RWBY "Yellow" Trailer review
The RWBY “Yellow” Trailer is the fourth trailer for Rooster Teeth’s new series, premiering on June 1st 2013 at A-Kon, and was posted online several hours later. This is the final trailer, before the main series would begin on July 5th of the same year.
For the most part, RWBY’s world feels completed, for the most part. We are gone from the wild forests, the mysterious stages, the empty trains. Our setting is now within the confines of civilization, as our main girl, unnamed right now so we’ll call her Yellow, enters a populated area. The phrase “Full circle” pops up for me as I write this analysis. And that’s definitely the case here.
As Yellow enters the building, a bird can be seen flying behind her. I didn’t catch it on my first rewatch, but now that I’m paying more attention, a similar bird was seen in the Red Trailer. And to really drive the point home, the music playing happens to be a dance club cover of the fabled “Red Like Roses” song.
Of course, things aren’t like the Red Trailer, because unlike there we have a complete story to follow. We had one in the Black Trailer too, but now we’ve got a full script of dialogue, more lines than Blake and Adam had. There’s even some foreshadowing, because this dude with the cane and bowler just walks out after talking to whom I assume is the club’s boss, or someone of importance here.
This is our sneak preview of major players, you can tell who is important by the ones animated to move. The other bar patrons are just painted in place, because this is a low-budget indie show and they can’t waste time on superfluous animation.
Yellow’s interaction with the boss-guy (Whom she identifies as Junior) tells us several things; one, she’s not above playful banter. If her swagger on entering wasn’t a sign, it’s that she’s got confidence to spare. Two, she’s well-informed, as she already Junior’s name when they meet, and three;
She is a frickin’ beast! And she goes from ‘playful’ to ‘hard-as-nails’ in the blink of an eye, demonstrating that she is not someone to mess around with. ‘Cause when she offers to mess around with Junior, this happens.
This is when the fight begins. But before we get into the fight, I wanna talk about Yellow’s motif. Each past heroine of RWBY was clearly based on a different fairy tale; Red was Little Red Riding Hood, Weiss was Snow White, and Blake was Beauty and the Beast. Although it’s not immediately obvious, Yellow is clearly based on Goldilocks. Besides her bright, blond hair, there’s also a bear-headed DJ who’s got this sweet tommygun while the other mooks have either axes or katanas. The boss of the club, Junior, is clearly a nod to the Baby Bear, but unlike the Baby Bear, he doesn’t have anything our version of Goldilocks wants. And like Goldilocks, Yellow walks into the Bear’s house and starts messing up the joint.
Speaking of Junior’s gang, it seems a little odd to have Yellow to fight people unlike the other trailers. I assume that this is a style choice, and to help differentiate the Yellow Trailer from the Red, White, and Black Trailers. Look at what had to be fought in those shows; we started with shadowy beasts, then a living suit of armor, and finally robots. Each successive short has had the dangers be more ‘civilized’ than the last. So now Yellow is fighting the worst monster of all- MAN.
also, girls.
Now, on the fight itself. Or more accurately ‘fights’, as Yellow is dealing with different waves of enemies. And when she does, different music plays. When she starts to throw down (And by that I mean she throws herself down on the floor to make an explosion) “Red Like Roses” stops playing, and songs from the other trailers start.
When she’s fighting Junior’s mooks, it’s “Mirror Mirror”, used for Weiss. In “Snow White” the title princess finds shelter with a family of dwarves, or little people. While the mooks are not small in stature, they are ultimately small players, who have effectively the same character design.
When the twins arrive, Blake’s song “From Shadows” starts up. Beauty and the Beast is the story of two people thrown together by the narrative. So naturally, Yellow ends up fighting two people. I would note that the white twin Melanie has impressive footwear, the stereotypical symbol of fine ladies, while the red twin Miltia has claw-like glaives on her wrists, making her seem more like an animal. And the Miltia goes down first, much like how in the original story the Beast became sick when separated from the Beauty.
And when Junior steps up, a new song plays, “I Burn”. This is Yellow’s song, and much like the past songs, the lyrics are very telling about Yellow’s character.
Most of them are boasts about how tough and dangerous she is, which is the point of hte trailer. Much like how the Red Trailer was an exhibition on Red’s scythe-work, here we see what a firecracker Yellow is. But one line in particular needs to be pointed out;
“I’m more that meets the eye”
And yeah, she sure is. that’s the big thing about Yellow’s character, is that there is more to her character than what we see here. Monty Oum’s thesis about character writing, from what I remember, is that we never learn everything about characters from the first glance. There are layers, and we get a peek at that when we see how Yellow goes from flighty to hard and back again twice over (Soft-hard-soft-hard). Who is Yellow, and who is she looking for?
When the battle ends, we finally start to learn, when who should show up but Red, showing a semblance of character herself?
Red: Yang, is that you?
Yellow/Yang: Oh…hey, sis!
Red: Whaddya doing here?!
Yang: …It’s a long story.
Full circle. We started with Red, we end with Red.
Final note here, in each of the post-Red trailers, we learn each of the other girls’ names, but even now we don’t know Red’s. We won’t learn that until the first episode, “Ruby Rose”
