was when the triplets call him David bc they take codenames less seriously (and he tells them not to call him david) and when Donut is looking for him in s17 and he yells "wash?! Agent washington?! Uh.... David?!" Which isn't quite the same as just calling him David
I think what they were trying to go for was meaningful but just... didnt really work that well
i really, really don’t want to talk about the cast but, since fiona is replying to fans unhappy with the season with “well you’re gonna just be mad no matter what we do since it’s just not the show for you”, why is that a valid take but “if torrian is going to change so much fundamental to the rvb style maybe this wasn’t the right show for him to be in charge of” not
ok so now that the final episode of rvb0 is out for everyone, lets get into some discussion about it! please note that post isnt a topic of debate but rather just my personal thoughts about everything, so dont go arguing in the replies
(fair warning ahead of time for any fans, this is mostly criticism and negative feelings about it, so keep scrolling if you dont wanna read it)
When RVB0 was first announced, I remember everyone was first upset that the Reds and Blues weren't in it, including me. But now that I've watched the whole thing, I can say with confidence that my only issue with RVB0 isn't the lack of the Reds and Blues, but rather everything. the dialogue, some of the animation, the characters, the delivery, the pacing, the ridiculous amount of clichés, etc. I don't dislike RVB0 just because there's no Reds and Blues. I dislike it because I just found the entirety of it bad.
When I first started watching it, I went in with an open mind that maybe this season could actually be really good. I’d also be lying if I said that there wasn't a single scene that I liked. There were actually a few, but they still didn't make up for just the overall badness of the season. But please note that I don't blame the voice actors for any of this or even just Torrian Crawford for the season coming out a giant mess. Many people worked for this season and always had the opportunity to improve or change things but didn't. But anyways, let’s get into some of the criticisms I have for this season.
1. Smaller and more opinion oriented criticisms
This isn’t really criticism or anything important, but rather just a few things I found a bit weird to me personally.
First, the term “ragtag team of misfits” was used to describe Shatter Squad (and was even actually said out loud by One in the last episode, which sounded just so cliché and dumb in my opinion). I don't think this describes them at all?? Everyone has, at the very least, decent relationships with each other (save for One and East who were competitive with each other (which I also fucking hate in RVB that all the girl characters are always competitive with each other)), but that still doesn't really fit the term ragtag) and they all fight very well. I think ragtag fits the Reds and Blues more than it does Shatter Squad; they're bad at fighting, they argue and fight all the time, they're idiots, and that's why we love them. If they had just stuck with “a team of misfits”, that would've made more sense, but again, this is more of a personal opinion than genuine criticism.
Second, I don’t really like the aesthetics this season had. Everything felt a bit too neon and bright and then some stuff just felt like it came straight out of World of Warcraft or something. It didn’t really feel like RVB.
Third, my feelings about Carolina constantly calling Wash David can be summed up by what Michael said in the first episode of Halo 4 LASO: “Now we’re just gonna throw his name around all willy nilly. It used to be a secret.” When someone is called by their real name in RVB or just any story in general where everyone goes by code names, it’s usually a big deal and indicates something serious. Carolina wore out Wash’s name the first time she said it and it just got more and more irritating from then on out and lost its value.
Fourth, who was the blue and purple soldier in the first teaser we got? Was that One? Did they decide to change her armour colour? I don’t know, I just randomly remembered that and thought it was weird but I guess it must’ve just been a colour change.
Now, onto the more serious criticism.
2. Animation and dialogue
The second thing I wanna talk about is the animation. Don't get me wrong, the fighting animation is probably the best compared to everything else and it was pretty good to watch, but the talking and idle animations and gestures were..... kinda yikes. I know that it could be chalked up to “well we’re not used to seeing animated gestures since all of RVB usually has everyone just holding their gun and using the regular Halo models” but there were still some pretty bad parts.
Take the scene from Encounter at 3:26 as an example (I uploaded the scene to YT to put here, but obviously it was blocked for copyright):
This scene is probably one of the worst when it comes to not only the animations, but the dialogue, pacing, and delivery. When I first saw this, I honestly laughed. Here's a list of my problems with this scene and what made it so laughable:
The overexaggerated hand gestures. I get that because everyone's in armour and a helmet, it can be hard to show expression, but this feels like a bit much. Especially when One says “what? You’re pulling us off the mission? You cant do that!” I think that one scene in season 15 when Grif stays behind on Iris while everyone leaves and it slowly zooms in on Simmons’ visor somehow does a lot better at expressing feelings than this.
East immediately making the connection between Axel and Zero feels weird. I don't know if its just me who feels this way, but I think it should've been a little bit longer before she immediately is just like “you know Zero don't you”
Axel saying “I... I do... I did” also sounds weird and like he was trying a bit too hard to sound dramatic. I don't really know how to describe it its just such a weird delivery of the line.
The way they all immediately start yelling at each other.
One saying “Axe, I trusted you” right after saying “tell us the truth”. Girl, you gave him no opportunity to explain and just immediately jumped to not trusting him anymore. Speaking of which, I don't think this was ever really mentioned again and had no meaning or importance to it.
The echoing of “I trusted you” also feels cliché to me, but this is more of a minor thing.
I think this one comment on one of the episodes on the RT site that says the dialogue “seemed acted rather than natural. It didn't really sound like how people normally talk, more how actors talk in plays” is how I feel about all of the dialogue in RVB0.
3. The villains
Zero and Diesel both felt like they didn't really have any motivation at all for being villains. Phase is probably the best when it comes to this. She was essentially abused by her father as a child and forced to undergo being experimented on. This is an actual good and understandable motivation.
Diesel we know basically nothing about, and then on the other hand, all Zero wants is power. But for what? Why? I can understand that power is a pretty common thing for people to want, but it still kind of felt like there wasn't really anything there.
Some previous good villains in RVB include:
Temple: Temple witnessed his best friend be brutally murdered right in front of him by 2 soldiers who didn't give a shit and just left him to die, especially right after he told him he was having a baby. Of course it’s understandable that he has a hatred of Freelancers after this. Any normal person would.
Felix: Felix was probably the best villain of all of RVB, to be honest (right beside the Director). He was just somehow so likeable and had so much personality, despite being an asshole. His ultimate motivation was money and being rich, which is another thing I can understand; the more money you have, the more you can essentially do whatever you want and live in luxury. I mean, even so many people in real life do horrible things just for money. I don't even have to give examples for this. Felix in general is also just a psychopath.
The Director: The whole reason the Director did what he did was because he lost the person he loved most in the world: his wife. He was willing to do literally anything to bring her back, leading to all of his actions in the Project Freelancer saga. You can find many examples of movie/TV/book/etc characters/villains seeking vengeance as a result of loss of a loved one and grief. Despite being a horrible person, the Director actually managed to be a villain you could even sympathize with, making him even better.
Sharkface: Although a bit of a more minor villain, similar to Temple, Sharkface is a villain because he wants revenge on the people that killed his team, the people he considered to be the only family he’s ever had.
4. Tucker & the swords
The fourth thing I wanna talk about is the whole thing with Tucker and the swords. I always found it kinda weird how both Tuckers sword and now Locus’ sword in the chorus trilogy were the same, but then in RVB0, Zero’s sword looks and acts completely different, but that might just be a little nitpick of mine.
As for Tucker, it was so good to see him. Although I don’t know if it was just me, but he seemed a little OOC. What I didn't like about seeing Tucker again was that he did literally nothing the entire episode. He was useless. He said “I can fight” at one point but then all he does during the battle is get held at knife point, run away, and then get stabbed and have his sword taken. Tucker isn't an amazing fighter, but he’s definitely a lot more capable than just this. We’ve seen him in action many times and I just feel like he could've done a bit more. It almost feels like he was purposefully nerfed and tossed aside just to advance the plot.
Another thing that I and probably a lot of people are upset about is the fact that Tucker might not even own his sword anymore?? When East stabbed him, he apparently died and the sword was rebound to Phase, but it wasn't very clear that this was the case. Although the beginning of the next episode starts with hospital beeps and a flatline, I don't think it was still really clear enough that Tucker actually died long enough for Phase to reclaim the sword because I saw a handful of people confused in the comments and, like me, even thought it was just bad writing at first and that the writers completely forgot about the rules of the sword established over several prior seasons.
When in the hospital, Wash tells Tucker that he almost died. Although I actually liked this scene because it was nice to see wash and tucker bantering again, I think it could've been made better and made the plot clearer if instead of saying he almost died, Wash said something along the lines of “Tucker, you died. Your heart stopped, but they were able to bring you back thanks to their advanced medical tech” and then in response Tucker freaks out because that means his sword will now work for Phase and now they know how urgent the situation is.
I really really hate that Phase just has Tucker’s sword now and nothing is even said about it. If Tucker was to give his sword away to someone, I think many people would prefer that it was at least someone close to him, like Junior for example, but instead it goes to a random girl he hardly knows.
5. Pacing
The fifth thing I wanna talk about is the pacing. This season was definitely a lot shorter than normal and I think that’s one of the things that really prevented it from being good. The entire story just feels rushed and while I understand that it can be really difficult to build a good story and characters in such a short time, I think there’s still ways you can do it without it feeling like there’s so much missing. I think the long intros and outros are also responsible for less time and maybe they should’ve considered cutting them to give more actual episode time. Here’s a few things that were poorly done as a result of bad pacing:
The final battle against Zero: The whole battle just somehow felt like a typical video game boss battle that ends super quickly to me. Shatter Squad didn’t even defeat Zero, he just up and got disintegrated or whatever from Black Lotus.
Shatter Squad giving up on their mission: After receiving the silly deep voice filtered message from Zero, everyone on Shatter Squad just immediately gives up on finding him.
One’s speech: One’s speech wasn’t awful or anything and I didn’t really have any problems with the speech itself, but rather just how quickly the team went from “we can’t do it.. it’s over..” to “you’re right! I’m in! Let’s go get them!” Compare this to Doc and Sarge’s speech to the Reds and Blues after Church and Carolina leave in season 10 episode 20. It just felt a lot more genuine (this is probably because the Reds and Blues had a lot more time to be developed, though) and was only given after some time passed rather than 2 seconds later. The scene and context also transitioned well into it and at first, nobody was on board with what Doc was saying, which is more realistic in my opinion. People’s minds won’t just instantly change, they’re still gonna think about it and maybe have a few doubts at first.
Phase and West: During their fight, West talked a lot about how he regrets giving Phase away to Starlight, that he won’t hurt her, and is even willing to die for her. Their scene together ends with Phase punching him in the head and then leaving to join the others and nothing else about them is mentioned. We don’t know if Phase forgave him or not, we don’t know how West feels, etc.
Tucker’s sword: Phase still has Tucker’s sword and like the scenario with West, nothing about it is mentioned. We don’t know what she’s going to do with it, if she’s going to keep it, if Tucker’s gonna do anything about it, etc.
6. Clichés
Clichés aren’t inherently bad and can be really impactful and good if done right. But when it comes to RVB0, it’s jampacked with clichés that aren’t good. Here are a few examples:
Everyone gives up until a speech is given: All of the points for this are the same as above, but I wanted to include this scene as a cliché as well.
Every female character is competitive with each other: RVB falls into this a lot, like I mentioned earlier. It happens again with East and One, although luckily they seem to resolve it, but not until literally the end of the season.
West’s fit about East: All of the lines and delivery in this scene were just atrocious and cheesy. I think West’s dialogue just could’ve been a bit more original, but instead we’re given this boring predictable “I won’t lay a hand on her. I promised her. I promised her mother. I promised she’d be safe” spiel that has no emotion to it in his voice.
The whole “I got this, you go ahead” thing: This isn’t like a super cliché thing, but I found it pretty interesting how it happens twice in the same episode.
I think this is pretty much all I can think of at the moment. If I think of anything else, I’ll add onto this. Overall, I think RVB0 would’ve done a lot better as just an RVB spinoff so that it could have more episodes and seasons dedicated to developing characters and a good plot. I’m really disappointed with this season and I hope whatever comes next is better than what RVB0 was. I hope the team that worked on it can learn a few things that come from the good and valid constructive criticism given to them. And if I had to pick, I think I’d say Raymond was my favourite out of all the new characters. He just felt the most relatable and realistic to me.
